Sully pushes my face back an inch and searches my gaze. “What’s wrong, Lainey?”
“Nothing. Everything. I think my adrenaline is crashing.” I swallow the sob that threatens to break free as tears roll down my cheeks and fall onto Sully’s chest.
“Shh, shh. It’s alright, princess. We’re alright.” He pushes some of my wet hair off my face, leaving his hand on my cheek. I lean my head into his hand, grateful that he’s still here. “We’re not safe here, though. We have to move, yeah?”
I nod and press my lips to his once more before I crawl backward off of him and offer him a hand to stand up.
A slow clap starts from somewhere close by, and both of our heads turn toward the noise. My head protests the quick movement as stars dance behind my eyes and nausea bubbles up my throat.
The clapping gets louder as it picks up speed. I search the area around us, but the moon has gone behind some clouds as the rain lightens to a drizzle.
Out of nowhere, four men in black hoodies step onto the pebble beach, two on either side of us.
“James, look out!” I yell, but I’m not quick enough. One of the guys grabs him with an elbow around the neck and slams a cloth over his nose and mouth. He struggles and lands a few punches, but he’s no match against whatever chemicals they used.
“Good. You’re alive. Take them to my warehouse.”
It’s the last thing I hear before one of the guys behind me places a similar cloth over my nose and face. I don’t have a fighting chance, and I’m out in seconds.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sully
I open my eyes with a groan. It feels like I just went ten rounds in the ring.
“James? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Lainey’s panicked voice instantly spikes my own anxiety.
I crack an eyelid open, immediately closing it against the harsh light aimed at us. I wet my lips and open my eyes again. It’s a little easier to see this time. “Lainey? You good?” A gash by her hairline is bleeding pretty steadily, and I notice a few more cuts and scrapes along her body, but she seems mostly okay. We’re both secured to metal chairs in the middle of a warehouse, I guess.
“I’ll be fine. I—I don’t know where we are though. Some kind of warehouse, I think.”
“It’s alright. We’ll figure it out together, yeah?”
She looks at me with her big whiskey eyes, and I know that she believes me wholeheartedly. And because of that, I make a promise to the fucking universe that I’ll deliver on it. No matter what.
Another slow clap starts, and I squint my eyes against the spotlight to view the shadowed frame of a man walking toward us.
He steps closer to us, on the other side of the light, and suddenly, I can see his face.
His very fucking familiar face.
I laugh. I can’t help it. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I believe you were at my house tonight, Sully.”
“This weaselly little punk is the mastermind behind all this? You’re Aeron Briggsby?” My eyes widen as some of the pieces fall into place.
Benny pulls his gun out and points it at Alaina’s head. My heart leaps into my throat at the gesture, but pride oozes into my veins at the brave face my girl has. She tips her head back and looks Benny right in his manic gaze with a small smile.
“What the fuck are you smiling for, bitch?” He brings the gun down against the side of her head, and her head snaps to the right with a deafening crack.
Rage boils in my gut, and I feel like I’m coming unhinged. My muscles grow tight, and I flex against the zip ties holding my hands to the back of the metal chair I’m sitting in.
Apparently, he considered me more of a threat than my girl, because her hands are tied with some sort of skinny rope to her chair.
Ultimately, that will be his downfall. He’s underestimated our girl, and she fucking loves a good challenge. Even now, as she slowly brings her head back to face him with blood trickling down her forehead, her fingers are busy twisting and turning the rope. I have no idea if she knows what she’s doing or if she’s just hoping she gets lucky.
But if there’s one fucking thing in this life I believe in, it’s her. She’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever met.
And I need to buy her enough time to work herself out of those knots.
“You know, I’m not even that surprised that you’re obsessed with my girl. I mean, I get it, man. She’s a fucking ten in a world of fives. But there are other ways to get a girl’s attention than kidnapping.” I force my tone to stay conversational, so he keeps his eyes—and his fucking hands—off her while she works.
