Irish Reign (Diamond Ring Irish Mob Trilogy #3)

Chapter 1

1

SAMANTHA

I t takes so little time for a home to burn to the ground.

I’m standing outside Thornfield, looking up at the massive stone mansion as flames engulf all three floors. My throat aches—from smoke or from holding back tears or from screaming for Braiden Kelly, the man I love.

Less than five minutes ago, Braiden and I woke from sated sleep, finally reconciled after an argument we never should have had. As the smoke detector shrilled its warning, Braiden draped me in a waterlogged towel and forced me out of our bedroom, ordering me to get down the stairs and out the front door. My lips are bruised from the last kiss he gave me.

Braiden is still in that hellscape.

“Samantha!”

I whirl at the sound of my name, even as I realize the voice belongs to Alec Fairfax, the elfin man who keeps every aspect of daily life running at Thornfield. He’s hurrying toward me from the back of the house. His cottage and the other homes for staff are safe from the fire, for now.

Fairfax’s hand is gripped by Aiofe, Braiden’s ward. The child has seen far too much violence in her eleven years. Until last night, trauma kept her mute. I could almost believe that I imagined her speaking, until she flings herself at me, burying her face in my T-shirt.

“Samantha.” She echoes Fairfax, her voice almost lost in the crackle of flames. “Where’s Uncle Braiden?”

Fairfax is already composing his ever-present reassuring smile. It’s not until I falter, trying to tell Aiofe the truth without terrifying her, that he realizes the danger Braiden’s in. “Sweet God,” he murmurs, turning toward the house. “I called 911.”

Before I can tell him that I did too, glass shatters onto the granite cobblestones of the driveway. More windows are bursting from the heat. Most of the rooms on the second floor are consumed by flame. Curtains have caught, and shadows look like a ghost army fighting to escape.

“All right,” Fairfax says, as if this is nothing worse than a pot boiling over on his stove. “Let’s move further down the drive, all of us.”

We can’t take refuge in the garage. It was firebombed earlier tonight when Braiden’s traitor brother tried to lure him to his death. The firefighters must have left too soon. A few live sparks still lived among the ashes. They blew to the house and caught on the roof.

Fairfax glances down and sees my bare feet. “Mind the glass,” he says.

I move, but I don’t care about the glass. My eyes are on the third floor. Braiden should be there by now.

Where are you? Get out! Now!

The third floor is where Birte Mason lives—Aiofe’s aunt, the woman Braiden married seven years ago. And Birte is watched over by Grace Poole.

I’ve been suspicious of Grace from the moment I arrived at Thornfield. She’s devoted to Birte, and to Aiofe too. But she’s a drinking alcoholic who is always looking for a way to duck out of work. A couple of months ago, she allowed Birte to set fire to the door of Braiden’s office, kindling it with large church candles.

Birte, with the cross she wears around her neck and the rosary she chants at dinner. Birte, who dresses like a nun.

Over the past four months, Birte has spiraled into madness. I don’t know if my presence has been the trigger, or Braiden’s violent life as Captain of Philadelphia’s Irish mob, or all the other disasters from Birte’s past.

And if Birte set that earlier fire…

Maybe the house didn’t catch from a stray spark.

Maybe this was all planned.

In the relative safety of a curve in the driveway, Aiofe shifts from foot to foot. She’s trying to get a better view of the burning house. “What’s that smell?” she asks.

“I don’t—” I start to say, but then I realize I smell it too—the sweet, pungent reek of gasoline. “Fairfax?” I ask.

His nod is grim. He hurries over to my Mercedes, the only car to survive the garage fire because it was parked on the driveway. Fairfax kneels beside it, then comes back with a length of garden hose. “This was in the tank,” he says. “Someone siphoned off the petrol.”

Jesus. No wonder the fire is burning so strong.

Braiden, what’s taking so long?

“Samantha?” Aiofe asks. I wonder how many questions she has pent up inside after seven years of silence. “What’s that paper?”

“What paper?” I ask. But following her gaze, I realize I’m still holding the document I found on the floor of the bedroom I share with Braiden, just before the smoke detector went off. Someone slipped it under the door while we slept.

It looks official. It’s printed on heavy bond. There are illustrations around the border—a church at the bottom, scrollwork filled with shamrocks and harps at the top. The text is printed with heavy black letters that look like a monk wrote them in the Middle Ages. Three signatures run across the bottom.

A single word is stamped across the document in crimson letters: Annulled. And someone has scribbled through Birte’s name, using blood-red crayon.

“It’s a legal document,” I tell Aiofe. “From the church in Ireland. It says your Uncle Braiden never married Aunt Birte.”

“But he did,” she says. “I was there.”

She was there. She was present at the church when her father tried to kill Braiden. When her father killed her brother by accident. When her father turned his knife on himself.

I don’t know how to explain that Braiden’s marriage to Birte was never consummated. I have no idea what Aiofe knows about sex. She turned eleven earlier this month, but most of the time she acts like a child half her age.

I suspect that if Grace Poole hasn’t taught her about her body, no one has. Grace Poole, who is somewhere on the third floor of the house.

