by Alta Hensley
“You don’t scare me,” I said, jumping out of the truck. “Go to hell!” Slamming the door and never looking back, I stormed off to my car. What had I been thinking? That he was different? Hell, he was just like every other man in my life. Dick wasn’t a strong enough word for this man. He was a fucking asshole!
Chapter Five
Cal
“Did you go scare the shit out of her?” Derrick asked as I entered the kitchen to join my brothers who were all sitting around the large dining room table.
“Not exactly,” I mumbled as I walked over to the fridge to pull out a beer. I looked about for Alana and didn’t see her around like she normally would be when we were home. “Where’s Alana now?”
“She’s upstairs packing,” Nolan said. “We actually are starting to get her excited about the move. We told her how pretty Ireland is, and that she’s going to love it.” Nolan took a long sip of his beer. “I’m not sure I believe my own words, but I said them anyway.”
“What do you mean, not exactly?” Derrick asked. “Did you tell that chick to stay away from Alana and truly terrify her, or not?”
I sat down and glared. “I said no!” I snapped. “The only thing I managed to do was get a hard dick and a bad case of blue balls.” When I noticed all were looking at me confused, I added, “I was weak, all right? I went with the intention to make the girl cry and promise to never even look at Alana again, and well”—I took a drink of my beer—“I fucking failed. I ended up nearly fucking her.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rogan interjected with a sneer. “You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants?”
“I did,” I defended. “Barely.”
“Whatever. I’m sick of this bitch,” Derrick spat. “Let’s just kill her and be done with it.”
“Why do we have to kill her?” I asked. “We’re leaving town anyway. This is all a nonissue really.”
“On principal alone,” Derrick said. “The woman is too foolish to be afraid of us. She has no idea who she is dealing with. I’m fucking sick of people underestimating us. Lack of fear of the O’Shea name is what got our parents killed. I sure as hell am not going to allow anyone else in my family to die because people don’t respect the name.”
“Let’s just ignore her.” I was growing impatient with this conversation, and my balls still ached.
“Or not…” Nolan interjected, his left brow quirking. “Hear me out on this.” He stood and began pacing as he often did when he was coming up with a plan. Nolan was the organized mastermind in many of our jobs. When he started to pace like a caged animal, we all knew he had something up his sleeve. It was obvious in his stance and narrowed eyes that his mind was spinning. “Alana likes this woman. A lot. And we are worried about how Alana is going to adjust to living out in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country. No friends. No one to keep her company while we are trying to fix what is a disaster of a property. We have each other, but Alana—”
“Has us,” Rogan interrupted. He was always the most protective one of us when it came to our sister.
“Which isn’t going to be enough, and we all know it,” Nolan said. “But what if we take the woman with us? To Ireland?”
I chuckled. “Are you fucking kidding me? Have you met this woman? Number one, there is no way she would just agree to picking up and moving with us to Ireland. Number two, I think she would drive us all fucking insane.” Yeah, my balls still ached.
“I’m not suggesting we ask,” Nolan said, his jaw tightening as he looked at each of us. “We can always take Alana’s advice.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Derrick asked.
“We all agree that we want what is best for Alana, right?”
Rogan punched his arm. “Don’t be an ass. Of course we do.”
Nolan shrugged. “Then it’s simple. We just take the witch.”
“Take? As in kidnap her?” I asked, not entirely against the idea for some odd reason. Maybe because I wanted the ache in my balls to go away, and her tongue licking every inch of my cock would sure help my current situation.
We all sat in silence, knowing damn well what Nolan was suggesting. It wasn’t like kidnapping her was all that shocking to any of us. We had all done worse in our lives. Much worse. And when it came to family, our father had taught us there was nothing we wouldn’t do for blood. Nothing.
“Nolan and I are flying out tomorrow to get started and meet the deliveries before you guys fly out with Alana. We could easily take Monet with us then. I can let Leo know so there aren’t any surprises when we show up with an unconscious woman in tow. We’re paying the man a shitload anyway to fly us over there undetected. What’s another passenger?” Derrick said as he ran his hand through his hair, clearly working out the details in his head.
“Are we seriously considering this?” Rogan asked.
Fuck yes, we were.
We were.
Monet
“We’re closed,” I called out when I heard the door to the store open.
I had never had to lock the door until right before I went upstairs to my apartment before, but I made a mental note that with all the unexpected visitors as of late, I would have to start.
“We know,” I heard a deep voice say as two figures emerged from the shadows.
I dropped my pen—though I should have probably kept it as a weapon to gouge out the eyes of these assholes—and pushed aside my bookkeeping ledgers to glare at two of the O’Shea brothers walking into my store as if they had every right to do so.
“Seriously?” I asked with the most intense glare I could master, though I would be lying if I said the way they both looked at me didn’t cause my body to quiver. But no way was I going to reveal that fact if I could help it. Moving around the counter, I said, “Is it now your turn to fuck with me like your brother did? Well, like I told him, you can go to he—” Before I could finish my sentence, before I could even blink, the larger one had me pinned with my face smashed against the wall, his hand wrapped around my throat, his other hand in my hair, pulling it painfully as he yanked my head back, his face a fraction of an inch from mine.
