Chapter 12
twelve
“You need training, Lass,” Liam scolds as I glare at him over a hot cup of coffee. It is the only thing saving my biological father from getting his eyes clawed out.
Four in the morning.
Who drags someone out of bed at four in the morning for training practice? Even six in the morning is pushing it but at least I wouldn’t be shooting him death glares and imagining ways to rearrange his face.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter as I abandon my magic bean elixir and lay down on the mat covered floor of the makeshift gym.
The space in which McDonough’s sits is larger than I realized.
From the outside, the bar is surrounded by what appear to be several separate businesses, when they are actually connected.
Two doors down, but connected by a long corridor, is a small boxing studio. On the other side is a gun store with an underground range and the Kavanaugh’s own them all. Plus, a few other businesses on the block as well.
“It isn’t ridiculous if it saves your life,” Kiernan growls as he throws a leg over my hip and straddles me, his knees pushing into me on either side.
Pain spreads up my side from the leftover bruising, but he ignores my wince of protest. Instead, he smirks and says, “You’re not always going to be in the best fighting shape.
You need to learn to move through the pain. ”
Easy for him to say.
He grabs hold of both my hands in one of his and stretches them above my head.
“This is awkward,” I mumble uncomfortably.
“You’re making it awkward, sister,” he snaps heatedly. “We’re related and I’m teaching you a skill that could not only save your life but one of ours.”
“Well, excuse me, Mr. High and Mighty,” I snarl, my eyes cutting daggers at him. “But my last so-called brother wasn’t nearly as chivalrous with his wandering hands. It is going to take me a bit to get rid of those images in my head.”
“You need to get over that,” my biological brother growls, his hand tightening on the ones he holds within his grasp. Yeah, sure buddy. Getting over psychological and physical trauma is as easy as snapping my fingers.
Poof.
Lola’s gone.
Wrong.
“Fuck you,” I hiss up at him as I struggle nineth his body weight. “Let me up you fucking asshole.”
“You want up?” He smirks down at me. “Then fucking get up, princess. Work for it. No one is coming to save you and there isn’t a stray rock for you to bash my skull in with.”
A strangled howl leaves my throat. Fueled by rage, I shift my hips and buck my body in a vain attempt to dislodge him. It doesn’t take long for me to tire myself out, my side aching fiercely.
Once I am panting and sweating, he eases up a bit, one of his ginger eyebrows raised at me mockingly.
“You done?”
Taking a deep breath, I nod, letting my body relax beneath his. He’s proved his point. I am useless.
“Good.” The smile he gives me in genuine. “Now, I want you to raise your knees and shift your feet toward you.”
Doing as he instructs; I bend my knees until the bottom of my feet are positioned where my knees had been resting. The weight of him digs into my hips a bit harder, causing pain to flare in my side, but I can still focus.
“Grab my right wrist with both of your hands,” he demands. I shift to comply quickly, wrapping my small hands tightly around his larger wrist the best I can.
“The next step is done all at once, understood?”
“Okay?” Despite my strong assurance, I am unsure and vulnerable.
This is completely new to me. No one has ever taught me to defend myself before.
Why would anyone? Elias wouldn’t have wanted me fighting back when he beat me, neither did Christian.
Even Matthias never bothered to teach me self-defense the short amount of time I was with him.
“Using your legs as leverage, you are going to arch your back while keeping your shoulders firmly planted on the floor,” he instructs seriously.
“Then, you’re going to suddenly drop your weight while pulling on my arm with your left hand and pushing with your right.
If you do this correctly, you’ll be able to roll me off and follow my momentum, reversing our positions. Understood?”
Wow. He is good at this.
Not that I expect him to be bad, but I didn’t expect him to be such a good teacher.
Kiernan, I’ve come to realize, is more serious than Seamus.
Is it because Liam is grooming Kiernan to take over as head of the family?
Having twin sons no doubt makes it hard for my biological father to decide who will take the crown.
