Mob Bride (The O’Rourke Brotherhood #5)

Mob Bride (The O’Rourke Brotherhood #5)

By Sabine Barclay

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Shane

UNEXPECTED MOVEMENT DETECTED

What now?

I tap on the security feed from one of my construction sites. Which fucking family is it this time? I swear to God, if it’s the motherfucking Diazes, Imma torch their entire fucking art gallery. Let’s see how that fucking opening goes tomorrow night.

“Ted, change of plans. We need to check out the new mall site. Trespassers.”

My bodyguard nods and speaks in his earpiece. I’m with my brothers and their wives at a concert that’s about to start. Fucking orchestra pit seats. These cost me enough to keep Finn and Ally’s impending bundle of joy in diapers for the next two years. So much for being part of their celebration.

I tap Finn on the shoulder and explain I have to go and that I’m taking three of our guys. With eight of my family out in such a crowded place—including three wives, one of whom is three-and-a-half months pregnant—we have nearly every available guy with us working security.

It’s walking distance to the site, so that means no chance of headlights tipping these fuckers off and no driving blind onto the site. The heat-seeking sensors our security system includes for situations just like this shows one person. It doesn’t matter that they’re alone. All four of us have our guns drawn as we circle whoever the hell is wandering around our property.

Motherfucking son of a goddamn bitch.

“Put ’em down.”

“Shane, th–”

“Now. Go.”

“Bu–”

“Mikey, do it. All of you go.”

I point my gun to the sky and put my other hand up as I wait for my men to leave. When I’m alone with my unwanted visitor, I squat and lower my gun to the ground before pushing it away.

“Put yours down.”

“No.”

It’s not like I expected a different answer, but I’m giving them a chance to lower their gun. I straighten and step forward.

“You can move it from pointing at my chest to my head, but you won’t shoot me.” That’s met with silence. “If you were going to shoot, you would’ve already. You wouldn’t have waited to see who approached. You would be fine with dying because that’s what would’ve happened since there’re four of us and one of you. That’s what’ll happen if you shoot me now. No one who’s had the shite beaten out of them like you have and is hiding wants to die. Just the opposite. Put the gun down.”

Still nothing. That’s not the surprise tonight.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“Do you know who owns this site?”

“Don’t care.” The defiant tone matches the steadiness of the hands still pointing a Ruger 9mm at me.

“Thought so. If you did, you’d know I’m angrier than you can ever imagine. If I have to take that gun from you, I will hurt you. If I see another bruise on you, I’m going to lose my shite in a way you don’t want to imagine.”

“Red hair and a temper. What part of that do you think makes me feel safe?”

“The part that said none of it’s directed at you. Who the feck touched you? Unless you’re in a fecking fight club, you’re going to tell me.”

I walk toward the woman who looks like she’s been through a meat grinder, and it takes every ounce of resolve not to yell at her. I want to know who the fuck laid their hands on her. She should be at the fucking hospital not trying to defend herself again.

“That’s none of your business.”

“You made it my business by trespassing and hiding here. Put the gun down because I will hurt you when I take it. I told you that already. I also told you I’ll lose my shite if I see another bruise on you.”

“Walk away. That solves both our problems. Back up, and you don’t have to worry I’ll put a bullet between your shoulders or through your head.” The defiance is still there. Good.

“And I told you I know you don’t want to die. I normally don’t repeat myself twice, let alone three times.”

“And you can see why no one’s bullying me a second time tonight.”

I don’t like to live on the edge or whatever cliche fits, but I’m used to it. I have a healthy fear of dying. That’s why I’m still alive at the whopping old age of thirty-two. I keep walking until I’m my arm’s reach from her. She’s at least eight inches shorter than my six-three.

“You call whatever the feck happened to you tonight being bullied?”

“What else do you call being relentlessly forced into something you don’t want to do?”

My eyes skim over her, and she finally understands the rage I feel but am not showing. She shakes her head and finally points the gun at the sky like I did before lowering mine. Except she doesn’t put hers down.

“I got beaten up. No one raped me. Calm down.”

I cock an eyebrow. “I’d say for someone who’s had a gun pointed at them for five minutes, I’m pretty fecking calm.”

