Nightshade by Molly McAdams
My brother was long gone, and no one gave me a second glance when the woman came in saying I’d posted bail.
Maybe they figured pimps did that for their women.
Except I’d never had one of those.
I walked out of the police station into the rain, and with an amused smirk at the dark SUV waiting on the street, I turned and headed in the opposite direction.
I hadn’t gotten more than a dozen feet away when Mickey snatched my wrist and pulled me into his embrace. “I told you what would happen if you walked away from me again . . .”
“And I told you that you’d beg for your life if you grabbed me again.”
He laughed, low and dark. “Get in the car. Please,” he added as an afterthought.
I giggled and bit on my bottom lip as I turned to face him. “Pretty sure there are easier ways to talk to me than getting me arrested and bailing me out. And as it turns out, I don’t like men who do that. Imagine that.”
He pulled me close and pressed his lips to my ear. “You needed to be taught a lesson. Don’t make me drag you.”
I lifted my face to the crying sky and laughed wildly when he tried to pull me toward the car. I spun in his arms, but when my spins brought us face to face again, I angrily said, “Keep trying to pull me somewhere I don’t want to go, Mickey. We’re outside of a police station. I can easily scream for help.”
“I’ll make you scream.” His words were a promise, his tone pure seduction. “Think you’ve been fucked, Jessica? You won’t remember your life before me once I’m done with you.”
“Is that so?” I said with a smirk.
The thought of him touching me in that way made me dizzy. My stomach turned, forcing me to fight through the nausea and dark memories that threatened beneath the surface.
“Scream it from underneath me or on your knees while begging me for your mother’s life. Either way, those lips will be screaming my name.” When my smirk faltered, he nodded toward the car. “Get in.”
I followed numbly and didn’t say a word once we were sitting in the car—our positions reversed from the day before.
When the car left its parking spot, my heart began racing.
I’d never been in this car and had it move.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ve shown me you’re too defiant to trust. I need to be able to keep an eye on you.” He slid his phone out of his pocket and tapped rapidly on the screen. “I’ll give you the world, Jessica. You just need to give me you.”
I belonged to no man.
My chest ached like a weight was pressing down on it when green, hate-filled eyes flashed through my mind.
I shook my head to push him from my mind and said, “I want to see my mom.”
“That’s not how this works. Show me that you’re mine and I’ll give you what you want.”
And if I don’t?
The unspoken question hung in the air between us, and Mickey leaned forward to grab my chin. “Continue to be defiant. Walk away from me again. Say you don’t belong to me again. Do it, Jessica. I want you to. Because then you’ll see what I can do with a single thought. You won’t have a mother to worry about anymore.”
A stuttered breath ripped from my lungs.
No.
No, no, no.
“Once she’s gone, I’ll continue down the list. Kieran, Beck . . .” He released my chin and sat back against the seat. A sigh slid from his lips as he put his phone into his pocket and murmured, “Interesting to find out you have a brother. And what a pretty wife he has.”
The space in the vehicle closed in on me.
The world seemed to tilt.
My stomach rolled and my throat tightened. And then he was there. In front of me. Cradling my face in his hands. His face within an inch of mine.
I wanted to move away, but I couldn’t find the strength to.
“But do as I ask and I promise . . . the world, Jessica. It will be yours. You’ll never want for anything. You’ll never fear anything. Not even me.” His eyes danced across my face for a few seconds before he demanded, “Tell me you understand.”
My heavy head dipped deeper into his grasp as a tear rolled down my cheek. “I understand.”
Hours later, and I was making Mickey regret ever wanting me.
We’d gone to visit a friend of his. A doctor friend who would do anything for Mickey. Including perform ultrasounds and exams. Including drawing blood from a twenty-four-year-old girl being held down by two forty-something-year-old men.
From what I’d heard in the secret meetings I’d listened in on over the years, I had no doubt this friend was one of the men who would’ve helped Mickey in his human trafficking ring.
And I wanted Kieran to add him to his list.
When he forced me into the doctor’s office, he told me he wanted me tested to make sure I was clean. I hadn’t bothered telling him I got tested regularly because I knew that piece of information would’ve fallen on deaf ears.
But Mickey lied.
No, Mickey had wanted me to endure being violated by a man I didn’t know while he and the silent driver stood over me, watching and listening to the doctor tell them things. Like the fact that my lifestyle hadn’t damaged my ability to have children, and that my body appeared to be in prime condition for carrying a child.
Mickey had smiled like a bastard at that news.
I kicked the doctor in the face and fought against Mickey’s and the driver’s arms to try to get to Mickey, my screams and accusations quickly turning into crazed-sounding laughter when I realized I couldn’t win.
Because he had Momma.
He’d threatened Kieran and Beck and Jentry . . .
I wanted to hate my brother for having the life I’d never been able to, but I couldn’t. I never would.
