Chapter 17 Run, baby, run – Briar
RUN, BABY, RUN
brIAR
Now
Run.
The word circles through my mind as I sprint like hell away from the docks. Taking sharp, random turns, and not letting up on the breakneck speed I’m setting, even when I slide on a scattering of loose gravel, skinning up my left knee and thigh.
I hate cardio. I fucking hate cardio. But thank fucking god for cardio.
All that time spent on the treadmill is finally put to good use as I run for what seems like forever. Putting as much distance between me and the Irish Devil King as possible.
Koen O’Rourke. What was he doing there? I don’t know if I want the answer.
Once I’m certain no one’s chasing after me, I slow. I’m closer to downtown, and this area is much more populated.
I pull the hood of Koen’s sweatshirt over my face as far as I can and push on. Trying not to draw any extra attention to myself from whoever might be wandering the downtown streets at this late—or rather, early—hour.
He recognized me. That flash in his eyes just before he cut my hands free. He knew. He remembered.
Why did I say anything?
Dumb.
Panic upticks my already pounding heart I run through all the possible implications.
I catapult myself onto a bus just as it’s about to pull away from the sidewalk, relieved to find it happens to be heading in the right direction. It’s late, so there’s only one other passenger on the bus with me and he looks half asleep.
“Bus fare?”
I stop, staring blankly at the driver. After everything that just happened, being asked for something as mundane as bus fare has glitched my brain.
Right, shit. Buses cost money. And my wallet is back at the club…
The bus driver narrows his eyes, gripping the handle for the door, prepared to kick me out, when I remember I stashed some emergency cash in my bra earlier today.
“Hold on!” I frantically check over my shoulder at the empty sidewalk, wishing he would just drive already while I fish a twenty out of my bra and shove it in the box.
“That’s too much,” he says flatly and I glare at him until he sighs, finally shifting the bus into gear.
I feel infinitely better once we’re moving, hunkering down in the back of the bus, keeping my eye on the empty street behind us. I ignore my bleeding knees, curling them into my chest, sliding Koen’s hoodie over them and hugging them close.
The adrenaline is finally ebbing away and shivers rack my body, both from cold and shock.
Koen.
He came out of the shadows like a demon summoned straight from hell.
He didn’t even blink when he put that bullet in Lorenzo. One clean through his hand, forcing him to drop the whip. And another through his knee, taking him down. With barely a thought, from over a hundred feet away.
He was lethal. I’d heard the stories, heeded them too, but everything I’d heard paled in comparison to the real thing.
Koen O’Rourke is Death incarnate. His brothers, too.
I saw what his brother did to Lorenzo. Aidan O’Rourke, the Boston Breakers’ star defenseman, had just smashed a man’s face in with a baseball bat right in front of me.
And Koen recognized me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
They were distracted, and no one noticed when I slowly backed away, disappearing into the maze of crates before bolting out of a side door.
Lorenzo, Declan, Matteo, Kostalov, Aidan—The names ring through my brain, information I don’t want. I wish I could rip them out of my brain and set them on fire. Knowing those names is dangerous. They are dangerous.
Lorenzo is dead. A small mercy. The only one of them who actually knew where to find me.
Declan O’Rourke. He used to be the head of the Irish Devils. Koen’s father. Dead, last I knew. The incident had shaken the city for weeks. I’d read every article I could find on the car bomb that took out the notable Boston resident “with rumored ties to the Irish mob.”
Matteo Carroza and Adrik Kostalov. I didn’t know those two names. And I definitely didn’t want to.
And Aidan. He’d taken off his mask. The hockey player is well known in this city, his picture is on a billboard somewhere for god’s sake! And what I’d just seen him do…
If I didn’t run, they would’ve killed me. No doubt about it. There was no way they were letting me walk out of there alive.
Car bombs, human trafficking—How none of them even flinched when Aidan killed Lorenzo? These are dangerous men. Men, I couldn’t let anywhere near Remi.
Oh god, Remi. What would Koen do if he found out about her now? After all this time? Would he even care that he had a daughter? Would he try to take her? Would he hurt her? Would he hurt me?
Anxiety surges and I hug my shaking knees tighter, my fingers trembling where I’ve wrapped them around myself. Logic tries to put out the flames, reminding me that I never gave him my name.
My real name.
That night almost five years ago, I lied. I told him my name was Rose. So what if he recognized me tonight? He has no way of tracking me down. I’d lived in this city for four years and not once had we crossed paths.
Finally making it home, I race up the stairs to our fifth-floor walk-up, pulling the key out of my bra and locking every damn lock behind me. It doesn’t feel like enough.
I stand there for god knows how long, palms pressed against the back of the door like I can keep out the devil at my back, breathing hard.
When I finally move, the shooting pain spiraling up my back almost brings me to my knees.
Adrenaline, and likely fear, must have been keeping me from truly feeling the pain, but oh, it’s coming roaring back with a vengeance.
Worse yet, the blood on my back has started to dry, the wounds clotting and sticking to the inside of Koen’s sweatshirt, ripping me alive with every little movement.
I should clean it but I don’t. I’m on the verge of passing out from blood loss or adrenaline crash—I don’t know, so instead I make a beeline down the hall.
Quietly slipping in the second door on the right.
Relief floods through me at the sight of my little girl, safe and sound, curled up under the covers. Her pink unicorn tucked under one arm.
The door clicks quietly behind me as I tiptoe through the room. Stepping over stuffed animals and matchbox cars—a new phase—until I reach the bed.
Doing my best not to disturb her, I crawl under the covers, pulling her into my chest and holding her tight. The fear of losing her was the worst part of it all.
Remi lets out a little sigh before drifting back off to sleep but not before her little hand wraps around mine too. I hold her close for the next couple of hours, shadowed green eyes haunting my thoughts, until I finally drift off.