“And I’d say you’re a pretty fucking good liar. Imagine why I’m not feeling so trusting. Besides, you already told me you’re angry. Red hair and a temper.” She cocks a dark brow at me.

“I did say that. Telling an angry person to calm down usually has the opposite effect.”

I reach out, and she immediately shifts to bring the gun down. My touch is gentle as I turn her chin toward the moonlight, so I can see her better. She was in the shadows, but the moon and nearby streetlights allowed me to see more of her than just an outline. She’s in worse condition than I thought.

“If I were going to hurt you, I already would have.” My tone is softer because my rage is about to boil over. “Boyfriend or girlfriend?”

Her gaze shutters.

“This was personal. This wasn’t someone tried to mug you, and you fought back. This wasn’t some drug deal gone bad. This wasn’t some argument at a bar that escalated. This is someone who knew you and wanted to punish you. This was personal.”

“How would you know the difference?”

Because I’ve beaten enough people to death to recognize the difference.

I can’t tell her that. I avoid the question.

“You won’t go to the hospital, or you would’ve already. I know two doctors, both women, I can take you to. Beyond age and any underlying health conditions, they won’t ask anything except whether it hurts when you cough. They aren’t nosey like me. Do you want a neonatologist or a former navy surgeon?”

She stares at me dumbfounded before she jerks away. Pain shoots through her, and her face shows it. She nearly doubles over. Fear and adrenaline kept her distracted while we were talking, but that one move reminds her she’s lucky she isn’t dead. I’ve done far less than she’s survived and killed bigger men than her while doing it.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I didn’t say you have to. They both make house calls.” Not that I want to pull Ally away from her celebratory night out. I’m going to call Meredith, but I want this nameless woman to feel like she has a choice, even though she doesn’t.

I know she won’t tell me the truth about her name, so I haven’t bothered asking. But I can offer mine. “I’m Shane O’Rourke.” I observe intently, but the name doesn’t register. Unless she’s a sociopath, she isn’t hiding recognition.

“Jane Doe.”

I grin and nod. She says it like we’re meeting at some garden party in the Hamptons. I reach out to her again, and she moves to bring her gun down again. She stopped herself when she realized I wasn’t hurting her when I touched her face. She’s not trusting this time. It’s easy to take it from her. I could’ve done it before, but I didn’t want her to feel entirely powerless. But the movement obviously caused her pain, and that concerns me more than the chance she’ll finally shoot me. She tries to fight me to keep it, but she’s no match for me.

“Enough.”

I bark the word, and it spurs her to fight harder. I’m bullying her, and she said she wouldn’t let that happen twice tonight. With her gun away from her, I take six steps back.

“I’m reaching for my phone to call the surgeon. She’ll come here.”

She narrows her eyes at me and continues to glare during my entire conversation with the woman who’s been sewing me up since Misha Andreyev cracked a beer bottle over my shoulder in eighth grade and gave me ten stitches. It’s one of the few distinguishing marks that tells me apart from my twin. Fully dressed, people outside my family can only tell us apart from the freckle on the left side of Sean’s throat.

Yes. Finn, Sean, and Shane O’Rourke. We’re that Irish. Toss in our cousins Dillan, Cormac, and Seamus, and it comes as no surprise we are the Irish in New York. We run the mob.

“When the doctor gets here, I’m going to get a look that tells me she’s displeased I didn’t take you to the office trailer to lie down on the couch while we wait. I won’t force you, but I guarantee you won’t resist her.”

“I’ve resisted you.”

“That’s because I’m only Irish American. She’s British.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’ll have you doing whatever she wants with one rhetorical question. Just give in before that. It’s way easier, and I won’t get more than a look.”

It’s not that Meredith was Atilla the Hun’s personal physician, but she could’ve been. She’s saltier than a middle school PE teacher. There’s no excuse she hasn’t heard, so she buys no one’s shite.

“Would you at least sit down before you keel over?”

My frustrating stranger resists agreeing, but the adrenaline is totally gone, and the agony’s setting in. She’s in so much pain she lets me help her to the floor. I say nothing to her while twenty minutes pass, and we wait for the doctor to arrive.

