Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Brendan
“ A re we ready for this?” I exit the change room and tilt my neck side to side, stretching out my trap and lat muscles.
Bryan rises from a squat and adjusts his sweatpants. “Aye, as ready as we can get without the street kids we’re supposed to be training.”
I check the clock on the wall. “Piper said two o’clock, right?”
It’s eight minutes after the hour and the only people in the gym are us and two of the belt hopefuls Martin’s been training.
I’m about to pull out my phone and call Piper when the door opens and eight teenage girls file into the gym.
“Apologies, sirs.” Mr. O’Toole gives us a nervous wave and urges the girls forward. “A bit of an incident during the pickup stops. Set us back a few minutes.”
The attention of the group falls onto one girl. She’s a tough little tiger cat with black spikey hair and a burgundy leather choker. She shrugs but has her defenses locked right and tight. Whatever happened, it isn’t open for discussion.
Bryan claps his hands and brings the attention back to us. “The change room is on your right, down that hall. The jacks are on the left. Get yourselves sorted and then get your butts back here. We’ve got lots of ground to cover.”
The girls hustle off, and I study the dynamics of the group. The cliques split away from the whole and there’s one odd man out.
The little tiger cat.
“What’s with the kid with the collar?” I ask Mr. O’Toole.
“Ah, Ruby. She’s going through a rough patch. Her mom left and her dad is a dismal man who got put away for trading his kids for drugs.”
Fucking hell. “Who does she live with?”
“She and her two brothers were placed with an uncle, but he turned out to be as reliable as his sister. The super of her building set them up with some cots in an old storage room.”
Bryan’s gaze narrows. “In exchange for what?”
Mr. O’Toole shakes his head. “I couldn’t say.”
“So what was the trouble today?” I scan the back hallway, ensuring this conversation is still private. “What happened?”
“Her older brother got picked up for stealing and a city worker came by to investigate. Ruby took the younger brother and hid him until the worker left. She’ll be back, though, and they’ll get split up and sent into foster care.”
Shit. Kids like this do everything they can to stay out of the system. “What did the older brother steal?”
“He pocketed a couple of cans of soup at the local grocery store and got picked up in the parking lot.”
Food? The boy was only fighting to feed his siblings. I’m about to comment on that when the change room door opens and girls start coming back.
I agree the boy stealing is criminal—but not the way society sees it.
It’s criminal that society has failed these three so badly that it came to this.
The girls arrive back to the mats, their nervous energy practically buzzing in the air. Most of them can’t even muster the courage to look Bryan and me in the eye, their glances darting around as if searching for an escape route.
That’s not an uncommon reaction, but it is one that tugs at something deep inside me. Women shouldn’t need to be afraid of men—even big, brawny men—and certainly shouldn’t need to learn self-defense. Women also shouldn’t need men to protect them.
Women need men to stop making protection necessary.
In a perfect world, they’d be safe simply because they have the right to live their life unharmed.
Bryan catches my gaze from across the group and gives me a subtle nod. We both know the score—too many girls like these have fallen through the cracks, becoming statistics in a world that doesn’t care.
The weight of that sits like a fucking boulder in my gut.
“Welcome, ladies. I’m Bryan Quinn and this is my brother Brendan. You might know us as the Quinn twins or as the Dublin Beast and the Dublin Brute. Those are names given to us, not names we chose. In truth, the two of us are just teddy bears in giant Kodiak bodies.”
I snort. “Hilarious as that sounds, what Bryan is saying is that you have nothing to fear from us—ever.”
“Ever,” Bryan repeats. “And over the next few hours and the next classes, you’ll learn to trust us, and more importantly, trust yourselves.”
The girls look skeptical, but that’s fine. This ain’t our first outreach session. We’ll win them over soon enough.
I clap my hands together and their attention snaps to me. “All right, the first and most important rule we’re going to teach you today is to always trust your gut. If something feels wrong, it usually is. The human survival instinct is primitive. It goes back to caveman days when dangers meant death. Your body will set off the alarm before your brain even knows what’s up.”
I give them a moment to think about that and then Bryan continues. “What are some sensations you feel when your survival instinct kicks in?”
The girls cast sideways glances at one another and the room falls quiet. The silence is broken when the tiger cat with the ebony spikes speaks up in the back. “The hair on the back of my neck and arms tingles.”
“Absolutely. That’s your senses heightening. What else?”
Nora
“Hey, gorgeous, when do you get off?” A drunk guy in a button-down reaches for my waist. I sidestep him smoothly, protecting my tray. The surface of the three beers slosh a little up the inside of the glass, but I don’t spill a drop.
“Sorry, I’m not on the menu.” The response is automatic now.
Wow, a month at this and I’m getting good—even with my mind still spinning out about what I saw and did this morning at home.
The beers are delivered, and I pause at the service bar, leaning against the polished wood. ‘Not on the menu’ was what Alexis told us to say when patrons get big ideas.
And for their sakes, it’s safer for them to be warned off.
Brendan owns me, body and soul—those intense eyes, the gentle way he cares for me despite all that raw power, the way he fills and shatters me, like he knows exactly what I need and how I need it.