It works, and Benny swings his crazy-eyed gaze toward me. He scratches his cheek with the end of the gun as he walks two steps, so he’s in front of me, head tilting to the side. “You think I’m obsessed with her?”
I hold his gaze. “Aye. I think anyone who takes as many photos as you did with a telephoto lens has an obsession.”
Benny laughs, the sound crazy and manic. “I’m not obsessed with her.” He sneers at me, throwing his arm—the one with the gun—in Lainey’s direction. “You can’t be obsessed with something that already belongs to you.”
I see Lainey stiffen out of the corner of my eye, but I keep my gaze on the asshole with the gun. “I don’t follow.”
Benny sighs, then makes a big production about pulling over another metal chair. He drags it across the concrete floor, the noise cutting through the stale air with a screech. He situates the chair and sits down with a huff.
“Alaina Gallagher. The lost princess of Gallagher Industries.” He sneers at me. “She was promised to me—”
“By who?” I interrupt him, risking his ire. He’s not walking out of here alive, and I’m not above pumping him for information in his final moments.
He jumps to his feet and backhands Alaina, keeping the gun trained on me the entire time. I grit my teeth and swallow all the rage threatening to explode.
“Don’t fucking interrupt me again.” He sits back down and stares at me for a moment. When I don’t say anything else, he nods. “Now, as I was saying. Alaina Gallagher was promised to me by my mother. Her name was Bethany Briggsby. And she had an affair with Conan Gallagher.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. Conan Gallagher is his da? Alaina’s grandda?
“Good. I see you recognize the name.” He stands in one quick movement and paces in front of us with his eyes on the ground in front of him. After a minute of silence, he stops abruptly and turns to face me. “Did you know that Aeron was the goddess of war?”
I raise my eyebrows at his sudden change in topic. He doesn’t wait for an answer from me.
“‘Course Ma thought she was having a girl at first. She told me that, ya know, said some fortune teller foretold some formidable ruler. Ha!” He barks the noise, less a laugh and more the beginning of a mental breakdown. “Aeron means strength too, but Ma—Ma couldn’t get past the Welsh meaning. She set her sights on Gallagher Industries.”
Benny spins to face Alaina, eyes wild. “I met you once. Do you remember that?”
“No, I don’t remember ever meeting you.” Her voice is strong despite the swelling around her eye and the blood dripping down the side of her face.
Trepidation slithers inside me as I watch the exchange. The stale air. Something in the air shifts, and the hair on the back of my neck rises.
Benny rounds on her, bending down so he’s eye-level. “Stop lying, Alaina! You remember it. I know you do! Ma said you’d always remember me!” Spittle flies from his mouth, landing on her face. But my girl is strong, so much stronger than I ever thought, and she doesn’t so much as flinch.
She looks him in the eye. “I’ve never met you before last year at O’Malley’s.”
Something about what she said flips Benny’s switch, and he lunges at her, wrapping his hand around her neck. Fear pounds against my skin, and I can’t still the struggle that surges through my veins. I have to
protect her. I have to.
“Hey! Get your fucking hands off of her before I—”
He raises the gun and points it at me. “You, what?” He moves the gun so it’s against Alaina’s temple. “Hmm? What’re you going to do, Sully?”
“You’re hurting me, Aeron.” Alaina’s voice is thin.
“Don’t call me that!” He squeezes her neck before letting go. He steps back from her, smoothing his hair away from his face and shaking his head like he’s resetting himself. “I’m Benny, your friend.”
Lainey nods, never taking her eyes off of him. “Okay, Benny. Tell me about the first time we met then.”
Good girl, play into his delusions to buy us time.
He widens his mouth in a twisted semblance of a smile. “I was ten and you were five. Ma brought me to the Gallagher family picnic, and before we got kicked out, she pointed you out to me. You were wearing a yellow sundress with pigtails. You were nice to me, so I decided that I was going to keep you.” He stares off to the side, his eyes unfocused and his smile almost wistful. “But then Ma started yelling at my da, and I didn’t have time to take you with us. I had to make sure you remembered me though, to make sure that you knew I’d come back for you one day.”
