AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’s right.
“What the fuck was your brother thinking? Did he really believe he could steal from the Stepanovs—the fuckingbratva?”
Her shiver has her twisting her seat. When she glances at me, fear flashes in her eyes. I turn my head away. I don’t want to see those blue depths. They tormented me for at least a year after she was ripped from my life. I used to lie awake at night in the mansion where I grew up, wondering where Serenity was and hoping she wasn’t dead.
Because I wouldn’t put it past my father not to have her killed just to punish hers. But he let them both live, and that’s something my brothers Linc and Patrick and I have talked about several times over the years.
Why did he let Lucky Bill Hunt end his days under the protection of the government? The bastard reallyislucky as hell. I’ve seen my old man hack off a body part an hour for less of a betrayal.
What was it about Lucky Bill—or his daughter Serenity—that was different to my father?
Maybe the Hunts have some hold over us—an old Irish curse. That’s gotta be the reason I agreed to hide Serenity.
After a while, she shakes her head. “I don’t know what Nathan was thinking. I don’t think hedoesthink. Otherwise, he wouldn’t get into these situations. Or drag me with him,” she ends in a whisper.
I turn my attention back to the road. It’s simple really—we lie low for a couple days in the cabin. I get one of my brothers to put some pressure on the Stepanovs, namely Sergei. That motherfucker is so slippery that he slid out of his mother’s womb without the doc laying a finger on him.
I know Sergei’s behind this. He’s known all around Detroit and as far as Boston for swindling people who are too dumb to realize his power. If we have the strength of Dublin on our side, Sergei has the whole Russian continent on his.
That doesn’t mean he’s too big to be taken down.
And wewilltake him down.
This might be our chance. Serenity might be just the puzzle piece we’ve been looking for, the gunpowder to our cannons to start the war.
When I look at her, I see a beautiful butterfly with shredded wings who can’t fly anymore. It’s sad as hell, but it’s not my job to fix her.It’s only my job to keep her alive and out of the hands of our mutual enemy.
Serenity
An hour passes with the silence stretching on and on, wearing me down until I want to scream. But I seal my lips shut and endure the seething anger of my driver, my old friend…my savior.
Heath’s presence used to comfort me, and on some level it still does. Not in a let’s-curl-up-in-the-same-chair-and-share-about-our-bad-home-lives way.
In a he-can-kill-for-me way.
I’m ashamed to admit that I’m using him. It’s got me so knotted up that I can’t even think of anything to say to ease this awful tension between us.
What’s to say? Sorry my dad turned yours in to the Feds? Sorry I pounded on your door in the middle of the night and insulted you by offering my body in trade for your protection?
Mortification keeps me silent for the rest of the drive. When the truck slows, I focus on the long narrow road leading to what I can only guess will be this cabin that Heath mentioned. If his family had a cabin up north back when we were kids, I never heard about it. I can only guess at the things the Connollys have done since I knew them—at the number of bodies they’ve tossed in the lake, buried beneath thick cement or chopped up and disposed of.
Of heists, bank robberies and scams that all feed the Connollys’ money coffers.
Even as a child, I knew what they were capable of and what would happen if my father turned on them. I wasn’t stupid—I knew my father wasn’t really working on cars in the body shop. He was helping the Connollys launder money from the illegal drugs and weapons they sell.
Out of the darkness, a cabin looms up. I expect it to look black and sinister to match the entire mood of my evening. But what I see in front of me has me gasping out in wonder.
It looks like…the set of a Hallmark movie.
I blink and fix my stare on the cabin a second time. Yep—this place has Hallmark movie written all over it, from the quaint red metal roof to the timber wood posts on the cute porch and the little plaid curtains I see in the windows as Heath’s headlights pan over the front.
He parks and cuts the engine. For a moment, neither of us move. When he finally heaves a big sigh and opens the door, I’m frozen in place. What the hell did I get myself into? Why didn’t I just try to escape the city on my own rather than enlist the help of a very grumpy alpha male who despises me?
We’re natural enemies. Hatfield and McCoy. What made me think to ever call upon him for help?
Heath walks to the back of the truck and gets out the bags. Stiffly, I climb out and wrap my arms around myself at the chill slicing through my thin top. Snowflakes swirl in the air, wetting my face as they fall upon me.
My instinct is to stick myself like glue to Heath’s broad back, to be shielded from the men after me as well as the inclement weather. But I force myself to keep my distance and remain a few steps behind him.
