Mafia King (Young Irish Rebels #2) - Vi Carter Page 0,9
and I start to count.
“Emma?” Liam’s voice breaks my bubble of control.
“Emma, answer me.” Liam’s voice rises, and I’m rising too, each piece of glass making me hiss as it embeds itself deeper into my flesh.
“Yes.” The opposite side of the back seat seems to only have a few shards of glass on it that I brush off. I pull myself up. My limbs wobble, and my ears buzz as I stare out the windowless frame and onto a green world of grass and trees.
“Are you injured?”
Am I injured? A stream of light pours in across me, and I reach out and touch a small steel hole, yet the impact of what it is, has a hand reaching in and clenching my gut. I feel like it pulls all the way up my throat and tries to turn me inside out.
The wind whips my hair wildly around my face, and I close my eyes, keeping my finger on the bullet hole. It wasn’t fireworks. It was gunfire. Someone just tried to kill us.
Liam doesn’t ask me again if I’m injured, and we don’t stop driving. Closing my eyes, a tremble that’s from the cold along with the shock has taken its full hold on me, and when the vehicle slows down, I finally open my eyes.
The sun has dipped, and time hasn’t moved. Yet, I’m sure a clock would contradict me. The more I look around the vehicle, the more bullet holes I see.
“They were trying to kill us,” I whisper as I scan all the broken glass.
“Maybe.” Liam sounds thoughtful.
“Maybe?” Did he not see the destruction I just saw?
His dark eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror, and I can’t hold his gaze as he slows down. We move down a narrow road. We pass three large homes before he slows at a set of high black gates. Lights on the pillars are lit, and the gates slowly open.
“Welcome to your new home,” Liam says once the gates open fully, and he drives through them.
I had nearly forgotten why I was here. Now, as the large dark structure grows larger, the closer we get, fear and something else strangles me to the point of nearly cutting off my air.
One, two, three…
CHAPTER FOUR
SHAY
The white covering comes easily away from another piece of furniture. I ball the white material in my fist. Another fucking chair. That’s the fourth chair in what was starting to look like the sitting room. A crystal bowl on the top of a large round table acts as an ashtray as I extinguish my cigarette. The sound of a vehicle rolling up the drive tells me it’s show-time. I’ll play nice, give her a tour of the house, and then I can get back to my business as she plays house.
I open the double front doors, impressed with the house that was given to me as a new king. My thoughts flee as the vehicle that is riddled with bullet holes and no windows stops close to the steps. Liam climbs out and opens the trunk, removing the bags like the vehicle isn’t a write-off. The back door opens, and I see a mass of red hair. Liam places a suitcase at my feet.
“You ran into trouble?”
“Yes.” Liam returns to the trunk, giving me no more information. As I leave the steps and round the shot-up Range Rover, I’m not sure what I will find, hopefully not a woman full of bullet holes.
Her head snaps up as I approach her; she’s halfway out of her seat. I try to smile and reach out to her, but she recoils from me and slides off the seat. She’s tiny, like a fucking kid. The green dress reminds me of what Irish dancers might wear. With all the red curls and pale skin, she really resembles a porcelain doll—the creepy ones.
“Is someone going to explain to me what happened?” I take my mind off my child-bride and look to Liam.
My future wife ignores me as much as Liam does. She hobbles to her suitcases, her blood-soaked hands gripping the handle, causing fresh blood to erupt.
For fuck’s sake.
I move past Liam as he takes out a final bag and closes the trunk. I reach around the redhead to take the bag out of her hand.
“I got it.” Her voice is sharp but feminine. Older than her tiny appearance would suggest it should be.
“Let me help you.”
Green eyes that sparkle snap up at me. “I said, I got it.” Hate, disgust, rolls