“Why, Miss McKnight, funny that the first sentence to pop out of your mouth is a request to be fucked,” he said.
Furious at the smirk on his face, I tried to pull away, only to feel him pressing against me. “Get off—”
“Fucking, getting off… seems our girl has quite the dirty mind, doesn’t it, Nolan?” he said, not allowing me to finish speaking, his fingers tightening, blocking not only my speech, but my very breath. The chuckle Nolan gave wasn’t one of amusement, but one that had my face heating as he stepped closer.
“Isn’t it interesting,” Nolan said, his hand lifting to run slowly down my side, his fingers brushing the slope of my breast, “that while your words say one thing, Monet, your body is saying something completely different? Seems like our girl’s nipples are already hard as rocks, and you haven’t even started, Derrick.”
“Fuc—” I managed to squeak out, this time cutting myself off as I realized the expletive wouldn’t be taken as an insult but rather an… an invitation. I could blame my pounding heart, my racing blood on the fact I was being restrained, but what could I blame for the ache I felt growing between my legs, the heaviness of my breasts, the throbbing of my nipples beneath my bra? The press of something hard against my ass had my breath catching in my throat as Derrick ground his erection against me. When I realized I was pushing back against him, as if wanting more, I froze.
No!
What the fuck was wrong with me? These men had broken into my store, had me against the wall, were acting as if I wanted them… wanted this… No! Not willing to accept the only answer that fit, I whimpered, squirmed, attempted to push Derrick off me.
“Go ahead. I love a little fight. Makes winning all the better,” he said, licking a line from my collarbone up to a spot behind my ear. “And, know this—the O’Sheas always win.”
I yelped as he took my earlo
be between his teeth and bit down, my eyes closing as I tried to get myself under control, to make any kind of sense out of this… this… whatever the hell this was. Suddenly, I could breathe again, my eyes snapping open to see both men stepping away, both grinning as if they understood the turmoil I was having with myself… with my reaction to their presence. My fury returned as I whirled around.
I placed my hands on my hips and spat, “Get the hell out. I’ve had enough of all of you. I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last men on earth! I don’t want any of you to ever come here again. I swear I’ll slap a restraining order on you so fucking fast if you come within a mile of me!”
Both of the brothers looked at each other and smirked. They were finding my threat amusing, and I wanted to strangle them both for the way they didn’t even flinch at my warning.
“I’m serious. You have five seconds to turn around and walk out that door, or I’m calling the police.” I took a step toward the phone cradled in the charger at the end of the counter.
“Nolan,” Derrick began, “do you think our feelings should be hurt? I mean, she’s willing to get it on with Cal, but then not with us.”
“No, perhaps she is just too polite to admit she wants us both,” Nolan said, his wicked smile making my heart beat faster as he stepped close. “She’ll learn the O’Sheas don’t mind sharing.”
Sharing? I could feel my face heat at the implication I would be that sort of girl. When his smile widened and Derrick chuckled, I clenched my jaw and stiffened my spine. Fuck them. I wouldn’t let them rattle me with their smiles or the calm tone of their voices. Reaching for the phone, I began counting. “One, two, thr… what the fuck!” I protested as fingers plucked the instrument from the charger before I could grab it and tossed it across the room where it slid beneath a display cabinet.
They’d both moved closer to the counter, but I tried not to flinch or show how nervous they were making me.
Nolan stared directly at me. “No matter how great your body is, how fun it is to listen to your useless little threats, or how good your brownies might be, we told you to stay away from our sister,” he said, pulling a bag with the store’s name on it from his pocket and tossing it onto the counter.
What? This was about brownies? They’d come into my store and assaulted me over some damn brownies? “Those brownies weren’t for you,” I snapped.
“Most people take our warnings seriously,” Derrick practically growled.
“I guess I’m not most people,” I countered as I struggled to swallow the forming lump in the back of my throat. Why was I so upset that they hadn’t really come to… fuck me? God, what the hell? I had never been so lost, so confused, so out of my league before.
“Do you know who we are?”
“I don’t care,” I said, exhaustion threatening to overcome me.
“You should,” Derrick said with an evil smile that matched the one on his brother’s face.
“Get out,” I said calmly, though how I managed to do so, I had no idea. All I wanted was to be alone, to try to figure out what was happening… why these men affected me like no one else ever had.
“You will soon learn it is you who will be taking orders from us. Not the other way around,” Derrick said as he stepped forward and took hold of my arm.
I tried to snatch my arm away, but that only caused him to tighten his grip more. He was close enough now that I could see something was different. Though I couldn’t really call his earlier actions playful, he hadn’t hurt me. The best way to describe the exchange, the touching, the innuendoes, was to call it some sort of perverted banter… but now? Something was off, and huge warning bells started pealing in my head. Derrick must have been reading my thoughts because, right as I was about to open my mouth to release a bloodcurdling scream, he placed his fingertip on my lips.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he hissed. “It would be a shame to gag that pretty mouth of yours.”
Nolan had a gun in his hand. Had it always been there, and I’d been too blinded by their blue eyes and good looks to notice?
