Page 10 of The Irish Redemption

I should ask him what he needs first rather than agreeing blindly, but that thought is drowned out by the sheer panicked need to survive and walk out of here.

Wherever here is.

So I nod again.

“Say it,” the man barks, making me jump.

I sniffle, blinking rapidly through the ever-flowing tears. “Y–Yes,” I manage to force out. “I–I’ll do anything.”

“If you want to live, you will return to the police station and bug the detective in charge of this murder case. You’re familiar with her already, I imagine?” With the flick of a wrist, he pulls a card from his pocket and tosses it down onto my lap. “And if you value your life, you won’t get caught. Are we clear?”

All I see is freedom, so I nod as fast I can. “Yes, I understand.”

What the fuck?

Bugging Sarah? Is that because these people are responsible for the murder or because they want to know more? I can’t tell. All I know for sure is that this man is dangerous and the dead body is important to him in some regard. But the details don’t matter. I can play along until I get a window and then I can run. I can just run away and not stop until I reach a place where no one knows me.

“Cormac,” calls the woman from the door, putting a name to the face of the muscular, armed man in front of me. “Cian will be here in the morning.”

“Understood,” Cormac replies. With a nod, the woman leaves and Cormac closes the distance between us. I flinch, fearing he’s going to strike me or his fist is heading back into my hair, but neither of those things happen. He reaches around me and unravels the rope around my wrist in a matter of seconds.

“It’s late,” he says, his gruff voice thick. “Follow me.”

He strides away, and I try to follow, but fear has my muscles locked up and I’m unable to stand from the chair. Hurriedly wiping away my tears, I massage my thighs and clutch the detective’s card, begging my body to listen to me. By the time Cormac reaches the door and opens it, I’m finally on my feet.

Each step is jerky and I’m unable to control the tremor that’s settled deep in my skeleton. Every part of me shakes as I stare at Cormac’s back and follow him through a warmly lit hallway to a door near the end. He opens it and jerks his head inside.

“You can rest there until morning.”

He doesn’t even look at me as I pass him, and as soon as I’m inside, the door thumps shut.

I hold my breath, waiting for something to jump out at me in the darkness, but there’s nothing—just a faint scent of cotton and vanilla and air that’s cool against my skin. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I make out the shapes of a chair, a few cabinets, and a bed.

The bed is my destination, and the tears pour the second I throw myself onto the softness. Grabbing the nearest pillow, I curl around it and sob my aching heart out.

What the fuck is going on?

I find a dead body in my shitty job, become scarred for life at the sight of it, face intense interrogation by the cops, and then get kidnapped and have my life threatened by a terrifyingly large man.

All in the past twenty-four hours.

I’m scared, more scared than I’ve ever been in my entire life. This isn’t what my life is supposed to be. I make bad financial choices, I fight with my mother over her neglect, and I work a shitty job to pay off debt. That’s supposed to be the extent of my stress.

But that man knew everything, even my favorite restaurant. Whoever these people are, it’s clear I don’t belong here. I don’t want to belong here.

I want to go home.

I cry into the pillow until the sheer exhaustion of the day steals over me, and I fall into a troubled sleep filled with gaping wounds, pools of blood, and gigantic shadows that smother me to silence.

One shadow in particular keeps its hand over my mouth and suffocates me to the point that my body is about to burst from the lack of air.

My eyes snap open and I jerk back from whatever is in front of my face, panting harshly. Fumbling with the bedside table, I scramble at the light and eventually turn it on, revealing that the only thing smothering me was the pillow I had chosen before I fell asleep. I must have rolled into it during my nightmare and become stuck.

As for the pain in my abdomen, that’s not from the lack of air.

I really, really need to pee.

But I don’t want to leave.

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