Page 3 of Smooth As Whiskey

Ice that never thawed even on the hottest day of the year in Mississippi, which could reach one hundred and seven degrees.

The man he was marrying me to wasn’t much better.

Still, if I had to choose, I would have chosen him over Gerard any day of the week.

Hell, I would choose to marry the worst criminal known throughout history over Gerard.

Especially after the heinous crime he had committed against me once the word gifting had fallen from Raymond Frederick Stanton IV’s mouth.

The most important thing you can do if you are no match for your attacker after you’ve said the word no so many times that your voice is hoarse after you’ve screamed for someone, anyone, to help you is to retreat as deep into your mind that you could go.

Mine was when my mother and I accidentally added salt instead of sugar to a batch of cookies we made.

But sadly, that memory didn’t extend as far as when he pulled out of my battered and bruised body, and Raymond Frederick Stanton IV was still sitting in the same chair when Gerard walked in behind me and locked the door.

I shook my head, trying to get those memories to disappear from my mind for even just a little while.

The man he wanted me to marry... well... he was closing in on fifty. And I was eighteen years old as of four days ago.

I don’t mind age differences in people. Ten years? Okay. Fifteen years? Sure. But someone old enough to be my father had he had me at thirty-two? Umm, yeah, no, I’ll pass.

It was all so Raymond Frederick Stanton IV could get a new piece of territory that he desperately needed. New territory for what I didn’t know.

I also didn’t know what he did for work, but I knew that he left every morning at eight twenty-five and returned home around five forty-five, and then he would either stay home while men came to see him, or he would leave with a large contingency of men.

But whatever the reason, I didn’t care.

I was eighteen years old... and ever since my mother passed away when I was fifteen, I had been dreading that fateful day.

The day he had been waiting for.

But... what he hadn’t known about, and none of his soldiers had surmised, was that I had an ally in the house.

Someone who only worked for him due to a blood debt from her father that she was trying to fulfill.

My heart broke for Rebecca, but sadly, even though we had talked about why she didn’t forget about the promise she made to a dying man and leave... Tulane’s don’t break their promises, she had told me.

And I admired her for that, I really and truly did.

That was the last thought I had before I gritted my teeth, shoved myself closer to the base of the tree I was huddled against, and thought about the warmest place I could muster.

Because I was getting cold.

But what I didn’t know... was that everything I had been praying for ever since I stared at the coffin that was lowered into the ground that held my mother was about to come true... or so I thought anyway.

Irish

“Yo!”

Every head in the main room of the clubhouse turned at Charlie’s voice.

When he tilted his head to his tablet, Asher, Coal, Whit, Stoney, and I stood up and walked over to where he sat.

“See that?” He was pointing at something huddled against the base of a tree.

It was hard to see it with the rain pelting down in sheets.

I squinted my eyes, trying to make it out.

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