Page 29 of Beautiful Vengeance
He surprised himself by chuckling, amusement high as he walked out of the building and climbed into the back of his car.Then he let it fall away and spoke to his driver.“Next time Keira O’Malley slips her leash, I want to be informed immediately.”He would keep his lead on Sloan because it paid to maintain several balls in the air, but his interest in the youngest O’Malley daughter was piqued.
More the pity for her.
Chapter Twelve
It took Jude all fucking day to find the goddamn Plan B pill.As expected, he’d had to drive into Portland to retrieve it, every hour he was away from Sloan increasing the chance that she was pregnant.
And you almost took her again.
He pulled up in front of his house and turned the car off.There was no excuse for the idiocy that the woman brought out in him.He got around her and he couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, couldn’t take a step back and claim the icy rationale that had gotten him to this point.
If he was smart, he’d call Dmitri Romanov and hand her over as fast as humanly possible.
Except she might be pregnant with my child.
A fucking kid.He hadn’t been able to hold down a single relationship in his thirty-five years—hadn’t wanted to—and now he was looking at potentially bringing a helpless kid into the world.What the fuck did he know about raising a child?His old man was dead before he was born, and his mother had spent his entire life checked out and clinging to a past that no longer existed.
Jude wouldn’t know healthy if it kicked him in the face.
There was no way he wouldn’t fuck this kid up.
He grabbed the small bag with the two pills in it and climbed out of the car.Sloan’s shift would be done about now, so he grabbed a shower and decided to check in with Stefan before he met her at her place.When he called, the phone rang and rang, Jude’s irritation turning to concern.
“You have the worst fucking timing.”
The concern vanished, irritation taking hold.He leaned against the kitchen counter.“And you have the morals of a back-alley whore.You sold me out.”
Stefan cursed.“What was I supposed to do?Romanov showed uphere.Or where here used to be.I’ve moved shop, which is why it took me so long to answer—I couldn’t find my phone.”
Jude shoved his wet hair back into a ponytail and took the phone off speaker.“How did he find you?”
“It’s that fucking girl of yours.One of his men had tagged searches for anything concerning her.By the time I realized I’d sent vibrations up the spider web, he was at my front door.”
He still wasn’t sure that Romanov was preferred to one of Sloan’s brothers finding her, but at least the Russian had offered him a reprieve—mostly because he wanted the same thing Jude did: Colm Sheridan dead.It didn’t matter.The end result was that it gave him time to plan—or at least figure out what the fuck he was going to do.He sighed.“What have you got?”
“Sloan O’Malley, sister-in-law to Callista Sheridan.She’s the fly on the wall in a family of strong personalities, always in the background.Her sisters were—and are—wild party girls, one of whom defied their bastard of a father to marry her heart’s true love.”His sarcastic tone said exactly what he thought of that.
Jude was inclined to agree, but this was old news.“I’m aware of who Carrigan O’Malley is fucking.Focus.”
“That’s it, man.Her brothers are looking for Sloan, but Teague appears to be stalling them, probably because he’s the one who got her out.I can’t track how she got out of Boston, and if I can’t do it, no one can.She disappeared on a Friday night, and then appeared in Callaway Rock three days after, whichIwouldn’t know if you weren’t there.”He hesitated and then said grudgingly, “That O’Malley did a good job of hiding her.”
And Jude had brought the hounds right to her door.
Goddamn it.
“And Romanov?What’s he want with her?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.Fuck, marry, kill—with that guy, it’s bound to be one of those three options.I mean that in the literal sense, not that stupid fucking game everyone seems to be playing.”
None of those options were actually options as far as Jude was concerned.Sloan deserved better than to be a casualty in a war she thought she’d escaped.
As for fuck or marry…
Over my dead fucking body.
“Find out his plan.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Jude.I’m not a mind reader.If he has a plan, he hasn’t written it down, and he sure as fuck hasn’t put it somewhere as public as the Internet.It’s not like this fucker has a goddamn blog.”
