Chapter 13 Ciar
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CIAR
Following Sorcha up the steps, I emerge into the upper crypt to find it empty.
“Where the fuck is she?” My voice is a low growl that echoes in the stone chamber. She couldn’t have just vanished. I scan the floor, my eyes searching for any sign. A blood trail mars the flagstones near the open doorway. Axl and Cillian appear behind me.
“What is it?” Axl asks.
“She’s gone,” I say carefully, crouching down to examine the drop of blood. It’s fresh. Another one leads out into the mist, where there are heavy boot prints in the damp grass. Definitely not Sorcha’s. Someone was waiting for her. Someone took her right from under our noses.
A wave of black, possessive fury crashes over me, so intense my vision tunnels. They put their hands on what is mine.
“Find her.”
Cillian nods and slinks off into the night to do his thing. Not many people can outrun him or slip past.
“Do you think she was taken?” Axl asks.
“If she was, the question is by who?”
“No one knew she was going to kill O’Malley. So I’d rule them out. O’Shea?”
“Nah, she lied about cutting ties with her.”
“True,” he murmurs, earning himself a vicious glare.
He knew and didn’t say? Mind you, I knew and didn’t say either. It was a good lie. A smart play. It almost makes me proud. But pride won’t find her.
“Someone has a death wish,” I growl instead. The boot prints are deep. A heavy man, maybe two. I follow the trails. They tell a story. She didn’t walk; she wasn’t dragged. Which means they incapacitated her. It is the only way she’d go without a fight, and we’d have heard her.
“The Gannons?” Axl’s voice is a low murmur beside me.
“We knew they wouldn’t be happy. We should’ve protected her more.”
“We don’t know it’s them,” Axl points out. “It’s a theory.”
“My statement still stands. She is a wild card. Reckless, out to prove herself to the mafia world. She has probably pissed off more people than we can count.”
“Facts,” he mutters.
“Whoever it was, they’re about to start a fucking war.”
“She’s been taken,” Cillian says, appearing at my side like a ghost. “Black van. Blacked-out windows. Headed east, off campus.” East. Towards Dublin.
“You sure?”
He nods. “They weren’t being very covert.”
“But you’re sure they have her?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t see her. But the van is suspicious enough. Sorcha is nowhere to be found. She can’t run that quickly. There were seconds between her leaving and us following her.”
I nod. Things are lining up, but we don’t know shit. “We’re going hunting.”
Cillian and Axl fall into step beside me, all thoughts of O’Malley’s dead body gone. Someone will take care of it. Or if they leave him down there, we’ll clean up the mess later. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is finding Sorcha.
My phone rings and I pull it out quickly, but then remember Sorcha doesn’t have my number. It’s an unknown number. Her abductors.
“What?” I frown, answering it as we cross over the road to where Axl’s Range Rover Brabus is parked.
“Ciar? It’s Annastasia O’Shea.”
“Where is she?” I grit out, climbing into the passenger side of the car as Axl gets behind the wheel and Cillian slides onto the back seat.
“How the fuck should I know? I was calling you to find out if you knew where she went.”
“What’s it to you?”
Silence, and then she says, “We’re in massive shit.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone called the police about the fight. They’ve detained half the crypt. Some of us got out.”
“Jesus,” I snap. “Are you fucking with me?”
“I never fuck around with the police.”
“Find out who called them. We’re going to find Sorcha.” I hang up.
“Police raid?” Axl asks.
“Yeah.”
“Involved?” Cillian growls.
“No, this is a mad coincidence. The police wouldn’t abduct her. If they wanted to arrest her, there would’ve been a big song and dance about it, not to mention, we’d have seen and heard them.”
“Okay, so we are still back at square one.”
“Worse,” I grumble. “I’m going to have to call my dad to get us out of this shit pile.”
“Can he?” Axl asks, and he turns to Cillian briefly. “Where the fuck am I going?”
“Just head to the city, we’ll pick them up. Put your foot down.”
Axl guns it, the Brabus picking up speed in a spectacular fashion as we hurtle along the country roads away from St. Bart’s.
I stare at the phone and dial. This is going to be a long-arsed night.
“You are in deep shit,” Dad barks down the phone.
“No kidding. Can you help?”
“Already on it. Where are you?”
“Trying to find someone who was abducted.”
Silence.
“Who?”
“Sorcha Gannon.”
He snorts, and I can almost see him shaking his head. “The girl who killed O’Malley.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s what I do.”
“Did the O’Malleys call the police?”
“Undetermined.”
“Superb,” I growl. “Just what we need, a mystery rat.”
“They were called out for Gannon, specifically.”
“Really?” I say with a frown. The hits just keep on coming. “Keep me informed. We need to find her.”
“Do that,” Dad says, and hangs up.
“Well?” Axl asks.
“Dad’s taking care of it, but they were called out for Sorcha.”
“That had to be before she killed O’Malley. They couldn’t have arrived that fast if it were after.”
