by Megyn Ward
“Oh…” I nod and smile, the stretch of it cold and thin across my mouth. “That’s great. I was just getting ready to order some room service, do you want—”
“No thanks,” he says, tipping his head at the weekender I dropped next to the elevator. “Where’re you going?”
“London,” I tell him with a shaky smile, remembering the flight plan registered in my name. “I just need to get out of here for a while, you know?”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat, bobbing his head like he understands the sentiment. “You and the security guard?” His tone goes hard. Hateful. “What’s his name again?”
“Gray,” I tell him, taking a small shifting step backward. “His name is Gray.” There’s a set of emergency stairs in the kitchen that lead to the roof. If I can just get—
“Gray…Bright.” His mouth contorts into a sneer when he says it, the sound of it twisted and ugly. “Another rich badboy… I guess it’s safe to say you have a type, huh?”
There’s no denying it. He was standing right there when I told his sister that I’m in love with Gray. He heard the truth from my own mouth. “Gray isn’t like that, Jordy,” I tell him gently. “He’s different. He—”
“No—I’m different,” he cuts me off, taking another step toward me. This time I can’t help but counter the move but he barely seems to notice. “You know, after you broke it off with Nik, I thought I had a shot. I thought maybe you’d finally notice me—I sent you flowers. Gave you gifts.”
“Those weren’t gifts, Jordy,” I tell him, my stomach clenching painfully. “What was in those boxes was sick. You’re sick. You need help. You need—”
“I’m not sick.” He shouts it at me, the force and volume of it loud enough to drive him forward again and I take another step back. “I’m love with you, Delilah—I’m in love with you and I’m tired of you ignoring me…” Something dark and dirty crawls across his features. Something that renders him unrecognizable and my gut clenches again at the sight of it. “I gave you those gifts so you could see—so you’d know how perfect it could be between us.”
“Okay...” I nod, following my instincts. Trying to keep him as calm as possible. “I see now. I understand, Jordy.” Holding my hands out, I force a smile onto my face. “You’re right… we belong together.”
“You don’t really believe that.” Jordy sighs and shakes his head sadly while he reaches behind him, a gun suddenly appearing in his hand. “You don’t really believe that… but you will.”
FORTY-FOUR
Delilah
AS SOON AS I SEE THE GUN, I SPIN ON MY HEEL, my brain issuing an order and driven by instincts again, I follow it.
Run.
“Stop,” Jordy shouts but I don’t. I can’t. I’m less than a handful of steps away, somewhere between the living room and dining room when the gun barks out a shot, the loud report of it echoing around the room a second before the bullet sizzles past me to slam into the wall, just inches from my head.
I still don’t stop.
Instead, I dodge to the left, stumbling through the swinging door, into the kitchen. The freshly polished floor is slick under my feet and I slide across it, aiming myself for the emergency exit tucked into the butler’s pantry, reaching for and throwing anything I can find into the path behind me on my way there.
Because he’s coming after me.
Spotting the knife block, on the counter next to the door, I wrap my hand around the handle of a knife and yank it free.
I can hear him behind me, crunching over broken glass, his breath sawing through is lungs, pushed by anger and exertion. “Why’d ya make me do that, huh?” he bellows, just steps behind me. “Why can’t you just be good and listen to me?”
Trying not to think about how close he is, I wrestle the door open, taking the knife with me.
“Delilah—”
Gray.
Instead of relief, hearing him call my name fills me with terror. “Don’t come in here,” I scream back. “Don’t—he has a gun. Just stay away.” Intent on leading Jordy as far away from Gray as I can, I race up the dark, narrow set of stairs leading to the roof. Bursting through another door, I’m stumbling again, this time across the loose gravel that covers the roof, aiming myself for the fire escape, my only plan to put as much distance between Jordy and Gray as possible. To lead him away, even if it means hurting myself in the process.
The door behind me flies open. The heavy crunch of gravel chases me across the roof.
