Page 94 of Stolen Rival
Imight be what hurts me? That’s fucking hilarious.
My neck is so itchy I want to dislocate my arm to try to scratch it. More water douses my face. It’s colder, stealing the air from my body.
“Better?”
I blink through the chill, my teeth chattering, and every fiber of my being wanting to rip this slimy weasel’s arms from his body and beat him to fucking death. Fucking Andrew. It’s Andrew who’s taken me.
“Where’s your lackey?”
“Who?”
“The other guy who was here.” I lick my lips, trying to take in some of the water still trickling down my face.
Andrew chuckles. “It’s just me, princess.”
Alone. He’s alone? I could have sworn I heard him having a conversation with someone. Was he talking to himself? Was I hallucinating?
“Yeah, enough ketamine will do that to you.”
I blink. “What?”
“You asked if you were hallucinating. Yes, you were. It’s just you and me. See, Mrs. Mahoney, it turns out when you’re fucking useless, you don’t need a team to take you. Just…” He points at himself, and I want to break his fingers one by one and use them to dig his eyeballs out of his skull.
“Why?”
He tuts, making an annoying sound with his mouth. “You really are green, aren’t you? You can’t even guess?”
“I’m sorry. Some limp-dicked arsehole shot me up with a drug that made me imagine you had a sidekick. I seem to be having a hard time coming out of the fog.”
The backhand stings before I even realize what has happened. There’s a trickle of blood making its way down my chin from the lip he’s just split, and my eyes water from the force of the blow.
“I like you, Sorcha, but I’m on a short fuse. You’ll be released to Patrick when he does what I asked him to do.”
Kill you for taking his wife? Because he’s going to fuck you up for what you’ve done.“Give back Dylan’s business interests?”
“See? Not so stupid after all, are you?” He leans in close to condescendingly pat me on the cheek, and I make a split-second decision. It’s going to hurt, and I’m going to pay, but it might distract me from the pain of his annoying fucking voice gloating about getting one up on my husband who already thinks I’m as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I snap my head forward, catching him on his nose and cheek. There’s a burst of pain on impact, but the satisfying crunch of his face against mine was worth every single neuron in my body exploding into white-hot agony.
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere once that ifyou’re kidnapped you should try to reason with your attacker, make them see you as a human being, try to reach their humanity. But I’m not a stranger to this guy and still his eyes are devoid of any emotion. There’s nothing but a cold, hard killer left in front of me, and if all I can do before I die is give him a shiner and a broken nose, then that’s what I’ll fucking do.
He grips me by the hair, his fingers biting into my scalp as he fists my messy bun. “I swear to God, Sorcha. I’ll fuck you up so badly Patrick will have to identify you by your dental records. Don’t push me.”
For a bad guy, he seems pretty easy to knock off-balance. Aren’t they supposed to be calmer than this frenzied man snarling in my face? Patrick can fuck someone up while remaining freakishly level. I open my mouth to say as much, but he yanks me back again.
“That’s if he even comes for you. You’re turning out to be more hassle than you’re worth, aren’t you, princess? Quite a burden for the Mahoney family to undertake if they have to keep bailing you out of sticky situations like this one.”
Sticky situations? Is that what this is? Being tied to a chair, drugged to the point of hallucinations, and smacked around by a man whose mammy didn’t love him right as a child issticky?
Shit. I don’t want to think about what getting intorealhot water looks like to these people.
I’m dizzy, my head bobbing from side to side. Is it still the drugs in my system? Or did my headbutt add injury to the ketamine insult?
“He-he needs me.” He does. He might not think I’m worth a shit, but he needs me to make sure he holds onto Dylan’s side of the business. No untimely deaths, that was the rule.
“He-he needs me,” Andrew mocks back. “Riiiight, but when I take back Dylan’s interests, what will he need you forthen?” He taps his bottom lip, squinting like he’s thinking. “Oh, that’s right, nothing. He can find a pussy to fuck anywhere.” He sweeps his hand out to the side. “He probably has a few side pieces on the go already.”
I shake my head. He nods even more aggressively. “’Fraid so, princess. Then you’re going to join your da and your whole extended family in hell.” He puts his fingers to my temple and makes the sound of a gunshot. “Too bad, so sad. I can’t think of any other reason for him to keep you around, can you?”
