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I went to slap him again, but this time he caught my wrist. The bastard was fast and he was strong. He gripped hard, fingers digging into my wrist bone. I grunted in pain, but waved Chika away. I could tell she wanted to break Redmond’s skull.
“Let go of me.”
He held tighter. My brain was silent. I could’ve heard a pin drop.
It was exhilarating and excruciating.
Why him? Why now?
He released my wrist and stepped to the side. He nodded to Chika as he walked past, back into the gun-lined hallway, and up the steps.
I stood rubbing my skin as he disappeared.
“You should have let me kill him.” Chika glared in his wake.
“If you did that then we wouldn’t be able to use him.” The lie tumbled off my tongue.
That wasn’t why I’d made her stand down. It was a good justification—but in the moment, it wasn’t why.
The problem was, I didn’t know why, not exactly.
Killing Redmond wouldn’t be that big of a problem. It would toss his family into chaos, and the rest of the Oligarchs wouldn’t like that, but I’d be able to use the guns and cash in this bunker to build a stronger foundation for my fledgling empire. And he’d be one less man I’d have to worry about.
Instead, I chose to keep him around.
I wanted to tell myself that he’d be useful.
But I was afraid I liked the way I felt with him so close. The quiet in my head. The dimmed voices.
His touch centered me in a way nothing had before.
I hated him for that.
I wouldn’t become reliant on another person. I couldn’t, not after living every day chained to a family that I didn’t care about and would never truly care about me.
I wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
“Go fetch James,” I said, turning back to survey my windfall. “We’ll need to get all of this catalogued and taken away by tomorrow morning.”
“It’s a good haul.” Chika’s voice was bland. “What will we do with it all?”
“Pay the men. Hire some more.” I smiled at her. “Then go kill our enemies and make the Oligarchs bleed.”
Chapter 2
Redmond
I murdered my father to be here.
Not a single day went by when I didn’t think about Old Bern. He was a ghost, haunting. His stern face, his angry voice. The feeling of his fist slamming into my face, again and again.
Old Bern infused everything I did.
Now he was dead, and the smell of charred and burning wood and plaster filled the air.
“You shouldn’t go in there.” Palmira stood with her hands clasped behind her back as the flickering glow of a raging fire bathed her face in orange.
“You know I have to.”
Men screamed inside. Gunshots cracked off as bodies tried to shove their way out the back. My men slaughtered anyone that tried to escape the inferno.
“It’s too dangerous. Wait until the fire is finished.”
“I can’t take the risk.” I stalked forward and Palmira grabbed at my arm. I glanced at her, frowning.
We grew up together in the Orchard household. She was my father’s favorite weapon, a girl born and bred to kill. Her grip was strong, though she was a head and a half shorter than me, and her dark hair billowed in the evening breeze.
She hated Old Bern as much as I did and was one of the few top lieutenants to back my claim when the blood began to flow.
I trusted her more than anyone in this world. I always joked that if she didn’t prefer women, I’d try to marry her.
Which wasn’t true. She wasn’t my type. Too muscular, too intense.
And she liked killing too much.
I pulled away. “There’s too much at stake.”
Palmira stalked alongside me as I approached the doorway. The building was old and rotting. The flames hadn’t taken as much as I thought they would, and there was still a way deeper into the structure. It used to be a deli, but now it was a death trap.
“She’s not worth this, you know. It’d be smarter to sit back and let the vultures fight over Maeve’s corpse, then swoop in and take what you want when they’re weak and pathetic.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I hesitated in the doorway. The heat inside was nearly unbearable. I took a heavy mask from a nearby soldier and hesitated before I strapped it onto my face. “Erin’s worth a tidal wave of blood. A few burns are nothing in the long run.”
Palmira scowled, but I yanked on the mask, strapped it in place, then plunged inside.
I moved fast and stayed low beneath the smoke. The filter in the mask did a good job of drawing out the worst of the particulates, but it wouldn’t last long, not in a nightmare like this. I stumbled through a kitchen and nearly slammed face-first into a soldier about to make a break for the door. I kneed him in the gut and whipped my knife from my belt faster than he could scream. I brought it down into his chest, ending him, before I slipped past.
