Page 90 of Between Dusk and Dawn

The Irish needed us, which was why this whole thing was set up to begin with. The reason my father attempted to manufacture a deal between the Irish and the Italians was because the Irish needed us, and we needed to keep everyone calm so we could continue business as usual. The Irish were volatile little things, hence what was unfolding.

But hey, this was what I got for letting my guard down right? This only proved I should never let myself be this fucking loose again.

Fuck it. It was the happiest I’d ever been in my entire life. Last night watchingmy wifesleep peacefully in our bed was why I was still fighting—why I needed to keep going.

"It was a perfect fucking plan that you had to ruin. You left Seattle, to what? Get back to whatever whore you married."

"What plan?" I asked him, trying to waste time while waiting for Enzo to get here.

"We had it all set up for you. We were going to meet, fucking break you down until you agreed to marry Cairn?—"

"I was already fucking married," I spat at him, my blood flying across the barn toward him.

"Then I was going to keep you in my house." Georgie folded his arms across his chest as if that was going to make me listen better.

"That would have never happened. My father knew where I was, the entire organization knew. They would have found you and hurt you."

"But not before I could put a little dent into your arms dealers, maybe kill the capo aka your father."

I seethed in anger. "You never would have touched my dad."

"Which is exactly why you would have caved, annulled your little whore, and gotten married to Cairn."

I felt the anger as he spat the words in my direction. The word "whore" repeated over and over again in my head.

I looked at him. No, I glared with the demon that lived inside of my fucking cold heart and spat again in his direction, making sure to spray him with the blood pooling inside my mouth.

"You motherfucker?—"

"Don’t. Ever. Speak. About. My. Wife." If my hands hadn’t been tied behind my back, I would have fucking killed him. I wanted to make sure he understood no one fucking touched or talked about what was mine.

Georgie laughed, wiping blood off his smug face before turning his attention toward me. His hands were also weaponless, as if these fucking too-proud bastards thought they truly had a chance to enter my fucking fortress and wipe everyone out.

They were fucking idiots. Sure, they killed the two gate guards, whose families would be compensated very well, but they somehow believed this entire place would have no one else aside from the two guys in front? Were they that fucking idiotic?

"No one is coming for you now," Georgie sneered.

Yup. That idiotic.

"I am fucking sorry about what happened years ago to Cagen. I had no idea she was going to get in the crosshairs of the spring bonfire, but I do not understand why you’d want to spend more time with me as your son-in-law?" I paused. "Are you that desperate?"

Georgie’s guy slapped me across the face, and I tried not to wince after he hit an already extra sensitive spot. "Not desperate." Georgie leaned back on one of the wooden slats of an empty horse stall. "I wanted to see you suffer."

"Happy?" If I could move, I would have gestured around my body.

"No. I will not be happy until you fucking hurt. I will find that little wife of yours and make her suffer."

I lost it, rage coursing through my veins. "If you touch a single hair on her head, you will die, Cairn will suffer, and every single one of your family members will be hurt."

It was a threat I had full intentions of keeping if he hurt my muse. "You don’t even have the same last names…"

Fuck me for not checking on who Cagen was. All I knew was that she was popular and her family was in banking. I looked this man up and down in his ripped jeans and sweatshirt, struggling to imagine he was a finance guy.

"She’s my stepdaughter." Ah-ha. That explains it. "Her father died when she was young, and my daughter and her were raised as though they were blood."

Also explains why they had different fucking last names. See, I wasn’t losing it completely. But these little loopholes should have been double-checked before any of this went down.

"So, now you’re pissed because…?" I said as I realized one tooth hung by a loose thread.

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