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  I heard Shane’s heavy footfalls as he stomped across the room. At first, I thought he was headed towards me, but then I saw him cross right in front of me until he was only centimeters from John’s face. They were almost nose to nose, and in that moment, John seemed tiny. And scared.

  I took some satisfaction from that, but I was too shaken by my own upcoming death to take much pleasure in it.

  “We may be hell bound,” Shane said in a low voice, and his words surprised me. “But even we have lines. Lines that no one in my crew will cross. I don’t care if you don’t personally share these lines. You will abide by them so long as I’m here. And if you don’t like it, I’ll be happy to put you out of my misery.”

  The threat in Shane’s voice was unmistakable, and by the way that John was suddenly shaking, I could see he heard it, too. “Yes, boss,” he answered in a small voice.

  “Good. Now get the hell out of here.”

  The man didn’t have to be told twice.

  “And send in Bryce. At least I know he’s not a fucking animal.”

  John winced, but didn’t argue. He disappeared out the door in a matter of minutes. Silence filled the room at his departure and lingered there for a long time. I was hoping Shane would follow him out, but I wasn’t having a lot of luck lately and shouldn’t have been surprised when he lingered.

  Turning to face me, his expression was unreadable. After a moment, he said almost formally, “I apologize for Jonathan’s behavior. You have my word it won’t happen again.”

  I frowned. “Why do you care what happens before you kill me?” I nearly choked on the word kill, but I did my best to get it out and remain firm and strong. For all the good it really did me. I hadn’t missed how easily he’d agreed with John, despite his anger.

  Shane shrugged his shoulders. “Killing you is necessity. I hadn’t planned on getting you involved at all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all that broken up about having to do it, but I wouldn’t have deliberately sought out to kill you. You can thank my dear brother Ciaran for that.”

  “But you saved me from John.”

  He raised a single eyebrow. “And?”

  I hesitated. “Well, isn’t that more of a...” I trailed off, not quite sure what word I was looking for.

  He laughed at me until he finally answered my question. “Oh, I see. Because I saved you from that animal’s lust, you think this makes me the good guy, right? This makes me someone who has a conscience and a soul and therefore a good heart, right?”

  The way he said it, mocking and callous, told me he’d guessed what I was thinking before I had even guessed it. And more to the point, he didn’t agree with it. Which wouldn’t have necessarily meant he wasn’t a good guy, but reluctantly so, like all of those bad boy novels that I loved reading so much.

  Except that this wasn’t a novel and he wasn’t the male lead. And if that wasn’t enough to convince me he wasn’t the sort of man to trust or call hero, the cold look in his eyes was. He may not have wanted me touched, but he didn’t really care what happened to me. This had more to do with his own sense of principals, which maybe didn’t have a damn thing to do with morality in the end.

  “You could be a decent man,” I told him, but my voice was barely a whisper and I knew I was grasping at straws. I sensed I was wrong. He couldn’t be a decent man. Maybe that was different years ago, but right here and now, it just wasn’t possible.

  And I was willing to bet he knew it, too.

  “Do you know about Ciaran and myself?” he asked conversationally, not directly responding to me. When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “We lived at the same orphanage for several years. Both dropped off by parents who were either dead or halfway to it. But orphanages get full. Budgeting is low. And we ran off. We ended up living on the streets, stealing to get by. That is until the Sullivans picked us up. Ma and Pa, we called them, just like they were our real family. Isn’t that sweet?”

  I didn’t say anything. I knew a little about Ma, about how she wasn’t Ciaran’s birth mother, but had been the only mother that mattered to him. But I didn’t know about their lives, not really.

  “But that’s the thing about picking up two children, two boys, the way they did,” he continued, almost telling the story more for himself than for me. As though he were reliving the experiences of growing up with the Sullivans. “You get two boys and it’s natural to favor one over the other, don’t you think? Normal for one boy to become the prize while the other is left as the burden. It’s inevitable.”

  I bit my lip. I could guess where this story was going, half knew it from what Ciaran had told me. But I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to hear that somewhere inside of him there was the chance he was a good man. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like there was going to be any chance to get something I wanted tonight.

  “And they picked Ciaran. Nothing I did was ever good enough for Pa. Nothing was ever right. But Ciaran? He could do no wrong. So when it came time to pass on the mantle for the Lucky Skulls, you can guess who he picked.” He spoke with raw emotion, telling me just how real his pain was. Whether I believed in how true it was that that was exactly how it happened was entirely another story. But I could guess on the validity of one thing at least: Ciaran had been the favorite.

  “I’m sure your father still loved you,” I found myself saying, a desperate attempt to soothe him—and maybe save my own life.

  He rounded on me, his eyes staring me down. “What the hell would you know? Nothing!”

  I winced and fell silent.

  “My father only ever saw Ciaran! So when he became leader of the Lucky Skulls, I vowed I would do better. I created the Irish Hounds to prove Ciaran was too weak to lead. That the Skulls had become soft.” He caught his breath, but his eyes still glittered with rage. “And I think I’ve done that. The Lucky Skulls are all but decimated. There’s nothing left of them but a few blowhards who are too stubborn to quit. The rest are dead or have come to me.”

