He hates me.
Hates everything about me.
And my heart withers up inside and dies, mourning the life I could have had with a husband who actually cared for me. I don’t cower and lower my gaze, although I’m sure he sees the sadness written in it. But to look away would mean defeat. Let him read how miserable I am. Let him choke on my misery just as I have since I set foot in Boston. I have felt like a stranger and an enemy from day one. His dark glower only serves to confirm what I’ve known all along.
I’ll never make a home here.
I’ll never find a sliver of happiness or joy.
This is my plight, and I’ll never be able to outrun it. If I was ever to slip away and return to the brothers I love so dearly, it would only mean that they would have to go to war with these savages. I can’t have their blood on my hands. But I sure as hell can threaten to have Tiernan Kelly’s.
By suggesting that he is somehow in breach of the treaty, he knows that his life would be forfeited if the other families were to find out about it. It might be the most despicable lie I’ve ever inferred, but it’s the only card I have to play in this twisted game of ours.
“Is that your only complaint, wife?” he whispers the last word with acidic bitterness.
I let out an exhale and square my shoulders, making myself look more confident than I really am.
“I had no hand in my fate, but I am woman enough to face it head-on. Hate me if you must, but don’t despise me for following to the letter of the sacrifice that was forced upon me. This marriage might not be the one I dreamed about when I was a little girl, but it’s the one that will ensure that thousands of lives will be spared. Are you so proud in your arrogance that you would risk the lives of so many just to get rid of me? Because I’m not. I will not be responsible for death knocking on my family’s door and restarting the Mafia Wars just because your hatred of me prevented you from fulfilling your duty.”
After my long rant, his eyes take on a different hue to them. He twirls a loose strand of my hair around his finger, making my breath catch in my throat when he gives it a gentle tug.
“Always so selfless. So pure. So self-righteous. If that’s what you want me to be, then I guess I can be that, too.”
I lower my eyes because I know he can’t.
Men like him are born and bred to not show mercy. Selflessness to them is a sign of weakness. Only brute force and ruthlessness have any part in our world. I know that much.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asks, taking a small step back and allowing air to fill my lungs.
“I don’t know you well enough to say either way.”
“Oh, you know me. I think you’ve known men like me for most of your life. And you have managed to learn how to bend them to do your will, haven’t you, acushla?”
“Can a man bend to a woman?” I arch a brow. “I’ve never seen it done before.”
He runs the pad of his thumb over my full lower lip, and again I feel an ache in my lower belly.
“Depends on the woman.”
“What a fierce creature she must be then to hold such power over a man.”
“Yes. Beautiful, too.”
My throat dries as his eyes soften, but all too soon does this one moment of vulnerability vanish into thin air, bringing forth the Irish king yet again.
“Meet me at my office at three. No later. And alone.”
The sudden change in topic alarms me.
“Why?” I stammer nervously for the first time since we started this fight.
His upper lip curls.
“Do you think I’m asking you to come into the city because I want to kill you?”
“You’ve been adamant that I stay locked away since I got here. Only leaving me to go out once with Colin as my personal shadow. So, excuse me if you asking me to come into the city unattended doesn’t raise my alarm bells.”
“I will not kill you, Rosa. Not today anyway.”
My shoulders stiffen, and my heart stops.
Which means he’s thought about it.
Killing me, I mean.
Not that the thought hasn’t passed my own mind. It would be easy enough to get rid of me. I’m not a fighter. All I have are my brains and foolish bravery. There are so many ways someone could get rid of an unwanted spouse without getting a divorce. He could hire an outside assassin and say that I was a casualty of an unnamed rival trying to take him out. He could throw me into an institution for the mentally ill, saying I lost my mind somehow, or he could lock me away in a grand house and forget my very existence. All three are preferable to divorce in our world.