Defiant Queen (Mount Trilogy #2)

I swerve around random pedestrians and run a red light, yanking the steering wheel and cursing as the rear end breaks loose as I round a corner. Keeping one eye on the road as I drive like a man possessed, I continue to monitor the screen until she leaves the bedroom, and I tap the button to switch over to the living-room camera feed.

I floor the accelerator, the engine screaming through the streets, at what I see. Brett Hyde, that worthless piece of shit, has come back from the dead.

One thing I know with absolute certainty—his new lease on life won’t last long.





Keira





The door to my apartment flies open again for the second time tonight. I spin around as the dim light of the hallway spills into my living room where I’ve been pacing back and forth in the dark, a butcher knife clutched in my right hand and a hammer in the left.

Brett had a gun. I didn’t. We all know who wins in that equation. But he didn’t shoot me because, apparently, he doesn’t want me dead. No, I’m more useful to him alive.

My sight blurs with tears at what I’m about to do, but it doesn’t stop my banshee battle cry as I rush toward the shadowy intruder, the knife above my head and the hammer swinging. The knife is batted away and clatters to the floor, but the hammer connects. He grunts before ripping it from my hands. It lands with a thud as I’m flipped around to face the wall and my wrists are grasped and pinned against my hips. A hard chest slams into my back as I’m pressed against the peeling paint. I jerk and attempt to yank away, but he has me in a human straitjacket.

“Let me go, you motherfucker! I already said I would do it. If you hurt my parents or my sisters, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

Instead of Brett’s smarmy voice in my ear, all I hear is a grunt. I breathe in, and the scent coming off the man holding me captive isn’t the one that haunts my past and my present. But the grunt is familiar.

“Let me go!” I demand again, and he gives my wrists a shake.

I blink back the tears in my eyes as I crane my head around, almost afraid to see if I’m right. Scar’s profile is visible in the watery wash of light.

A sense of relief I probably shouldn’t feel while in the arms of the man who has been instrumental in keeping me captive sweeps through me, and I stop struggling. My lungs still heave, but my body relaxes a few degrees.

“Let me go. I won’t run. Or kill you. Probably. Maybe.” At this point, I don’t know what I’m capable of. Definitely more than I ever thought possible.

Scar waits several beats before releasing his hold on my wrists. I spin around, rubbing the spots where his hands shackled mine as I back away, never taking my eyes off his face. When the back of my knees hit the couch, I collapse. Tremors rock my body, and I wrap my arms around my middle like I’m holding myself together.

“He didn’t even bother to come himself?” My voice shakes like the rest of me, and I’m pissed off that I care that it’s not Mount I almost killed. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not important enough for him to leave his little fortress.”

Scar doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He types something into it, and a few seconds later, his fingers fly again.

From the table across the room, my phone dings with a text, and my eyes lock on Scar. He jerks his chin toward it.

I stand, my knees still wobbly as I cross the room to snatch it up and find a text waiting for me.



Unknown Number: Boss is on his way.



My gaze lifts to Scar. Instead of the information calming me, it creates a firestorm of emotions inside me, springing from the vivid flashback spawned by the discovery of my note and the thong I wore to the Mardi Gras ball. Mount expected me to learn the truth all along, the manipulative bastard. Maybe not this soon, but eventually.

“Did you know about his plan all along?” When I think about all the things Brett told me before he left, my temper burns hotter and faster.

Scar’s expression goes blank, and he doesn’t move to type a response. Instead, he flips on the lights I turned off as soon as my not-so-dead husband left, worried Brett would come back. I wanted every advantage I could get if I had the opportunity to take him on.

“I hate both of you,” I say to Scar, conviction backing each word like steel plating.

For the next several minutes, I sit in silence because there’s no point in asking more questions I know won’t be answered. With each passing second, my shoulders tense and my spine straightens in preparation for the inevitable confrontation.

Mount is coming. It’s only a matter of time.

Footsteps thunder down the hall as if someone’s running, and my apartment door crashes open again.

His black eyes burning and chest heaving, Mount stands in my doorway looking like he’s ready to commit murder.

I don’t think before I act. I launch off the couch and fly across the room until I collide with him. His arms move to wrap around me, but I’m not seeking comfort. Not from him.

My hands curl into fists as I beat against his solid chest. The tears I’ve been struggling to hold back all night flow in rivers down my cheeks.

“How could you do this to me, you bastard? This is my life, not a game! How much do you have to hate someone to do this to them?”

I pound on him hard enough to leave bruises, but he doesn’t stop me. My arms burn and the impact lessens with each strike until my voice, hoarse with emotion, quiets to a whisper.

“Why me? Why not someone else? Anyone else?”

I drop my forehead against Mount’s chest, not caring that I’m soaking his shirt with my tears. It’s a torrent, but I feel no shame. This man was responsible for turning my life upside down before I even knew he existed.

One of his strong arms wraps around my waist and his free hand cradles the back of my head, pressing it against his chest. “Shhhh.”

“Don’t tell me to shhhh.” My shaky response is weak but still snappish.

“My little Irish hellion. You’ll fight to your last breath.”

“So would you.”

Something presses against the top of my head, and I think it’s his chin.

“You’re finally starting to understand.” He keeps his tone quiet and steady, but his words set me off again.

I shove both palms against his chest and he drops his hold on me, allowing me to go free.

I’m under no illusions anymore. Nothing in my life happens without his permission. Well, almost nothing.

“I don’t understand anything, obviously, because if I did, I wouldn’t have seen a ghost tonight when my dead husband showed up at my door.”

Mount’s expression, which for a flash of a moment held something soft, hardens. “He was supposed to stay dead.”

I take another step back in the direction of my bedroom and cross my arms over my chest. “He said you paid him. The loan that you used as leverage on me, he said you gave him that money on the condition that he’d disappear. He said you faked his death! Is that true?”

“Yes.” Mount steps toward me without a hint of remorse in his expression.

Tremors threaten my body again as he comes closer. I swallow, not sure I want to ask the next question, because I already know the answer. But some stupid part of me needs to hear him admit the truth.