Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Seamus hunches his shoulders. He stares at his coffee, not drinking it, not looking around. A new fight starts in the ring, a sparring session between a couple of the cousins, neither of them very good.
“You’re really not trying to replace us?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Is that what Cormac’s saying?”
“I guess so. Something like that.”
“No, Seamus, not even a little bit. This is my family. You’re all my blood. I’m just trying to make us stronger, that’s all.”
Seamus shifts in his chair. “People are talking, you know? They’re used to the way things were before your father died, God rest his soul, and they’re not sure they like the way things are now. Valentina, she seems okay, but she represents all the change they don’t like, you know what I mean?”
I lean back and can’t believe Seamus is capable of a subtle analysis like that, but maybe I’ve been underestimating him for too long.
“We’ll have to get past it. This family is either going to move forward or rip itself into pieces, and you know what I want.”
“I want to move forward too,” Seamus says, gripping his cup. “I wouldn’t have said that shit to her, you know. I shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t have. And you can’t ever do it again.”
“You care about her? Like you two are together?”
“I don’t know what we are, but all that matters is nobody can insult her when she’s a part of our organization.”
“All right. I can handle that.” Seamus finishes his coffee and manages a grin. “My fucking kidneys are going to hurt all goddamn day now.”
“Same with my jaw.” I rub my face and grin back. “Niall said the fight was a bad idea, but I don’t know. It was kind of fun.”
“Hell, yeah, it was.”
As Seamus walks off to rejoin his friends, I turn back to the bar and stare at the bottles. Niall joins me and quietly cleans up Seamus’s mug.
“How’d that go?” he asks.
“We’re good for now, but I need a win. A major fucking win.”
“Where’s that going to come from?”
I don’t answer, because I don’t know, not yet at least. But I’ll think of something.
Chapter 33
Valentina
The house feels empty and exhausted without Ronan around. He got up early and left before I could talk to him, and now I feel like I’m making a stupid mistake.
I procrastinate, put it off, but eventually I pack a bag. I take only the necessities, a few days’ worth of clothes, toiletries, that sort of stuff. There’s no way I can go back to my apartment, but I have some savings from the payments Ronan’s been making into my account, and I should be able to afford a cheap hotel for a while, at least until things settle down.
This is for the best. Ronan needs space to work out his family problems, and I need to really think about what I want from the future. I have Rocco and his business now, and I have the income from the chop shop, and if I keep going, I’ll only embed myself deeper into the Hayes family structure.
I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.
I head downstairs around ten that morning, feeling like I didn’t sleep at all the night before. I got too used to being in Ronan’s bed, to feeling his arms against me in the middle of the night, to his mouth and his tongue and his muscular chest. To the steady rhythms of his heart. To his smell and his laugh.
It’s better this way. Clean break, cut ties, move on.
I head to the door and open it. As I step out, lugging my bag behind me, a car door closes in the street directly across from the porch.
For a split second, I’m terrified it’s Julien, here to end the dispute.
Instead, Ronan’s cousin Cormac stares at me from the sidewalk.
He’s a decent-looking guy. Younger than Ronan, with dark hair and light blue eyes, a square jaw covered in stubble, and simple but expensive clothes. He comes closer and I fight back against the panic rising up in my chest.
“I thought you might be here, but I wasn’t sure.” He stares from me to my bag and back again. “Going somewhere?”
I don’t know what to say. If I admit I’m leaving, that implies I’ve been staying here. But if I deny it, that’s just as bad.
“I’m going to a hotel,” I tell him, deciding on the truth. There are no good options here, and at least this way is simple.
“You two have a falling out?” He sounds almost sympathetic.
“What the hell do you care? Why are you even here?”
He raises his eyebrows and looks amused. “I didn’t know you were a part of our family. For all you know, I stop by all the time.”
“I have a feeling that’s not true.”