Page 83 of Possessive Mafia Vows

Kyle wanted to get me away from Nick. He was holding stuff back from me, I know that much, but Victoria’s suggestion that I spend some time in Ireland played right into his hands. It would get me away from Nick, my father, and the gallery, and leave him free to do what exactly…?

No. I mentally shake myself. None of that sits right with me.

He calls mehis leoin. His lioness.

He saidheloves me.

When I’m with him, I feel like I’m the most beautiful woman to have ever graced this planet, and he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t care about me. Would he?

Was it all a joke to him? A distraction until he’d had his fun and was ready to hand me over to Nick?

I can’t believe it.

But the truth is, I don’t want to believe it, and my heart is still trying to keep that faint glimmer of hope alive, even when faced with reality.

What about Victoria though? She would never have suggested the trip to Ireland if she’d known about Kyle’s plans. She’d have warned me to stay the fuck away from him instead of trying to push us together.

“No. I can’t do this.” I unbuckle the safety belt and stand up. “I need to speak to Kyle.”

“It’s too late, Sienna. We’re already moving.” Nick’s eyebrows slide upwards, his eyes flickering across my face as though he’s afraid that I’ll try to leap from a moving aircraft.

I stare at the runway lights alongside the plane, the city moving slowly by, at the airport growing steadily smaller as we coast along the tarmac. In my bewilderment, I didn’t register the engines powering up or the door closing. I was trapped in a moment with Kyle. The moment when I handed over the piece of me that I’d shut down since the accident.

I should’ve heeded the warning in the song that’s been playing on repeat in my head since Thanksgiving.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, and the very next day, you gave it away.

“I need to get off. Stop the plane, Nick.”

“Darling, I can’t. We’re already in the air.”

Right on cue, the aircraft’s nose tilts towards the sky, and I stumble back to my seat, sitting heavily. This feels all wrong. Kyle said that he would arrange for someone to meet me at the airport. He said that he would join me there later if he missed the flight.

“Where’s Seamus?” Finally, I face Nick. “He should be on board.”

“Kyle recalled him.” Nick shrugs. “There was no need for him to accompany us now that I’m here.”

“But you don’t know where I’m staying.” I know that Kyle would never have agreed to Nick staying at the Murray family home.

“We’ll check into a hotel, Sienna. We can go wherever we want.”

I feel the pressure against my chest as the aircraft takes off. Gravity. Pinning me to my seat. Trapping me on board with the wrong man.

We keep climbing, climbing, climbing.

And my thoughts keep spiraling.

This was supposed to be a break for me. Time to relax, breathe, and paint. It’s what Kyle wanted for me too; how can I do that with Nick by my side?

The aircraft reaches a certain height and then lists sideways as we circle the airport to pick up the correct flight path. I stare down at the ground. There’s the runway, lit up to keep us on track. The airport terminal. The buggies that carry the luggage out to the waiting aircraft.

Then I spot something else that draws my attention. A car. In the parking lot. It takes a few seconds for me to figure out that it’s the private bay where Seamus parked the car when we arrived earlier. But it isn’t the vehicle that’s making my stomach flip over and over.

If Kyle had recalled the driver as Nick said, the car would be gone. But it isn’t. There’s no sign of anyone else in the lot, but there is something on the ground next to the car, hidden from the view of any other vehicles entering the compound. I squint, trying to bring it into focus before we climb any higher and it becomes a speck of dirt on a terrestrial map.

My breath sticks in my throat.

It’s a figure.

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