Page 46 of Hostile Bond
But confusion and shock have left me numb.
Nausea flips my stomach and a bead of sweat trickles down my spine like a jagged icicle.
Tomás appears beside me, his concern penetrating my inner turmoil. “We’ll get in the pilot's ear and order him to turn back.”
A burning ache spreads through my heart, the pathetic part of me that lurches toward the sky with no hope of ever reaching the far-off aircraft.
Everything goes blurry beneath the sound of my furious blood whooshing in my skull. Seconds of utter confusion pass. A moment of heartbreaking despair lapses.
I love her.
But something isn’t right.
Why would she go back to Ireland without telling me?
My scalp prickles. I spin around, my eyes darting skyward, where the airplane looks like a pinprick on a hazy blue canvas.
Rubbing the exact location of where my heart pounds, I try to inhale and exhale through the mounting anger of her tattered promise. Already the monster inside of me is preparing for punishment.
“He’s not responding, sir.” A waiting soldier speaks to Tomás.
“Wait…” I fish out my phone, unlock it, and hit speed dial.
The ring tone stretches my patience. I pinch the bridge of my nose when it goes to an automated voicemail message. Immediately after I hang up, I call her again.
“Pick up the fucking phone,” I mutter, and then my scalp tingles when I hear her sexy, bold Irish twang from the skies.
“Dré… I… I’m sorry…” Her voice wobbles.
“Don’t say sorry. Just tell the pilot to turn around. Come back to me and we’ll talk… whatever I did wrong… I’ll fix it, Sin. I promise.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then what the hell are you doing? Is this an elaborate game of seek and fuck? Because you’ve taken the only jet on the island.” My tone sharpens, hating how she’s in control and I’m completely powerless for the first time in my life. “Get your ass back here. I’m ordering you to come home or I’ll rip Ireland apart until I find you.”
“I can’t… it's not that simple.” The sadness lacing her tone pushes the danger of her insurgence to the edge.
“Christ, Sin. You’re fucking killing me here.”
Her quick breathing whispers down the line. “Ask me… ask me what you wanted to know under our tree all those years ago… what you asked me on the beach the other day.”
The blood drains from my limbs. My emotions are haywire. This is it. My heart pounds. “Who hurt you, Sinéad?”
I hear her shaky exhale before she replies, “Sean Hennessy.” His name strikes me like a gunshot to the brain. “The same bastard who’s with my mother instead of your uncle Conal. He sent you a message. I wasn’t snooping. I only glanced at your phone when it lit up on the coffee table.” Her tone changes from my sweet, adoring wife to fierce mafia queen. “I won’t let Sean rape my mother again, Dré.”
My heart stops beating, stunned in the cataclysmic bombshell. “Did he do that to you?”
My Uncle Sean?
“No… he made me watch as he did it to her. It was my fault… I stole his gun… and pointed it at him while he was sleeping. I was going to shoot him, Dré, but I was too scared.”
Sean was never an angel. I know that. We’re part of a global crime family and do bad things. None of us have a clean conscience. We’ve all done unthinkable things, but rape and child abuse––my best friend and her mother––right under my nose.
“Sinéad, I’m going to ask you one more time. Come home and leave this to me… please?”
The diabolical seconds of silence she leaves me in are the worst sort of nightmare that a foolish man in love could ever endure.
“It’s not up to you to fix this. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my mother and if that makes me your family’s enemy, then so be it.”
