Page 40 of Beyond Rosy Irish Twilight

“I know,” I bit out. “But I can’t ignore it.”

“And if you let yourself get this worked up over it, you’ll ruin everything you’ve worked for. He’ll fucking kill you,” Chase pointed out.

My gaze shot up to his. “And what the fuck would you have me do? Ignore the fact that someone hurt her? Ignore that she’s terrified wherever we go?”

“Patrick is with her,” he argued.

“And that’s not fucking enough! I’m her husband.”

“In name only,” Chase snapped. “You don’t love this woman. You married her because Ambrose made you.”

I huffed out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, and it’s so easy to separate the two.”

“You’re going to have to. You can’t do your job and fall for this woman. The lines will get blurred and fuck everything up. Or did you want to become an arms dealer for the rest of your life?”

“What I want is to get her out of this shitty life that we’re both tied to. There has to be a way to achieve that. I can’t—” I cut myself off, because I already knew I was in too deep. I didn’t even know Jade, but she was irrevocably part of me. No matter how I moved forward, I had to consider her.

“You can’t think of only her,” Chase sighed. “I get you want to protect her, and we’ll do everything we can to do that. You know we will. But if you go off half-cocked because of something that happened in the past to her, you’ll get us all killed.”

“And what would you have me do?” I said angrily.

“We’ll look into it. I doubt we’ll come up with anything, but we’ll dig.”

“And in the meantime,” Patrick said, “you know I won’t leave her side. Once we’re off this island, all bets are off. I won’t let you down.”

I nodded. It was as much reassurance as I was going to get at this point. Until we figured out a way to take down Ambrose, I had to control my temper. Anything else would get us killed.

“Go to Lock and have your hand looked at,” Chase said. “I’ll look into your girl. Any idea how old the scars are?”

“At least a year.”

He nodded. “We’ll figure this out.”

We had to. Anything less would have me tearing Ambrose to fucking pieces and destroying everything we’d accomplished so far.

16

JADE

“Rise and shine, buttercup,” Patrick said as he walked into the bungalow carrying a tray of food.

Disappointment immediately swelled inside me. Asher said he would bring my food, but he brushed it off onto Patrick, which was what typically happened. But Patrick was nice, so I did my best not to let my disappointment show.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Not great.”

“That’s not surprising. Who knew such a small person could drink so much in a half hour.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “A half hour?”

He chuckled and set the tray over my lap. The look of the food made my stomach turn. “Yeah, it was pretty impressive.” Then he frowned. “Or unimpressive considering how few drinks you had. You’re kind of a lightweight.”

“I don’t drink,” I muttered, picking up a piece of toast. It was the only thing I thought I might be able to stomach.

“I never would have guessed,” he chuckled. “So, on the agenda for today is either fun in the sun or a day of movies in bed.”

“Movies in bed,” I said immediately. Sun did not sound appealing to my head. “I’m not moving unless I have to.”

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