The Celtic Resolution (A New York Criminal Empire #4)

Chapter 1 Saoirse

SAOIRSE

Ouch.

Everything aches. Pressing one palm down onto the cold, damp stone floor, I try to roll over but pain lances up my elbow like a threading needle, followed by a pulse of weakness that forces me to sink back down.

Bad idea.

But lying here isn’t doing me any favors and it isn’t going to save me. I can’t just lie here and wait for them to come for me. I’m better than that. I should be better than that.

But I’m here. Wherever here is.

Beaten. Broken. Tossed aside like yesterday's garbage and betrayed by a man I was stupid enough to fall in love with. It’s all my fault. Everything is all my fault.

Closing my eyes doesn’t bring me any comfort.

There’s no safety in the darkness. Every image that flits past my eyelids between the pulsing red veins highlighted by my thumping, racing heart, is only of Cian.

The look of terror in his eyes as blood spurted from his throat, the twist of pain across his lips and the sudden cold look of understanding that this was it. The end.

Losing a sibling is hard. I still feel the loss of Brendan as if it happened last week.

But losing Cian, my twin? That’s a pain so deep I can’t even acknowledge it and yet it sits like a weight beneath my ribs, waiting for the right moment to surge up and consume me.

The only thing keeping it at bay, keeping all my pain at bay, is the last tendril of strength that wavers in my heart.

I don’t want to die here. I need to get out.

I need to tell someone what happened to Cian and what will happen to me and my baby, but even as the order surges through my mind like a prayer, my body doesn’t listen.

Where exhaustion and pain make me weak, the drugs they’ve pumped into my body does the rest of the work for them.

My mind screams in a body that’s shut down, incapable of anything but the slowest of movements, and anything too extreme results in waves of exhaustion and nausea.

I’m going to die here. My baby is going to die here. Cian and I will just become names lost to time, just two more Mafia scumbags swallowed by war. The only thing that pains me more than knowing Cian is dead and I am next is that Cormac will never know what happened to us.

Fuck.

Move! Please just move! Just lift one fucking arm, please!

My mind screams within its cage while I lie here with heavy limbs that can’t understand.

Frustration builds and hot tears prickle behind my eyelids.

I’m better than this. I’ve trained my entire life to be better than this, taken more classes than I can count and worked my fingers to the bone to turn my body into a weapon.

I’ve spent decades making sure I’m strong enough, only to be defeated by the one thing I never saw coming.

Love.

The tears fall because I don’t have the strength to stop them. They roll slowly down my cold cheeks and soak into the dampness that clings to the stones beneath me.

I pray it’s over quickly.

The loud, frantic beats of my heart slowly melt into the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the door to my cell.

Using every bit of strength I have left, I force myself back up onto my injured elbow and barely bite back a yelp as every other deep bruise and laceration across my body screams in protest. Moving saves me from pain.

But pain reminds me I’m still alive.

I might be facing my end, but I’m not going to go quietly.

The footsteps stop right outside the wooden door and a heavy lock clunks as it’s hauled backward. The door swings open, bathing me in a bright white light that burns my pupils and forces my eyes closed to protect myself.

“Bring her,” barks a nasally voice. Footsteps flood my cell, and fear prickles at the back of my neck.

Every mental muscle tenses, ready for a fight, but my body doesn’t get the memo, so there’s no resistance when strong, rough hands grab my upper arms and haul me upward.

The sudden change in state causes my stomach to lurch, and I gag while saliva floods my mouth.

I’m hauled forward, but each time I try to open my eyes, the blinding light forces me back into darkness.

Come on, Saoirse. You’re better than this!

Nothing listens to me. It’s a wonder I can put one foot in front of the other as I’m half-dragged from my cell.

A shadow falls over my face, so I cautiously crack open one eye to see a tall, lanky man with a patchy beard glaring down at me.

As soon as our eyes meet, his thin, spindly fingers latch onto my jaw and jerk my head one way, then the other. He sucks on his teeth and grunts.

“So much trouble for such a little girl,” he says in that waspish, nasally tone.

It makes my skin crawl and I try to jerk my head out of his grip. I move too slowly, though, and his thin lips stretch into a wicked, amused smile.

“Still got a bit of fight in you, hmm? That won’t last long.” He shoves my head to the side and releases me. “Take her upstairs. They’re ready for her.”

As soon as he steps away, the blinding light is back so my eyes snap shut while a pulsing ache radiates through my skull.

The drugs they’ve pumped into me regularly ever since I ended up here are doing God knows what to my system.

I can’t fathom what they might be doing to my baby.

As if there’s any chance we survive this.

The men supporting me waste no time in dragging me through cold, winding corridors and stairs that catch on my toes when I don’t lift my feet fast enough.

The higher we climb, the louder certain sounds become.

What I once thought was the rumbling of the underground is actually the crashing of waves and the distant honk of large ship horns.

The docks.

I’m near the docks.

A vital piece of information that I can do absolutely nothing with.

Great.

Higher and higher we climb with both men on either side of me sighing in irritation each time I stumble or trip. If I could get my mouth to work I’d tell them they’re walking too fucking fast, but what’s the point? It won’t save me.

