Page 102 of Lawless Rivals
“And you could just let it go. So, stop dragging me into your conversations about him. From now on, I won’t stand back and keep my mouth shut.”
“You’re saying plenty now, princess.”
I hold his gaze and force myself not to look away first.
“It’s just a piece of land between you and us,” I say. “Everything you’re doing to me…to him…comes back to that. Is it worth it?”
His mouth tightens before he answers.
“It’s not just land.”
“Yeah, it is,” I reply. “From where I’m standing, this is about control. Who gets to call it theirs.”
He gets to his feet and, as he kills the space between us, I walk backward, sensing the storm build inside him.
Shadows move across his face, and the wind stops blowing as we both inch inside the shed. When his chest bumps into mine, the air draws tight, and I take another step back.
“My father’s body turned up on that land with a bullet hole in his heart,” he says.
The hair on the back of my neck prickles.
“No one can tell me what happened,” he continues. “Old man Crowley closed the investigation and said there wasn’t any evidence to take it further.”
I don’t interrupt him, even though I want to.
“That land is important to me,” he says, quieter now. “It’s sacred. And it holds the truth of who murdered my da.”
He watches me for a beat, then speaks again.
“I’ll never stop fighting for it.”
I keep my arms folded, hold myself upright, and look at him even while my thoughts pull to how perfect his lips are and how his dark lashes frame stormy light-green eyes.
“You know my father lost his sister out there,” I whisper. “Whoever killed her could’ve killed your da, too. But taking the land won’t give us answers.”
“Your da doesn’t give a fuck about the truth,” he grits. “He had the power to blow the investigation wide open, yet he sided with Crowley and let the Gardai close it. He stole that land from my family days after they buried my da. Said it had always been Harrington land.”
I draw in a steadying breath. “And now you’re putting people at risk just to call it yours.”
“I tried to play nice in the past,” he says. “Didn’t work. Now I don’t give a fuck.”
His answer comes clean and certain, not dressed up to sway me.
“And if he doesn’t give it up?”
Saint’s gaze drills into mine.
“Then I keep taking from him until he has no choice.”
I shake my head and exhale.
“Kidnapping me wasn’t enough? What are you going to do to me next, Saint?”
His jaw tightens, the line of it harder now, the anger simmering without ever slipping.
“Nothin’.”
I laugh under my breath. “And why is that?”
