Page 28 of Bad Bishop
Tiernan slanted his head. “How much do you understand?”
I didn’t answer him. I still hadn’t decided what’d be the best course of action to protect myself in this marriage.
“You gonna stop trying to kill me?”
I shrugged noncommittally.
“Very quixotic.” He rubbed his thumb across his lower lip. “How about a six-hour ceasefire until morning?”
This time I nodded. I was exhausted. Hungry, thirsty, and overwhelmed with my own existence.
“Same bed?” he offered.
My eyebrows slammed together.
He grinned in response. “Have fun on the floor, then.”
I assumed the tiny square of bathroom carpet as my bed, curled into a shrimp-shaped figure, crying myself to sleep. Tiernan didn’t suggest I take the bed, nor did he check on his whimpering, hiccuping wife.
The marble beneath me was cold, the pins in my hair too tight, the corset too suffocating, but I was safe.
Locked away from the big, bad monster.
At least until dawn.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TIERNAN
A loud bang on the door woke me up.
“Wakey wakey, Sir Kills-a-Lot,” Enzo’s voice sing-songed from the other side. Of course, the cheerful bastard was a morning person. “Time to fulfill your end of the bargain.”
My end of the barg—?
Bollocks.I forgot the stupid blood-on-the-sheets tradition. Vello needed it to prove his knocked-up daughter was a virgin. I wasn’t normally in the habit of following directions, but in this case, we needed to keep a united front. It’d be bad for business if people knew I married a knocked-up woman.
I grabbed my phone, sifting through my last messages.
Luca: Don’t you dare touch her.
Achilles: Not even a peck on the cheek, asshole.
Tiernan: Stop blowing up my phone.
Enzo: Touch a hair on her head, and your phone won’t be the only thing exploding.
Seeing as my wife stabbed and shot me last night, I had at least two semi-open wounds to tarnish the expensive sheets with. Funny, the don didn’t mention she was violent. Probably because he knew it’d turn me on.
“Ten minutes.” I stretched across the bed. I could practically feel Enzo hovering on the other side of the door like a floating piece of shit in a public restroom.
“Is Lila okay?”
I threw a glance at the locked door of the en suite, from which annoying whimpers had drifted until four in the morning. “Grand.”
Silence seeped through the door crack.
“Did you…” He paused, clearing his throat. “Honor our deal?”
