Gilroy.
A raging, seething Gilroy, his pale face splotched with angry red dots. Quick as a snake, he shifted the dagger from her side to her neck, shoving her against the brick wall. “I said, where the hell is she? I know Ness left with you, ye tramp.”
No.
No, no, no.
Evan hadtoldhim.
Her eyes closed, the sting of that fact alone sliced a blade straight through her heart.
Of course, Evan had told him. Gilroy would always win. She would always lose. Why had she even, for one second, pandered to the thought that Evan’s loyalty would possibly be to her? To the side of saving Ness’s life? To the noble choice?
“What the hell did you do with my wife, ye whore?” He screamed into her face, his breath a hot mixture of whisky and rot invading her pores.
Her eyes cracked open to see his wild, mad eyes searching her face, not about to rest on one spot. His irises, twitching, moving. Constantly moving.
“She’s gone.” Her words came out with the epitome of composure.
The blade pressed into her neck. “Tell me where she is.”
“Never.”
His hand whipped up, grabbing a fistful of her hair by her temple and he yanked her head forward, then slammed it back against the bricks.
Instant pain. And in the next second, blackness. Her body leaving her.
~~~
Cold, wet—no, not wet—damp under her cheek. Damp and cold stone.
The instant pain at the back of her head reminded her exactly what happened. Her head smashed into a brick wall. By Gilroy.
Her breath hitched for a moment, ready to scream, before she caught herself and she exhaled, forcing her breathing to remain even. Still. Eyes closed.
Juliet listened. A bottle, no, a glass set down onto a table. The heel of a boot scraped against the floor. The wheeze of air into a thin nose.
Wherever she was, she was with one other person, and she could only assume it was Gilroy.
But she was still alive. He hadn’t killed her outright. That was a good first step. He thought he could get her to tell him where Ness was.
Still not going to happen.
She cracked her eyelids slightly, just enough to see through her lashes. A flicker of one lone candle. Legs. Legs attached to a body sitting by a table where the candle glowed. Nothing on the walls. Just stone. No fire. No window.
Where in the hell had he brought her?
Her senses all about her, she checked off her body parts. Head—pain throbbing from the spot where her head hit the wall, but her mind seemed to be in order. Arms, hands—quick flexes of muscles told her all were working. Torso—no pain. Legs—fine. Except—bloody ballocks—what was that around her ankle?
Half on top of her left boot and half cold on her skin, a wide metal bar. A clamp.
No.
She couldn’t be clamped to the floor with a chain. Impossible.
Her left leg twitched and metal scraped along the floor. Her right leg shifted against the stone underneath her—her dagger was gone from the sheath about her calf.
Blast. She was chained like a blasted animal and she hadn’t a thing but her nails to bloody the bastard.