Sparrow (20 page)

SPARROW

HE CHEATED ON
me in our room.

In my room.

This was crossing the line. Hell, it was sprinting right past it, crossing a dozen more lines I never knew even existed. Yeah, we weren’t a real couple, but this had nothing to do with love. It was about respect.

Obviously, Troy had none for me.

After a silent cab ride, in which I stared out the window and moved my jaw from side to side while he made some cryptic business phone calls, we made it to the airport. We checked in, light-jogged our way to the terminal, two strangers with a mutual destination but very different paths, and waited for the flight wordlessly, both of us engrossed in our cell phones.

When my ass hit the seat on the airplane, it dawned on me that I was scared of flying. Scared of everything, really. Scared of leaving Boston for the first time, scared of doing it with Troy, of all people, and scared of the prospect that Brock had lied to me. Flying to Miami wasn’t going to do me any good, after all.

I’d told my husband that I wasn’t scared of him, but that was a lie. I was frightened. Not that he’d hurt me physically. I knew that’d never happen. But that he’d break me mentally. That, I had no doubt, was something he was more than capable of doing.

Naturally, turning to Troy for comfort was like turning to a hooker for abstinence tips. I quietly sank into my blue, first-class seat, chewing on my fingernails and hoping that the plane wouldn’t crash. Or maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. A whole life with Troy felt like a burden only convicted war criminals should serve.

“Before I fired him, Connor mentioned that you tried to run away. You think you can run away from me?”

I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning to look at him in his seat. I watched him from my peripheral vision as I choked the armrest with my grip. His gaze was on his iPad, but his stone-cold-killer mask was on full display, his jaw hard. I half shrugged, pretending to stare out the window. I wanted to let him second-guess my next move. Be the one to keep him in the dark for once.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea to cross me, Sparrow.” He lifted his face, his menacing voice caressing my cheek. Every word echoed between my thighs.

I grimaced. This was not a good time to be turned on.

I licked my dry lips as the plane taxied down the runway, the wheels eating up the ground with incredible speed. Shit, it was fast.

His hand moved between us, hovering over my inner thigh but not touching.

I angled my hips away from him. “I’m a good runner.”

“And I’m an excellent chaser,” he whispered.

MIAMI TURNED ME
into a sweaty mess of auburn curls, but it still stole my breath away. Like a first date with your high school crush, your first kiss underneath the bleachers and that very first cupcake from the overpriced bakery down the road.

Boston was a concrete jungle full of grungy-gray and staid-red brick buildings, whereas Miami was colorful, sunny and vivid. Boston was rainy, Miami, sunny. Boston was suited, Miami, bikini-clad.

It’s like I’d stepped into a parallel universe, where everything and everyone were more alive and vital. Well, other than the man who brought me here. He was much the same. All cold efficiency and barely contained fury. Troy was munching on a toothpick, as he always did. Toothpicks were his pacifiers, and he left them everywhere he went, like a fingerprint.

Our cab stopped in front of a resort-style hotel, two rows of tall palm trees leading to its entrance. I looked up and saw the vast, glassed-in balconies of each room, every patio boasting its own small, real-grass garden and swimming pool. The driver hopped out and ran to the trunk, yanking out our two suitcases. I got out, sucking in the humid air and fanning myself with my hand as I scanned the very foreign surroundings.

Brennan stayed in the car, rolling the toothpick between his teeth and tongue, his dark aviator shades hiding those eyes that pinned me every time they glanced my way. The suitcases sat between us on the walkway like bouncers trying to make sure we weren’t going to pounce instinctively and kill each other.

“Are your legs too precious to walk anymore? Do you need to be wheeled into the premises?” I mocked, venom dripping from each word. “Oh, I know, maybe I can give you a piggyback ride.”

“Funny.” He spat the toothpick to the sidewalk and leaned back into the seat of the cab. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“You’re leaving me here?” My voice prickled with edge.

He looked around us, like he wasn’t sure I was talking to him. “You don’t want me to touch you. You certainly don’t fucking want my conversation and you have my credit card. It’s your honeymoon. Check-in. Go have fun. I, myself, am planning to do the same.”

What? After everything he’d done, practically shoving me onto the plane against my will for this so-called honeymoon, he was going to just dump me in a hotel and abandon me like I was a stray cat?

I offered him a sly smile. “Aw, I’m hurt. Are you saying I’m no fun?”

“I’m saying that if I can’t eat it, fuck it or kill it I have no interest in it,” he answered dryly.

He was messing with me again, capitalizing on the fact everyone feared him. And let’s face it, he knew what I was ashamed to admit—his dangerous aura did appeal to me. People were like onions, made of lots of layers. The deeper you went, the rawer the layer. With Troy, I’d found a layer in myself that wanted to be scared. That got off on the adrenaline and rush of being with a savage.

I bit on my inner cheeks, tasting the metallic tang of blood. A cheater, a criminal and perhaps even a murderer, my husband wasn’t exactly a catch in my book.

