by Amber Bardan
A body rests just inside the shed. It’s one of the Connellys. I don’t even remember his name.
The moment it takes to pull myself together feels like forever. Maybe it is. I squeeze myself up against the edge of the door, and press a palm to my face. The fucking bastard pushed me.
Fucking bastard.
He’s still trying to save me. The shed falls silent.
Today, I’m not here to be saved.
I peer inside.
“There’s only two ways this ends.” Julius stands opposite Jack. “You get carried out in a bag, or you let me walk you out of here.”
The remaining three Connellys stand behind Jack.
Leo and Dan are on either side of Julius. The cops, all in black, close in, every gun raised.
My attention gets hooked on their faceless masks. The throb in my jaw streaks behind my ear. That day at my house, it was the cops—task force, whatever—there.
“How about we both get carried out?” Jack raises his handgun a notch higher.
The cops jerk closer but Julius holds out his free hand and they fall back. I lift up my dress and tug the handgun out of the tape.
Julius’s gun twitches to match Jack’s. “You have a chance, Jack, take it.”
They both step counterclockwise, matching each other stride for stride.
“I might believe you if this weren’t personal.” Jack’s chin tilts left. “I know I should be recognizing you, but I’m not. Help me out. Who are you, King?”
Julius keeps his focus lined up with his aim. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember, we only met in person once, at night, and I was a little different then.” Julius drops the accent, and holy hell, even with a room full of guns, and bodies on the floor, the sound is hot as fuck with danger mixed in. “You ran us off the road and introduced my wife to Neil—then set me on fire.”
My heart seems to slip from my chest and wash down to my guts. I refuse to think of what was done, but there’s one thing I can’t ignore—Julius had Neil right here.
He’d had Neil here, uninvited, an intruder who hurt me before and wanted to hurt me again, and with all the things he could have done to him, with all the ways he could have exacted revenge, in the end he responded only in self-defense.
“Fury...” Jack’s steps halt. “I should have known. Guess I’ll be paying for that now, won’t I?”
“You will pay.” Julius lowers his gun.
Jack’s weapon remains fixed on Julius.
“But you’ll pay according to the law.” Julius bends at the knee and sets his gun on the ground, then stands slowly, palms out. “You have a chance to atone, Jack. Help us and maybe you can wash the blood clean.”
My breath catches and I hold back a shout.
What is he doing?
I raise the gun up close to my body, pull back the slide and chamber a round, then turn, lining the sight to Jack’s chest. The weapon in my hand quivers. I clamp my free hand over my wrist, and hold it steady. Despite the cops and the men at Julius’s side, I am exactly the only person here who’s going to put Julius first, and everything else second.
Jack’s expression shifts, his scowl releasing into something more bitter. “I’ll regret not getting right with the Lord, that’s for sure—” His arm lowers about a foot.
Movement shuffles on the floor beside Jack.
Pa sits propped up against a crate, clutching a bleeding leg. His grave gaze meets mine. He shakes his head. If I kill Jack, then Julius won’t get his justice. Not the way he’s fought for it.
“—but that’s just not how this game gets played.”
My attention snaps back to Jack, I adjust my aim a fraction to the side. The muscles in his biceps contract. I squeeze the trigger. The handgun recoils like a bitch, throwing me off balance.
Sound howls through the shed.
I look up. The cops close the circle. Gunfire ceases, giving way to meaty thunks of flesh on flesh.
The mob of people swarm the center of the room.
Where’s Julius?
Adrenaline weaves through my limbs. I climb over the body in the doorway and scramble along the edges of the chaos. A figure lies on its side near the wall. I bite my tongue, and crawl to him.
Julius clutches his middle. I roll him over. Red stains blossom like branches growing at hyperspeed from under his arm along the fibers of his white shirt.
“Julius.” I press my hand to his cheek.
His cool, damp skin sends dread plunging to my soul.
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” His eyes widen. “He still has things to do.”
“I aimed for his shoulder, so, doubtful.” I scan his body. The blood spreads above his arm.
Oh God, I don’t know what to do. Fear eats at my lungs.
“Then it’ll be okay.” His features relax. “We did it.”
I press my hands against the arm he has over his wound, adding to the pressure. “No it won’t be okay. It won’t be okay if you give up.”
He smiles, and reaches with his free hand, tugging the ends of my curls. “I never gave up on you, baby.”
No, he never, ever did. Pain feasts on my body, flooding my limbs with an agonizing shakiness that almost matches my quivering mind.
“So, don’t you dare start now.” Dark spots form around the bloody patch on his shirt. They fall from my face and spatter over him.
His teeth chatter as though he’s cold and each click is like ice spearing my chest.
My fingers get sticky. No matter how hard I push, the flow doesn’t stop. “Don’t do this. I can’t do this again.”
“You can, baby. You’re stronger this time.”
My nose tingles and streams.
Julius’s chin lifts, his gaze unfocused.
I glance across the room. The Connellys are all pressed face to the floor.
