Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74581 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74581 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“I want to be with you,” she says, quietly. “Wherever you’re going. Whatever you’re doing.”
I hesitate only long enough to pull one of the Glocks from the holsters concealed beneath my jacket.
“Do you know how to shoot?” I ask her.
She nods, taking the gun in her small, slim hand. “My father showed me.”
“You stay behind me, and if I tell you to hide, you hide.”
She nods again.
With the second gun clasped tight in my own hand, I head toward the kitchens. Shouldering my way through the swinging double doors, I see a scene of total chaos: shattered dishes, water overflowing from the sink onto the floor, smoking frying pans left burning on the stove. The kitchen staff fled at the sound of the blast. But I have a feeling Clare and I are not actually alone in here.
A moment later, a bullet shatters the wine glasses directly behind my right ear.
“Get down!” I roar to Clare, following that advice myself as I dive behind a trolley laden with pastries. Two more bullets ricochet off the vent hood as Clare ducks inside a lower cabinet. I shove the trolly in front of her, covering her from view, while I run, crouched down, between the crowded service stations.
Valencia keeps shooting at me, exploding serving platters and a massive cruet of olive oil. The oil topples onto the floor, adding to the slippery morass already coating the tiles.
I return fire, forcing Valencia back toward the walk-in freezer. I’m a better shot than him—I could finish this right now. But I still don’t know who actually killed Roxy. Valencia wouldn’t have the balls to do it himself, or Parsons either. I need to know whose hands were wrapped around her neck. Who snuffed out her life, and the life of my son.
So instead of firing a bullet right between his eyes, I grab a heavy pewter dish and fling it at his head instead, striking him in the temple. He slips on the wet floor and stumbles, losing his grip on his gun. Roaring, I dive at him, seizing him around the waist and knocking him backward. I hit him in the face, one, twice, three times, until his nose is shattered, his mouth full of blood.
The smoking frying pans have finally set off the fire alarm, or perhaps it was the bomb itself. With a frantic hissing sound, the sprinklers activate. Water pours down from the ceiling. It drenches me in seconds, and Valencia too, blood running away from him in long, winding threads.
Seizing him by the throat, I snarl, “It’s over! I have your drugs. I have your emails. I’ve got you on tape admitting everything. The only thing you have left is your life, and I will throttle it out of you unless you tell me right now who you hired to kill Roxy.”
Valencia laughs, hair plastered to his head, his teeth a gory, broken mess.
“I didn’t hire anyone,” he chokes.
I resist the overwhelming urge to tear out his larynx with my bare hands.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I snarl.
“I didn’t hire anyone. He volunteered.”
“Who!?”
Valencia looks me right in the eyes.
“Her brother,” he says. “Niall Maguire.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending, unbelieving.
Then the last pieces fall into place, and I see it all clearly. Why the dog didn’t bark. Why the doors weren’t forced. Why Roxy failed to defend herself against the man she welcomed into our home as friend and family. Her own little brother.
“We weren’t the only ones unhappy with your alliance,” Valencia says, his voice strangled but surprisingly calm. “As soon as Connor Maguire knew about the pregnancy, he started planning for a new successor. Which of course displeased his son. Niall was only too happy to help us get rid of you all. No one wanted an heir.”
“I did,” I say, furiously.
With that, I lift a massive copper platter over my head, planning to bring it smashing down on Valencia’s skull.
“Constantine!” Clare cries, a high note of pleading in her voice.
I turn to look at her.
She doesn’t ask me to stop.
She just stands there, water running down her face, those big dark eyes full of tears.
And in that moment, I realize that while I may have lost my son, Valencia has given me something else. Without meaning to, without wanting to, he gave me Clare. And I love her with an intensity that may, in time, eclipse even the deepest hurts.
Slowly, I set down the platter.
At that moment, the door to the walk-in freezer bursts open and Emmanuel comes barreling out. He’s clutching a butcher knife, his face a mask of rage. He sprints at me, blade swinging down toward my face. All I can do is put up my forearm to block it.
But Emmanuel isn’t aiming for me. He buries the knife hilt-deep in Valencia’s chest. He stabs him over and over while Clare’s scream pierces the air.