Page 68 of One Love

“Well, that’s up to you. The human body can survive forty-three to fifty-seven days without eating but only five without drinking. How long these two pieces of shit live depends on your schedule. On a side note, the plastic is to limit the smells.”

The hum that leaves J’s lips is fucking delicious and I’m going to suck it out of her mouth as soon as I get her alone. The squeak, however, that comes from, I’m guessing, Petey just makes me laugh my ass off.

“You Yankees are fucking demented.” Devon howls with laughter as he pulls on a rope to test it out.

“Says the Brit who’s commonly known as ‘The Butcher’, which has nothing to do with ordering a slab of sirloin beef.” How am Inot supposed to be in love with this woman when her wit alone is sexy as fuck.

“Fair enough. I hear one of your capos is also The Butcher so I can’t be all that bad.” Devon chuckles, shaking his head before eyeing little Petey, who’s about to shit his fucking pants. “Come on, now, boy. Let’s see if you like a little bondage.”

It takes about thirty minutes to get these two assholes set up, Devon leaving with Enzo as soon as they are. Petey is all roped up, looking like a scrawny sub who’s forgotten his safe word, and Ronan is screaming behind his duct tape, eyes wide and body shaking with anger and fear and…is that snot coming out of his nose? Nasty.

We all step back, admiring the pretty picture of torture before us. If my parents were here, they’d wonder what happened to me. But here’s the thing: these guys hurt my Jordyn and they hurt her daughter. There’s nothing more sacred than family and they didn’t think twice about going after it.

Now, it’s time to pay the bill.

“You know, I don’t get it. I’ve tried for so long to wrap my head around everything you’ve done but I just…don’t get it.” J is slowly pacing in front of Ronan, his grandson crying with his head upside down and the blood making his normally pasty complexion turn a deep tomato color. Reaching out, she scratches at the corner of the duct tape then yanks it right off, making Ronan recoil.

“You fucking cunt, you won’t get away with this. I’ll make sure everything is—“ J punches his face, his head bobbing back before he shakes it off and smirks at her, a drop of blood dripping from his lip. Oh, this guy doesn’t get it. Yet.

“You should probably save your strength,” I mock-whisper like it’s a secret between us.

“And who the fuck are you?” Ronan spits my way, a blood vessel in his eye popping and turning the whites nice and red.

“I’m just trying to help, dude, but you do you.” Pushing my hands in my pockets, I lean against the side wall and watch my girl do her thing.

“As I was saying.” J sends a pointed glare my way but I just smile, proud to be here witnessing her badassery. “My parents weren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. Why did you have them killed?”

Ronan just rolls his eyes, scoffing. “You stupid girl, playing in a grown-up world not understanding the players.”

My body twitches with the need to throat punch this asshole for disrespecting my woman but I force myself to stay put. This is her world, her moment. I’m just a spectator.

“The players…” J rolls the hilt of her knife around her fingers, the blade spinning then stopping when she continues speaking. “My parents, who stole a considerable sum of money from you.” Ronan snarls. If his glare could shoot bullets at her she’d be dead. “Thank you for that, by the way. Helped to set me up when I ran away.”

“You fucking thief! I fucking knew it!”

“Yeah yeah, let’s call it severance pay for killing my only living relatives.” At J’s words, Ronan spits out insults and calls her every misogynistic slur in the book. I’d be impressed by his wide range of knowledge on the matter if I weren’t completely pissed off about it too.

“You don’t know fucking shit. I didn’t order the hit on them. In fact, I didn’t even know they’d stolen the money at first.” Everyone freezes at this news. Wait, what?

When I look over to J, she’s staring at Ronan, reading every single line on his face like I read code on a black screen.

“Who?” One word, that’s all she asks.

Ronan just stares at her, silent.

Shoo walks over to him and punches him in the face. I’m a little jealous because I wish I could have done that. Didn’t realize punching the dude was an option.

“Who?” The calm that rolls off her shoulders is the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.

“Who do you think? Did you really believe you and the lad were going to run off into the sunset with a brand new baby and live happily ever after? Murphy was their prince and you were the peasant mistress. Stealing my money was just a convenient excuse to justify the hit.”

I’m expecting J to leap and slice this guy’s head right off his shoulders, but she does the one thing no one here expected.

She fucking laughs. Head thrown back, laughter loud, coming straight from her gut. I’ve never seen her more beautiful than she is now.

“Fucking crazy bitch.”

Okay, that’s it.

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