Page 87 of Vengeful Union

I’m actually searching the gala frantically for Rory, praying that he comes to save me from all this scrutiny soon. People are still staring and speaking in hushed tones.

I’m grateful that Raquel came to talk to me. She’s about the only person in the Murphy clan who has been kind to me and treated me like a human being instead of cannon fodder for war.

Rory is nowhere to be found.

My heart races, my mind going through every terrible scenario possible.

Has he been caught snooping? What would happen to him if he’d been caught? Surely, his father wouldn’t order him killed... right?

I can’t be sure. Niall Murphy doesn’t seem to go by any sort of code, and it’s scary to imagine the lengths he will go to in order to win this war. He’d practically written Bree off with the flick of a wrist, so what stops him from hurting Rory?

My gaze travels to Niall, who stands in the corner with a group of people.

He throws back his head and laughs uproariously, and I can’t help thinking that it’s likely at my expense. Before I can look back down into my half-empty champagne flute, his blue eyes are on mine, pupils dilating slightly.

I look away instantly, wanting to clutch at Raquel but not daring to. I turn around, busying myself by making a new plate of appetizers and hoping it’ll be enough for Niall to forget I exist.

Just before I put a cocktail shrimp in my mouth, he taps me on the shoulder.

I squeeze my eyes shut briefly before opening them again. I’m in the thick of it now. There’s nowhere to run.

I turn to face him, not bothering to force a polite smile. We’re past the niceties by now. He knows that I don’t want to be here, and he has to think that I’m a prisoner. He can’t get a sniff of what Rory and I are really up to.

“Niall.”

“Mrs. Murphy. Would you care to dance?”

“And if I say no?”

He looks at me coolly. “I can have you locked up in a closet in less than ten minutes.”

“Don’t you think Rory would be angry?”

He chortles. “Don’t you think I got over Rory being angry when he was a wee one? He can throw a tantrum if he likes, it won’t change the outcome.”

“What outcome would that be?”

“You in chains instead of warming his bed every night.”

I look at him, and his expression is blank, as if we’re talking about the weather instead of me being imprisoned.

He means it. He means every word.

He outstretches his hand for me to take and with a sharp indrawn breath, I take it and let him lead me out onto the dance floor.

This early in the gala, we’re one of only three couples dancing, and so all eyes are on us.

I hate it. It makes my skin crawl.

“This dress... it used to me my daughter’s, aye?”

“Aye.”

“Fits you better,” he murmurs, waltzing me around on the tile.

I hate the way he says it, the way his eyes flit down to my cleavage only briefly before backing up to my face.

I know in that moment that it isn’t just Scott who hurts women. It’s the whole clan. He allows them to do whatever they like, probably because he does whatever he likes. He has no code. He has no honor.

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