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Declan looks at Patrick with pleading eyes as if he wasn’t about to have him killed. “After everything I’ve done for you? Everything I’ve given you?”
“You know why these men are willing to follow me and not you? Why each one of them is more than willing to put a bullet in your demented fucking head?” Declan’s visibly sweating now, regardless of the chilled fall air in the abandoned house. “I’m not here to chase power or to reclaim some sense of psychotic familial dictatorship. I want what’s best for them. For our people. For the syndicate. If Harper wanted it all, I’d gladly let her have it. I’d step aside and help her lead our people. But she doesn’t, and we deserve better than a piece of shit like you.”
“Don’t talk to me like you’re some fucking saint. I’ve seen the things you’ve done. Hell, I taught most of it to you!” Declan spits.
“I didn’t say I was a saint. None of us are good men, but the things you’ve done, Declan. You’re not a man to be trusted. You have no code. You have no morals. The only person and the only thing that matters to you is you. That makes you the most dangerous person in this room.”
“How?” Declan’s attention is back on Ronan.
“As much as Patrick despises you, he can read you like a book. He knew that if he called you and admitted he had your money, you’d be willing to fake some sort of deal. We just had to wait and see what your play was. So when you told him you wanted him to fly to New York to help take us down, he knew exactly what you had in mind. You may have been one step ahead of us in the past, Delcan, but you never knew who was on your side. We used that to our advantage.”
“So that’s it then? You’re going to kill me?” He looks over at Patrick, who shakes his head, and then at Ronan.
“Not me. Him.” Ronan sticks his thumb in my direction.
“Me?” My heart speeds up in my chest.
Ronan leans in, so I’m the only one who can hear him. “You, Finn. You know better than anyone what it feels like to be at the mercy of this man’s wrath. You deserve this. We want this for you. Your parents would want this for you. Harper would want this for you.”
This matters most.
My eyes are trained on Declan’s. The human succubus who takes from everyone and gives to no one. Declan opens his mouth, likely to spew more utter bullshit. And in the span of half a second I decide I no longer care. I don’t want to hear another word from his useless mouth. I don’t want another breath of air to be wasted on him. I don’t want to see life in his eyes for a second longer. His lips part; I raise my gun from my side, aim it at his chest, and pull the trigger.
His hands go to his chest, trying to stop the blood as it pours from his body. I take a few steps forward until I’m a couple of feet from him. Just far enough that he can’t reach out and touch me. I watch as he gasps for air, his lungs likely filling with blood. Another shot rings through the room as I shoot him in the thigh, and he drops to the floor. “That was for my parents.”
They matter most.
Another shot lands in his shoulder. “That was for my childhood.”
I matter most.
Blood sprays as another bullet rips through his stomach. “That’s for fucking with my brothers.”
They matter most.
“And this,” I step forward and grab a handful of his gray hair, pressing the barrel of the gun underneath his chin. “This is for Harper and everything you’ve done to her.”
She. Matters. Most.
I squeeze the trigger, instantly feeling his body go limp as I hold him by the hair. A sweet sense of satisfaction washes over me when I look up and see his brains sprayed all over the double glass doors.
“Well, that was satisfying.” Patrick’s voice cuts through the silence.
Mac comes up behind me and claps me on the shoulder. “You did it, man. When it mattered most, you didn’t freeze.”
I take a deep breath, reveling in the fact that both of them knew I could do this. That they trusted me with something so important. That, regardless of what Liam said to me that night on the dock, I matter.
I release my hold on his hair and watch his body fall to the ground. It feels like the weight of everything I’ve lost has been lifted. Like, before I was only living, and now I can learn what it feels like to be truly alive.
With my brothers. With Harper.
A family.
Teaghlach.
* * *
Luca and Dante offered to help Patrick and his guys clean up the scene and dispose of the bodies so we could get back home to Harper. All three of us are more than ready to have her in our arms without Declan’s threats hanging over our heads.