And Mickey had threatened him and the one girl who’d brought Jentry peace from the darkness that lived deep inside him. Inside both of us.
Hate burned so pure and so deep for the man that held me down as the doctor sedated me so he could remove my IUD without getting kicked again, but the laughter didn’t fade. I couldn’t let it.
The moment I stopped laughing, the tears would come. Mickey had already stripped me bare to find what I cared about most in this world. To find my fears . . .
I wouldn’t let him have my fears too.
“So that’s what you want?” I asked Mickey as his driver dragged me across the rain-soaked lawn behind the mansion, toward the guesthouse. There was a burly man standing guard out front, and I had a feeling he wasn’t there to speak to Mickey.
My chest heaved when we got closer and I saw his face under the porch light.
Conor . . .
But he didn’t spare a glance for me as we passed him to go into the house.
Then again, he didn’t know me.
“You don’t just want the whore you found. You want children,” I said, spitting the word at Mickey once we were inside. “You want me locked up behind your pretty little house where you can keep an eye on me and use me whenever it conveniences you. Popping out kids for you because yours are six feet under and your wife left you.”
If he was surprised I knew so much about him, he didn’t show it. He just continued through the front of the house, turning on lights as he went.
I bucked against the driver and yelled, “Did you ever think to ask what I wanted?”
Mickey turned on me, grasping my cheeks to silence me. His frigid eyes locked on to mine. “The world, Jessica.”
A sharp laugh burst from my chest. “Yeah, the world you think I want.”
“Every woman wants what I’m offering you.”
He’s more insane than I am.
“I’m not every woman.” I jerked my face from his grasp, another laugh tumbling from my lips when the driver abruptly released me and I nearly fell to the floor. “What makes you think I would’ve ever wanted this? What makes you think I would ever want to push the madness inside me on any child?”
&nb
“You sick fuck. You can’t force this on someone.”
“Try me.” That smirk widened into a chilling grin. “Just think of what your crazy mixed with mine will create.”
With that, he pushed away from me and walked through the house I already knew like the back of my hand from the years that Beck, Lily, and Kieran had lived there.
When Mickey came back, he was holding a towel for me.
“Look around the house. See if there’s anything that you might want or need that we can have brought here first thing in the morning.”
I wrapped the towel around my shoulders but still didn’t move. “Is my mom here?”
He gave me an amused look. As if he thought it was funny I’d even ask or think it.
“Then that’s what I want and need. You said if I did what you wanted me to, she would be brought here. I want her here.”
Mickey cocked his head to the side. “You’ve done nothing.”
Hate coursed through my veins. I forced myself to grip the edges of the towel so I wouldn’t attack the man standing in front of me. “What I just went through was nothing?”
“It was necessary for what I want. It wasn’t what I want. Besides, I also told you that you needed to behave. You screamed and broke the doctor’s nose.”
“If you wanted a silent, mindless dog, you came after the wrong bitch.”
His mouth slowly curved into a wry smile. “I don’t want you silent or mindless. Just obedient. You might’ve heard Conor’s name from your investigations on Kieran. He’ll be outside to protect you. If you need anything, tell him. He’ll make sure you get it.”
That had been Conor’s job with Lily.
It was also why he had a tombstone looming over his head.
I looked down at myself. “This is all I have. If I need clothes?”
Mickey dipped his head in acknowledgment. “He’ll make sure you get them.”
“Tampons?”
He huffed in annoyance. “That too.”
I bit on my lip as I thought. “What if it’s the middle of the night and I’m craving—”
I was slammed against the door before I could finish my thought, Mickey’s outraged face directly in front of my own.
“I don’t share,” he bit out. “If you attempt to seduce Conor, he’ll be dead within the hour. If you touch him, I’ll make you watch as I force Conor to kill your mother.”
I knew I needed to laugh.
To taunt.
But I was so caught off guard that I could only stare into his murderous eyes as I whispered, “Fries. What if it’s the middle of the night and I’m craving fries?”
The fire immediately left his eyes. “Then Conor will get it.”
“Why can’t I? I’ve been taking care of myself since I was eight. I don’t need to be protected.”
Amusement lit his face. “Who am I, Jessica?”
“A bipolar psychopath going through a midlife crisis.”
The words were out without a thought, and dread turned my blood to ice. My body jerked when his booming laugh filled the room.
He pressed harder against me, and I wanted to climb up the door if it would get me away from him. Away from the erection pressed against my belly.
“I’ll ask you again . . . who am I, Jessica?”
I swallowed my disgust and spoke through gritted teeth. “Mickey O’Sullivan.” When he lifted a brow to prompt me to continue, I said, “Boss of Holloway.”
“And you know exactly why I’ve lost everything.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to confirm that again.
