Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2)

by Scarlett Finn

  Her destination was the largest space, where the two perpendicular sections of the room met. The area with the biggest audience. The more witnesses, the better. Whisper stopped, but swung the woman around hard, throwing her forward onto the floor, letting go of her hair so she skidded along before coming to a stop. Whimpering and grasping at her matted hair, Blondie just sat there, blubbering.

  Walking around her in a wide circle, Whisper wasn’t shy about kicking anything that got in her way out of her path. She didn’t care about making a spectacle of herself. This was important. She didn’t even care if she was embarrassing her husband.

  The display would prove to everyone in the room, male and female, that the Dohertys weren’t fools. Though that didn’t matter to her as much as sending a clear message to anyone else who might think about screwing with her husband.

  To her credit, Blondie kept her chin down, showing her submission. Every few seconds, she glanced up to check what Whisper was doing whenever she wandered into her field of vision. Whether the woman was a pro or not, Whisper didn’t know or care. With her nose for weakness, what screamed to her was the blonde’s ineptitude. Blondie wasn’t much better than Nicole in terms of her ability to stand up for herself.

  Pausing in her circling, Whisper bent her elbow and threw her knife down so hard that it embedded itself in the floor between the blonde’s legs. The sprawled woman wasn’t the only one to yelp and jump at the abrupt move. The whole room was on tenterhooks, enthralled by the show.

  Whisper didn’t care about them; the blonde was her only focus. “Pick it up,” she murmured. The beauty just sat there shaking and sniveling. The pathetic display fired Whisper’s disdain. “Pick it up!”

  Screaming at the woman startled her into action. She took her time about pushing her weight from her hands to shift them to the hilt. On those first feeble attempts, she couldn’t get it out of the floor. Blondie moved onto her knees to use both hands. Eventually, using all of her strength, the beauty managed to pull it out of the floor.

  Whisper let a sinister condescending laugh slip from her lips. “If you can’t handle that, what made you think you could handle my husband?”

  Once the woman held the knife in two shaking hands, Whisper crouched in front of her and held up her hand to point at her occupied ring finger. “You did know he was married, didn’t you? You knew that’s what that meant, didn’t you?” Nothing from the meek, sniffling woman who was barely managing to hold the knife. Whisper screamed in her face. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” the woman cried. “Yes! I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, sweetheart,” Whisper said, stroking both palms onto the woman’s face to push her hair from her wet eyes. “We’re past the apology now. We’re onto the ‘only one of us leaves this room alive’ part.” The blonde opened her mouth in a desperate wail that was almost a howl. Leaning forward, Whisper sank her fingers into the blonde’s hair, with more care than before, and eased her forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry, babe, you got the head start and I’m gonna give you an advantage.” Still holding the woman’s head, she leaned back. “You with me?” When Whisper got no response, she gave the woman a hard shake. “You with me?”

  “Yes,” the blonde cried. “Yes, I am!”

  “Good,” Whisper said, and jabbed a finger to the back of her own neck. “You’re not strong enough for a spinal cord strike, but—hey…” When the woman closed her eyes to lose herself to the crying, Whisper gave her another shake. “Hey, keep listening. Eyes open, this is your only fighting chance, Blondie.” Whisper pointed to her throat. “Carotid.” Picking up the blonde’s hand, she showed her where to aim the knife. “Stab and yank. Don’t slash. This is not a movie.” She showed the blonde the action, but the woman’s arms were a dead weight and didn’t seem to be in it. “You paying attention?”

  “Yes,” Blondie said. “But please… please, Mrs. McDade—”

  Whisper smiled. “That’s right… that’s my name… Shame you couldn’t have remembered that ten minutes ago… Next!” The loud exclamation made the blonde jump. Whisper raised her arm to touch another weak point. “Axillary. Easy in a dress like this. Forget the aorta, you’ll never miss the ribs and it’s too easy to block. Fun one…” Sliding a hand up the blonde’s leg, she felt the woman shiver in fear as her aggressor’s fingertips went under her skirt. “Femoral.” Whisper’s fingers touched the smooth seam of Blondie’s leg and watched more tears cascade down the woman’s face before leaning in. “Not sure you’d hit that either, but it’s in a fun place, right?”

