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“Because if my woman and child were taken by the enemy, I’d want to know that they were being treated well at the very least.”
He turns towards the door and I feel that familiar sense of panic rise to my throat. “Wait!” I exclaim, struggling to my feet. “Cian, please—wait.”
He pauses reluctantly, though he won’t turn around. “I can’t let you go, Wren,” he says before I can even plead my case. “I wish I could. I take no pleasure in keeping you here, especially in your condition. But my hands are tied.”
“They don’t need to be,” I insist. “You are the don now. You can decide not to do business with the devil. You can tell him to go fuck himself!”
“And risk him coming after me and my men? Their families?” he suggests brusquely. “No, I won’t be the kind of leader who fucks over his own people.”
“You fucked over Jared,” I hurl at his back. “Or doesn’t he count?”
Cian winces. It’s amazing how a man well over six feet tall can seem so small and frail. “Jared made his choices. Rose made hers. Don’t hang their mistakes around my neck. Lord knows I have enough of my own as it is.”
My heart is racing as he walks out the door and pulls it shut. What did he mean by “Rose made hers”? Did he mean that she knew about Elena? Or is he just talking about the gambling?
I rush the door and pound my hands against the pockmarked surface. “Cian! Wait, come back!” I hear the lock thud into place, but I keep pounding. “Cian, please! Come back!”
“I’ll get you some medicine for the preeclampsia,” he croaks from the other side. “That’s all I can do at the moment.”
I keep screaming, even as I hear his heavy footsteps walking away and fading into nothingness. When I’m sure he’s not coming back, I twist around and, with my back to the door, plummet to the floor. Tears stream down my cheeks as I struggle to grapple with my new reality—the reality of where I am now and the reality of who Rose and Jared really were.
I feel like I’ve lost them twice over now.
But even in the midst of all this turmoil, there’s one tiny little sliver of light. A tiny little flare of hope that burns every time my son flutters around inside me?—
Reminding me that, even in the darkest of moments, I’m not alone.
2
DMITRI
Incoming Call from: Locksmith.
It’s not a call I can afford to miss. So despite the fact that I’m standing amidst the burning ruins of an Irish safehouse, I answer.
The voice is heavily altered, crackling with strange synthesizers and pitched inhumanly low. “I’ve been hacking into the Irish’s security systems for days now and still nothing. Even the safehouses have been emptied out.”
“No shit,” I growl. “I’m standing in what’s left of one now. There were only five fuckers manning the place.”
My resident hacker lets out a disgruntled hiss. “The entire Irish mafia can’t have just disappeared into thin air. They’ve got to be somewhere.”
“Somewhere offline,” I agree grimly. “Somewhere with no cameras, no security systems, no surveillance.”
“Which means no chance for me to trace them.”
“Keep searching. O’Gadhra has a few businesses still up and running. Monitor everyone who goes in and out. They may be hiding in plain sight.” I exit the house through a crumbling back entrance. The fire we set won’t reach here for another few minutes, but the heat is already overpowering. Sweat slides down my back, practically boiling the second it beads up on my skin. “Did you try tracking the numbers I gave you?”
“The pictures are being transmitted from burner phones. Each is deactivated immediately after sending. They’re all dead ends.”
“Fucking Cian,” I spit as I hold out a palm and let one flake of ash settle there. “He’s goading me.”
“Perhaps,” Locksmith suggests. “Or maybe he’s trying to reassure you. Turn down the temperature. Float the idea of a truce.”
Grinding my teeth together, I throw a nod over to my nearby soldiers to clear out. There are five Irishmen bound and gagged in there; this burning house will serve as their funeral pyre.
“Fuck a truce!” I roar. “He shot to hell any chance of a peace treaty the moment he decided to crash the wedding.”
“Speaking of the wed?—”
