Page 89 of Shattered Hearts

Uneasiness and dread nibble at me like a pack of nasty New York sewer rats.

All day, I’ve been wrapped up in how shitty this situation is, but what I didn’t think about is what I’m going to do tonight when I get back to the mansion and have to face Finn. I’m sodesperate not to do that, I briefly consider going back to my mostly empty apartment and sleeping in the?—

A large burly man steps into my path. He has a disfigured, laughing face and an ugly stab-wound scar on his forearm. Mobster. Definitely.

I back up right into someone else. Their thick arm collapses around my shoulders, making me jump.

My head jerks up to find a boyish face leering down at me.

“Sheispretty.” He shows me his pearly white teeth. “Troy always said so.”

My blood becomes ice.

Red Hill boys.

“Come with me, love.” The guy with his arm around me forces us into a trash alley, and the big guy follows.

First chance I have, I drop my whole weight on the shorter guy’s foot and sprint, digging around in my purse for my pepper spray?—

But it’s gone. My mace is somewhere in my wrecked apartment and will be of no use to me.

Out of nowhere, the big guy clamps his rough paw around my arm. At the impact, I scream as loud as my terrified lungs can. His strength is monstrous.

Finn looks like he eats small children for breakfast. This guy looks like he eats fully grown adults.

With one swing of his arm, he throws me against a cluster of dumpsters with a force that darkens my vision and causes my head to float from the pain.

Hurt, dizzy, and afraid, I flinch as the barrel of a gun shoves into my side.

“You have somebody who belongs to us.” The shorter one sneers, wicked and perverse. He’s going to enjoy whatever comes next. But I sure won’t.

“We figure, if we take you, we’ll get him back. What do you say?” He and the big guy snatch for my arms and drag me forward.

Through my still-splotchy vision, I make out the blackout van that awaits us at the end of this alley.

Fuck. Think, Riley. Think!

Behind us, a gunshot rings out. Before I can react, the giant to my left pitches forward unnaturally, keeling over face down. Nausea jerks through me when I spy the bloody gunshot hole in the back of his skull. Beneath him, blood pools on the asphalt.

“Riley, get down!” Cian’s voice ruptures my panic.

I can’t even see him, but my body obeys. My legs collapse, and I drop to the ground. The world goes into slow motion as blood pumps in my ears.

I’m not ready to die.

Overhead, bullets whizz through the air. From the ground, my foggy head jogs to keep up with the present, which is somehow unfolding too fast for me to catch.

The shorter guy aims his gun in the direction we came from.

He’s too slow.

A bullet pierces his forehead before he can fire. Blood sprays out the back of his cranium as his lifeless body crumbles beside me, his eyes still open.

Another scream mounts in my throat, big and full, but a giant hand grips my left tricep and hauls me to my feet. Terrified, dizzy, and a bit delirious, relief clangs through me when Cian’s face comes into view.

“You and your sister are a lot of fucking work. You know that?”

“I—”