  “Please,” the blonde whimpered.

  Whisper bounced to her feet. “All else fails, stab for the back of the knee. You won’t fail to hit something vulnerable there.” Backing away a couple of steps, she opened her arms. “On your feet, blondie.” The woman continued to quake and cry. “On your fucking feet!”

  A quivering, shaking mess, the blonde tried her best to rise onto her feet. Disappointment sickened Whisper.

  “Please,” Blondie groveled again.

  “You want to ride married men? Size up the wife’s capabilities first, now…” She raised her arms higher. “Widen your stance, set your feet, and take your shot.”

  The room around them hung on pause. Almost every breath was audible. Blocking them out, Whisper focused on the blonde, waiting to see if the woman would defend herself.

  “Please, Mrs. McDade. Please, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I won’t—”

  “Five seconds, take your shot or I end this,” Whisper said, without any emotion in her voice in contrast to the sobbing mess of the blonde.

  “Please, Mrs. McDade—please—”

  “Five, four—”

  “Please!”

  “Three, two…”

  With a clumsy start, the blonde rushed forward, blade high, pointed at Whisper’s throat. The angle would be okay, except Whisper didn’t let it get anywhere close to her. Sweeping her arm one way to block the blade and push it aside, she slid her hand down the blonde’s arm to take the blade from her weak hands. Whisper moved her leg in a similar arc at the same time, but the opposite way, taking Blondie’s legs out from under her, sending her to the floor.

  Catching her arm to direct the blonde’s fall, Whisper twisted the woman’s arm up her back and dropped onto her, setting a knee on her spine, trapping the woman’s twisted arm under the strength of her knee. Her other foot stood on Blondie’s hand to immobilize the prey and stabilize herself.

  Bowing over her, Whisper used the tip of the blade to brush the glossy hair from the back of her victim’s neck. She bent forward. “You’re not strong enough,” she said, pressing the point of her knife into the soft skin over Blondie’s vulnerable vertebrae. “But I am.”

  Locking the handle of the knife in both hands, Whisper inhaled as she raised it high above her head ready to drive the blade down into the blonde’s spine with all her strength.

  Just as her arms reached their highest point, a hand smacked onto her wrist, locking her in the stretched position. Tipping her head back, she wasn’t surprised to see Zaid standing behind her, holding her wrist.

  “Peanut,” he said in that dull, warning tone.

  “Almost done.”

  Her husband didn’t flinch. “You’re done.”

  With the hand he didn’t have locked onto her, he rolled each of his fingers around the weapon in her hand. Without him asking, she loosened her grip, surrendering it to her husband. Then with a yank, he hauled her onto her feet and bent down to drag up her skirt to slide the blade back into its sheath.

  The blonde began to wail. Ignoring that mess, Whisper kept her focus faithful on her husband who burned his gaze into her for another ten seconds before spinning around to march away. Dragging her along behind him, Zaid forced her to hurry, pulling her against his back.

  They got into the corridor. Rather than return her to the front of Kitty’s, he led her out the back. They went through an exterior courtyard that had a few others in it, an
d up a set of stairs to an alleyway.

  Her shoulder was beginning to ache as they strode to the street, but Whisper let him keep tugging her along. Half a block later, he stopped and whipped her around in front of him.

  Tossing her hair back from her face, she exhaled a deep breath. For just a second, she studied him, appreciating him up close before turning around to walk away. Whisper wasn’t really sure where she was going. Unless she wanted to take a beating, her father’s was out. It was further than she wanted to go anyway.

  Mariana’s was closest. Her friend might not be home, but Whisper didn’t mind picking a lock to let herself in.

