Mal cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello? Hello?” he called. “Anyone out there? Malcolm Byrne speaking. I’m here with Arabella Byrne. Anyone coming to arrest me?”
The whistling howl of the wind was his reply.
He hummed. “Guess not.”
I inched away, eyes rounding as the truth hit me before I asked, “What did you do?”
Malcolm smiled—that heartbreakingly beautiful smile that ruined my life. “I made you a promise, a chroí, that we’d be together and no one would get in our way. You did not give me much time”—he looked around—“disappearing into this shithole a week before I planned for us to leave Bracknell.
“But in the end, it didn’t matter. Money talks just as loud here. For those that couldn’t hear it, the threat of making an enemy out of the Byrne family worked just as well.”
“You bought the police.”
My voice sounded far away—as if reaching me through glass.
“For much less than you’re thinking,” he replied. “It’s an atrocity how little we pay our law enforcement. Why put the effort in catching me, when helping me pays so much better? Yes, they’ve been putting on a good show. Interviewing witnesses. Calling in the FBI, only to discover a security tape of us leaving the island just in time that moved the investigation to the mainland.”
Mal laughed. “That was a particular stroke of genius on my part. I found a couple that matched our basic description and gave them an all-expenses-paid vacation to anywhere they wanted to go. All they had to do was get on the plane at that exact time, and not look up.”
“Why?” I asked so softly the waves tried to silence me. “Why can’t you let me go?”
His handsome face contorted. “Because you’re mine. You refuse to accept it but that makes it no less true.” The humor was fading quickly, disappearing as the mask peeled back. “The wrong person intercepted the message you sent. Fox Hill Road. Blue house. Boat. They had to come and search, but we won’t lose sleep over them coming back. At least, not anytime soon. They’ll be busy.”
An edge crept into his voice, sounding the alarm. “What does that mean?”
“It means I always keep my promises.” Malcolm held his phone up to my eyes. I looked at the photo—
—and screamed.
“The police will be too focused on finding your boyfriend’s killer to chase a couple that got away.”
There was no mistaking it. Nathan—my Nathan—looked into the camera without seeing it. Blood dripped down his face, soaking a dark red halo into his pillow.
I swung, smacking the phone out of his hand and overboard. He wasn’t prepared for that, or for me to launch at him. We went down in a heap. “You killed him!” I screamed into his wide eyes. “I loved him!”
“No!” Mal backhanded me. “Don’t you dare fucking cry for him! I’m your husband. You love me.”
I tumbled across the deck, recognizing the pain, but feeling none of it.
Nathan was gone. My first real love. The boy who made love to me under the orange trees, made me laugh after I’d forgotten how, and sheltered me in his beach house—safe in our refuge from the world.
“I’ll never love you!” I spat out a mouthful of blood. “Carter is funny, smart, and passionate. Preston understands me in ways I didn’t know myself. And N-Nathan,” I cried. “He was twice the man you could ever be even before you became this monster. That’s real love, Mal, and it kills you that you’ve never had it. Not from me, and not from my mother.”
Roaring, Mal bounded across in two steps. I knew it was coming. Accepted every word would seal my fate. But what did it matter?
He clamped my throat—his eyes bulging as mine did.
My fist cracked on his nose. Mal stumbled back, loosening his hold, and I made a run for the dock.
Something struck my ankles and I was falling. The deck rose up to meet me, smashing mercilessly against my forehead. Groaning, I willed myself to move. Run. Anything.
“Nathan...”
“Don’t cry for him!”
The first kick knocked me against the hull.
“He’s dead,” he shouted. “They’re all dead. You belong to me, Arabella. Your tears are for me.”
The blows rained down in an endless torrent, and I cried.
Loud, chest-wracking sobs.
For Nathan.
I SAT ON THE BED, SILENT in the dark. Outside, Mal creaked the floorboards moving the rest of his stuff out to the boat.
Friday had come. It was time to go.
I twisted my sore neck, looking to where the restraints used to be. He had taken them down and threw them away in front of me. Malcolm knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Let’s go.”
Carefully, I stood, cradling my sore ribs. I didn’t think anything was broken, but it hurt like hell anyway. I shuffled out under his watchful eye.
“Don’t blame anyone but yourself, Arabella,” he hissed. “It didn’t have to be like this.”
Yes, it did.
The little blue shack was swept bare. There truly was nothing for the police to find now. Everything had worked in Mal’s favor.
But not in Bracknell. Sending me here ruined whatever hideous plan he had for me then, and I was gifted this one last summer with Preston, Carter, and Nathan.
Tears welled in my eyes.
I was dangerous for them. I should have stayed away, and still, I wouldn’t trade a millisecond of our time together. I’d hold them in my heart during these years with Malcolm. I’d get by knowing that, whatever happened, those years would be short.
“Hurry up. I want out of this place.” He grabbed hold of my forearm, pulling me out the door and down the dock. I bit my split lip to hold in a groan as I quickened my pace to keep up. Mal stomped on my knee in the midst of my beating. The deep ache and worsening limp did not bode well.
“He picks us up at noon on the dot,” Mal said as he climbed the ladder. “If we’re late, our chance to get home won’t come again for weeks.” He turned around, reaching to lift me up. “You’ll like our new home in Lismore. It’s where my mother is from.”
Lismore, Ireland.
I should have known. Mal would want to be somewhere he could still control the situation. And send people after me if I tried to run.
“We have new identities waiting for us on that boat, a chroí. A new life.”
I said nothing. Just raised my hands for him to lift me.
Malcolm secured me under the shoulders.
“Belle?!”
Our heads jerked up.
No, don’t do this to me. Don’t taunt me after everything I’ve been through! I haven’t earned this torture!
“Belle!” Nathan’s voice said. “We’re here!”
I twisted, and there he was. Perfect. Beautiful. Unharmed.
Unreal.
This apparition was my mind conjuring one last jab. A death rattle as it gave up all hope.
“How?!” Mal shouted. “You’re dead!”
What? Mal can see him too?
“Baby, run!” Nathan raced toward the dock, curly locks flying, and arms held out. “Run to me!”
He no sooner said it than Carter and Preston were there, racing behind him.