Page 67 of Brutal Union
"Then we'd both be trapped." I kiss her forehead, the salt of her tears mixing with lingering rain. "This way, one of us gets free."
Liam watches from his desk, satisfaction evident in every line of his body. His stolen bride choosing her cage, walking into it with eyes wide open. The poetry of it probably appeals to his Irish soul.
I release Alice, stepping back before I lose my resolve. She reaches for me again, crying harder, but Christopher's men are already escorting her toward the door. Toward freedom. Toward a life our mother died trying to give us.
As they lead her away, still calling my name, I turn to face my future. Liam O'Brien, who I'll marry to save my sister. Another cage, another captor, another kind of slow death.
My hand drifts to my throat, fingers finding Marco's bruises one last time. The marks will fade, but what he did to me, what he made me into, that's permanent. A woman who will spend the rest of her life comparing every touch to his.
"Come," Liam says, rising from his chair with predatory grace. His hand closes around my wrist where Marco's fingerprints still burn invisible brands into my skin. "Let's discuss the wedding arrangements."
He pulls me closer, and my stomach turns. The disgust must show on my face because Liam smiles.
"He trained you well," he murmurs, his thumb stroking over my pulse point. "Made you crave what you hate. Don't worry, I'll make good use of his work."
"You have no idea what you're dealing with," I say, my voice hollow. "Marco doesn't let go of what's his."
"He signed the papers."
"Papers mean nothing to men like him. He told me once, death is the only divorce he recognizes."
Liam's hand moves to my throat, fingers pressing against the bruises Marco left, claiming the same space with deliberate intent. "You think he's coming for you?"
"I know he is," I whisper.
"Let him come," Liam says, his grip tightening until I gasp. "I took you from him once at the altar. This time, I'll make sure he watches while I claim what was always meant to be mine."
His mouth drops to my neck, tongue tracing Marco's bruises before his teeth sink in just below them, marking me over Marco's marks. Revulsion crawls through my veins. This is what I am now, a weapon Marco forged that anyone can wield.
25 - Marco
The third Irish bar tonight, and my knuckles are finally starting to split properly. Blood drips onto sawdust floors, mixing with spilled whiskey and fear-sweat as I survey the wreckage: overturned tables, shattered bottles, three men groaning in corners they won’t crawl from without help. The mirror behind the bar is spider-webbed from where I drove someone’s face through it. Glass crunches under my boots with every step, the copper taste of blood thick in my mouth.
"Marco, enough." Luca's voice cuts through the ringing in my ears. He stands in the doorway, Alessandro and Nico flanking him like they're approaching a rabid dog. "This isn't strategy. It's just violence."
"Good." I wipe blood from my mouth, mine or someone else's, I can't tell anymore. The sting of whiskey in my cuts barely registers. "Violence is all that's left."
Another Irish soldier tries to crawl toward the exit. My boot finds his ribs, and the crack echoes through the ruined bar. No purpose to it. No information to extract. Just pain answering pain.
"This isn't you, brother," Luca says, stepping over broken glass. "You're stealing my thing."
I turn on him fast, my hand shooting out to grab his throat, slamming him back against the wall hard enough to crack plaster. His eyes widen with shock as my fingers tighten.
"This is exactly who I am." The words echo with truth.
I release him, and he stumbles, hand going to his throat as he gasps. Alex moves to help him, but Luca waves him off, eyes never leaving mine. The calculation there, the wariness. Good. They should be afraid of what I've become.
"The O'Malley warehouse burned twenty minutes ago," Nico reports, professional despite the carnage. "The dock workers are fleeing. Every Irish business in a three-mile radius is either destroyed or abandoned."
None of it matters. None of it brings her back. None of it erases the way she looked at me in that cemetery, like I was poison in her veins.
The compound feels like a tomb when we return. Dante waits in the main hall, still pale from his injuries, his bandaged hands moving in slow, desperate signs.
I don't even do him the honor of trying to make out what his clumsy, broken fingers are trying to say.
"She loved you," Alex translates, his voice careful. "This dishonors that love."
The laugh that tears from my throat sounds inhuman. "Love? Love's just the lie before the destruction."
