Page 51 of Still Burning

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out. I was going to get her back.

Our engines roared to life, and we headed to the airstrip that Blaise Hughes used when flying in and out of Miami.

The fear that she didn’t want to come back to me was in the back of my head. Why was she traveling with him and not trying to get free? Why hadn’t she found a phone and called me? If he had her out in the open like this, maybe she wasn’t being held captive, but had chosen to go with him.

I shut that thought down before letting it fester.

Salem loved me. I might not deserve it, but she did. She would want to return to me. If she had left me, then it was because of Nixie’s pregnancy. When she found out that the baby wasn’t mine, she’d want to come back. The only obstacle in our future was no more. We could build our house. The one I’d dreamed of when I was twenty-one years old. Have a kid or two. People had them at her age all the time.

I didn’t know what war we had ahead of us with the Murphys, but one thing at a time.

First, I had to get her back.

20

Salem

I wasn’t sure how many hours I had stared at the white wall while listening to Brady breathe annoyingly loud on the other bed. It was just shy of snoring, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t sleep.

I’d gotten sick after eating only two bites of food today and gone to the restroom at the restaurant and thrown up. Then, this evening, when I’d been in the shower, I had gotten dizzy and had to sit down for several minutes.

My lack of sleep shouldn’t have been an issue today. I’d slept both on the flight and again in the car.

Even if being so much closer to home was better, it didn’t give me back Rome. The dark place I’d found myself in mentally wasn’t going away. That had to be what was making me ill.

The relief of being back in the States gave me false hope, and I knew it. While Georgia and Florida were neighbors, Miami was nowhere near it. The distance between the two was well over three hundred miles, and we weren’t on the state line. We were hours from it. I’d have a better chance being found in Boston, which was thousands of miles from Miami. Brady had been right about a small Southern town being a good place to get lost.

My thoughts went from one thing to another, bouncing around and all circling back to Rome. The life I had wanted with him since I had been a girl. The one I had lost a second time. Tearsburned my eyes, and I sniffled into the pillow, not wanting to wake Brady. He might talk, and I’d be forced to hear him. I loathed the sound of his voice—Irish and Southern. If it was coming out of his mouth, then it was the bane of my existence.

For a moment, I had felt sorry for him today. His life had been horribly sad and tragic, but he didn’t have to become the man he was. He had chosen to be a criminal. And all for money. Just like Eamon.

The emotions that memories of him stirred in me were all but faded now. Every truth I’d learned took a little more away until there wasn’t anything left.

I had mourned the loss of the life we’d shared for a year. Thinking I had lost my best friend, yet all that time, I never even knew the man. I’d loved his facade. He was as good at being a chameleon as his brother was. He’d fooled me completely.

A soul-deep anguish reared its head as I began to think of Rome growing close to Nixie. Wanting a life with her and their child and moving on to fall in love again. It was selfish of me and punishing all the same to entertain the thought, but it came to torture me, and I let it. Unable to stop myself.

One lone tear slipped free, and I reached up to wipe it away as another joined. The dreams I had that never came true. The love that was never mine to keep. Losing my heart at sixteen to a boy who would forever hold it in his hands. Life had been so unfair, and it just continued to be with each year I grew older. There was never a break for me. No silver lining. I’d thought perhaps that was what Eamon was, but it’d turned out, he was just another punch in the gut.

A faint clicking noise caught my attention, and I turned over to look toward where it was coming from to see the doorknob turning slowly.

Did Emmett have a key? Most likely, but why was he coming inside the room in the middle of the night? Was he sleeping inhere? I assumed he would have his own room.

The door began to creep open, and unease started to settle in. That wasn’t normal. Emmett wouldn’t open the door like that. Brady had enemies. Had someone followed him? Did they have a way of tracking him when in the States? Was I about to die?

I remained frozen as a man dressed in black entered the room with a gun pointed at Brady. Three more men followed him inside. All armed.

Where was Emmett? Who were these people?

It was dark in the room, but the moonlight that shone through the windows showed me enough of their faces that I knew I didn’t recognize them.

Had Emmett seen them come in here? What if they all opened fire when he came barreling in here, guns blazing to save Brady?

I was going to die.

Oh God. My life was hell, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to give it up just yet. Not when there was a chance that I could be free one day.

Brady moved so quickly that I let out a squeal as he went from lying in bed to standing up with his own gun pointed at the men. Surely, he saw that he was outnumbered. What was he doing?

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