Chills skate down my spine as I realize the ramifications of what he’s saying. And I’m not sure if I was more afraid in a sinking car or tied up in an empty building with my girl and her psychotic uncle who thinks she’s meant to be with him.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alaina
My whole body stills for a moment. Then a lightbulb goes off, and a long-buried memory flashes before my eyes.
“Hey, can I play with you?” a little boy asks me from the drawbridge behind me. He’s older than me with shaggy dark-blond hair and dark-brown eyes. He’s wearing a baseball shirt, shorts, and red tennis shoes. The longer I look at him, the more my tummy hurts. “Well, can I?”
I bite my lip as I look from him to my parents. They’re talking to my grandparents. I don’t really know them well, but daddy told me to be on my best behavior, and mommy told me I should always be polite. I look back at the boy and shrug a shoulder. “Alright.”
“Great. We’re going to be best friends, Alaina Gallagher,” the boy says with a smile.
“My cousins are my best friends. And I don’t even know your name.” I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but Mary and Maddie are my best friends.
He opens his mouth, but before he says anything, a woman starts yelling. She waves her arms in the air before she picks up a plate of food and launches it at my grandparents. A gasp leaves me when I see mommy wipe something from her shirt. Oh no, she is going to be so mad about that.
“Bucky! Bucky, it’s go-time, buddy! Just like we talked about!” the woman yells as she runs toward the playground, arms in the air, hair flying behind her.
I jump and step back, my gaze flying to my daddy. Daddy always protects me.
“I’ll be back for you.” I feel two hands on my shoulders, and before I know it, I’m flying through the air. The ground rushes up to greet me, and I scream.
“It was you.” I lift my head to look at the man in front of me with new eyes. “You pushed me off the top of the slide. I broke my arm that day, and I never went back to see my dad’s family again.”
Benny’s face lights up. “I knew you’d remember.”
I nod slowly, feeling faint, like my face drained of color. “Why did she call you Bucky?”
“Don’t,” Benny grits the word out, stepping into my space. “That was a nickname my ma gave me. That’s not a name for you.”
I will my hands to keep their exploration of the rope behind my back. I feel like I’m close to getting out. I glance around the warehouse we’re in, hoping for a flash of my other two men. Frustration pounds at my skin when I don’t see anything. Just the same empty space surrounds us.
“I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, Alaina Murphy Gallagher. Now we don’t have to wait for the loophole. Once we’re married, your shares will automatically shift to me, so no one can challenge my paternity.” The shift in Benny is startling. He moves to kneel in front of me, and I can feel my eyes widen. “Now we can finally be together. I got rid of all our obstacles. I did that for you—for us.”
“What obstacles?”
“Don’t play coy, Alaina. You know what you did. What messages you were sending me.” The look on his face sends the hair on my arms up. He tilts his head to the side for a moment before standing up and walking to Sully. Raising the gun, he points it at Sully. “If you’re worried about your little boyfriend, don’t be. He won’t be here much longer anyway. I mean, I wasn’t going to kill him yet, but I guess I can be a little flexible.” He shrugs his shoulders like I’ve seen athletes do before they compete.
My heart flies to my throat when he adjusts his grip on the gun. “Wait! Wait, Benny. Don’t kill him yet. Please.”
Benny narrows his eyes at me. “Are you asking because you’re still pretending to love him? Or because you want to do the honors?”
I wet my lips and swallow, my fear nearly choking me. “I, uh, thought we could torture him first.” I force the words out, and it takes everything inside of me to not flinch at the lie I just spewed.
His shoulders sag in relief. “Of course. I knew you'd remember." Benny's eyes light up as he stares at me. He reaches back and scratches his head. "I got a little worried, you know, when I saw that cocksucker show up at O'Malley's for the third week in a row. Two weeks could be a coincidence, but after three, I just knew something was going on. So, I took matters into my own hands."
"You joined the Brotherhood," Sully says, even-toned.
