Survival & Revenge (Boston Latte Book 3) Page 6

JULIAN

  Her voice cracked with pain, a broken sound from a dry throat that I knew was damaged by tears. Aideen didn’t move. She was lying silently, beneath nothing more than the thin hospital blanket I once replaced with something thick and warm. My eyes flicked momentarily away from her bed, trying to spot the blanket I gave Aideen, but it was gone.

  “You left,” she croaked, a silent declaration of reality.

  I stepped through the shattered pieces of my fractured soul that fell to the floor, kneeling at her side where my hands could hold the chilled face of the woman I love.

  “Aideen,” I swallowed, trying to contain the rage and guilt I felt while glancing at her sunken, raw eyes, “I had to. I had to leave. Do you have any idea how much it kills me to do that?” I questioned, without giving her time to reply, while I scanned her face as it rested within my hands. “To watch them pull you away from me while I can do absolutely nothing in that moment? Aideen, I can’t let my family know you’re here. Not yet. I wanted to come with you, to pull you away from all of them, but until I know precisely who we’re battling, I couldn’t. I can’t. It’s destroying me to see you hurt and to know I can’t yet kill the person responsible. Babby, your doctor is on my grandfather’s payroll. If he finds out…”

  Her breathing shook, a small heaving rumble escaping her shivering lips, and I rose to wrap my arms around Aideen, feeling through my shirt just how cold she was.

  “I didn’t swallow the medicine they gave me today, Julian,” she admitted in a hushed whisper. “I pretended to twice now.”

  “Wh-which medication?”

  “What they’re giving me to sleep. It isn’t to sleep, Julian. It’s to numb my mind, to diminish my faculties, to support what the fuck else some twisted bastard is trying to do to me.”

  My eyes lost all expression, eerily empty within her reflection but filling with rage. “What are they trying to do?”

  “Julian,” she sobbed into my arm, her tears melting through the sleeve of my shirt. “They’re trying to take it all away from me. Don’t let them. Please.”

  Them. It could be anyone. Everyone. Anyone who was against me, against Aideen, against my family.

  She wiggled within my hold, struggling to sit, but I supported her as she repositioned against her mattress. Holding Aideen in my arms, I could feel her heart pounding between our bodies.

  “I won’t let them keep you from me.” I turned, pulling her more tightly against me, hoping whatever burned between us could calm her for a moment. “They can’t.”

  “They’re trying to take you away. They’re taking my memories. They’re taking our memories.”

  “I’ll keep them, Aideen,” I persisted, my voice cracking with fear. “I’ll lock them away. I’ll keep them safe. I will do whatever I can. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “Don’t let them take it away,” she sobbed, struggling to breathe. “Please.”

  “I won’t, babby.” I kissed her, holding my lips against her forehead. “You have my word. I’ll do whatever I can to fix this.”

  Christ! I woke from the searing pain that radiated through my fist from punching the wall with wrath while I slept, like the failure I was, dreaming of the hospital. I remembered that night too well. Another failure. I let them take her from me, without even realizing that’s what they were doing. I closed my eyes, trying to hold on to the feeling of being with Aideen, just for a few more seconds, but the image slipped away too quickly. Keep them closed, keep remembering that moment, a week ago, all of it. Her.

  I didn’t know then, but I knew now. Someone wanted her gone, Liam gone, and enjoyed torturing me in the meantime. However, if it had been just about me, they would have erased my mind altogether. I would never have forgotten her. Just like she didn’t really forget me. It was much bigger than just one of us. It was bigger than Foley ordering a hit on Liam, someone damaging Aideen’s mind, and now me being wrongfully accused of…I can’t even think it.

  I couldn’t shake the dream, the weakness that overwhelmed me with the inability to keep her in that moment. I kept her, and they can bet their bastard lives I will always keep her. She knew more than I then, and I didn’t even know where she was now…or if she was…I punched the wall once more, crippling my fist with pain. I will not lose her.

