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Something moved in my peripheral. I turned at the same time Grifin’s silhouette rounded the corner.
Grifin. Keegan told me he’d been reassigned—
A second figure trailed him.
I recognized the murderous shadow immediately. It was the same one I’d been hiding from since I was ten years old. Promised to the youngest brother, taken by the oldest. The middle one always felt left out. Though it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
Cillian Brennan had a perverted case of middle child syndrome.
Grifin and Cillian came to a stop ten feet away. They stood side by side. Their conjoined width blocked the hallway.
My eyes shot up to the ceiling.
“Colin hacked the system,” Cillian informed me. “Surveillance video is weeks old. No fire alarms. No sprinklers. The phones are scrambled. Colin got a real kick out of ye asking his permission to unlock the bloody door.” His lips peeled back into a snarl. “By the time Lucifer realizes what’s happened, you’ll be packed in a shippin’ container headed for Uzbekistan and this place will be nothin’ but ash and rubble—but first, I’m gonna have myself a bit of fun.”
“What the fuck?” Raphael barked.
My body jerked involuntarily at the sound of his voice. Cillian’s threats reverberated in my mind.
“It’s time for the whore to pay,” Cillian taunted. “My brother wasn’t in the habit of takin’ horse drugs, and he died with enough in him to put down a herd.”
The walls of the basement began to sway.
Dread sank into my bone marrow. I’d seen Cillian’s work. I knew what he was capable of with a blade. I stumbled backward. My socks slipped, my feet slid out from under me. I caught myself on Raphael’s door and pulled myself upright.
Cillian unsheathed a knife from his hip holster. “I wanted to flay you the day the doc gave us the news, but Da said to be patient—he said he’d come up with something grand to make ye pay for what you’d done. When ye came to him suggestin’ an alliance with the Flynns, he said it was Tiernan still controllin’ his whore from the grave. He was right. I lost a brother, but we got our trade routes.” He clapped Grifin on the shoulder. “And information.”
“You motherfucker,” Raphael bit out.
Grifin’s eyes darted between the three of us. “You gave me perks for spying on Willa and Lucifer, but Cillian will make me a captain in Ireland.”
“You really think you’re going to get out of Boston alive, you fucking goon?” Raphael mocked.
Grifin stared at Cillian.
Cillian tossed him the Ka-Bar. It was Cillian’s favorite blade. His most savage. “Lemme see what you’re made of, boy—yeah?”
Grifin fumbled with the knife handle. He was growing paler by the minute.
Raphael tugged my sweater. “Shove him toward me,” he ground out close to my ear.
Grifin shuffled forward, every feature shrouded with uncertainty.
I struck both sides of his wrist with my hands. The disarming move caused his muscles in his grip to spasm, and he dropped the blade. The sound of metal meeting concrete echoed in the catacombs.
Grifin’s eyes widened. Before he could decide what to do next, I drove my hand upward between us. The heel burst through the spongy cartilage of his nose. Blood gushed, coating his mouth and chin. I fisted his shirt, pulling him downward. My knee came up, all my body weight delivering a crushing blow to his groin. He groaned and doubled over. I shoved him, and he stumbled sideways into the cell door. Raphael’s arm snaked through the steel bars and twined around his neck. With one jerk of Raphael’s arm, Grifin’s body sagged, his head lolling to the side at an awkward angle.
“Fucking hell.” Cillian charged at me. His arms were outstretched, his hands a set of iron claws grasping for my throat.
I ducked and slipped by him. But his powerful fist smashed between my shoulder blades. The blow threw me to my knees as a searing pain sliced through the bones. His hand came down on my back a second time. My chest slammed against the concrete, followed by the side of my head. Stars bled into the edges of my vision.
The undeniable sound of Cillian working his belt filled my ears.
I pressed the floor away, giving my lungs room to expand, if only an inch. I gulped air. When the room came back into focus, I saw Raphael shoving Grifin’s limp body. He was searching for something.
At the same time Cillian yanked down my leggings, a knife skidded across the floor.
I grabbed for the weapon. A burning sensation radiated through my shoulder as my fingers curled around the handle. My gaze found Raphael. He gripped the bars, his expression partly concealed by the shadows. But I could see his good eye, and it was trained on me.
