Page 148 of Brutal Heir
“I figured you’d want to talk to them. They’re asking to see Rory, or Brigid, whatever…”
“Over my dead body,” I hiss as I slide into the elevator beside him.
The moment the elevator doors glide open on the floor below, I hear them.
The familiar hushed voices laced in that thick Irish accent. Then I see them, Bran and Blaine. Her piece of shit brothers who never fought for her. And behind them, her father, the asshole who sold her to the devil.
Pure wrath floods my body as I stalk toward the O’Shea men with Matteo at my side. They’re bandaged and bloodied. Conall’s final chaos didn’t spare them either.
“Where is she?” Bran demands, voice rough, bruised.
I prowl closer, eyes hard. “You don’t get to ask that.”
“We just want to see her,” Blaine adds, limping forward. His arm is in a sling. There’s dried blood at his temple. “We’re her family.”
I step in front of the elevator, shoulders squared. “You lost the right to that word the second you sold her off like cattle.”
Bran’s jaw tightens. “We didn’t?—”
“Didn’t what?” My voice is low, dangerous. “Didn’t force her into a marriage with a psychopath? Didn’t turn your back when she begged for help? Or maybe you’re here to apologize for handing her over like some bargaining piece?”
Their father finally speaks. “She was protected. That was the deal.”
My laugh is cold and hollow. “Protected? By that monster? Don’t pretend that tying her to Conall had anything to do with her. It was only a way to strengthen the O’Shea name.”
“She’s our blood,” Bran growls. “We were trying to save all of us.”
“Funny,” I snap. “She’s mine now. And I didn’t have to bleed her dry to prove it.”
Blaine flinches. “I didn’t know he’d go that far. I never would have told him?—”
My eyes cut to his. “What did you just say?”
He goes still, eyes wide like a man realizing he’s stepped on a live wire.
“You,” I growl, taking a step toward him. “It was you. You’re the one who gave her up?”
“I—I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” he stammers. “I thought you already knew?—”
My fist slams into the wall beside his head, and Blaine flinches back with a curse. The plaster cracks beneath my knuckles.
“I’m going to fucking destroy you,” I hiss through my teeth, every word a bullet. “You almost got the woman I love killed. All for what? Money? A pat on the head from the Butcher?”
Bran shoves forward. “Don’t lay a fucking hand on him?—”
I can feel Matteo at my back and the faint click of his gun being cocked.
“You don’t want to finish that sentence,” I snarl, turning the full weight of my fury on him. “I will burn Quinlan’s empire to the ground. What makes you think I won’t level the rest of yours?”
Their father steps between us, his voice strained. “We’re trying to fix things. Please, let us see her.”
“You want to fix things?” I snap, ice in my voice. “Walk away. Live with what you did. Pray she wakes up and never remembers that her own brother sold her off for the price of a crappy car.”
Silence.
They don’t move. Neither do I.
“You’re not getting in that room. Not today. Not ever. If you so much as breathe near her again without her permission,I’ll gut all three of you and paint the town with your entrails.” I pause, allowing the threat to set in. “I still might anyway. Depends on my mood when Rory wakes. You’re her family so I’ll give her the choice of what happens to you. If it were up to me, you would already be hacked up into tiny pieces at the bottom of the river.”
