Page 86 of Irish Brute
“You’d really do it, wouldn’t you?”
“If I could get rid of Russo forever? You’ve spent six weeks with me, Samantha. You should know by now: I’m a bad man. I collect protection. I sell drugs. I kill people. And I always, always get my way. If that means one girl dies to take down an animal like that fucking wo?—”
She breaks for the door. I stop her, just before she turns the knob. My hand is flat beside her head, my body caging hers.
“Let me go!” she shouts.
“Not until we’ve finished talking.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
We can’t be through talking. Because if we’re through talking, then it’s time for me to act. And I still haven’t decided if I have to kill my wife or if I get to take her home.
“Get off of me or I’ll scream.”
“And you think I can’t pay Rittenhouse security enough to make them look the other way?”
She flattens beneath me, her face turned toward the wall. I hear the catch in her throat as she tweaks her shoulder, but I still don’t let her go. I can’t, because she’ll throw the door open. She’ll try to leave this room, try to leave me forever, and I’ll be out of options.
“I didn’t tell him,” she finally whispers, tears squeezing past her closed eyes. “Antonio Russo killed Eliza. I swear to God, I’d die before I tell him anything.”
I see Samantha’s bloodless face in the lobby of that Delaware office. I feel her hair wrapped around my fist as she bokes intothe snow. I hear her stammer the next morning as Russo insists on marrying her by fucking sunset.
Jesus Christ. She’ll never help that fucking dog. I should have known all along. I’ve been an idiot, listening to even a second of Madden’s poison.
I collapse against her. She’s safe. We both are.
But then she says, “I was right that first morning, in the safe room.” Her voice is as bitter as unripe apples. “I should have demanded an annulment then.”
I see her standing tall and proud in her wrinkled wedding dress. I remember what I told her, all the things I’d do to her, all the things she’d beg for as my bride. My cock swells, knowing what she’s already done.
She has to feel it, pressing into her tight arse. She stiffens beneath me and says, “Youfuckinganimal.”
I’m still running on adrenaline—adrenaline and shame and the rage of losing a quarter of a billion dollars. I answer before I think. “I never did anything you weren’t panting for.”
There’s a moment—a dash between heartbeats—when this could still end well. She could turn to face me. I could slash my mouth over hers. We could take out all our anger and frustration on each other, work ourselves into mindless heaps of flesh, into bodies without any language to cut, to hurt, to misunderstand.
But she takes the other path.
She stiffens her spine and spits out words that slice away whatever withered vines pass for my soul. “You keep a sick little girl like she’s some sort of pet. You make excuses for a mad drunk who did her best to kill you.”
I have to strike back, because I have no explanation she’ll understand. “A mad drunk who kills? You know something about that, don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” she says, putting equal weight on both words. “It may be too late for an annulment, but there’s no reason I can’t file for divorce.”
“Russo will come for you before the ink’s dry on the paper.”
“Going with Russo or staying with you,” she spits. “There’s not much of a difference, is there?”
“Stupid fucking cunt,” I growl, and I back off enough to open the door beneath her. She’s still scrambling for balance when I shove her into the hall and slam the door shut.
She doesn’t knock—I’ll give her that. She doesn’t try to get Liam to let her back in with his passkey. She doesn’t even go to the lobby, call me on the house phone until I’m forced to take the receiver off the hook.
So I don’t have to decide if she’s the stupid fucking cunt, or if it’s Russo, or if it’s really, truly me.
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