Scrubbing a hand over his irate face, he replies, “Your coy ways always made me crawl back for more. Here I am, a married man, and I’d throw it all away for you.”
An incredulous look crosses my face. I’m crying overhisown flesh and blood, and he dares change the subject. I came here for answers and to watch the light fade from his eyes.
My tone is steely, fed up. “We’redone here. You mastered the art of taunting. But you can’t take what you dish out, I see.”
More light washes into his gaze, the illumination of foresight.
Adnan’s flung off his high horse. The closest thing to sorrow blanches his skin. “Av—”
“Hmmm, you dare to look a tad apologetic? Is that on Arika’s behalf or your own?” I spit the rhetorical with no anticipation of awaiting his response. My finger almost brushes over the safety when the doors swoop open.
White men in suits waltz inside, Glocks in hand.
Oye, Ava. Red-handed.
“Finally. Get her!” Furious spittle flies between my ex’s clenched teeth. “Take her away! I’m pressing charges to the fullest ext—”
“Shut up!” One of them grits, the Irish brogue kickstarts my stalled heart. Another removes the gun from my hand. The men search the room briefly. The first man lifts his wrist to his mouth. “All clear.”
I light up at the sight of Kieran McFarland as he swaggers in slowly. He epitomizes power in a rich, dark red suit. After all these months apart, his hair’s unkempt chaos rests at his shoulders like it had when we first met. The doors swoosh closed behind him.
“We are not security. Neither are we the law.” The man who spoke first gestures to a few chairs. “Buthehas authority over thetwo of younow.”
We’re stunned, catatonic.
“If I have to help you to a seat, there will be more blood.Morethan my boss has requested.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “Kier—” A henchman closer to me firmly places a piece of duct tape over my mouth before I can finish his name.
“No, sweetheart,” Kieran says.
Two others retrieve yet another chair, a low seated, cushiony leather chair for Kieran.
Oye! This is bad, real bad!The second I realize I’m fucked, Kieran casts a glance in my direction. A fathomless grief darkens his obsidian gaze. Raw anguish radiates from him. My stomach lurches. How could the man who gave me everything look straight through me?Ouch!A tempest of emotions rolls through me at how all my life I’ve taken one step forward only to be pushed two steps back. Today is no exception.
In an out-of-body experience, I see a man clasp my shoulder, shoving me onto the loveseat next to Adnan, who’s arguing for the henchmen tounhand himin a stately voice. Like I’m in a dream, I’m staring at Kieran again. However, the look on his face . . . I’d need stitches after the faintest touch of his jaw.
I don’t recognize any of the men. They all look vicious, though they respectably stare me in the eye. All but Kieran. He doesn’t see me any longer. The once noble Kieran I knew would’ve become a protective shield to my naked body by now. I feel every bit the nothing my ex-husband painted me in court through Kieran’s hollow gaze.
47
Kieran
Ilook ather. Reallyfeckinglook at her. I’m shoving oxygen down my own throat through a snarled growl to keep myself from going to her—from killing her. And from killing Tom for completing the order of gagging the lassie. I thought it would have broken me to find Ava happy and living her life. But here I stand. I thought we’d been made for each other. The day I met my little bird, she was broken. I was broken. It was fate, but now I know better.
When Leith tracked Kiera's cellphone to an apartment building earlier today, Ava hadn't moved locations. She hadn’t gone anywhere until visiting this hotel. Now, I've found Ava, and every curve and valley the Lord blessed her with is on show for thisarseholeex-husband of hers. I could kill her a hunner times over.
Don’t listen to a single word she says. No looking in her eyes. The bitch stole your heart, Kier.
Steepling my fingers, I watch as my men gag Adnan. The five men step back, awaiting my next order.
“I told myselfwhat will be, will be,” I begin, pausing to wriggle my tender jaw. “My aunt Nan—you never met her, Ava. You would’ve loved her. Nan can create a cessation between a thousand quarreling men, no, a thousand opposing clans with that one concept.”
I’m here to retrieve my heart, but I find myself running my mouth like a nugget.
“I saw you, and I told myself to let you go. What will be,will bloodyfeckingbe, aye?”
Ava whimpers. I glare around the lavish room, the shinyshite. I could’ve given her better than this. Much better.