“I think so.”
“Go,” he orders.
I try not to overthink the moves he’s just given me. If I overanalyze I will easily falter and fuck it up. Taking a deep breath, I clear my mind and imagine the weight pressing down on me is an attacker and not my younger brother.
Not that he is that much younger.
Using my legs, I brace them for leverage, managing to just lift my hips off the ground as they strain against his weight.
I clench my jaw, my teeth grinding as I try to remain focused.
Without thinking, I drop my weight when my knees begin to shake and simultaneously pull and push on his arm, ripping his hand from where he placed them on my neck before we began.
Kiernan lets himself be rolled off me and onto his back. I end up landing on his waistline instead of his hips where I should be.
Whatever, it’s a start.
“Good job,” Kiernan’s voice is filled with pride, a tone I rarely hear in my life.
“Now,” he grins as he tackles me to the ground, his hand back on my throat. “Again.”
Turns out, I am pretty good at defense training.
I’m no John Wick, but between the three of them, Liam, Seamus, and Kiernan, I’ve come pretty far in the last week.
Not that the bar was all that high since I started out with zero self-defense skills in the first place.
They are all versed in different forms of fighting, and one is often better at a particular aspect of training than the others.
Kiernan is highly adept at what they call Dornálaíocht, which is an Irish style of boxing as well as Bataireacht, a form of Irish martial arts that utilizes bamboo sticks. This style of fighting has become a staple for me.
“The further away you are from your opponent, the better chance you have,” Kiernan says. “You won’t be able to overpower your opponents. You’re not strong enough, but you can use that to your advantage. You can tire them out while still delivering damage.”
The first few days, the only damage getting dealt is to me. My welts have welts. That’s no joke.
Seamus thrives with knives and weapons. He is also a more patience teacher than his twin. He breaks down each weapon, their purpose, their function, and their pieces, making me take them apart and put them back together several times before he lets me anywhere near a target.
Same for the knives. We spend what feels like days, which is more like hours, working with wooden practice blades, before he finally lets me touch a real one.
Then it is another day or two…okay, so maybe hours…of form worth with a real blade before he deems me prepared enough to hurl it at a target.
If he isn’t careful, the target is going to be his head.
By the end of the week, I am exhausted. Run ragged. In desperate need of more coffee. Liam’s grueling training schedule is going to be the death of me. I haven’t even started working with him yet. I’m not even sure if he is planning on training me, despite him saying he is.
Today is the day I find out.
Eventually.
Right now, it is eight in the morning, and I am dying for a cup of coffee and a hearty breakfast. My stomach growls as Nan busies herself in the kitchen behind the bar, her humming reaching me through the double doors.
When the door to the bar opens, I put on a wide smile, expecting to see my biological father strolling in. With my hectic training schedule, I haven’t had much of a chance to do any sort of bonding with him, and I’ve been simmering with excitement for what he has planned today.
Instead, a scowling Marianne stalks in from the outside, her eyes narrowed as she huffs and puffs, muttering under her breath.
It is early for her to be at the bar…or out at all.
One thing I’ve learned since I’ve been here is that Marianne doesn’t like to put in the work, she just likes to reap the benefits.
“I don’t know what you are playing at, girl,” she hisses at me as I take an innocent sip of my coffee. Angels have descended from on high to bless this cup and its magical beans of caffeine. “But don’t think you can just waltz in here and change things.”
The acidity in her voice has my eyebrows burying themselves in my hairline.
I haven’t been trying to change anything aside from my mission to eliminate Christian.
The daily running of the Irish mob isn’t any of my business, nor do I care to ‘change’ any of it.
As far as I am concerned, I am Kavanaugh by blood, but that is it.
Liam hasn’t made it seem like he wants me included in anything family business related.
“I have no idea what you are prattling on about.” I set down my coffee with an irritated hugg. “There hasn’t been on thing I’ve requested to change. All I care about is my mission. That is it. If you think otherwise, then you’re just delusional.”