“Stop,” Jordy screams at me again, this time following it up with a threat that stops me in my tracks. “I’ll kill him—if you don’t stop running, I’ll fucking kill him.”
Turning, I feel my heart ricochet around my ribcage before lodging itself in my throat. Jordy is right behind me, less than ten feet away but the barrel of his gun isn’t pointed at me. It's pointed at Gray, who’s just burst through the door.
FORTY-FIVE
Grayson
I HEARD HIM SCREAMING AT HER TO STOP JUST AS the elevator door slid open, his command followed by the report of a single gunshot and I was instantly catapulted backward in time, remembering the single gunshot that ripped through my sister’s face when she charged the man who took my finger.
It sounded exactly the same.
No.
Not again.
Not this time.
Barreling through the opening, I catch a flash of pale blonde hair. Another flash of a figure in dark clothing in pursuit, a second before I hear the crash of glass and the clatter of chairs being thrown in the kitchen. Jordy shouting, why’d ya make me do that? Screaming at her to just be good and listen.
I shout her name, unable to stop the sound of it from racing up my throat because I want her to know that I’m here. That I didn’t just leave her. That it’s going to be okay, even though I’m pretty sure it isn’t.
“Don’t come in here she screams back. Don’t—he has a gun. Just stay away.
She’s trying to protect me.
Delilah is trying to protect me.
Whatever she’s doing, whatever is happening, she’s trying to keep me out of it.
Trying to save me.
When I make it to the kitchen, the place is destroyed. Guts twisting painfully, I follow the trail of destruction into the pantry. In the pantry, there’s another door—this one opens onto narrow staircase that leads up and I hear Jordy shouting at her to stop again, even as I’m charging forward, a runaway train, and I burst through the door and onto the roof even as I hear him shout, I’ll kill him—if you don’t stop running, I’ll fucking kill him.
Jordy is there, planted between Delilah and me—his gun aimed squarely at my chest.
As soon as he says it, Delilah stops on a dime and turns, her face pale, blue eyes yanked wide but she’s not afraid for herself. Doesn’t even register the threat Jordy represents to her. All she can see is me. What will happen to me if she doesn’t do exactly what he says.
“Run,” I tell her, chest heaving, gaze glued to her face. “Right now, Delilah—run.”
“Shut up,” Jordy screams at me, jabbing at the space between us with the barrel of the gun, his attention focused on me because I’m the threat. I’m the thing he wants to kill. “Don’t do it, Delilah—if you do, I’ll shoot him. I’ll fucking shoot him and then—”
“Okay, Jordy…” Her tone is suddenly calm. Steady, her gaze glued to my face like she’s memorizing the shape of it. Like she’s never going to see me again. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?” She flicks a quick look at him before she takes a careful, quick step in his direction, the movement revealing the flash of metal in her grip.
A knife.
Delilah has a knife, the blade of it tucked close to her leg. The sight of it, coupled with the realization of what she plans on doing with it stalls the air in my lungs.
Not again.
This can’t happen again.
“No…” I shake my head at her, suddenly dizzy. “Don’t do it,
Delilah—please don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Jordy screams at me, jabbing his gun at me again. “You don’t fucking talk to her. You don’t even fucking look at her—she’s mine. Do you hear me? She’s mine.”
While he’s raging, Delilah takes another, careful, deliberate step in his direction. “Maybe we could just let him go. He doesn’t belong here. Just—”
“Let him go?” Jordy scoffs, his glare narrowing hatefully on my face. “We can’t just let him go—he’ll tell. He’ll try to get you back.” His mouth twists into another nasty sneer. “Why couldn’t you just stay in your place?” he asks me. “Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?”
“Because my place is with her,” I tell him, taking a bold step in his direction. “Because she’s not yours. She’s mine—I love her and she loves me and you’re nobody to her… but you know that don’t you? You know that. That’s why you had to drug her Friday night—because you knew she wouldn’t leave with you any other way. Because you knew she was with me.”
