Page 82 of The Irish Redemption

His face smashes into a nearby box and it splinters and breaks under him. Then I’m on him, punching him repeatedly.

“Where is she, you fucker?” I rage. “Where the fuck is she?”

His face grows slippery from blood and split flesh, and I have to force myself to stop. Killing him will lose her to me forever.

The moment I hesitate, Noah elbows me in the balls and wriggles free, then he scrambles for his bat. I dodge the first swing, but a wave of agony across my abdomen causes me to falter.

He swings the bat into my face, and it hits me so forcefully that I see stars.

I crash back onto the stage with a pained grunt. Noah scrambles and yells, pushing at one of the stage props. By the time I regain my senses, the wooden cupboard is toppling down on top of me and I have no time to roll out of the way.

I throw my hands up to catch it, preventing it from crushing me, but it leaves me open to everything else.

“Fuck!” I rage, and Noah laughs maniacally as he dances about my head.

“You fuck,” he slurs through his mashed up face. “You thought you had me but I have you, and you’re gonna stay away from Holly forever, you hear me?”

“Holly?” I gasp, torn between keeping the cupboard from crushing me and trying to talk. “The fuck do you mean?”

“Goodbye, Cormac,” Noah says dramatically as he pulls a knife from his pocket. Pictures of Brenden’s murder suddenly flash in my mind and my blood runs cold.

No.

But to my surprise—and relief—Noah has other ideas. Instead of slitting my throat while I’m trapped, he moves to one of the ropesnearby. I quickly follow it up to a broken stage light dangling above my head, and my heart sinks.

“Shit.”

“Shit indeed.” Noah laughs loudly.

He raises his knife, and I screw up my eyes, ready for impact with a broken apology to Evie in my mind. Suddenly, a loud bang echoes around the theater.

I wait for the impending crash of the light, but it doesn’t come.

Opening my eyes, I look over to Noah. His arm is still raised with the knife, and blood pours from a gunshot wound to the throat. He gurgles and tries to swing his knife at the rope, but he lacks any kind of strength. The blade slips from his limp fingers and he crumples down off the stage like a broken mannequin.

“What—”

Footsteps echo on the stairs, and I look over. Rocky Barati climbs the steps with a gun in hand and shakes his head. “You drive like a fucking maniac, Cormac.”

33

EVELYN

I’m going to die.

And I’m not scared.

Not anymore.

When the cold water covered my toes and kissed my ankles, I was scared. My life wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to keep my head down and work hard at the motel, pay back my debt from the credit cards, and then go on to have a regular, everyday life where my biggest stress was the end-of-year taxes and walking out of a room while leaving a candle lit.

Not this.

Mafia men and their fights, murder and betrayal and psychopathic Italians who can’t take no for an answer.

At the time, tricking Noah into going after Cormac felt like such a good idea. In my mind, I was certain Cormac would be unfazed by someone as weedy as Noah and take him out in two seconds, then somehow find out where I was and come to my rescue.

I played out that fantasy as the water slowly crept up to my calves and numbed my feet.

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