He won’t appreciate drunk guys copping a feel. In truth, he’ll pound them into pulp. The thought of that shouldn’t be so sexy. Having a brute of a man so utterly obsessed with me that he would take down anyone who dared to touch me…
That should scare me.
Images of that mugger lying in a heap of blood in that alley fill my mind. There must be something seriously wrong with me that I love that Brendan went primal to protect me.
That’s not normal—is it?
I wouldn’t feel that way if he hurt my father, and if I told him what I heard and saw this afternoon… The thought makes my stomach turn.
“Earth to Nora!” Jay snaps his fingers near my face. “Table twelve needs their bill.”
“On it.” I grab a leather folder from the stack at the end of the bar and cash table twelve out. While I wait for the bill to print, my mind wanders.
Da’s notes seemed subjective, at best. Freaked out as I was, I haven’t taken a good look yet. There were locations of Quinn properties, suspected connections, but nothing that changes my mind about Brendan.
Still, the conclusions scribbled in the margins worry me. When Da gets fixated on a target, his determination is intense. He’s worse than a dog on a bone. He’s a starved Rottweiler seizing a juicy steak.
Would he really fabricate evidence to take down his opponent?
The music switches to something with a harder edge as I drop off the check at table twelve and clear the empty glasses.
I glance across the club. Kate’s working the live band crowd on the next club floor. She’s so upset that I backed out of our apartment, she won’t even look at me. If I told her everything, she might understand—but I can’t do that.
Life is dangerous and complicated enough without drawing her into things.
It’s good we didn’t move in together. Keeping her away from battles with the organized crime world is more important than my happiness.
If Tanya was still alive, she’d know what I should do.
Brendan
The girls file out of the change room and head toward where Mr. O’Toole is waiting for them by the door. Seven of them are chattering and riding the high of a good workout. One is shuffling along at the rear.
Bryan and I feel good about how the first self-defense class went. What we’re not happy about is the situation that’s hanging over the little tiger cat’s head.
“Ruby.” I call out to the girl with black spiky hair. “Hang back a minute?”
She freezes, her shoulders tensing. “Why?”
“We just want to talk.” Bryan leans against the wall, working to look casual and non-threatening. He’s the beast that everyone knows he is and fails miserably.
Her gaze darts between us as her fingers clench into fists. “I have to go. Mr. O’Toole is waiting.”
“We talked to Mr. O’Toole and asked him to leave you here with us. We’re going to give you a ride home.”
Panic flares in her gaze, and she turns to look at the door, ready to bolt. “Look, I appreciate the defense lesson, but if you expect some kind of pervy gratitude?—”
I raise my palms and take a step back. “Whoa, no. It’s nothing like that.”
“Well, I didn’t do anything, so if you’re trying to jam me up?—”
“No one’s jamming you up. Kid, simmer down.” I grab three bottles of water from the mini fridge and toss one to her. “Bryan and I asked Mr. O’Toole about you being late and he told us a bit about your family situation.”
She catches the water but doesn’t open it. “So?”
“So we know your brother got picked up for stealing.”
Her face hardens. “He’s not a criminal.”
“That’s not what we’re thinking.”
Bryan pushes off the wall. “In case you haven’t heard, the Quinns look out for the kids in our neighborhood. How many brothers have you got?”
She lifts her chin. “Two.”
“How old?”
“Tommy’s almost eighteen and Danny’s twelve.”
“And no parents in the picture?” I keep my voice neutral.
Her silence is answer enough.
“Listen, Ruby, while you girls were changing, Bryan and I got to talking. You see, we’ve got this house.”
“It used to be one of our safe houses until it got compromised last spring,” Bryan adds. “And a safe house isn’t much good if your opponents know about it.”
True story . “So, our oldest brother has been riding my ass about finding a use for it.”
Ruby’s gaze narrows. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“Well, it has beds, heat, and running water. We’re thinking you and your brothers should stay there until Tommy turns eighteen and can file for the custodianship of the two of you. When will that be?”
Her eyes narrow. “May.”
I nod. “So, until May, you three can live there as our guests, and we’ll make sure there are groceries in the cupboards and the bills are paid. Then, once he’s a legal adult, we can revisit your situation and help with the legalities of keeping your family together.”
Her gaze skips from me to Bryan and back again. “What’s the catch? What would you want from me in return?”
“Nothing but you going to school and keeping your nose clean. The Quinns don’t exploit kids or women. That’s not how we operate.”
“But people don’t just help people for no reason.”
“Wrong. I understand that’s what life has taught you so far, but it’s bullshit. You got a shitty draw of the cards, but there are many people who want to help.”
“But—”
“No buts, kid. You get a real roof over your head, food in the cupboards. We’ll even get our sister-in-law to help sort out Tommy’s legal troubles. She’s a lawyer and can get shit done.”
Ruby blinks rapidly, her tough facade cracking. “Why would you do that?”
Bryan shrugs. “Because we can, and because kids deserve a chance.”
“So what do you say?” I hold out my hand. “Want to go get Danny and show him his new house?”
She stares at my hand for a long moment before a small smile breaks through. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”