“I tried to get you a drink all night but you kept saying no,” he tells her without looking her direction. “I had some GHB—not a lot. I was just going to give you a little. To make you listen to me. Keep you still for a while, so I could I explain myself. Make you understand… but then Nik was there and then you followed him—” Another jab of the gun while Delilah takes another, slow deliberate step in his direction, the knife tucked against her leg revealing itself with every step. “When I saw the two of you come out of the stairwell, I knew it couldn’t be just a little. That it had to be a lot. That I had to make you forget all about him. Mike was there and I knew he had Kshots… I was going to take you back to the hotel so we could be together but this dickhead—” Another jab. Another step. “Was up your ass and I knew he wouldn’t just let us leave, so—”
“So you started the fire in the champagne bucket, the way you did last year, and called Rivers on her phone to bring the car around but he was gone—” I take another step toward him and Delilah whispers something, too softly for either of us to hear because we’re focused on each other now—Jordy and me—and it’s not going to be over until one of us is dead. “You didn’t know that she sent him to take one of the club dancers home and with Rivers gone, you didn’t have a getaway car anymore.”
“You should’ve let us go,” he tells me, his hand tightening around the grip of the gun. “You should’ve just let me have her.”
“That was never going to fucking happen,” I tell him, shoulders tense, hip dropped back. “I already told you, she’s mine. She’s always been mine and you never stood a fucking—”
Delilah lunges forward, knife raised and aimed at the back of Jordy’s neck, not close enough for a clean strike but she knows what I’m doing—that I’m trying to incite him enough to shoot me to give her enough time to close the gap—and her shoes slip in the loose rooftop gravel. Hearing her, Jordy swings the barrel of the gun in her direction and pulls the trigger, the sound of it flat and muffled against the blood that’s rushing though me, beating against my eardrums as I throw myself between them and Delilah screams, the knife clattering into the rocks a breath before it slices through me.
I barely register it. Barely understand what’s happening as the bullet rips through me. The knife slicing through the air bare inches from my face. I tackle Jordy to the ground and we go down hard, seconds before and the door is kicked in and the rooftop is flooded with cops.
PROLGUE
Delilah
ROCKING H RANCH
JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING
SIX WEEKS LATER
THE LAST SIX WEEKS HAVE BEEN THE HAPPIEST AND hardest of my entire life.
Rivers called the police after Gray bolted from the car, alerting them that something was happening in my hotel suite and that I needed help. I hate to think of what might’ve happened if they hadn’t been there. What I might’ve lost if things had gone differently.
The next few days after Jordy’s arrest were filled with police interviews and a media circus that not even I was prepared for. Conner Gilroy was there through it all, acting as our lawyer while we weathered the storm in Gray’s Bowery apartment because my suite at the Hawthorne was considered a crime scene. Not that I care—I’ll never step foot in that place again. It’s not my home.
It never was.
Jordy confessed to killing the bartender and planting the pictures and video of me in his apartment, as well as forging the suicide note, his reasons clear if not completely batshit crazy—if Delilah thought he was the one who tried to kidnap her then she and I could start over. She’d give me another chance.
Like I said—complete batshit.
After Conner extricated us from the legal process following Jordy’s arrest, Gray suggested we stick to the plan and leave for Wyoming.
“You were shot,” I reminded him, getting dizzy at the mere thought of it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It was just a graze, Delilah,” he said, giving me a bit of a smile. “A few stitches and I’m good a new—” The smile on his face turning wicked. “Would you like me to prove it?”
He did prove it.
Several times as a matter of fact.
Three times on the plane to Wyoming.
We’ve been here ever since and while neither of us have been in any particular hurry to rush home, I’m suddenly faced with the reality that we’ll have to go back, sooner rather than later.
