Page 42 of Hostile Bond
“Get your hands off her...” she pleads. “She’s only a child. Please, Sean, stop!”
Bloodshot eyes no longer hold their usual charming sparkle, tired and furious that he’d woken up to the barrel of a gun aimed at his head. His nostrils flare before he sniffs sharply and pinches the bridge of his nose as if he's holding back a bleed.
“I decide when this stops. Not you!” He snarls.
“Sean… you came here to see me… so let’s go into the next room…”
“Nah… I think she needs to learn that actions have consequences.”
“No… please…”
His face looms next to mine. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that, little viper. I can see why my nephew would chase you.” A ghost of a smirk dances on his lips. “Next time I see you… I’ll think of something better to give you than a black eye.”
Sean lets go of me like I’m trash and smooths his hands over his short, dark hair. “I’m bored.” He squeezes his nostrils in tandem and glares at Mammy. “I’ll blow a hole in your skull if the girl pulls a stunt like that again… understood?”
I swallow hard when he stalks toward her and shoves her into the wall. When she tries to slap him, he snares her wrist and roughly twists it until she yelps.
“And if you think telling my nephew is a good idea…” he snarls, angling his head to find me huddled on the floor. “I’ll slash your mother’s throat while I’m still fucking her. He wouldn’t believe you, anyway. My father taught me to shoot liars in the back of the head. That would be your fate, little viper.”
I bury my forehead in the carpet and try to control the erratic exhales heaving in my tight lungs. All these years later, and I’m the one who holds a prestigious title now—a position that trumps his pathetic existence.
I’m a mafia queen ready to step into the spotlight, never mind I’d married into the Colombian cartel. And that bastard isn’t even the heir to his father’s throne. His older brother was raised to fulfill that position.
Sean Hennessy thinks he’s untouchable, but he’s simply an egotistical pretty boy with a hardened layer of cruelty cladding his wretched heart.
Motherfucker.
Fury spits and hisses through my veins, so toxic that it almost makes me vomit. I slam a hand over my heart where it cracks, my thoughts hurtling back to the beautiful man in the next room.
In a few hours, André would board the only plane on the island to fulfill a vendetta.
While Sean is with Mammy in Ireland––doing fuck knows what to her.
I scramble to an upright position and try to stand, but end up stumbling a few clumsy steps before throwing a hand on the wall for support. The ache in my chest is getting worse as if my veins have injected adrenaline straight into my heart, so it can’t figure out how to beat properly.
My mind is muddled, the frenzied thoughts running out of control. Panicky blobs scatter my vision like I’ve soared dangerously close to the sun. Haunting memories of Mammy’s muted sobs replay in the back of my skull. I can’t shake the crawling fear mounting in my blood, as if a colony of ants are marching through my veins on a mission to take me down. The way she had suffered would forever trigger a bone-deep compulsion in me to protect her.
I could never ask André to choose between us—his wife or his family. I had known this heartbreaking day was destined to arrive—just not like this. I never imagined Sean and Mammy would ever meet again. We were free from him and learning how to deal with the past, but never able to swallow the fact he got away unpunished.
This situation has grown into something so much bigger. It isn’t me revealing the identity of my tormentor anymore. I'm thrown right back into those dark memories. Drowning in trauma and seething from an uncontrollable hunger for vengeance.
That bastard could be hurting her all over again.
I can’t expect my husband to fulfill the promise he’d made as a sweet-hearted boy. He had no clue his uncle had a secret relationship with my mother, or that the same outwardly charming asshole had kicked me in the gut for being in his way.
The venomous serpent had resurfaced from the snake pit he slithered around in for two decades, just to ruin my life with André, and shatter my mother’s freedom.
Mulling over my options, I mindlessly start to dress. The robe puddles at my feet before I stuff my toes into a pair of ripped jeans, pulling my favorite skull motif t-shirt over my head and tucking it in.
For some silly reason, it holds too much sentimental value. The first gift André had given me on our abnormal wedding night. The simple t-shirt had held a hint of his cologne. He didn’t force me to have sex with him, punish me for locking myself away, or claim a debt for saving me from Frankie. No, he’d left the t-shirt at the door and gave me space. The same way he had offered me a safe place as a child.
And I fucking love him for it.
As I pick out a charcoal hoodie, I consider seeking my own justice. However, killing Sean Hennessy would cause a seismic shift in the relationship I have with the Souzas––I’d become their enemy.
A Sapori at war with the Hennessys––and Tomás Souza would ultimately put a bounty on my head. Whereas my villainous husband… what would he do to me?
I hold my chest, the pain too much to withstand. Taking a steadying breath, I drag my hands through my hair and fix a black baseball cap on my head, weighing up the undying love I have for André and the staunch loyalty I possess for my mother.