Benny cuts a glare his way, his eyes flashing with malice. "No, I tried to join, but you guys wouldn't just let me in! So, I had to prospect and pay my dues." He rolls his eyes before a manic smile covers his face, and his chest puffs out. "And did you ever suspect me, James Fitzpatrick? Hmm? No, I don’t think you did.” Benny chuckles. “Ma said it was too risky to move there and play the game. Said I should just take her in one fell swoop.”
My gut churns at all these . . . these delusions.
Benny steps in front of Sully, his gaze beseeching. "But I wanted her to love me, y'know? Anyone can just take, but I wanted her to come to me willingly."
Sully nods, his eyes guarded as he watches the breakdown happening in front of us. Can someone break down if they're already broken?
My fingers twist, and I roll my wrist so I can widen the small amount of slack in the rope. My nails rake across the coarse material, and I feel one lift up. The bite of pain grounds me, and I refocus on Benny. I missed something he said, too busy focused on freeing my hands.
"And it was going so well. I would see her every Friday night, but it was taking too long. And I needed to give her a push. So, I hired some people to help me. People will do anything for the right price."
"So, you hired Liam Mason to kidnap her," Sully says.
Benny's back goes ramrod straight. "No. Ma said the best way to get her to love me would be to become her hero. So, I paid Liam to take her from O'Malley's. He wasn't supposed to hurt her. I"—he pounds his chest with his open hand—"I was the one who was supposed to save her. Me."
He starts to pace again, three quick steps to the left and three quick steps to the right. "But then Ma said I should just leave Alaina be. But I can't do that." He pulls at his hair with one hand, spinning to look at me. His eyes are wide, his pupils blown. "You were supposed to be mine! And then they fucked it all up."
I freeze when he sets his manic gaze on me. I'm so close to freeing one wrist—and that's all it takes. Ava taught me that I shouldn't waste energy focusing on freeing both wrists at first. Just one at a time. And sometimes, like this situation, I'm not actually tied to anything, so if I free one wrist, then it's all over.
Of course, once I'm free, I have another problem to face. Fear threatens to drown me, but I shove that down deep. One breath in and one breath out
.
First. Free your hands.
Next. Get the gun.
Then. Untie Sully.
That's it. Those are the only three things that matter right now. I can do it. I know I can. I'm so close to slipping my hand free. I just need another minute. I just need to keep Benny talking for sixty more seconds, and then it'll be okay. It'll all be okay.
Benny extends his gun, pointing it at Sully's head. "You had to go and ruin everything. I was the one who was going to rescue her from the cabin! You and your brothers, who put their filthy lips on her. Now she's not perfect anymore!" Spittle flies in the air as he screams at us. He licks his lips and takes a deep breath as sweat beads on his brow. "That's okay. It's okay, I've got a plan to clean her up real good. But first, it's time to—”
At last, my hand slips free of the rope. Blood trickles down from two broken fingernails and my wrists are raw and bleeding, but I fucking did it. I don't wait, the element of surprise is my best asset right now. I let go of the lid on my rage and use it to my advantage.
I spring up from the chair and charge him. I go low, my shoulder colliding with his thighs. I don't pay attention to his surprised shout; I just focus on the moves that Sully taught me. With a guttural yell, I extend my legs, pushing up as hard and fast as I can. I feel his body weight pushing me back into the earth, but I funnel my rage and adrenaline into that superhuman strength you hear about when mothers need to save their kids.
A cry rips from my soul as I fling him up and over my shoulder with everything inside of me. It wasn't a clean sweep, but it's enough for him to land awkwardly on the ground, half on his back.
My chest heaves and my eyes search for the gun. He must've dropped it, because it's on the ground next to his knee. I dive for it, and my fingers curl around the handle just as his knee collides with my temple.
"You fucking bitch! Now look what you made me do!" Benny roars as he sits up. He reaches for either me or the gun—I'm not really sure. I can't see very well with the stars dancing in my vision. Nausea soars up my throat and I fight the urge to vomit.
Sully: An Irish Mafia Romance (The Brotherhood Book 3) Page 24