And sadly, I still wanted him around.

“Fine,” I said. “Have a good meal. Find a hooker. Fuck her. Kill her. Do your little homerun of fun. Just don’t expect me to sit here and wait.”

He laughed when he shut the cab’s door with an unpleasant thud. It wasn’t a spiteful laugh. He laughed like he was genuinely enjoying our mutual exchange. Then he rolled down the window. “Dinner is at nine. Be ready and dress nice,” he had the audacity to say.

I folded my arms over my chest. “Is that a request or an order?”

“That depends on your answer.” He tipped his shades down, the storm behind those frosty blues threatening to sweep me off my feet.

I took a step back and watched my husband tapping his palm over the headrest of the driver. Anger boiled beneath my skin, and I held my lip between my teeth.

Don’t lose it, Sparrow. That’s exactly what he wants.

“Semantics.” He shook his head in amusement. “You women just love it. We’re outta here.”

The cab rolled back into the traffic jam ahead, leaving me with our suitcases and a sour mood. But this time, I wasn’t going to just take it. I was going to up my game.

In true Brennan fashion, I turned around, took out my purse and shoved a few bills into the hand of the nearest bellboy. I didn’t have much money, but whatever I had, I gave him.

“Keep the suitcase somewhere safe until I’m back and get me a taxi. Now, please.”

A minute later I was sitting at the back of a bright yellow sedan, an elderly Cuban driver asking me where I was going.

“Wherever they’re going.” I pointed at Troy’s cab. The other yellow car was still buried deep inside a traffic jam. We’d have no trouble tailing them—they wouldn’t even notice.

Oh, yes. If Troy was going to treat me like a prop, I wanted to find out why. Why we were here, what was he up to and especially, why the hell I was his.

TROY

I WAS GOING TO
make the most out what was left of Paddy Rowan.

I hated the man with a passion, and if there’s one thing I knew, it was that passion never fails. Passion always fucking delivers.

Back in the days when the Irish ruled Southie, Paddy shaved some serious commission money off of my dad. Protection money, mostly. He was in charge of the bookkeeping, just like Brock, and just like Brock, he was not to be trusted.

I didn’t discover the truth until after my father was dead. Rowan had skipped town months before. Of course, by then the Armenians were after him, too. That’s why I’d let Paddy alone when I set out to avenge my father’s death and chased down everyone who had wronged him over the years. Rowan’s theft was ancient history and he had reason to lay low after he fled. He was, therefore, pretty far down on my list.

Then Red told me about what Rowan did to her, and it reawakened all kinds of dark thoughts I had about this man and put him straight up on that list again. He may not have been responsible for the death of my father, but he still stole our money.

He touched a girl.

He touched
my
girl.

Of course, killing Rowan was pointless. The man was already half dead and I wasn’t dumb enough to be that impatient. All the same, I couldn’t wait to get to Miami, especially after the news Jensen – a private investigator who was on my payroll - had sent while we were waiting to take off. Red was in for a hell of a wedding gift.

I also wanted her around just to make sure my cock wasn’t doing anything overly stupid, like getting itself buried in other women. Even though I had no illusions about my icicle of a wife, taking her with me guaranteed I wouldn’t find myself getting up to any old bad habits. The emptiness of the aftermath was intolerable. Case in point, tapping Cat today was about as fun as doing my own taxes.

I was getting too old for this shit, and frankly, the only woman I was vaguely interested in screwing right now hated my guts and happened to be my wife.

Paddy Rowan lived in Little Havana. A Cuban neighborhood where nobody knew him or gave a shit about who he was, so I figured that’s exactly why he chose it in the first place. Laying low was easy in a place where no one had the slightest interest in you. In Little Havana, he was just another old dying senior with no history or future to speak of.

He lived in the nicer part of the neighborhood, though definitely a downgrade from his upscale house back home. It was a yellow, Spanish-style house with arches and all that jazz. The stucco was clean, the yard looked remarkably well tended, and there was a young Latino woman sweeping the floor of the walled front courtyard, humming to herself. She wore a cleaning company’s uniform and looked up at me when she heard my footfalls. Her smile faltered, and her humming and sweeping stopped. A gust of hot wind blew on her face and a strand of dark hair teased her forehead.

The innocence of her expression reminded me of Red. Then again, pretty much every fucking other thing in the world reminded me of my wife nowadays.
Focus, asshole
. Revenge first, pussy later.

“Can I help you?” she asked, cautious and scared. She flinched when I sauntered toward the door without acknowledging her. I didn’t have time for a chit-chat.

“Sir!” she objected behind me, leaning her broom against the yellow archway and stalking my footsteps.

The front door was locked, so I kicked it open. Most people don’t realize that kicking-in a door is a fucking walk in the park to anyone over 150 pounds. I didn’t even break a sweat. I marched into the house, the door behind me swinging on its hinges, not stopping to admire the Spanish artwork on the walls or the nice interior design Paddy has decided to go for in his retirement. He’d always liked pretty things.