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“I have to go.”
He glances at me, face tight, eyes brimming with all the things he wants to say, and knows he can’t.
“Wait here for me,” he says. “I’ll… I’ll need my driver when I return. Henry, you’re welcome to wait, too, if you want.”
Dad nods. “I’ll hang around and have my coffee, thanks, Murphy. Is everything okay?”
“No,” he snarls. “But it will be.”
Chapter Fourteen
Murphy
Cillian’s face grows even more severe as we sit in his sedan, down the road from where the police are securing the murder scene. Tape stretches from corner to corner and a crowd has formed, many of them with their phones out, aiming them at the collection of police officers.
Juan has killed one of my men.
He cut off his head and left it there for a goddamn kid to find.
“He’s bringing Cartel shit to my city,” I snarl.
Cillian nods slowly, his hands tight on the steering wheel. He’s worked as hard as I have to make this city safe, to rise above our mob origins and bring some legitimacy to the city. Idiots think that crime means blood and violence and pain, but it doesn’t have to.
It can mean using our underworld gruffness to make things better, safer, more civilized.
But I’m not feeling very fucking civilized right now.
“Do we know who did it?” I ask.
“No. But they left a calling card on the body. One of our contacts managed to grab it before the police turned up. It has an address. A warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Apparently Juan wants to talk.”
Tension pumps through me when I think about our man, Jamie, and his wife and his kids… all the pain that’s going to tear through their world because of Juan and his Cartel tactics.
“That sounds like a trap,” I comment.
Cillian laughs gruffly. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Then what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
Cillian flinches, glancing at me. “Are you serious?”
“He wants to scare us,” I tell him. “He thinks that just because we’ve led this city into a better place, we’re not willing to do what’s necessary. We’ll show him how fucking wrong he is. This is his message. We need to send one of our own.”
The anger that rises up from inside of me – that twists my gut and makes me want to roar like a damn lion – comes partly from Juan but also partly from Molly… not anger aimed at her, but for her, for us, for our family. I’ve worked hard to make this city safe and now Juan wants to change that, meaning that when she brings our children into this world they’re going to grow up in a crime-ridden hellhole.
“Are you sure?” Cillian murmurs.
“Rally the troops,” I snarl. “We’re going.”
He nods. “Yes, boss.”
I can feel Cillian’s nerves swarming around the car as he drives up to the warehouse, sitting in a rundown industrial lot where half the units are empty. He stops and so do the cars behind us, dozens of my men ready for war if it comes to that.
He nods at the warehouse, with its broken windows glinting in the light like winking eyes.
“Gunmen in the windows,” he murmurs.
“Juan would be a fucking idiot to kill me,” I growl. “He knows it’d start a war, a real war. He knows you’d be forced to hunt him down and murder him, and anyone who’s ever supported him.”
“I know.” Cillian sighs darkly. “But maybe he is an idiot.”
I stare at the weapons poking from the windows, a war song moving through me, hammering in my chest. Expressing my true feelings for Molly has done something to me, changed me in a vital way I still don’t understand. He thinks he can take everything we’re building.
He thinks I’m scared of him.
“Boss, wait…”
But it’s too late.
I climb from the car and stalk forward, my footsteps smashing hard against the concrete, fury rushing in my ears as I walk right up to the warehouse and stand in full view of the gunmen.
I hear my men behind me, and I hold up a hand.
They stop immediately.
I don’t turn, but I know they must be exchanging confused worried looks.
“Well?” I roar up at the warehouse, staring at the gunmen one at a time, or rather at their masked faces because the cowards are too chicken-shit to show me what they really look like.
“Go on. Pull the fucking trigger.”
Rage pumps inside of me, making my muscles tighten, ready to do serious harm.
How is it possible that only hours ago I had the patience to sit in the car when the Cartel threatened us?
It’s because your woman was there, my seed roars inside of me. You knew you had to protect her.
Yeah, that’s right.
But I still need to protect her.
I always need to protect her.
“Juan,” I roar, spreading my hands to my sides to make my chest the largest target I possibly can. “Is this how you want to play it, hiding behind your men like a coward? Is that the sort of rat you are?”