  I wanted to tell him that resisting someone like him was a better display of character than anything else. It showed loyalty and strength, where he displayed anger and fear. Of course, after my last little outburst leading to a man trying to put his hand between my legs, I figured it was for the best that I fell silent. Sure, I didn’t think Shane was going to do that, but I didn’t think he had any of those handy principles against hitting me. Or just killing me and getting it over with.

  So instead of risking it, I fell silent and waited for whatever was going to happen.

  For a while he was silent. He seemed to have run out of steam, and for a second I thought he was finally going to leave. But then he fixed me with a hard glare and said, “Ciaran is weak. And when he comes for you tonight, it’ll prove it.” That was when the door opened and another man—Bryce, if I had to guess—came in to join us. Shane glanced over his shoulder at the man and gave him a nod. “Make sure she doesn’t go anywhere. And keep John the fuck away from her.”

  Bryce gave a quick nod, but stayed by the door like some silent guard. Shane turned to leave me and I couldn’t seem to help myself. Focusing my eyes on his back, I steeled myself and said, “Ciaran isn’t weak. He’s the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

  Shane paused halfway to the door. I saw a flicker of something that looked like worry cross Bryce’s face, but he remained silent. Tension lined Shane’s shoulders, but he seemed to force it away. Looking over his shoulder, he said to me, “You’re an idiot. A stupid, naïve little girl. You’ve got some warped, idealized view of Ciaran. Like he’s this hero, the bad boy out of one of your romance novels. Like he’s going to ride in here to save you on some white horse wearing shining armor and flying a knight’s flag. But he’s not. In the end, Ciaran is a coward and a weakling. He’ll come, but he’ll die, and I’m sorry to say no one’s going to save you.”

  I wanted to tell him his own words contradicted him. Bravery was in the act of coming to rescue me. Bravery was trying to save me even if he was outnumber
ed and betrayed and wounded. That was what made a hero, and I believed it with all of my heart.

  But I didn’t say any of that for two reasons: I knew Shane wouldn’t believe me and I wasn’t sure I’d convinced myself yet that Ciaran was really coming.

  Of course, I was going to die anyway, so what was the hurt in hoping?

  Chapter 5

  Ciaran

  I drove the old truck that belonged to Ma. It made it difficult to keep her out of my head, but focusing on the very real danger that Elle was in helped. Not that it was a preferable train of thought, but Ma was already dead. Elle still needed to be saved.

  The town was pretty quiet at this hour and I hoped that meant the police would be at the ready. I also hoped that somehow my crazy plan to get them to catch the Irish Hounds red handed would somehow work. And if it didn’t, well, I hoped it would at least buy us all some time to get the hell out of dodge.

  With Elle, I thought.

  I was determined to get her out of this. Come hell or high water, she would make it through tonight alive. Even if I didn’t. Though I sincerely hoped I would, but could you blame me? I just found the girl of my dreams, and if things worked out tonight, I’d be rid of Shane and the Irish Hounds.

  It was everything I could have asked for. At least, everything reasonable I could have asked for.

  Shane’s place was at the other end of town and I’d wasted some time setting things up with the boys, so it was already getting late as I drove towards his house. Part of me wished I’d brought some of my men with me, but the other part was relieved I wouldn’t have to worry about getting any more of them killed.

  Several might still show up, the ones who had been out looking for Shane, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. And while I fully trusted both Danny and Patrick, I wouldn’t count on them to get there in time.

  As I drove, I considered what I might be getting into.

  Shane had Elle. He had insisted she was alive and I trusted him that far. For now. If I didn’t show or if I failed, I didn’t think that would stay true, which was why I needed the police to bust the place. Just in case I didn’t make it out alive with her. At least if the Irish Hounds were put away, she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.

  But I still had to make it long enough to make sure I got her out, or at least kept her alive long enough for the police to get there.

  Which made me wonder what I would have to do to pull that off.

  If the address Shane gave me was to a house, which I was pretty sure it was, there were going to be a lot of rooms, maybe a basement, possibly a couple of different floors. All of which was not good news to me. It meant he could have her hidden anywhere in the house and I’d have to search to find her.

  Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll take me right to her, I thought, then snorted derisively. As if. Shane wasn’t going to make any of this easy on me, which meant I was going to have to find her on my own.

  I had to drive slowly thanks to the snow when all I really wanted to do was run this truck as fast as I could. But spinning out into some ditch with no means of getting to Shane wasn’t the best move, so I tried to instill some patience in myself.

  I tried to mentally estimate how many men would be at the house. If it were all of the Irish Hounds, I was screwed. There would be far too many men to handle on my own. Which made me hope and pray that somehow my boys did make it there, if only so I could focus on Elle. But remembering that I wasn’t counting on the cavalry, I tried to come up with some sort of plan to get myself in there and through what could be a hundred men or more.

  “Guns blazing probably isn’t going to work,” I mumbled to the empty cab.

  I hoped I would be able to get to Shane, kill him, and use his death as distraction enough to save Elle, but that plan banked on a lot of things. The main one was the Irish Hounds’ dependency on Shane. I had to believe they truly needed him as a leader, and that one of them wasn’t just waiting in the wings to take his place.

