Chapter 6
Six
KILLIAN
I stand in the bakery, frozen, as I replay what she just said to me.
The mob.
I didn’t imagine that. That’s what she said. Those two vicious words showing my worlds have somehow collided without me having any clue about it. The fear on her flawless face makes me sick. The rage surging through me, already so vicious after finding the bloody ring, gets even worse.
The mob…
“Hey—”
Before the guy behind the counter can stop me, I walk into the backroom and close the door behind me. Lucy turns, her eyes red, her arms wrapped across her middle. She looks so devastatingly beautiful with the emotion bursting out of her.
“It’s okay, Toby,” she murmurs when the door opens behind me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” The door closes.
“You need to explain,” I tell her. “What happened with the mob? Are they shaking you down?”
Her gaze flits to the ceiling again. Cold instinct grips me, the same iron certainty that took hold of me during my brief stint in Family life. Those instincts never leave a man.
“Are they here now ?” I say in disbelief.
“Please,” she whispers. “You can’t help?—”
“I can. I will.”
“Lower your voice,” she says urgently.
I walk across the kitchen and take her hands again. “Then explain ,” I demand.
“Fine, fine,” she snaps. “ Fine . But you’ll regret it. My mom made a deal with a man called Shane. Apparently, he works for some mob, but I don’t even know which, or if he really does, or anything, except that he comes by once a week and demands a portion of the earnings. He threatens me. He has a gun.”
My head swims. My hands clench into fists so tight they hurt. The mob—which must mean us —is shaking down Lucy?
“This was bad enough, and I was trying to figure out how to get the heck out of the deal, but last night, it got worse.”
“Tell me.”
She looks at me in shock. Maybe it’s my tone. Perhaps it’s my expression. The fierceness in me. I’m letting out the ‘kill’ in Killian. The Family man is coming out I can’t help it. The demon I never wanted her to see… it’s tearing my mask to shreds.
“Shane woke me at three in the morning. He had a woman with him. She didn’t—doesn’t—look like she wants to be here. She looks terrified, and it appears he is holding her captive. He’s up there now with her. He said that if I do anything, he’s going to hurt me, hurt her, even implied he’s going to hurt Clover.”
I grind my teeth, trying to think of a reasonable method to handle this.
“I told you,” she says. “You can’t do anything. I know what you’re going to say. Call the cops. But he’s told me in the past he has connections to the cops.”
“I would not tell you to call the cops,” I say, barely keeping it together. It’s like there’s a volcano inside of me, frothing, lava surging to the surface as my old self, as the kill in Killian, tries to emerge.
She throws her hands up. “That’s because you know there’s nothing you can do,” she snaps. “There’s nothing anybody can do. He’s got a gun; he’s from that world… Don’t worry, Killian. I won’t be offended if you leave and pretend this never happened. I know this isn’t what you were expecting. It’s probably the last thing you want to deal with.”
“I want to help you,” I tell her, my head pulsing, rage coursing through me. “Describe Shane to me.”
“What good will that do?” she says, exacerbated.
I want to hold her, whisper that everything’s going to be okay. But I’m afraid that if I wrap my arms around her, I’ll squeeze too tight, my urge to protect her too strong. Nobody may make her feel like this. Nobody has the right to threaten her. Ever. Not my lucky charm.
“Just do it,” I say.
She swallows nervously, then says, “He’s got a tattoo of a clover on his neck.”
I laugh savagely, no humor in it, just pure anger. So, this is what fate has decided to throw at me. First, a reunion with a woman I haven’t seen since she was a lost, scared little kid. Now this… the mob life crashing into this pocket of perfection without me even needing to pull any triggers.
“Wait here,” I growl, moving toward the stairs.
I know Shane. I’ve never spoken to him, but I know him by sight. He’s one of Uncle Frank’s men. I’ve seen him several times at bars and parties, the clover on his neck, always drinking, always laughing, always acting like he’s the big bad wolf.
Lucy grabs my wrist, tugs on it, and turns me toward her. “What are you going to do?” she asks anxiously.