  “Where are you going?”

  Glancing back, Whisper figured she should have guessed that her husband would follow her, or at least ask questions. But she wasn’t going to slow down just because he was hot on her heels.

  “Mariana’s,” she answered. “Her apartment’s not far. If she’s home, we’ll probably go out. You know, I never realized just how deep in McDade territory her place is… I should talk to her about that.”

  Grabbing her shoulder, Zaid pulled her around and to a halt. “You want to tell me what the fuck that was in there?”

  “Fun,” she said on a shrug.

  “ ‘Cause you don’t really care who I fuck.”

  Whisper bobbed her head. “I was mad. I was. I won’t deny it. I didn’t like seeing her… on you,” she said. A quiver of disgust went through her, accepting reality was testing her again. “But you’re a guy, so… I guess it’s your right to go around trying to stick it in as many women as you can. So long as you understand that every time I witness it, whatever I do to your whores is on you. That’s my right.”

  He grabbed hold of her again when she tried to back away. This time he picked her up to set her feet on the low wall around the building beside them. The wall was just a foot off the ground and served as a plinth for the railings set in it. Hooking her arms around the spikes at the top, Whisper settled against the railings.

  Zaid took the next spike along from each of her hands in a fist to bow over her. “Get mad, Peanut,” he murmured.

  “No,” she said, doing her best to hold onto her composure. To avoid his gaze, she picked some invisible lint from his shoulder. “There’s no reason I should expect anything different from you than I have from every other man I’ve ever known.”

  “Forget you had another guy between your thighs not so long ago yourself?”

  Grinning, she pushed back on the railings. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

  “So we just fuck around on each other, that’s it?”

  “Was your parents’ marriage any different?”

  The question hardened his brow.

  Letting go of the railings, he rose to his full height. “My father murdered my mother for fucking around on him.”

  Apparently, there was at least some truth to the rumor. The murder anyway, even if the reason wasn’t accurate.

  Lifting her leg to his hip, Whisper hooked it around his ass. “You know where to find my blade… Don’t think you need lessons on how to use it.”

  “In a choice between death or screwing around, you’d pick death?”

  “Over living in hypocrisy, yes,” she said. “I never knew the woman, but I guarantee your mother was no fool. She knew how your father treated her.”

  His head tilted. “How do you know how he treated her?”

  Her leg fell from his thigh. Whisper stood on her own two feet again. “Because I’m not an idiot,” she said. “I’ve never known a marriage, or relationship, where it didn’t happen. Did you?”

  His lack of response was enough of an answer. He swayed forward to catch the railings again, bringing himself so near to her that when she pushed back, the pressure of one of the railing spikes dug in deep between her shoulder blades.

  “My mother died for fucking around,” he said. “What my father didn’t see was that he drove her to it.” For a woman so sure she knew the world, Whisper didn’t often experience shock. But that confession dumbfounded her. Through his vehemence, she read regret in his gaze. Regret so real, she couldn’t look away from it. “By the time it happened, she was broken, damaged. He was the one responsible for making her feel like less than what she was. He did treat her bad. He made her feel like less than him, like she should be grateful for him. He screwed around, disappeared for days. Fucked her and ignored her.”

  “She had no self-respect,” she murmured the words.

  “Right,” he said. “No self-esteem, and she put up with it for years. Over a decade. By the time her lover came along and showed her that she was worth something… Shit, Peanut, you think it was her fault that she wanted to keep feeling that way?”

  “No,” she breathed, her focus dropping to the sidewalk next to them.

  Thinking of Burl and what he was doing with his son’s wife, Whisper’s sense of injustice flared brighter. The man had killed his own wife for stepping out on him, but now he was tempting his son’s wife to do the same thing. The excuses were bullshit. Burl was fucking Nicole because he wanted to. What did he expect to happen when Parker found out?