  And, unfortunately, I didn’t really believe that wasn’t the case. Shane was a hard man and a pain in the ass. I could only imagine his leadership skills. Which meant there was a good chance someone was just itching for a chance to take the reins from him. Which wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t think whoever stepped in to fill those shoes would be just as dangerous as Shane himself.

  Hope for the best, I thought grimly.

  ...

  When I pulled up, I found I was right. It was a residential home. Unfortunately, I was also right that it was two stories and massive. Shane hadn’t grown up any wealthier than I had, but he was willing to cross some of the lines that I wasn’t. I wasn’t any saint and I wouldn’t pretend to be, but there were still things I wasn’t willing to do.

  As a result, Shane had money and lots of it. Growing up the way we did, he had always been desperate for wealth. He wanted to have it and he wanted to flaunt it. I saw that now in his mansion. What did he need all that space for? I wasn’t fooled into thinking this was for the sake of his men, though I knew it was convenient when he wanted a small army there at his disposal.

  Which was part of why I was so disappointed to see it really was a house here. There could be a lot of men in there and I wouldn’t see them until they were right on top of me. Of course, I told myself that I, too, would be invisible. Except they knew where they were going and I didn’t have the foggiest idea of where Elle was being held.

  I wanted to go look for her first, but as I pulled up towards the front of the house, I quickly saw that that was not an option. Standing on the porch, alone and looking almost sinister, I saw Shane. He was waiting for me, his eyes unwilling to leave the truck.

  Coming to a stop, I lingered in the cab as my eyes met Shane’s. He had a smile on his lips, but it was tight, caught somewhere between angry and maybe even a little scared.

  Dare I hope that he was planning on fighting me fair, one on one?

  It would be stupid to assume that, I thought, but I did hope it was true.

  Finally, I bit the bullet. I pushed on the door to the truck and forced it open. The cold air rushed at me, pinching at my exposed face and my worn hands. It wasn’t a blizzard outside anymore, but the snow was coming on and off, little flakes dropping down through the freezing night.

  Holding myself taut with the readiness to fight, I slipped out of the cab and left the door open. It would be a frigid bitch in there, but at least I could get into the cab faster if I had to make a break for it, which I expected I would have to do at some point tonight.

  So long as I get to Elle first.

  I stepped towards the porch where Shane waited. I had a gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans and it was pressing cold metal into my back. I itched to pull it out and just fire at him, but I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t know who waited in the wings, where Elle was, or if I was walking into a trap of six men all hanging back in the shadows. And if that last one was the case, then I needed to be patient. Keeping Shane alive might be the only thing keeping them at bay.

  And more importantly, I didn’t want anyone getting any funny ideas about Elle.

  Doing my best to remain calm, I called out to Shane, “Where’s Elle?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, seemingly unconcerned about the whole thing. “Elle? Is that her name? Pretty.”

  My shoulders tightened, my body wanting desperately to fight him—no, to kill him. But I needed to play this smart. “Where is she, Shane?”

  He pretended to think about it, tapping his chin with his forefinger in an exaggerated motion. He looked up at the sky and even hummed as though really giving it some thought. The whole show made the urge to punch him that much stronger, but I somehow managed to keep that desire at bay. For now.

  “You know, I don’t know. I think she’s having tea or something with the boys.” He grinned at me, his tone of voice telling me that he thought this whole thing was just one big joke. Like Elle’s life didn’t even matter
.

  “I swear to God, Shane, if you’ve touched a single hair on her head—” I began to threaten, but he just waved me off, unconcerned by my anger or my threats.

  “But enough about her.” He moved to stand on the first step of the porch and that was when I noticed the ice lining the overhang. Thick icicles hung over the edge, formed after the days of snow and sleet. It might have made a nice, cheery picture for a Christmas card or something if it wasn’t about to become the place for a battle between two brothers. “I think it’s time to talk about us, don’t you?”

  He waited for me to get closer, and I didn’t disappoint. My boots crunched on the snow beneath them, packing it down as I strode with purpose towards him. I came to a stop only a few feet from the man I had grown up with, standing at the base of the stairs with three separating me from him. “What’s left to talk about Shane?”

  He frowned. “I thought you wanted to talk peace. Wasn’t that what you were all about?”

  I gritted my teeth until I thought I might crack them. “I think the time for peace has passed, don’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?” He asked in such a way that I knew this was all just blowing smoke up my ass—which made me wonder why he was stalling. Was there something going on? Was there some plan underway I didn’t know about? Or was this just him teasing me?

  With Shane, it was impossible to say.

  “Mostly because you had our mother killed,” I said, feeling a resurgence of anger and grief both.

  Something in his face tightened and he took another step down towards me. “I didn’t have her killed. It was an unfortunate accident.”

  “How can you call a bullet to the chest an accident?” I demanded, closing the space between us until I was just one step down from him and was just a hair shorter.

  His hands clenched tightly at his sides, good only because it meant he wasn’t going for a gun. “I didn’t order anyone to kill her, but sometimes people have to die, wouldn’t you agree?”