“Carys?”

The woman’s head snaps up as Meredith runs toward us.

“Mom?”

The fuck?

Meredith carries one of those old-fashioned doctor’s black bags that sorta folds down at the top when it’s opened. She flings it out to me, not caring that it hits my gut hard enough to make the air whoosh from it. She drops to her knees as she opens her arms to the young woman. Carys—that’s a beautiful name—why’d I just think that?—falls into her mother’s arms. Meredith’s far gentler with her daughter than she’s ever been with me or the men in my family. She rarely casts us anything but a scowl with her lips pressed flat that clearly tells us we got whatever we deserved for not being quick or attentive enough.

“What happened, lovie?” Meredith croons the question to her daughter, and I can tell the woman’s barely holding herself together.

I feel like an intruder as I watch them. I should turn away. I should mind my own business like Carys told me to. I should give them space. But rage has me wanting to hear Carys’s explanation. No one I’ve seen who looks like her hasn’t wound up unconscious and in a hospital. How she’s awake is beyond me. It makes me wonder if she’s on something.

It’s too dark to see whether her pupils are dilated. So, when Meredith flaps her hand for me to give back her bag, she pulls a tiny flashlight from it. She waves it across Carys’s eyes, and I watch the pupils contract the way they’re supposed to. When Carys practically snarls at me, I realize I’ve stepped closer. Curiosity killed the cat, and she looks like she’s ready to leave me dangling from a tree. I remind myself she’s in pain; otherwise, she’d seem ungrateful.

“Carys, what happened?”

Meredith speaks as she cups her daughter’s jaw and runs the pads of her thumbs over the younger woman’s cheeks. Carys can’t stop the wince when her mother’s thumb presses a particularly sore bruise. She pulls back and shakes her head. She sets her face in a mulish expression I’ve seen far too many times from Meredith when she’s insisted on giving one of us a shot of pain killers that’ll knock us out.

“You can trust Shane. I’ve known him since he was a kid.”

“No. It’s none of his business.”

“Carys, please. If for no other reason than I need to know what injuries to look for and treat.”

“I’m fine.”

I can’t stop the snort that escapes me. I usually show no emotion I don’t want others to see, so that surprises even me. There’s stubbornness—which my twin has in spades—and there’s foolishness. She possesses an unhealthy dose of the latter.

“Shane, give us a minute.”

I nod, not that Meredith can see me. I’m sure she hears my footsteps retreat. I turn my back but strain to hear.

Nothing.

They’re whispering too low for me to catch anything until Meredith’s angry voice reaches me.

“You will tell me now.”

“Or you’ll ground me? Let go, Mom.”

I hear the whimper that has me spinning around to spy Carys standing on wobbly legs. Uninvited back into the conversation, I walk over as I speak.

“She ought to turn you over her knee. Where do you think you’re going? You’re likely to trip over something and impale your empty head on a stake.”

Meredith stands in front of her daughter, and I know I’ve gone way, way, way too far.

“Your parenting skills are lacking, Mr. O’Rourke. Butt out.” Carys looks ready to give me an obscene hand gesture from behind her mother.

“Probably because I’m not a parent. But I’ve been your mother’s patient enough times to know you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. Let Meredith help you. She knows what she’s doing.”

Carys’s eyes narrow as she tries to lean around her mother to see the older woman’s face.

“And just how is that for a pediatrist, Mom?”

“Pediatrist?” That shocks the shite out of me.

“Do you really think I’ve told my daughter who I work for?” Meredith more mouths the words than says them. “I’m not a pediatrist. I’m an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in feet and hands. She’s being facetious.”

I know where she got that from .

“You definitely never told us you’re in private practice for someone who acts like he could be a mobster. I’d ask how long, but you said you’ve known him since he was a kid. So at least thirty years.”

“I was a toddler thirty years ago. Twenty years almost to the day.” Why am I letting her goad me? Because it’s keeping me occupied rather than asking my own questions and demanding answers.

“I’m taking you home, Carys.”

“No. That’s the last place I’m going. Not yours and not mine. I’m not getting you killed, too.”

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