Page 45 of Seeking Vengeance
He really did have every possible exit wired. She gingerly set herself down on the commode with her head in her hands and sighed.
It looked like she wouldn’t be leaving just yet. In a way, it was a relief. She was too damn tired and too well sated to put any significant effort into anything besides crawling back into bed and snuggling up to the only man to whom she had willingly surrendered.
It wouldn’t last, of course. She could never allow that. But at that moment, she simply couldn’t summon the energy or the will to do anything about it.
“I missed you,” Sean murmured quietly when she slipped back into bed. His arm wrapped around her as she nestled her back against his front.
Her only response was a soft, contented sigh.
* * *
“What the hellare you doing here?” Nick demanded when he finally emerged from his bedroom nearly eight hours later, looking like hell. “Where’s my sister?”
Shane looked calmly over the screen of his laptop and sipped his coffee. He’d seen Nick Milligan before, but he doubted he would have recognized him in this condition.
“Nicki’s fine. You, however, are a different story. Grab a shower—youreek, man—and take a cup of coffee with you. Then, we’ll talk.”
Nick narrowed his eyes—or at least tried to. They were barely more than slits, so the attempt had little effect. “She at your place?”
“She’s back at the apartment over the garage,” Shane said carefully, knowing that Nick thought he was speaking to Sean.
“She’s safe there?” Nick asked.
“No place safer,” Shane said truthfully.
He’d seen the look in his twin’s eyes, and he knew that nothing would ever hurt Nicki as long as Sean drew breath. At least as long as she didn’t do something stupid, as Callaghancroiesseemed prone to do at this stage.
Nick nodded, satisfied, and poured himself a cup of coffee before heading toward the bathroom.
Nick was still moving slowly when he reemerged but looked a damn sight better than he had earlier. He’d showered and shaved and changed into a clean pair of jeans and a concert tee. Shane was waiting for him in the small kitchen.
“Feeling better?”
“I’ve been worse,” Nick answered, pouring another cup of coffee and grabbing one of the doughnuts from the box on the counter. “I just wish Nicki hadn’t had to see that. Fuck, I hate the look she gets in her eyes, like someone cut out her heart or something.”
“She loves you.”
“Yeah.” Nick snorted. “She always has. You’d think she would’ve wised up by now. She’s too soft. I keep telling her that, you know, but she doesn’t listen.”
At Shane’s raised eyebrow, he added, “Oh, I know she comes off all hard-ass and shit, but she’s not. No matter how many times I mess up, she’s always there for me.” He exhaled, the look on his face one of pain. “I can’t say the same.”
“Why weren’t you there?” Shane asked in that quiet way he had. “At the funeral? Why’d you make her go through that alone?” Shane, like all of Sean’s other brothers who’d been at the pub earlier, knew what had happened. And because Sean had claimed her as his, she had automatically become part of the family as well.
Nick’s expression hardened and then dissolved. “I wanted to be. I really did, but … shit, I don’t know. I just couldn’t bring myself to pretend like I was sorry the old whore was dead, and I knew that would hurt her.”
“She was your mother,” Shane said, a trace of anger in his voice, unable to completely hide the shock of a son speaking of his mother that way.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Nick spat with a snarl. “She gave birth to us, but she was no mother. What kind of mother beats her children? Forces them to steal? Sells them, for Christ’s sake?”
“She tried tosellyou?”
“Not tried.Did. And not me. I brought in too much money. She needed me to feed her drug habit.”
Nick was watching him closely, gauging his reaction, and Shane couldn’t completely hide the revulsion that little bombshell elicited.
“Ah, Nicki didn’t tell you that, huh? Guess I’m not surprised. She doesn’t like to talk about it, not even with me.”
“How old was she?”
