Page 96 of Black Heart

Now, she was trapped in their bedroom with two guards while her husband was downstairs making the biggest mistake of their lives and she had no idea how she was going to stop him. Screaming and crying certainly hadn’t helped, Marty thought bitterly, pissed that she’d screwed up what was probably her one and only chance at saving Tristan.

At saving them.

She needed him and so did their baby. She didn’t care what Tristan or these men thought. Deep down, she knew that this was wrong. It wasn’t just because she didn’t want to lose him, she didn’t, but because this plan felt wrong for so many reasons. If they’d been cursed together, then that’s how they needed to break this curse, together.

If the curse had a hold over their baby, then it was just as trapped as they were and tying to cheat this curse wasn’t going to change things. She also didn’t think that this plan of theirs was going to free their baby. Their baby surviving to be born wasn’t a guarantee that it would be free from this curse one day. For all they knew, the baby would return to wherever it had been all these years once it was his time. Now, since Tristan was so hellbent on this plan of his, the baby might never get another chance to escape.

Their only chance to beat this curse for their child and for them was to face this thing head-on together. They needed more details about the curse so that they could do some research. They also needed to know more about what happened in their past lives and the events that triggered the curse. What they didn’t need was Tristan destroying their only chance at breaking this curse.

It had to be the hormones, Marty thought with a sigh as she pulled her foot up and slammed it down on Aidan’s instep. That was the only explanation there was for it, she decided as she ignored Aidan’s curses and focused on Finn, the only thing standing between her and the door.

“Now, lass, we can talk about this,” Finn said, licking his lips nervously as he stumbled back a step.

“Move,” Marty simply said, moving towards him, more than prepared to take a shot at the family jewels again if that’s what it took to get him out of her way.

He opened his mouth to argue, but she was done playing around. She kept moving towards him, knowing without a doubt that he would never hurt her even to protect himself. She didn’t want to hurt him again, but she would do it if she had to and he must have realized that because he suddenly disappeared.

“That was easy,” Marty murmured, more than a little confused as she shot a look over her shoulder at Aidan to make sure that he was still distracted, but he wasn’t there.

She didn’t know what was going on and she wasn’t about to waste precious time trying to figure it out. They could be back at any moment and she needed to be out the door and heading down the stairs before that happened.

Reminding herself that all they needed to do to stop her was to lay their hands on her had her moving quickly. She threw open the door, half-expecting someone to be waiting on the other side to grab her. When she didn’t see anyone, she bolted out the door, hoping that her luck would hold.

All she wanted to do was get close enough to Tristan so that she could talk some sense into him. If that didn’t work, then she’d use the chokehold that her father taught her in the second grade when a large fourth grade girl kept pushing her off the swings and stealing her turn. It had worked like a dream back then and she hoped that it was just as effective this time. This was her only shot and she wasn’t about to blow it. Well, not again.

This time, she was going to…going to…

Why was Tristan calling someone a bitch and telling him to man up?

CHAPTER37

“Fucking do it!”

“If ye would shut the fuck up I might be able ta!” Finn snapped back, his focus never shifted away from where his hand lay on Tristan’s chest.

Tristan ground his teeth shut as he waited for it to happen. Any second now, it would be over. The pain would be gone, the fucking stress from waiting for this bullshit to be over with, and hopefully, the agony of knowing that he would never see Marty again would be over.

This needed to end now. Deciding to take himself out of the game was hard enough, but the way that each and every one of his so-called brothers kept backing out on him and prolonging this was fucking torture. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to walk away from Marty and their child, but he had to do it. If his being around was a factor in triggering their deaths, then he had to be taken out of the equation.

It was supposed to be quick. One pull and everything should have been over, but ten minutes of bitching later, and he was still standing here waiting for someone to grow the balls to do it. When Finn shot a nervous look at Liam, Tristan knew that this whole thing was about to take a lot longer than any of them had expected.

“Just do it,” Tristan bit out through clenched teeth as he reached up with his good hand and placed it over the one Finn still had pressed against his chest.

“I’m trying!” But they both knew that he wasn’t going to do it. He had that same expression on his face that every man before him had just before they’d stepped back, made up some bullshit excuse and told someone else to do it. Now the only problem was that there was no one else left to do it.

“Try harder,” Tristan ground out, willing Finn to do it and end his suffering.

The pain from knowing that he would never see Marty again was surprisingly more brutal than his fucked-up shoulder and skull that had him seeing black spots and struggling not to give into his shaky legs and drop to the ground. He knew that if he gave into the pain that they’d use it as an excuse not to do this and he desperately needed them to do this.

He couldn’t stomach the idea of Marty or their baby suffering. He didn’t want to keep putting her through this hell and he didn’t want her life shortened because of him. He wanted her to go on and enjoy her life, raise their son and if she had to come back again, he wanted her to have a chance at being happy, growing old and-

“This ends now,” Marty said, shoving Finn’s hand away as she smoothly stepped in front of him. Looking relieved, Finn quickly retreated.

“Go back upstairs,” Tristan snapped, looking anywhere but at her, knowing that one look at her would probably break him and have him doing anything to stay with her even if it was only for one more night.

“No,” Marty said as she placed her hand on his good shoulder and shoved, taking him by surprise and knocking him on his ass.

Not that it would take much right now to kick his ass, Tristan thought as he fought against another wave of dizziness. As soon as his ass hit the chair, Marty was climbing onto his lap, looking pissed and more determined than he’d ever seen her before.

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