Wondering in the kitchen, I find Gray where I usually find him in the mornings, standing at the kitchen window, looking ridiculously hot in nothing but a pair of gray sweats and the new-formed six-inch scar cut across his ribcage, a slow, sexy smile spreading across his face when he catches sight of my reflection in the window. “Morning,” he says, setting his mug on the counter to reach for an empty cup so he can pour me a cup. “I was just thinking maybe we could take a trip to the stream we found while riding through F6 last week. Maybe—”
“I think we need to go home,” I tell him from the doorway. “To Boston. I think—”
“I thought we agreed to stay a few more weeks,” he says carefully, slowing the pour into my cup before sliding the carafe back into its spot under the machine. He thinking I’m bored here. That I miss New York. My old life. “At least until Con and Henley swing through on their honeymoon tour—”
“I’m pregnant.”
Gray goes completely still and looks up from my coffee mug to stare at me, slack jawed. “What?”
“Shit…” I rush forward, shaking my head because I’ve been standing in the bathroom, practicing my delivery for the past fifteen minutes and that didn’t come out at all like I planned. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for,” I tell him, determined to hit the highlights. “And I’m sure you have some reservations about me as a mother, because I sure as hell do, and I—I know I told you I was on birth control but with everything that happened I must’ve forgot to take—”
“You’re pregnant.”
The way he says it stalls the air in my lungs and I nod. “I’m so—”
“Don’t you dare,” he warns, reaching for me. Pulling me into his arms. His hands in my hair, framing my face while he smiles down at me, the look of heartrending tenderness on his face at complete odd with the rough growl of his tone. “We’ve already been through this. Don’t you dare apologize to me—not about something like this.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“No…” He shakes his head at me, a slow smile spreads across his face, so bright, it’s like looking into the sun. “I’m not mad at you—I’m in love with you and I’m not going anywhere.” Holding my face framed in his hands, Gray lowers his mouth to mine and kisses me softly—all worship. No curse. “And for the record, Ms. Fiorella, I think you’re going to be a kickass mom.”
THE END
Keep reading for a sneak peek at THE McKINNON WAY, the first book in my new romantic suspense series, set in the Gilroy Clan universe….
Te
ll the truth.
Don’t break the law.
Take care of your own.
Sounds simple enough, but when you’re a living, breathing lie detector, your uncle is a disgraced ex-cop, your mother owes $100,000 to the local mob boss—the same local mob boss your ex-boyfriend happens to work for—and your father is only a distant memory, following one rule usually means breaking the rest.
For most McKinnons, breaking the rules ends in disaster.
For Maeve McKinnon, it usually ends with someone wrapped in a plastic tarp and dumped in the Dorchester.
RULE 1
TELL THE TRUTH.
1
“Omission is the most powerful form of lie.”
~George Orwell~
THAD JACOBS WALKED INTO the Black Irish at 10:39:16PM. Watching him move across the bar, Maeve knew exactly what time it was, right down to the second. She always knew what time it was and she never had to set an alarm. Sometimes it was useful but most of the time it was feckin’ annoying. Right now was one of those times.
“What’s he doing here?”
She looked up and over to find her Uncle Dan standing beside her, working the taps while he watched Thad cruise the bar, weaving himself through a mixed crowd of Saturday night regulars and brave tourists, looking for a bit of South Boston color. Walking ahead of him was Quinn Murphy, bouncing from table to table, back-slapping and glad-handing his way to his usual booth.
“It’s Saturday night—I suppose he’s here to murder a few pints and throw some darts,” she said, watching
Thad as he slid into the booth behind Quinn. It was his job to follow
Quinn. Looking at him, you’d see an eager smile and agreeable nature. Reddish brown hair and toffee-colored eyes. Pale skin and a whip thin build that made him look almost frail. Like he needed someone bigger and stronger to fight his battles, which was a wrong way of thinking. Thad’s job wasn’t to protect Quinn. Thad’s job was to keep him from beating someone to death with a pool cue between pints.