“Help—we need help,” I shout.
One of the masked cops turns and races toward us. He hunches over Julius, then more join him.
Someone takes my shoulder, drawing me back.
I wrench away. “That’s my husband. Help him.”
The grip firms, and meaningless reassurances flow past me.
“I’m his wife.” I push at the hands, and strain toward Julius. An unmasked person with a large white case shoves past us and falls to Julius’s side. I get a glimpse of scissors cutting his shirt away, then more hands are on me, pulling me back—dragging me away.
They drag me away from my dying husband.
Epilogue
“I bequeath all my tangible personal property, monies and estate equally to my partner, Sarah, and my adoptive son, Thomas.” The lawyer’s voice keeps on droning but my attention faded to the window about fifteen minutes ago.
Small fingers squeeze mine. I glance at Thomas, and the pain squishes down to something slightly more bearable.
Here we are, out in the real world, sitting in the eighth-floor office of Julius’s lawyer, and the cops who debriefed us have assured me we are perfectly safe.
Julius did what he set out to. At the same time they closed in on the Connellys, the intelligence Julius provided enabled simultaneous stings all around the world. Two weeks later, with every major player in custody and a great many talking, the media is reporting the weapons trade network shattered.
People keep telling me everything will be okay.
I snort.
“Are you alright, Sarah?”
I look at the lawyer, Mr. Andrews. “I’m fine.”
“You made a sound.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“I guess I find it strange that a false identity can have a will, much less leave an estate.”
He stares at me, and I have no idea how much this lawyer kne
w, but there’s something enough like compassion in his expression to make the place between my ribs ache. “Let’s just say Julius’s identity was...facilitated. This—you and Thomas—were part of his bargain, and he had a great deal to bargain with.”
I almost snort again. Julius thought of everything. He thought of everything and I am only just seeing the depth of what he’s achieved now that he’s gone. The FBI seized Mercedes Shipping and most of what belonged to my father the instant I set foot back on American soil. Yet here we are with the entire incredible, legitimate fortune Julius managed to amass while single-handedly bringing down the drug trade bequeathed to us.
Thomas releases a jagged sigh. I shuffle my chair closer and lay an arm around his shoulders. Maybe Julius set up everything to take care of us, but he forgot one thing.
He forgot how much we loved him.
That’s a loss he can never make up for. I scruff Thomas’s shaggy hair. The minute we’re done here, I’m going to take him for a haircut, then ice cream.
Lots of ice cream.
“There’s one more thing,” Mr. Andrew’s says, sliding an envelope from his file, then holding it out to me.
I lean forward and take the envelope. “Do we open it now?”
“If you like.”
I turn it over and stare at the seal. My heart flutters, and I wedge my finger in the side and tear open the top, then pull out the wad of folder paper.
Thomas leans closer.
I smooth the papers out on my lap. An airline letterhead runs the head of the top sheet. I shuffle through the papers.
“What is it?” Thomas whispers.
I pause at the extensive, if not ambitious, itinerary. “It’s a holiday to Ireland.”
“Where Dad was from?” Thomas’s lashes beat three times fast. “We talked about Ireland all the time.”
So did I.
With Pa. Well, Pa talked and I listened, maybe more intently than I wanted anyone to see. Pa. They’ve told me he’s fine, but won’t tell me where he is.
But I guess Julius picked up on what we’d talked about, like he picked up on everything. I shove the papers back into the envelope. Asshole. He has to be this thoughtful in death, yet not in the way I’d hoped. I’d have given anything for this to be a letter. To have had more explanation. For him to have cleared up the still-fuzzy details. But more than anything I’d have given all the money and all the adventure in the world to have him. Just one more moment with him.
One where everything was honest.
My attention flicks to Thomas’s eager expression, and that if nothing else makes this exciting.
“Well, I guess we had better get packing.”
* * *
“Wow, just wow.” Thomas presses his hands to the window of the car.
I lean forward, and stare past him. I’d have to agree with my son on this one—wow. We’ve been all over Ireland in the last few weeks but nothing has hit me quite like this.
The car pulls up in front of a building—house—castle—whatever, it’s older than the oldest building my homeland has to offer.
Age seeps from its pores, from the blunt shape of the walls, to the crumbling mortar between the stones. Ugly and beautiful at the same time.
What makes it spectacular, though, is the location. Perched on the ledge of a cliff—a real mother-effing cliff that laughs in the face of my island’s little baby cliff—overlooking a rock-filled raging ocean.
I’m used to an ocean view but this one is just plain fierce and otherworldly.
The driver opens the door and I follow Thomas out of the car. My hair blows back from my face, and it’s a punch to every sense. Nature screams around us. Even though I’ve lived on an island for three years, the air never tasted like this. The wind never blew this way. Birds never squawked so loudly overhead. The musk of earth never rose up from the ground and pulsed with ancient life.
I swipe an arm over my head, hold my hair down and take Thomas’s hand. He beams at me. We’ve done the tourist thing, but I’m so glad it’s ending like this—at a place uncivilized and authentic.