  Clearly, the sons had forgiven their father for what he’d done to their mother. Did he expect the sons would do the same when they discovered the truth about Nicole? What did that mean for the naïve idiot? Was Nicole going to be a sacrificial lamb? Cast out or killed as the traitorous temptress?

  “Where is your mind, Peanut?” Zaid asked, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.

  “Why don’t you beat me?” she asked, resting a hand on his sturdy upper arm.

  “Do you want me to?” he asked. Without thinking, her head shook. “But you always assumed that your husband would.”

  “I’d deserve it,” she said, watching her hand on the dark leather of his jacket. “After what I did.”

  “I want to understand you, Whis. I know you play the whore; I want to know why you do that. Why do you use sex to push people away?” Raising her shoulders in a shrug, she didn’t trust herself to speak. “I know you went into that alley with that guy. I know what was in your mind when you did. What you planned to do. But you know what I heard? I heard you say no.” Surprised that was where he put his emphasis, her eyes leaped to his. “What you were doing out there wasn’t about sex.” Slowly, her head began to move in a shake. “Tell me and you’ll get it.”

  That was what he said whenever he was ready to give her what she needed. Maybe he was always ready because he never seemed to hesitate when saying it. It was almost like he just wanted to receive instructions and whatever she said, he’d comply with. The power he’d instilled in her began to simmer again, but Whisper wasn’t sure she liked it anymore.

  With that power came an expectation, a hope that maybe she could trust him, that maybe he could be her anomaly.

  “When we got married…” she started. “When we got married, I didn’t think it would be anything like this.”

  “What did you think it would be?”

  “I… I don’t know, I guess I thought it was just like a checkbox. Your family wanted something from ours and I was up at bat, you know? I had to go to the clerk’s office, say some words, sign a piece of paper, and that would be it. I figured you would want the same as me. That our lives wouldn’t change much, we’d just carry on as before except we’d live in the same house… I knew I’d have to fuck you, but I’ve had men do all sorts of shit to me…” Her gaze dropped again. “You learn to switch that part of yourself off.”

  “I don’t want you off when I touch you,” he said.

  Whisper didn’t know what was more surprising about the man her husband was turning out to be: that he really thought these things or that he was sharing them with her.

  Standing there on that wall, looking into him, Whisper realized that she was feeling something. Something she’d never felt standing in front of a man before. She had to shut it down. Fast.

  Beyond her own aversion, Whisper cou
ld never trust her husband because she could never ask him to trust her. As long as she was hiding the truth from him, there was no room for feelings of any sort.

  “My father fucked around on my mom,” she said. “My whole life there were always other women. Didn’t stop me from idolizing my dad. I think there was a part of me that resented her. I don’t know if I thought she was pathetic or if I blamed her for not giving my father what he needed. We were never close and my father could do no wrong. I… I never liked the other women, any of them. Guess I was always afraid one of them would take him away from us…” She inhaled. “Looking back now, I sorta wish they had.”

  “You don’t still idolize him?”

  It sickened her that he could even ask. “The day of her funeral I walked in on him doing some twenty-something year old server and I don’t know, I just… just the sight of it made me ill. Sure, it was my dad screwing a woman probably not much older than me, but… Suddenly I just got it, I understood what my mother had endured. She was faithful to him every minute, and dad used her death as a way to stoke the fire of our war with the Byrne’s. But I…” Narrowing her eyes, she peered into him. “If he loved her, as much as he wanted everyone to think when he talked about Byrne taking her from him, how could he do that to her memory on the day we were laying her to rest?”

  “I don’t know, Peanut.” Opening his hand on her face, he rested it on her cheek over her hair. “Neither of our fathers are saints.”

  “None of us are. But you’re right, it’s about respect. He didn’t respect her. She endured that way of life, feeling like some kind of sub-species and paid the ultimate price for his choices… I promised myself I would never live like that. Never… That’s why I never had a relationship or made a commitment. If I ever felt like any fuck buddy was even getting close to asking for one, I ran out of his place like his bed was on fire and never went back.”