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In another spot of luck, the pawnshop is empty apart from the owner when we arrive.
“What can I help you gentlemen with?” the owner asks as we step inside. I stride purposefully to the back of the shop, Niall trailing after me.
“What about this one?” I point at a random item along the back wall, calling to Niall over my shoulder, who shrugs silently.
“Practically an antique,” the owner gushes, rounding the counter and hurrying toward us, away from the windows at the front of the store. He stops beside me, spouting random facts about some radio. I grab him by the throat, slamming him against the back wall.
“What’s going on,” he chokes as my fingers tighten around his neck. Niall’s knife slashes out, raking through the shirt and biting into the flesh underneath. I curse as blood spurts against my shirt.
“Lauren will never do my laundry again,” I mutter.
Niall grunts beside me, narrowing his eyes at the pawnshop owner.
“Gianni sends his regards.” Niall’s voice is dangerously smooth. The man blinks in terror.
“I-I don’t have any beef with the Irish,” he gurgles, his hands moving over his chest, attempting to stem the bleeding. Good luck with that. He’s cut from chin to cock.
Niall raises an eyebrow. “If ye have beef with Gianni, ye have beef with the Irish.”
The man gurgles again, his eyes widening with the realization of his impending death.
“I’ll make things right with Gianni,” he pleads, but I shake my head. It’s a bit too late for that. This is the fourth hit. Nothing is derailing this. I need Lauren safe.
“The Reaper doesn’t come visiting as a warning.” I tip my head at Niall, and the owner starts sobbing, Niall staring at him in disgust.
“I hate when they cry,” he grumbles. “What happened to dying like a man?”
Niall’s hand snaps out, disemboweling the sobbing man.
“Time to go,” I tell him, and we beat a hasty exit, sliding into the SUV as Niall pulls away from the curb.
We don’t drive to my house this time, going to Seamus’s instead. He and Tiggy are sitting in the den, some trashy reality show on the telly, while she eats pickles and ice cream, and he rubs her feet. How domesticated.
Any other time, I would think it ridiculous how the mighty Seamus Fitzpatrick had fallen. Now? Now I’m thinking this would be nice to do with Lauren. Maybe not the feet rubbing, but the cuddling and watching the telly? I want that with the lass.
“Jaysus feck.” Niall wrinkles his nose at Tiggy’s plate, distracting me from the fantasy floating before my eyes. “That’s fecking disgusting. Ye shouldn’t eat shite like that.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Seamus murmurs in agreement. Tiggy scowls at her husband. He quickly drops his eyes back to her feet and keeps massaging.
Appeased, Tiggy’s eyes drift over us, and she looks down at her food, gagging.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she mutters. In an instant, Seamus has dropped her feet, reaching for her.
“What do you need,amhuirnín?”
Her eyes flicker over us again as she makes the gagging noise.
“To not be in a room with so much blood,” she replies thickly.
Before we can blink, Seamus is on his feet, hustling us from the room.
“Fucking out!” he barks. We obediently move into the parlor.
“She can eat pickles and ice cream but can’t look at blood?” Niall shakes his head. “Pregnant women are a strange breed.”
“That’s my wife you’re talking about,” Seamus snaps at him, but Niall shrugs, undeterred by Fitzy’s dark tone.
“Ye saw what she was eating,” he mutters mulishly. Enough of this. I want to be home with Lauren.