“The Borello family is the reason I don’t have my legacy anymore. And while there might be a forced truce between us, there won’t be if they know I’m trying to grow my family again. The Borellos want the O’Sullivan name gone. So you will be guarded. Protected. That is why Conor will do everything for you. Do you understand?”
I nodded weakly.
“Good. Now pick a room. Anything that was in the trailer will be brought here in the morning.” His fingers grasped my chin gently and his voice dropped seductively. “I won’t touch you until we get the results back from the tests tonight, but that doesn’t mean you won’t do things for me. I’ll be back for you.”
I opened my mouth to let him know what I thought of those expectations, but the tightening of his fingers stopped me.
“The world, Jessica.”
I wrapped the towel around my hips as I walked into my bedroom and forced my gait to remain steady even though I felt the shift in the room.
I headed for my nightstand and opened it. Quickly grabbing one of my blades and trying not to react to the fact that one was missing.
Because I knew who would take one, and she was the last person on earth I wanted to see.
I flipped the blade in the air to test its weight and looked over my shoulder as I searched for her.
“Do you have a death wish?”
A wild laugh filled my bathroom before she came sauntering into my room wearing nothing but one of my shirts. “Not tonight, honey.”
Her hair was wet and makeup smeared. She looked so much like the first night I found her in my room, and it was taking all my strength not to react.
“Get out.”
She let her head tilt back, exposing her neck in a way that made me need her and hate her all at once. “You don’t want to see me?”
“Thought I made that clear.”
Another laugh.
That laugh.
It was wrong. It wasn’t her.
“Hmm . . . no. I’m not sure you did. In fact, I might need you to remind me.” She grabbed the bottom of the shirt and slowly lifted it over her thighs until her lace underwear was taunting me.
“Leave.”
“Don’t be like that, baby.”
My brow drew together in frustration. Frustration that she was here. That she was doing this to me. That she was calling me baby.
She dropped the shirt so it fell back over her thighs, her obsidian eyes brightening with excitement as she closed the distance between us. “Or maybe you need me to remind you what it’s like. What it feels like to live again. What it’s like to be something other than a mindless, killing machine. What it’s like to be with someone who knows what you need.”
Crazed laughter spilled from her lips when I shoved my hand into her chest to keep her from coming closer.
“What is it that had you thinking about Lily when you were deep inside me?” She gripped my hand and tried to force it lower, but I kept it firmly in place. “I wonder if you would see me if you fucked her again.”
My teeth clenched and my breathing slowed. “Jessica. Leave.”
“Ooo. Someone’s getting angry.” She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and let it slowly pop free. “I like it when you’re angry.”
“Jessica.”
“Tell me what it’s like when you slip into that place.”
I dropped my hand and took a step back.
“Tell me what it’s like to give yourself over to that darkness inside you.” She was so excited she was practically vibrating.
And I was so close to losing my hold on staying myself. “Jessica,” I said again, my voice strained.
“Tell me what it’s like to lose everything because of it.” She gripped my arm, her nails digging in and leaving their mark. “Make it go away.”
My head jerked back and my chest heaved at her rushed plea. It was a desperate cry filled with so much ache and longing. Nothing like her previous taunts.
I’d
“What?”
But when she opened her mouth again, it was as if nothing had happened. Her eyes were bright and her lips were stretched in that taunting grin. “Tell me what it’s like to steal lives and lose yours in return.”
“Make what go away?” I asked calmly.
It felt like a jolt went through her body at the question.
Her eyes widened then fell to the floor as she took trembling steps away. She shook her head, her face twisted like she couldn’t figure out what I’d said.
“Jessica.”
“I’m . . . I have to go.” She turned for the window, her body stiff.
“Tell me what you said.” I grabbed for her, but she jerked away from my touch.
“What, now you want to talk?” she scoffed. “Like you said, you made yourself clear.”
I raked my hands through my hair and let out a groan when she snatched her arm from me again. “At least put some damn clothes on.”
She huffed but continued moving toward the window.
Without a word, she opened it and slipped out and away.
And I didn’t try to stop her.
I couldn’t.
As much as I couldn’t get that tortured plea out of my head, my heart wouldn’t let her try to destroy it more than she had in such a short time.
After staring at the open window for a couple minutes, I turned away and went to my dresser.
I was reaching for a pair of sleep pants when my phone lit up with a text from Beck asking where I was.
I went to my messages to respond, but before I could, I noticed I had three others. All from Conor. All blank.
Skipping the texts, I went to call him and noticed I’d missed calls from both brothers. One from Conor and four from Beck.
My breaths came slower and my muscles tensed as I tapped on one of their names and prepared for the reasons for their persistence.
When Conor didn’t answer, I called Beck.
“Jesus fuck, dude. Where have you been?”
“Showering,” I bit out. “What’s happening?”
“Good fucking question.” Beck sounded more worried than I’d ever heard him, and it made that part of me I hated roar to life.