  Standing from the corner, I started to pace the cell, demanding my thoughts to compose and think! It was deeper than Gordon Molloy and his damn reputation—he wouldn’t spare my life if I tarnished the family by murdering someone publicly associated with me, which was why I forced her into the press’s eye in the first place. I knew the public would love her, adore her from a distance, and want to know her like I did. He wouldn’t risk the attention and curiosity her death would bring our family. Would he? It was an election year, after all. I was fooling myself. My grandfather ordered my mother to be killed, and she gave birth to four Molloy children. Of course he is capable.

  Where was he? Too ashamed to visit his heir in prison? Bullshit. All of it was one concocted pile of crap! I was ready to shove my rights down the throat of anyone responsible for this disaster of a spectacle and slam my gun into their chests. Their game was keeping me from her, and they were going to lose—no matter the outcome. Stop. Stay five steps ahead. This is what they do, what I do. I understood the game, I was versed and educated in their torture…I also could predict the outcome, because I had always been on the other side, the one with the power.

  Think, Julian. My grandfather is likely sucking off a bottle of whiskey with his friend and…Liam. He and Regan left while they shackled me, and too casually for someone of our status. Regan held no inquiry of the men binding my wrists, no worry of Gordon Molloy’s likely perception…no mention of stabbing Liam. Five steps. Regan told me why I was arrested. He didn’t touch Liam. Nobody did. Nobody could with me out of the picture. Gordon needed an heir, even if it was the grandson he despised most of all. Why was Edward Regan even there, late at night, as though I desired his company? I clutched my throbbing fist while I paced, rattling through every possible connection and scenario I could fathom.

  Regan was given one job by my grandfather, and it was to monitor shipments coming into the harbor, ensuring they were hidden in the mob of refugees Gordon Molloy’s corrupt legislation ushered into Boston. Those poor souls, how I wanted to do more and secure their lives—they had no clue my grandfather was using their circumstance as a front to bring weapons in from Belfast. It sickened me, but my grief was scattered while I paced the confines of my cell. Guns went missing, coincidentally around the time the underworld lost track of Cedric Young. Our message of resistance and threat was sent to Regan when my grandfather and I traveled to Belfast months prior to kill the man playing both sides. There is more to this than guns, Julian.

  They wanted me to marry Noelle, an insurance on our family’s protection, and it fell into place while I considered her as protection. The women were just as much tokens in their game as the men: Noelle, Lucy, Maureen, Aideen. How beautifully their roles evolved, like figurines serving precisely the correct word or action just when needed to tip the scale in one direction. I refused to let my love be a pawn. Marrying Noelle was the only way, shy of killing Regan, Gordon Molloy thought he could secure a future on his golden shamrock of a throne.

  It's always been Edward Regan. Of course he had a part in this, probably advising my grandfather on how to drive away Aideen, how to isolate me for Noelle to pounce. How perfect it would have been for Noelle to produce an heir, my grandfather to die, and Edward Regan to hold the patriarchy. No. None of this reflection answered my questions about what Aideen told me in bed—her memory of the hospital, how close she came to death at the hand of someone associated with my underworld.

  More than guns. Underworld. Aideen. I tumbled into the corner once more, scratching my fingers along my scalp. I didn’t deserve the brief wave of pleasure it brought my nerves. Aideen. I was filthy, covered in days of neglected captivity, and the thought of wanting a bath, wanting Aideen, it
all took me back to her apartment. I killed Cedric, and it was invigorating. Protecting Aideen, ridding the world of one less glob of gutter slime, and days later I would kill Cedric’s cousin. All that remained was his brother. Oh my God. It wasn’t Malcolm who sent Cedric to Aideen’s apartment that night. He wasn’t intelligent enough to premeditate anything beyond taking a piss. It had to have been the same person who sent Elliott to my house, the same person responsible for the car bomb, the one now responsible for accusing me of her…don’t say it.

  “The princess is awake!” a man called, his voice floating with an obnoxious melody. I kept my head down, considering my thoughts on the verge of an epiphany. It was the same person. And did they order the electro-shock? Beads of sweat rolled along my hairline while the fury built inside of me.

  The man rattled the iron bars, but my attention remained on the floor. I heard the door open, accompanied by the vibrating echo of a steel bowl spinning to a stop on the floor.

