Page 50 of Irish Reign

“The kind worth money. Lots and lots of money.”

The swell of his cock presses into me. “Enough money for me not to fuck yourculo?”

I’m shaking now, every inch of my body reacting in primitive, instinctive fear. I want him off my back, across the room, far enough away that he’ll never touch me again.

But Russo must believe he’s broken me completely. So I leak a little of my nerves into my voice, letting my words tremble as much as my body. “Oh, God. Braiden will kill me if he ever finds out. Forget it. No. I can’t betray him like this.”

“You will deceive him either way, Giovanna. With your body or with your words. What do you hold most dear, sweet girl? What will hurt the most?”

His fingers are tight around my neck. I know he’s leaving bruises. That’s the only way he’ll believe he’s running this, that he will think he’s won.

So I gasp.

I cry.

And when he finally thinks I’m broken, that I’m utterly destroyed, I whisper in my softest voice, “Roy Krakower.”

“What about him?” Russo snarls.

I tell him all the words Braiden gave me. I hand over the dynamite and unwind the fuse.

Russo pulls me to my feet and makes me repeat my story. He tests me on the details, going over the facts a third time, a fourth, a fifth. He pinches the small bones in my wrist, daring me to recant, but I grit my teeth against the agony and hold fast.

And finally Russo buys it, every word. He counts the millions he’ll get from blackmailing Krakower. He accepts that I’ve betrayed the man I love.

He thinks he’s safe. He thinks he’s strong. He thinks he’s the one I’ve chosen.

And now I’ll be able to dig for all the facts, for all the gritty details I’ll use to destroy Antonio Russo forever.

“Thattesta di—” Russo gloats, but I never learn if he’s cursing Krakower or Braiden.

The door flies open before he can finish. The heavy metal bounces off the wall behind it, and Braiden Kelly storms into the room like an avenging angel.

21

BRAIDEN

Samantha’s face is streaked with tears. Her neck is marked with scarlet fingerprints, and her jaw too. Her top is pulled out of her trousers.

I was a fool to let her leave home this morning. I should have locked her in our bedroom. Tied her to our bed. Poured sugar into the Bentley’s petrol tank.

It’s my job to protect her. I’ll give my life to keep her safe. And if that means driving all the way from Philly to knock Antonio Russo’s too-white teeth down his feckin’ throat, I’m ready, willing, and able.

“Braiden!” Samantha says, her voice high and tight. She looks as guilty as a nun caught with her lips around a priest’s prick. Refusing to meet my furious gaze, she staggers back a few feet.

Good girl. She’s given me room to shoulder between her and the goombah shite who’s shrugging his jacket back into place.As Russo shoots his cuffs with careful precision, I see Samantha wipe the back of one hand across her lips. If that shitehawk forced his tongue down her throat, I’ll rip out his diamond cufflinks and jam the metal posts through his eyes.

Better yet, I’ll slice his throat open, and spit down his windpipe while he bleeds out on the freeport floor. Executing the shitehawk now just seems like efficient time management. I know I’ll have to finish the job one day or another.

Samantha tweaks the waistband of her trousers, straightening the seams that animal twisted, and I actually see scarlet.

“Braiden,” she says again, and this time I catch a hint of warning in her tone. I twitch her tentative fingers off my arm, using the motion to better block Russo from so much as glancing at her.

The gobshite is smart enough to notice my balled-up fists. But he’s fool enough to say, “Giovanna was just welcoming me to the freeport.”

“I’m sureSamanthawas doing her job.”

“It is fascinating, the things a girl can be paid to do these days.”

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