The warning bells were now blaring.
“What do you want?” I asked, not taking my gaze off the gun as Nolan approached me. “I don’t keep much money here, but—”
“Money? Hell, this isn’t about money,” Nolan said.
“Do we look like fucking petty thieves?” Derrick growled as if I’d insulted his honor or something.
Okay, if not money then what… surely not, but… “Wait, is this all because I had lunch with Alana? Really?” I focused back on Derrick. “Okay, fine, you sick fuck. I’ll leave her alone! You shitheads proved your point. I’ll never see her again if that means I don’t ever have to see any of you all again either. We can all agree to leave each other alone.”
“Too late for that,” Nolan said as he jabbed the gun into my ribcage. “The plan has been set in motion, and I never alter a well-organized plan.”
This wasn’t happening!
Why were they doing this?
Tears welled as my heart stopped. What the fuck was going on? Who were these men? I hadn’t pegged them as dangerous before. Arrogant, yes. Bossy as hell, absolutely. But not dangerous.
Was I so wrong in judging them?
The gun in my side and the firm hand holding my arm screamed I was definitely wrong.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I said softly. “I didn’t realize… I should have listened to your warning. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t happen again,” Derrick said, squeezing my arm tighter. “That’s the first thing you’ve gotten right tonight.”
Nolan nodded at Derrick, who then released my arm and made his way to the back of the store where an exit led to a back parking lot. I remained perfectly still. Even though I wasn’t being restrained, the gun digging into my side had me staying as still as I could. I didn’t think this man—Alana’s brother—would actually shoot me to death in my own store, but I clearly had misjudged them up to this point.
“So as I was saying,” Nolan said. “We’ve made a plan. You’re going to be coming with us to Ireland. For some reason, Alana considers you a friend, and she won’t have any when we move. So, because you want to be her friend so badly, even when we told you to stay the fuck away, we are going to be nice and grant you your wish. You can be friends with her. But in Ireland. On our great-grandfather’s estate out in the fucking middle of nowhere.”
I shook my head in confusion but kept staring straight ahead. His words were blending with the ringing in my ears. “I don’t understand. I told you I would leave her alone. I will. I swear it.”
“And like we said, it is too late. Now we actually want you to be around her. You can be around her all your pretty little heart desires once we get you to Ireland.”
My legs threatened to buckle, and my heart beat so hard against my chest, it nearly hurt. “Ireland? I don’t want to go to Ireland.”
Nolan chuckled. “Did it sound like I was asking?”
I slowly turned my head so I could look at him. “Please. I don’t understand what is going on here. I don’t know what you are talking about or who you all are, what you really want. Just let me go, and I swear I will do whatever it is you want from me.”
“How many times do I have to say this? We want you to come with us to Ireland. It’s time for my brothers and me to get the fuck out of the US, and we are taking Alana with us. Up until your annoying and troubling ass got involved, we were going to go alone, but it dawned on us you could be useful to Alana”—he gave an evil laugh as the back door opened—“and to all of us.”
Before I could ask what he meant by being useful, my attention was drawn to the door as it slammed open. I watched Derrick drag in a large black bag. It looked like something that would come straight out of a morgue on some crime show on TV. Whatever was inside, was heavy enough to make him have to work at pulling it inside.
“I’m getting really sick of always being in charge of getting the bodies,�
�� he grumbled as he closed the door behind him once the large bag was across the threshold. “I don’t know how I get stuck with this job. Every. Single. Time.”
“Because you’re good at it,” Nolan said with a chuckle. “Why fix what isn’t broke?”
Derrick shot a dirty look at Nolan. “In the future, one of you assholes is going to go to the morgue for a change. Dead weight is heavy.”
Jesus fucking Christ. Was there a dead body in that bag? Just like in the movies? Was I starring in my own horror film? I blinked away the shadows threatening to take over as panic made my head spin. Was this really happening?
Derrick stopped dragging the body bag inside and looked at me. “Did you tell her what’s going to happen?”
“Enough,” Nolan countered. “She knows she is going on a trip with us.”
Satisfied with Nolan’s answer, Derrick kneeled down and unzipped the bag. I could see there was a woman with brown hair and pale skin inside. When he uncovered her fully, and removed her limp form from the black covering, I could see she was of similar shape and size to me.
“See?” Nolan said with a chuckle. “You are good at this. She looks just like Monet.”
“Lucky find, I guess,” Derrick mumbled as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out what appeared to be pliers. “You want to come down here and do this shit for a change?”
“Nah, I got the gun,” Nolan said as he jabbed my ribs as a reminder. “You pull them.”
Pull them? Pull what? I thought, my head spinning.
“With how many fucking teeth I’ve removed from dead bodies, I can give any dentist a run for his money,” Derrick complained as he opened the dead woman’s mouth and began pulling out her teeth one by one with the tool in his hand.
“Oh my God,” I whimpered as I realized exactly what he was doing.
I started to collapse to the floor, but Nolan took a hold of my arm to keep me standing. “Don’t get all weak-kneed on us,” he said. “We didn’t kill her. Just stole her.”