“Stop him,” I snarl, flashes of violence burning in my mind, snapshots of the life I lived for a few years before I decided I had to go legit. I once thought I could wear the spiky crown of the mafia prince. I once indulged that darkness.
“You’ll get that woman hurt,” Lucy says. “Or Clover… or you , Killian. He’s in the mob. You own restaurants. I’m sorry, but this isn’t some freaking fairy tale. This isn’t Ireland. You can’t save me this time.”
I pull my hand away. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Throwing the door to the apartment open, I march up the stairs, my heart thundering as the old battle signals burst out of me. Maybe this is who I really am. What I was built for. No matter how hard I fight it, this is where it will always end.
“Killian,” Lucy hisses quietly from behind me. “Stop.”
But I can’t listen. On some level, I know this is going to mean shattering every idea she has of who I am. What’s the alternative? Let this motherfucker do this? And what’s this crap about a prisoner? Is my uncle dealing in people now?
When I push the door at the top of the stairs open, Clover runs over, yapping, tongue hanging out. Shane rises to his feet, standing behind the couch with his hand on his gun. His eyes widen when he sees that it’s me. Behind him, looking small and scared, a woman with hollow pits for eyes leans against the wall, arms wrapped across her middle.
“Killian?” Shane says, like he’s seen a ghost.
“You know him?” Lucy murmurs, looking at me.
I walk toward Shane. He shakily raises the gun, aiming it at my head, but I don’t stop. “You’ve been shaking Lucy down for cash,” I snarl. “And now you think you can take over her apartment? Scare her in her own home.”
“What is she to you?” Shane demands.
Everything. But I don’t say that. I walk around the couch until the cold barrel of the gun presses against my forehead. “If you want to save yourself, you better pull that goddamn trigger now.”
I keep my eyes on the pistol, on his finger… not currently on the trigger guard.
His eyes go steely. “I didn’t know you knew her, dammit,” he mutters.
“It doesn’t matter what you did and didn’t know. You scared her. You threatened her. If I wasn’t here, you’d hurt her.”
“Don’t make me do this.” His hand trembles.
“It’s your only chance to save yourself, you scumbag.”
Time seems to slow, just as it always does when violence is imminent. His finger inches toward the trigger guard. I duck and deliver a brutal punch to his face, a loud crack signaling his jaw breaking. He roars and stumbles back, trying to aim the gun at me, but I grab his wrist and snap it.
Another crack tells me I’ve broken that bone too. He bellows as I wrench the gun from his grip, and then it’s like I can’t stop. Somewhere, seemingly far away, Lucy yells at me, and Clover barks, but my ears buzz as I unleash my fury. I saved Lucy from terror once, from the fear of being lost, from her abusive father catching up with her. I saved her from one storm; now I’m saving her from another. I smash Shane in the face with his own pistol repeatedly, only stopping when Lucy jumps on me, grabbing my arm.
“Killian,” she yells.
I turn, staring down at her, shocked by her expression. She looks afraid of me. She stares at me like I’ve always feared in my darkest nightmares. Like I’m a monster.
I turn back to Shane. His face is a mess, swollen and disfigured, his pained eyes visible somewhere in the carnage.
“Killian,” Lucy whispers. “What did you do?”
“I saved you,” I snarl.
“Is he dead?”
“Not yet.”
She stifles a sob. I tuck Shane’s pistol into my waistband and then lean down, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet. Glancing at the woman, I say, “Come with me. I’m going to get you to safety. You’re never going to see this bastard again. If you have family, I’ll make sure you’re reunited with them.”
“Ruh-really?” she whispers, looking at me like I’m a demon. Is she wrong?
“Yes. But we must go. Now.”
I drag Shane from the apartment, down the stairs, and out the back fire escape, the woman walking quickly at my side. “Walk,” I growl in Shane’s ear. “I don’t want to draw attention to us.”
That’s a misguided thing to say. Blood is pouring down his face.
In the car, I call Ronan on speaker.
“Killian?” he says, answering.
“I need a favor.”