“So, why? No one knew she was going to fight O’Malley tonight. It was a last-minute decision,” Cillian mutters.
“Because the two things aren’t related. Someone called the police on Sorcha, who had nothing to do with her being abducted. It’s a wild fucking coincidence,” I reply. “We need to find out who wanted her gone but not dead.”
“We need to find her,” Cillian growls and then taps the side of Axl’s seat. “Slow down. Look.”
I turn to see where he’s pointing. A black van is parked on the side of the road.
Axl swerves and pulls up in front of it. It looks empty from here, but who knows?
Cillian and I are out of the car before the engine is even off, moving as one unit. The night is dead silent except for the ticking of Axl’s cooling engine and the rustling of wind through the trees lining the road. The van’s side door is slightly ajar, a dark, gaping mouth.
Cillian gets there first, a shadow against the black metal.
He doesn’t yank it open. He listens, his head cocked, every muscle in his body coiled and ready.
Axl covers the front, peering through the windscreen.
I stay back, my gaze sweeping the area, looking for any sign of movement in the darkness. Nothing.
With a grunt, Cillian rips the side door open, the metal screeching in protest. “Sorcha,” he murmurs and climbs in.
I’m there like a flash, peering inside to see her unconscious, a huge bruise forming on the side of her face. Whoever knocked her out has a mean hook.
Climbing in, the van sinks under my weight as I crouch next to her. “Wake up, girlie.”
Cillian strokes back her hair, running the back of his fingers lightly over her cheek. I watch this with a morbid kind of fascination. I’ve never seen Cillian treat anything so gently before. He has fallen hard for this fiery woman, but then so have I.
“Sorcha.” My voice comes as a croak. Seeing her like this is ripping me apart. But she’s safe and doesn’t appear to be hurt in any other way, except for the gash on her arm. I yank my tee off over my head with one hand and wrap it around her arm.
She flinches when I press down to stop the bleeding, and she grunts.
Her eyes flicker open. “What the fuck?”
Her voice is a raw rasp, her eyes struggling to focus in the dim interior of the van.
“You’re awake,” I state, the words a rough growl.
Relief is a foreign, unwelcome sensation, but seeing her conscious sends a jolt of it through me anyway.
It’s immediately followed by a wave of cold rage at whoever did this to her.
She tries to sit up, a sharp hiss of pain escaping her lips as she clutches her head. “What happened?”
“Someone got brave,” I say, my grip tightening on the t-shirt around her arm. Her blood is soaking through the fabric, warm against my knuckles. “They knocked you out. Took you.”
“I didn’t need finding,” she spits, but the words are slurred, lacking their usual poison. She’s weak, and she fucking hates it. I can see the shame warring with the pain on her face.
I ignore her and slide an arm under her knees and another around her back, lifting her against my bare chest.
“Put me down,” she snarls, batting a fist weakly against my shoulder.
“No,” I say, carrying her out of the van and into the cold night air. Cillian is right behind me, his presence a silent, menacing shadow. I carry her towards Axl’s Brabus, her fury a warm, satisfying weight in my arms. “You’re done making decisions for tonight.”
“We’re being watched,” Axl murmurs, moving to my side. “Across the road. They aren’t being subtle.”
With a frown, I place Sorcha into the back of the Brabus.
Cillian gets in beside her as I turn around to see a crew of around half a dozen men, a couple of them drawing on cigarettes, the tips glowing in the dark.
I move forward, ready to slaughter the lot of them, but I stop halfway across the road.
One of them, a man in his late twenties, maybe, gives me a salute and then they drift into the darkness. Ghosts.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Axl mutters from my side.
“No, that was her saviours,” I reply. “They knew the police were coming for her. They knew she wouldn’t go willingly.”
“So they knocked her out and made her escape for her,” Axl finishes.
“It doesn’t change a fucking thing,” I snarl, turning my back on the empty road. “They still put their hands on her. They still hurt her.”
I slide into the passenger seat of the Brabus, the space suddenly too small for the rage coiling in my gut. Sorcha is slumped against the leather, her eyes closed, but the stubborn set of her jaw tells me she’s awake. She’s listening.
“Axl, my place,” I command. St. Bart’s is crawling with police. My house is the only fortress she’ll be safe in.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she rasps, her eyes cracking open to shoot daggers at me. The bruise on her cheek is darkening to a sickening purple.
“You don’t have a choice,” I say, my voice flat.
“Fuck you,” she breathes, the words lacking their usual bite.
Axl floors it, the Brabus eating up the dark road, leaving the abandoned van and its secrets behind. For now.
Cillian pulls her down carefully until her head is on his lap and he strokes her hair, his face grim.
“Change of plans,” Axl says suddenly. “We are all going to my place.”
“No,” I growl.
“Yes. Your house is on the same side of the campus as the lake. It’s too risky.”
He has a point. “Fine,” I grumble and sit back, my skin sticking to the leather seats as I mentally execute any and all of the people who played a role in tonight’s shitshow.