So wild and far off the comfortable path that we could get lost completely.
And we could. The itinerary ends here. It’s up to us when we leave.
The driver carries our bags inside. Thomas and I wander into the main entrance, and look up and up and up, at the looming ceiling, and fantastical stairs.
“Awesome,” Thomas whispers.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “But freezing.”
I rub my arms, and follow the smell of burning wood. We enter a dining room with a crackling fireplace filling the room not only with heat but with the most comforting scent I’ve ever inhaled. I stretch my numb fingers in front of it.
Thomas ignores the fire and goes straight to the cathedral-like window. “Mom, you have to see this.”
My heart squeezes. I’m still getting used to being called that. I go to the window and the view is like living in the sky. A fat droplet of rain hits the windowpane with a pang. I jerk. Thomas leaps back. Bangs pummel the window.
“The weather’s not putting you off now, is it, lass?” The voice, thick with brogue and dripping with sex, shivers up the base of my spine and fills my lungs with heat.
My chest hammers just like the windowpane.
I turn.
A man stands in the doorway. Hair a color halfway between brown and sand falls softly around his temples, and about a fortnight’s worth of trimmed stubble frames a jaw that isn’t soft at all. He walks in front of the fireplace and a glow is cast around him. I’m sucked toward him in the same way an insect can’t control the drive to seek out the bright.
He wears dark blue jeans, and a white T-shirt with a designer label. There’s the slightest limp to his walk. He looks normal, even with the tattoos, but he’s not normal at all.
I’m looking at him, but I can’t look-at-him.
Not in his eyes, not in those eyes.
“I can handle it,” my voice croaks. “I’m pretty resilient.”
He approaches. I think he’s smiling, but I can’t make myself see his face—it hurts too much.
“Sarah,” he says.
I smile. “That’s not my name.”
He touches my jaw, then slides his hand behind my ear and cradles my skull. Heat spreads from his touch, and his other hand strokes over the other side of my face.
The breath of my dreams touches my lips.
“Baby,” he says. “I’m Jonathan.”
“No.” I smile at him, joy exploding into my heart. “You’re mine.”
* * * * *
To purchase and read more books by Amber Bardan, please visit Amber’s website at www.amberabardan.com
Turn the page for an excerpt from DIDN’T I WARN YOU by Amber Bardan, now available at all participating e-retailers.
Now available from Carina Press and Amber Bardan
Not everything dangerous is bad.
Read on for an excerpt from
DIDN’T I WARN YOU
Prologue
Long fingers close around my throat. Not squeezing, not hurting, but commanding. I look at him. This man I love. This devil I adore. He’s gorgeous—dark hair, darker eyes, olive skin, body and features all chiseled hardness. But that’s not what makes my veins jump under his hand. That’s not what makes my skin slick with sweat.
There’s more to this man than meets the eye.
His thumb strokes my pulse, gleaning secrets right out of my blood. His mouth curls to the side, forming a smile that reveals he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Didn’t I warn you, Angel,” he says, and his thumb moves up to my chin, “that it’s not a good idea to love me?”
My pulse leaps from erratic to chaotic. I can’t answer,
only listen in horrified fascination to what I know will come next.
He traces the groove below my bottom lip. “Didn’t I warn you my love would be bad?”
Shivers run hot then cold over my skin.
“Didn’t I tell you, you’d pay for my heart?” He touches my mouth, dragging my bottom lip down.
My body sings, my blood hums right down to my womb. I can’t resist him. He did warn me. He truly did. But I was greedy. I wanted him anyway.
I didn’t understand how bad he could be.
He’s the devil. Tempting me with what I desire most. Luring me to an irresistible destruction. A destruction I’m so close to I can smell it—taste it—touch it. Pain grips me, my insides bruise with it. My family believes I’m dead. The life I’ve left behind lies in tatters because of him. Because he keeps me.
He won’t let me go.
He tilts my face, brushing his cheek against my ear. “I promise it will be worth it.” His stubble chafes my earlobe, stinging and electrifying. I’ve felt those bristles scrape against my neck, my breasts, my thighs. There’s not an inch of me that hasn’t felt the sweet torture of their abrasion. “Can’t you see it?” he asks. “The future where you’re mine?”
My eyelids drift shut. I know it’s only the hand cradling my face that’s holding me up. I can see that future. I see it with fluorescent intensity. Life with the lights turned on. Life where living means more than existing. For everything he’s taken from me, he’s given me back more. He breathed a soul back into me. Without it, without him, I’d be a walking corpse.
I see our future. I ache for it, yearn for it, despise myself for it.
“Say it, Angel. Say, Haithem, I’m yours.”
For all intents and purposes, I’m a prisoner—captive—perhaps even a slave. Because I have no choices but the ones he gives me. Yet, he gives me this choice—or at least the illusion of a choice—to choose him.
To love him.
As if making a choice had ever been an option. The moment I met him, I may as well have been branded.
