Page 84 of The Irish Redemption

Then I take it.

Rocky hauls me to my feet and clasps my shoulder, running a concerned eye down my body to where blood soaks into my shirt. “You’re hurt?”

“Stitches,” I say, immediately retracting my hand. “They burst.”

“Shit. Hospital?”

“No time.”

“Your girl.”

“Aye. What the hell are you even doing here?”

Rocky digs into one of his pockets and pulls out a fabric handkerchief. Offering it to me, he rolls one shoulder in a loose shrug. “I understand love makes you do crazy things,” he says. “And my father… he’s a bitter man. I don’t know why he refuses to see what Noah has done to cause this rift between our families. I think he’s so determined to keep up the act that we’re innocent, and Noah has been running rampant these past few weeks. Slippery little fuck.”

“So you believe me?” I use his handkerchief to dab under my shirt to where a few of my stitches have torn loose.

“Given what you’ve said and the lack of contact we’ve had with Noah’s family… yes. I don’t want the treaty to go up in flames because my father can’t see past his own pride. So I followed you, hoping to talk to you.” Rocky glances back at where Noah’s body lays crumpled just off the stage. “Lucky I did.”

“Thought I was next,” I mutter, nodding down to his holstered gun.

“Nah. Like I said, the treaty is worth its weight in gold for both of us. My father is just prideful and refuses to let anyone believe that a smaller family could have so much free rein while he’s in charge.”

Of course. It always comes down to pride with the Italians. My focus returns briefly to my torn stitches, but my concern doesn’t linger. “Listen, I’m grateful you saved my life and when there’s time, I’ll thank you properly, but right now…” My heart pulls painfully in my chest. “You killed my only lead to Evelyn. I…” My throat closes as I stumble down the steps to his body. “There’s got to be something.”

Pain jolts sharply through my knees as I hit the ground and begin rummaging through Noah’s pockets in search of anything that could lead me to Evelyn. I locate keys first, and Rocky snatches them out of my hand.

“I’ll find his car.” He takes off up the steps two at a time.

Noah's pockets are empty except for a wallet giving me no new information, a receipt for a gas station on the other side of the city, and a few loose coins.

“Fuck!” I yell, grabbing his body by the shirt collar. “Where the fuck is she?”

“Cormac!” Rocky bellows in the distance.

I abandon the corpse and sprint up the steps like the hounds of hell are at my ankles. Outside, the parking lot is filled with cars from people parking here to work nearby. The cool night air clogs my lungs and I wince, briefly feeling every one of my injuries full force when I come to a stop and scan my surroundings for Rocky. Spotting him, I rush over to him. When I’m close enough, he tosses me a small black box.

“GPS. Fucker clearly didn’t think about it, or he didn’t care. Probably thought he was leaving her victorious.”

“Oh, shit,” I gasp, my hands trembling. “Thank fuck he was a cocky little shit.” I don’t need to press anything. Rocky already has the GPS showing his last known location. An old fabric factory on the outskirts of the city. “I have to go.”

“I’ll drive,” Rocky says, snatching the GPS back from me. “You need to fix those stitches and call for backup.”

He is helping. Rocky Barati is really standing in front of me, helping me. It could be because he was serious about preserving the treaty, or it’s guilt. I can’t be certain of his motives, but he makes a decent point so I toss him my car keys.

“Fine, but we’re taking my car.”

“Evie!” I bellow her name at the top of my lungs as I run through the fabric factory, stumbling over rusted scraps of metal, clumps of broken glass, and more. This place is huge and on the drive over, I called everyone I knew to get their ass here to find her. Cian’s own calls for Evelyn echo somewhere to my right, while Saoirse covers the upstairs offices. Rocky was with me until we located a fork in the corridor and he took the left one, yelling for Evelyn while also explaining that I was here since she wouldn’t recognize my voice.

It’s been too long.

That single thought taunts me with every step I take. According to his GPS, he left here an hour before we had our fight and in the time it took us to get here, God knows what could have happened in the meantime. Fear grips me with its long, cold fingers, taunting me with the loss of the woman I love, and each step feels weighed down by the intensity of my failure to protect her.

I need her.

I brought her into this.

I turned her life into this.

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