Bad Bishop by L.J. Shen - 53

I pulled the trigger a fraction of a second before I spotted the flash of a pink dress.

Everything turned black.

Jerking my pistol sideways, every fiber of my body hoped it was enough to skew the bullet far enough from my aim.

I never missed.

But I needed to miss now .

The tiny figure ducked behind the broken window of the piece of junk car, the sound of my shot ricocheting through the air, the scent of sulfur in my nose, on my tongue.

The entire world hung, suspended on a string, and I knew I wouldn’t give myself time to mourn the loss of my wife if I killed her. I’d kill myself on impact.

I shot so fast in her direction I nearly outran the bullet, my heart in my fucking throat.

Lila.

Lila.

Lila.

My wife sidestepped the rusty car, and I saw she was unscathed. All the air left my lungs. My knees buckled. I fell down on all fours, fucking heaving from terror.

She could’ve died.

I could’ve killed her.

A few seconds later, I felt her dainty fingers on my shoulders. She kneeled down in front of me, gathering me into her arms. I pushed her away, standing up swiftly, livid.

“What in the ever-loving fuck ?” My roar reverberated through the air. Snatching her shoulders, I shook her roughly. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

I was losing my shit, mind, and control. The thought that someone could’ve hurt her, that I could’ve been that someone…

Her big blue eyes clung to my face wildly. My grip on her tightened, becoming more punishing.

“I’m going to disembowel every gobshite who’s been assigned to watch you.”

“ I threatened one of your soldiers at gunpoint. ”

Of course she did.

Falling in love with a normal girl was too big an ask.

I had to go for the deranged Camorra principessa who looked like an angel and recreationally licked blood and shot people.

“I told you to never go anywhere where you’re unsafe.”

She pushed up to her feet, patting down her dusty knees.

“ You could’ve died! ”

“It was a chance I was willing to take. You dying wasn’t.”

“ Well, as it happens, you dying is a chance I wasn’t willing to take. ” Her expression was thunderous. “ By the way, this is a very weird way to say thank you for saving your life. ”

What Lila didn’t understand was that I’d choose to be mutilated to death and resurrected twice a day until the planet exploded before seeing her endure a minor paper cut. Did she save my life? No. I saw the dipshit on the roof and had my gun aimed at him. I’d been hoping to extract information from him before killing him.

That wasn’t the point, though.

The point was that she cared.

Cared enough to risk her life.

Cared enough to go to the trouble.

I’d been the responsible adult in every relationship I’d ever had. With my father, brother, sister, Alex, the entire Irish operation. I made the calls and decided who lived and who died.

And though I still wanted to strangle her for giving me a heart attack, I couldn’t pretend it didn’t affect me that she risked her own life just to save my ass.

“Are you hurt?” I asked. I was sulking. Another side effect of being in love. Jesus Christ, it was like being plagued with an incurable disease.

She arched an eyebrow, folding her arms over her chest. “ Are you done with your tantrum? ”

“Almost.” I grabbed her cheeks in my palms. “Need to do this first.”

I leaned down and kissed the living shite out of her. A kiss that put to shame every other kiss in the history of kisses. With tongue and teeth and moans and groans. With adrenaline-soaked urgency only being reminded of what your own mortality could cause.

I took a step back, putting on a ruefully unbothered face. “That’s your official thank-you. Having said that, never do it again.”

We both turned and walked toward the lifeless figure that laid beneath the warehouse roof. It was splayed on the concrete, a river of dark blood oozing from the balaclava. A clear shot to the head. My chest nearly burst with pride. She was a good student.

I kneeled down in front of him, turning to her when I spoke.

“You want to see his face?”

She nodded. “ I’m glad I was the one to kill him. He killed a part of me all those months ago. He deserved it. ”

I ripped the balaclava from his face and squinted at the sight in front of me.

It was…

A fucking nobody .

Not anyone I recognized, and certainly no one from the Irish, Camorra, or Outfit.

I was confused to say the least.

Lila tugged on my sleeve from behind, and I turned to look at her.

“ I know him. ” She breathed out, eyes wide. “ Roger. He worked on Crimson Key for at least a decade. At my parents’ country club and sometimes in the mansion, when there were big events. I bet he was a member of the staff during Luca’s wedding. ”

I said nothing.

“ I’m happy it’s done. ” She fell into my arms while I was still crouching. “ I’m tired, Tiernan. Tired of poking this wound that keeps opening, gushing out. Tired of the violence and misery finding this bastard brought with it. I want to forget he ever existed and move on. ”

Stroking her back absentmindedly, I sent her to wait in the car for me while I cleaned any potential evidence from the crime scene. I followed her alertly with my gaze until she climbed in and locked herself inside the Mercedes.

After she was gone, I yanked his wallet from his pants—which I knew I’d find because whoever sent this asshole here wanted me to find it—and called Sam. I wasn’t convinced by what I was seeing.

“Brennan,” he answered.

“Roger Carsodo. Run his name on your system,” I clipped out. I held his driver’s license using the tips of my fingernails. I never left evidence behind, and I wasn’t going to start now only because this case was personal to me.

“ Pfft . Forget about it,” Sam confirmed my suspicion. “Family man. Veteran. Kids, wife, pets, a steady job. Landed on Crimson Key because his daughter has a rare lung disease and the humidity is good for her. I’m sending you his full bio.”

I killed the call and skimmed over the file Sam popped in my unencrypted chat app.

Roger Carsodo didn’t fit the profile.

He was well into his fifties, slim and relatively short.

More importantly, he had a wife and four children at home.

Frail enough not to attack a girl so viciously and violently, old enough not to be hard and ready in the seconds it took him to push her skirt up and violate her.

Yeah, he was a waiter at the wedding, but he had worked on Crimson Key for years. He was known as a devout Catholic and a family man.

It seemed the real attacker greased Cardoso’s palm. Paid him to take the fall. Kill or get killed. Roger took it, likely because the overdue medical bills kept piling up. He sacrificed himself for the greater good of his family.

But even poor people like Roger didn’t do this kind of shit for a few bucks. He needed to make sure his family was taken care of, which meant whoever attacked Lila had money.

Fucking loads of it.

Lila was terrified and exhausted from this ordeal. I wasn’t going to share all of this with her. As far as she was concerned, this shit was over. Done. She killed her rapist and was happy about it.

This was her truth, though. Not mine.

I was going to find that sneaky asshole.

Even if it was the last thing I did.