Soon, we’re walking in light dull enough that I can open my eyes without pain.

The plain corridor we’re walking down has nothing of note besides several copper pipes running parallel to us along the ceiling.

The air is slightly warmer and the crashing waves are soon drowned out by low, thumping music.

I glance at each guard escorting me, but their faces aren’t familiar.

Just grunts, if I had to make a guess. We approach the silver double doors at the end of the corridor and we’re a foot away when they fly open and a man dressed in dark jeans and a ripped black T-shirt strides toward us.

“This her?” he barks, jerking his thumb toward me.

“Yes, sir,” remarks the guard to my left.

“You couldn’t have cleaned her up first?” He casts his eyes down me while his lips curl in disgust. “How the fuck are we going to get a good price when she looks like shit?”

“Boss doesn’t care,” says the guard on my right. “He says her name is her worth. No one will give a shit what she looks like, but you can throw her up there naked if you want.”

My heart punches up into my throat. Humiliation before death? Why the fuck not?

“Nah,” the man says, and relief bleeds through me like ice water flooding my veins.

“Only her buyer gets to see that shit.” He grabs my jaw with his thick, stubby fingers of one hand, then licks the thumb of his other hand.

As much as I recoil, I can’t stop him from smearing his thumb across my cheeks and wiping away any traces of my tears, though my weak struggles make him smirk.

“So they haven’t beaten all the spirit out of you.

Interesting. Maybe I’ll place a bid myself. ”

He steps back with a jerk of his head, and I’m dragged past him as the gravity of his words finally sink in.

Bid?

No fucking way.

They’re going to auction me off, aren’t they?

I should have known. There’s no easy death for me, not in this life. In fact, death would be a mercy. Suddenly, underneath the ache of grief at my twin's fate, I’m glad Cian is dead.

It’s a better fate than what I face.

My guards drag me up a short staircase and suddenly, the floor beneath my bare feet is warm, polished wood.

I’m basked in a bright but warm light that gleams down from above like a spotlight, highlighting the circular stage I’ve been dragged onto.

Blinking quickly, I try to peer through the haze around the stage, but whatever lies beyond is blanketed in darkness, hidden further by the light focused on me.

My heart races faster and faster. By the time I’m dragged to the middle of the stage, I’m able to keep myself upright, and both guards release me, but they only step a few feet back.

I try to stand straight, as if my defiant stance will warn away anyone from bidding on me, but I can’t maintain that posture.

Every muscle is bruised, and tensing to stand straight creates more pain than I can bear.

In the end, I simply wrap my arms around my bare stomach and cling to the threadbare remains of my tattered shirt while my knees knock together.

“The most anticipated item of the evening!” booms a voice that seems to come from all around me.

“Saoirse Gifford. A thorn in our side for far too long. She’s young, she’s healthy, and as you can see, she can still hold herself up.

Whether you’re looking for another bitch to add to the collection or you just have a point to work out with the Irish, this is your only chance! Starting bid, two hundred and fifty!”

Just as I quietly scoff that I’m worth more than that, the amount goes up. Five hundred. Seven fifty. One million. Still pocket change to the scumbags who buy humans as a commodity.

Struggling for where to look, I blink quickly. My eyes are slowly adjusting to the lighting, and the once dark abyss that stretches before me slowly takes shape. Somehow, it’s worse than I could have imagined.

I’ve never attended an auction like this.

My family—most families—are vehemently against human trafficking, but in my mind, it was a dirty affair.

I’d pictured scummy people crammed into a small space, sharing sweat and grime while bidding on people like you’d bid on cows. But it’s not like that at all.

Beyond the golden light surrounding me, the floor beyond my stage is filled with neatly decorated tables covered in flowers and fancy bottles of alcohol.

Men and women stand and sit at these tables dressed in their fine dresses and suits, engaging in light and humorous conversation while waiters walk back and forth with trays of drinks and food.

The thumping music rises from a band in the far corner as bids are placed by people lazily lifting golden placards.

It’s not the grimy pits I’d imagined at all. If anything, it looks like a fancy party. Somehow, that makes it worse. The rich and the elite out here bidding on people makes my stomach turn. I was supposed to stop this. How many people will come after me because of my failure?

Despair rises like a wave in my chest and my lower lip quivers.

Sinking my teeth into the flesh does nothing to calm it as the monetary bids on me climb higher and higher.

And then a loud bang makes me jump so violently that the guard to my left surges forward to grab me as if he expects me to collapse.

“Sold!” bellows the auctioneer. “For eighty million dollars to number seventeen! Come, sir. Collect your prize!”

Number seventeen. Who the fuck is number seventeen? I wearily scan the sea of faces that turn away from me, no longer interested since they’ve lost.

Then, one man steps forward.

A man with thick, sweeping brown hair on top of his head, golden skin and piercing blue eyes. A man I recognize.

Bile rises in my throat the second we lock eyes, and a surge of hot fury makes my arms shake.

No fucking way.

Bruno Del Prete bought me.

The very bastard who put me here in the first place!