  “Dinner.” I let my gaze lift over my knees to the rattling bowl, catching his attention. He kicked it to my feet and some of the slop splashed onto the floor near my feet. Dog food.

  “Perfect meal for a little bitch.” He chortled, making a grave mistake by turning his back to me while he tried to leave my cell. I was on my feet, quick to pull the collar of his shirt so he lost footing and stumbled further inside. My knuckles were white as I clutched his shirt with one hand and a fist in the other. It went into the air, out of my control, and collided with the back of his skull. He wobbled on his feet as he struggled to stand, and I swiftly kicked the back of his knees, sending him face forward into the bowl of mush. Kneeling at his side, considering only for one second what a terror I became in that box, I pressed his face into the food.

  “Who’s the little bitch now?” I inquired, my voice lethal and composed as I stepped away from him.

  “Molloy!” another man called as he approached my cell. “Watch yourself or you’ll be looking at additional charges.”

  “Bullshit,” I scoffed, watching the puppy stand from his dinner. I noticed his demeanor weaken in the presence of our newest companion, the original bastard who threatened me with my rights outside of my own damn home.

  “It won’t matter anyway,” he continued, entering the cell with us, “because we have the evidence we need to lock you away for life.” I’m going to live a life with Aideen, not in here, not at their will. With Aideen. I had no control over my lungs and heart. The fury consumed them as my chest lifted like a damn trampoline—high, high, higher. Who do I need to kill?

  “Where is she?” I snapped, staring at the man dressed in a suit. I didn’t miss how crisp it was, how clean, how…expensive. This shit is not a cop.

  “If you read this,” he mocked my intelligence by reading from a document in his hands, “then you’ll know he killed me. He killed Elliott with a gun, but he killed me with torture. The pain is too great. He drove me to this. If you find this letter, you’ll know Julian Molloy took my life.”

  I felt blood boil in my temples, responding to the tightness in my clenched jaw and breath held with force in my throat. I wanted to throw up. Cop or not, that bastard knew where she was. Was.

  “You see,” he sighed before crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway of my cell, “they let her go. It was just to get you alone, to fuck with you and let your world crumble, but it seems your precious angel couldn’t hold up to it all.”

  “Your brother,” his companion, face dripping with globs of mushed dog food, grunted, “he knew about it. Right, Dylan?”

  “Yes,” my arresting officer, now with a name I would eternally associate with a kill, acknowledged. He was smiling at me while I plotted his death. “The funniest part about it all is that you really did kill her. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Show me your proof.”

  “It’s right here,” he shoved the crumpled paper into my chest, “so read it and believe it.” No.

  “She wouldn’t do that,” I argued, letting the paper fall to the ground as I stepped back. “You’re out of your damn mind!”

  “We can show you more if you’d like,” Dylan’s partner suggested, pulling his phone from the inside pocket of his coat. “She looks good tied up, doesn’t she? Looked.”

  “Beautiful.” Dylan snickered, watching his partner display the phone inches from my face.

  “She’s not dead.” I willed it to be true. I couldn’t look at his phone, knowing I was responsible for whatever had been done to Aideen. She is alive. She is in bed, at home, waiting for me. I just need to get out of here. She is alive. She is a fighter; she is too damn stubborn. This is not happening. Where the hell is Liam?

  “Look, Molloy.” I did. Weak, horrible, and hoping it to be a lie, I let my gaze lift to the screen. I want to die. My beautiful girl, my angel, my only love. The knots around her wrists were professional. Her dark, bruised wrists. Her skin was incredibly soft, delicate like the petal of a poppy, and had darkened with their abuse. Aideen’s legs lay limply in their bondage, as though her fight left with each breath. No. It isn’t true. It isn’t real. She is alive.

