AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d hate to have to kill the man I consider a brother.
I glare at the man in question when he slumps into a chair, a heavy groan escaping him speaking to something other than exhaustion. I’ve learned all about this man’s moods and tells. Like I know that he’s been hiding something from me, I even suspect what it is.
But I won’t push him.
I have a feeling it’ll all be coming out soon. Sooner than he’s probably prepared for.
He runs his hands over his face, and I steel myself for whatever he’s about to tell me. His eyes come up and meet mine, despair and worry at war in his gaze. I already know I’m not going to like what he has to say.
“Roisin,” he starts, and I growl. Fucking loudly.
It’s a knee-jerk reaction to my woman’s name coming from another man’s mouth. The feral side of me doesn’t give a flying fuck that the man in question is my best friend. Or that I told him to dig and find out information about her, even though it stains my soul.
I wish she had told me her secrets herself. I wish she would have let me all the way in.
If it’s as bad as Conor’s look is making me think it is, I’ll force my way in, and I won’t apologize for it either. I don’t think anything Conor could tell me will change anything.
Roisin is mine.
“She,” he tries again, not needing to say her name, “is the youngest and only daughter of Northern Irish immigrants, Lorcan and Caitlin Byrne. They came to America in 1995. Her brother was young when they left Belfast for Boston.”
Something tightens in my gut. I’m familiar with the history around that time. My family was already well established in America by then, but with deep ties to our homeland, they chose the side of Northern independence. We supplied a lot of weaponry to the IRA.
But the well ran dry once relative peace was found. When I took over, I no longer felt the need to choose a side. Money is money and no matter the cause, it always spends.
“After they immigrated, her grandparents stayed behind to fight for the cause. Her father and mother have been vocal about their support of the IRA and Northern Ireland independence,” he keeps his voice monotone as he delivers the facts. “They are known associates of Cillian Murphy.”
“Fuck,” I grunt.
I know the man. Cillian Murphy is someone I have sold arms to before. Everything the man does has to do with Northern Irish independence. His money spends, just like anyone else’s. It was business, nothing more.
What was business for me is much more to him. He’s fanatical and obsessive. In most men I would find those traits admirable, but on him it teeters into scary territory.
Civilian deaths during the height of the IRA’s fight for independence were incredibly high. Cillian is the kind of man who wouldn’t care who gets caught in the crossfire as long as loyalists get hit as well. I might sell arms to people, but it doesn’t mean I believe innocents should be thrown into the death and destruction.
When it can be helped, it should be.
“Finn is her brother,” Conor’s voice drops to a scathing whisper which feels like sandpaper against my skin.
The name sounds familiar. It rattles around my mind, looking for purchase, looking for a reason to trip my understanding.
It was recent. Where did I hear that name?
It’s not an uncommon Irish name, but the weight of Conor’s stare tells me this is important. I shake my head slowly, unable to place the name.
“He won his first fight the other night at Emerald,” Conor’s voice is flat.
It all comes rushing back to me. The man was good. He beat one of our regular fighters. Then he soaked up the boos of the crowd with almost more zeal than those cheering for him.
I should have taken a closer look at the way he was feeding off the hate. It’s never a good sign. But I was too wrapped up in my woman.
Then there was the way Roisin reacted to seeing him. She went pale and rigid, like she had seen a ghost.
That kind of reaction is one she couldn’t have faked. He’s her brother, but she wasn’t expecting to see him there.
“What are you saying, Conor? Spit it out,” I demand.
“One needs an in to know where your fights are held. What if she told him to get him into the fight? What if they’re being placed in front of us as part of a scheme?”
