Page 46 of The Watcher's Bride

The black car that delivers Eamonn Quinn pulls up and he steps out with that smug air of superiority that I’ve grown to detest more with every interaction. His smile, wide and indulgent, is the kind of thing that would make a lesser man swing before words were exchanged. But I steel myself. I can’t blow this. Not here.

Not when I’m so close to saving Nora.

“Belyh,” he drawls as he approaches, his silver-tipped cane clicking against the stone. “You clean up well. Thought you Russians only wore suits to funerals or trials.”

“We’re adaptable,” I say, forcing a smile. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, and the urge to make a comment about the Irish and their love for spirits is on the tip of my tongue. I swallow it down and continue to play nicely.

Quinn laughs as though I’ve delivered a proper joke, clapping a hand on my shoulder—too hard, too familiar. His hand lingers for a moment too long, a reminder of dominance, of power. I want to snap his wrist. Instead, I pretend not to notice.

He surveys the entrance, eyes lingering on the ornate doors before turning back to me. “Fitting place, isn’t it? For a transaction as sacred as this.”

Transaction. He doesn’t saywedding. He doesn’t saydaughter. Just another deal to this bastard. Another pawn on the board.

“She’s coming?” I ask, careful to keep my tone neutral.

“Oh yes,” he says, a satisfied smirk curling his lip. “Dressed up like the little bride she was born to be. Took some doing, mind. She resisted. She’s always been… spirited.”

I clench my jaw, hard enough to feel it crack. “Spirited?”

“A willful bitch, truth be told,” Quinn says easily, as if commenting on the weather. “Too long out in the wild. Forgot her place. But she remembers now.” He chuckles. “It’s amazing what you can beat back into a woman when you take away her dignity. When she first ran I was too kind, maybe if I’d crippled both her legs she’d have learned her place sooner.”

I inhale slowly, deliberately, lest I react. The urge to shoot him right here on the church steps claws at my chest. I ball my fists behind my back, nails biting into my palms.

“My uncle says she has a limp,” I add. He already knows that I know, it’s the reason my uncle refused to take her for his own.

Quinn tuts. “She used to walk straight before she got clever. Thought she could run from me.” He spits to the side, as if the thought of her disobedience still leaves a bad taste. “But you know what they say—crippled dogs make the most obedient pets.”

“Hmm,” I say noncommittally, though bile rises in my throat.

He thinks I’m like him. That I see her as damaged goods. He has no idea that it’s that very limp he scorns that makes me love her more fiercely. That every mark he’s left on her only deepens my resolve to destroy him.

“She clean enough for you?” he asks then, as if he were selling me a used car. “I had her cleaned up. Hair dyed back to her original auburn and added extensions, so she looks like a lady. Nails. Makeup. We dug her mother’s wedding gown out of storage. Fit like a glove.” He gives me a look of forced sentimentality. “A nice bit of nostalgia for the day, eh?”

I want to tell him how sick he is, to make her wear the dress of the woman he—according to my uncle’s intel—murdered. That digging up her dead mother’s dress like a corpse from a grave is not tradition, it’s cruelty. But I play my part.

“Lovely touch,” I murmur.

“She cried when she saw it. Real tears. She even begged me to let her die instead.” He chuckles again.

I feel my knuckles pop from how tightly I’m clenching my fists behind my back.

He takes out a cigar and lights it, the stench curling between us. “Still, she’ll be your burden soon enough. Good riddance, I say. Girl like her? Not good for anything but breeding and bargaining.”

I meet his eyes for the first time in the conversation. My gaze is steady, cold. “I’m aware.”

“Course you are,” he says, misreading the venom in my voice. “Hopefully she won’t be too much trouble for you.”

“She won’t,” I say.Because I’ll protect her from you.

“You’re a better man than I would be,” he says with a grin, grinding the cigar beneath his heel. “If I were marrying her, I’d have had her on her knees the first night, whip in one hand, Bible in the other. Teach her the value of obedience and salvation all at once.”

I don’t respond. I can’t. One more second and I might lose control. I look up at the sky instead. Cloudless. Cerulean. A mocking kind of beauty for a day like this.

“You ready for your big moment?” he asks, clapping his hands together, clearly pleased with himself. “Your bride is probably crying her eyes out. Best not keep her waiting, she’ll be here soon.”

I nod once. Then twice. And say, “She won’t wait long.”

Quinn smirks again, I turn and walk toward the church, the heavy oak doors swinging open before me.

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