  “That was just a few hours before they let her go. She had a chance, but it was knowing you that drove her to finally do it. Word on the street is your brother told her to. After he had his way with her, of course. Quite the reputation he has. I can’t say I’m not jealous.” Dylan roared, taking the phone from his companion’s hand. Both men started to retreat, and I watched silently. While I focused on their slow exit, I studied their attire in my periphery. Dylan had two guns—one on his hip and one attached to his ankle, the outline evident with his cuff clinging to his calf. Dog Food had a knife—I recognized the outline in his pants pocket. Two guns and one knife versus me, with a broken heart fueled by the rage and reckoning demanded from Aideen’s absence.

  I stormed them, neither anticipating my action, and slugged both in their faces before my knees met their groins. Dog Food fell to the floor in agony, clutching his abdomen, while Dylan’s hands reached for my throat. I let him try to strangle me, staying ahead of his game, and lifted my shoulders to squeeze his slimy palms against my throat, twisting out of his hold before kicking him in the face. Both men were bleeding, but my vision already oozed crimson. She has to be alive.

  Chapter Eight

  I was losing my mind, but I couldn’t show them. I couldn’t let them know how I crumbled within. She had a chance. Dylan’s words tortured me. I paced the cell, my fists and feet bruised from trying to pry my way free. I didn’t lose track of the sunsets, their mockery a punishment of each night I hadn’t consumed my love within my arms.

  The crumpled paper they accused of being Aideen’s suicide note lingered in the corner opposite the small window, where I stood watching the setting sun’s amber glow. She would never fucking do that. Never. I rubbed my eyes until my vision disappeared. I couldn’t watch another sun die while Aideen was somewhere hurting, violated. I’m ready to kill.

  I kicked the wall until my toes bled, the cool tickle of drying blood snapping me from my haze. It pooled around me, and I reveled in it. I deserved it. I deserved whatever the heavens promised as my punishment for letting go. Punishment. I glanced at the paper they used to intimidate, guilty with morbid curiosity and longing to connect with her in any way. I went to pick up the letter, the creases sharp and cursive a swooping map of black and pain.

  I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t even fucking open it. I hurled on the floor at my feet, bile and saliva all that my stomach contained. The sound of my roaring voice swarmed the cell, echoing from each surface before once more vibrating inside of me. I did this to her, and they are going to pay. The letter crumpled in my grasp as I imagined the intricate and painful way I would end the lives of everyone responsible for hurting her. Whether they looked at her, touched her, spoke to her—they were done.

  I slowly rolled my eyes up, not caring enough to lift my head toward the sound of footsteps approaching my cell. I thought I finally lost m
y mind, after everything I went through and continued to fight, when I observed him standing three feet from the cage…in a suit and tie.

  “You.”

  “Listen to me,” Liam pleaded, his voice urgent. “Before you assume I had any role—”

  It was the first I saw of his cocky self since leaving home with Aideen, the smug bastard decked in a goddamned suit while I rotted behind bars. I stormed the iron bars, rattling them in my rage as I reached through to strangle Liam. He anticipated it, already standing just out of my reach, but I continued trying to grasp anything of his.

  “You let her die, Liam. You took her from me. You helped them! You killed her. It’s her blood on your hands now, just as much as it is theirs!”

  “Her blood might be on my hands, Julian.” Liam paced, his arms crossed and head down before continuing. “But that’s because I wiped it away after they hurt her. I would never kill Ai—do you even…who told you she’s dead?”

  Who told me? As in, that’s the truth? The wave of fire that seared my soul, rolling over my body with force to kill, took me to the ground. The iron bars vibrated in my hands, their bolts shifting beneath my fury. I only saw red, deep and vengeful.

  “Tell me,” Liam pressed. I saw him squat in my periphery, unsure if he was demonstrating compassion or curiosity.

  “You haven’t told me otherwise,” I seethed, unfolding my clenched fists and watching the letter wiggle in my opened palm. It rested in a ball against my filthy skin and, for a moment, I wished it weren’t true. I never wanted to be someone else more. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be Liam. I wanted to not care, to fuck whoever walked, to not give a shit about consequences or anyone. I wanted to not have a heart, to never know love. I wanted to wipe away the blood. I want to touch her skin, to hold her, to kiss her. I want to feel myself fall apart inside of her as she kills me with her touch alone. I want to be destroyed by Aideen. There was nothing I wanted more.