Braiden, get out of there!

Even as I look back at the fire, I put together a story to explain what has happened. I don’t know that it’s true. I only hope I’ll get to prove it, once Braiden comes out the front door, carrying Birte, guiding Grace.

Here’s the tale that makes sense: Braiden received the signed, sealed paper sometime in the past week. I don’t know when the annulment arrived. I didn’t even know he’d applied for one. I was away from Thornfield, nursing wounds from the cruel things he and I said to each other in a heated fight.

But Birte found the document. And when she did, something snapped inside her fragile mind. This time, she wasn’t satisfied with lighting just a few candles. This time, she came to my car, siphoned gas, and set fire to the entire house.

“Samantha?” Aiofe asks. “Didn’t Uncle Braiden marry Aunt Birte?”

“It’s complicated.”

“But Father Regis says?—”

Fairfax interrupts. “We can ask Father about it later.”

I shoot him a look of gratitude. But Aiofe isn’t through with her impossible questions. I almost regret that tonight is the night she finally chose to speak. “You didn’t answer my question. Where is Uncle Braiden?”

I swallow hard. “He’s inside the house. He’s getting Aunt Birte and Grace.”

“And Uncle Madden? Uncle Madden’s hurt. Is he still in there? Is someone helping him?”

Fairfax and I share another glance over Aiofe’s head. Madden was trying to overthrow his brother, trying to steal the Philadelphia mob from Braiden.

Aiofe saw Madden shoot himself in the face, a suicide attempt gone awry. She didn’t see Braiden torture his traitorous brother. She doesn’t know Braiden executed Madden for what he did. She doesn’t know Madden’s body lies somewhere in the furnace of the second floor.

Once again Fairfax saves the day. “I hear sirens. Don’t you?”

Before I can strain to hear them over the crackling flames, Aiofe shouts, “Aunt Birte! There! On the roof!”

I follow Aiofe’s pointing finger.

And she’s right. Somehow, Birte has made her way onto the parapet that runs at the foot of the gabled roof.

She’s standing on top of the stone barrier, feet steady and firm. Her white gown billows in the air currents from the fire. Even at this distance, I can see the heavy gold cross she keeps around her neck. Birte’s bright red curls frame her face. Her eyes look black from here, but I know they’re the color of summer grass.

“Aunt Birte!” Aiofe hollers from the driveway. “Aunt Birte!”

I can’t believe Birte hears her, not at this distance, not over the flames. But the woman on the roof tilts her head at an angle. A ravishing smile floods her face, as if she’s listening to a chorus of angels. She clutches her cross with both hands. She nods once.

And she steps off the parapet.

We can’t hear her hit the ground, not with all the other noise. But Aiofe screams, her throat tearing like cheap cotton. Fairfax and I grab her at the same time, keeping her from running across the shattered glass to the broken, bleeding body.

Aiofe fights us. She bites. She scratches. She keens like a wolf, head back, mouth open.

Birte doesn’t move. Birte will never move again.

But shadows flicker inside the gaping front door. For a moment, I think it’s just a trick of the fire. But then I see broad shoulders and long legs. A bare chest and jet-black trousers. Dark hair and the planes of a face I know almost as well as my own.

Braiden.

He staggers across the driveway, drawn like a cursed sailor to Aiofe’s siren song. He doesn’t glance at Birte, doesn’t seem to notice any of the destruction around him.

“She’s dead!” Aiofe shouts. “Aunt Birte’s dead!”

Braiden pulls her to his chest. Sobbing and shaking, she lets him hold her. He spreads one hand across the back of her head, muttering something in Irish.

His hands and face are covered in soot. His bare skin is scattered with bright red burns. The scar on his forearm, reminder of the school shooting he survived when he was half Aiofe’s age, looks dark and angry.

“Samantha?” he calls, peering into the night and I close the distance between us.

“Thank God you made it out,” I say, more whisper than actual speech.

His other arm brings me into the circle, and I feel his hand on the nape of my neck. The annulment is crushed between us, but I don’t care. I could stand here until the end of time; I never want to move.

I realize I’m still wearing my collar, the emerald necklace he gave me when I accepted him as my Dom. His fingers brush the locked clasp, and I’m so grateful he’s alive that my knees threaten to buckle.

The first firetruck appears on the winding drive. Fairfax moves to greet it, prepared to help in any way.

With Aiofe still between us, I make myself ask Braiden one question, even though I already know the answer. “Grace?”

He shakes his head, a single terse move.

Grace Poole won’t steal his liquor ever again. She won’t be drunk before noon. She won’t leave the door to the third floor open, letting Birte slip free.

I lean my head against his shoulder. “You tried,” I say.

The firefighters are shouting orders behind us. They’ve discovered Birte. Someone crouches beside her, taking her nonexistent pulse. Teams of men drag hoses into place, but there won’t be much of Thornfield for them to save.

Braiden tightens his grip on my neck, pulling me even closer. His lips find my ear. I feel him speak, more than hear him. “Help me, Samantha,” he says. “I can’t see a thing. I’m blind.”