Marianne glares at me, her jaw clenching so hard I swear I hear her teeth crack.
“Play the innocent act all you want.” Her lips pull back in a snarl. “But I’m not stupid. You’re just like your mother. Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Her glare diminishes slightly at my sudden burst of laughter.
Play your card, bitch. I’m onto you.
“Do you think this is funny?” she asks in disbelief.
“For someone who said they were my mother’s best friend.
” The air quotes around the last two words are slightly exaggerated on my part, but then, I am prone to histrionics.
“You sure are quick to villainize her. I wonder why that is?” Cocking my head, I take a moment to make her uncomfortable with my stare while I study her.
She’s done nothing but avoid me since our first meeting in my temporary room upstairs.
For someone who wanted to regale me with stories of my mother’s youth, the only time I’ve seen her is dinner, when she bothers to show.
The Kavanaugh’s cherish their nightly family dinners but even then, Marianne has done nothing but avoid conversation with me.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Marianne denies, her throat bobbing nervously beneath my scrutinizing gaze. “But I do know that you walk into our lives and suddenly Liam has all these grand ideas. Ideas he doesn’t need to put in my children’s head. And let me tell you—”
“I wonder why someone who’d been my mother’s best friend since childhood wouldn’t follow up on her missing persons case.” I hold up my hand to interrupt her, not caring one iota about whatever she is about to say next. “Or how that person didn’t file a report until days later.”
“I didn’t know she was missing.” Marianne shrugs, but I can see the stiffness in her shoulders.
“When people lie, it shows. Not just on their face, but their body.” Matthias’s voice rings through my mind.
"Their face tightens, they’ll look you straight in the eyes because that is what they think will make you believe them.
In reality, gazes shift. Their fists might clench with no real sign of anger.
Their shoulders will stiffen as they try to hold themselves erect to make themselves look more earnest. It isn’t just about micro expressions.
It is about examining their body as a whole and using it against them. ”
Marianne is lying
“Really.” I tilt my head to the other side and eye her suspiciously.
“Katherine McDonough never missed a single class, and she couldn’t have been with Liam because he’d been out of town with his uncle that week.
Not to mention that you conveniently didn’t report that your dorm room had been broken into the day she went missing. ”
“I don’t know—”
“Now, you were either just being a negligent friend or you had a hand in her disappearance.” I lean forward, bracing my elbows on the sleep bar top beneath them.
“Trust me when I say that if I find out you had anything to do with my mother’s kidnapping—I will kill you and I’ll be sure you see it coming. ”
Marianne’s face pales for a moment before a mottled red begins to creep up her neck. Her hazel eyes are daggers and her lips twist into an ugly sneer. This is the real Marianne. The demon beneath the motherly facade.
“Listen here, you little bitch,” she snarls, her face inching toward mine. “If you think you can threaten me, think again. There is more at work here then you will ever know, and I can’t wait until you end up just like you…”
“Breakfast is ready dear,” Nan’s smiling voice slices through the bitter tension as she sweeps into the room carrying a large quiche and a small plate of fruit.
She sits them before me, pulling a slice of mouthwatering goodness from the pan and placing it on the small plate of fruit.
“Eat up. You’re going to need that to deal with your father. ”
Your father. She says it so casually. I haven’t even called him that. He’s been Liam to me. But it isn’t as if he’s called me his daughter. Barely even references me being that. It doesn’t hurt my feelings that he never introduces me as his daughter or even as a Kavanaugh.
Because I’m not.
I am a Dashkov, technically and the two of us barely know each other.
One the other side of the coin, Seamus and Kiernan go around telling everyone I am their big sister. The twins enjoy not being the eldest and tease me about getting gray hair before they will. Even if we are only a few months apart.
“Marianne.” Nan turns to her daughter-in-law with a scowl on her face, finally acknowledging her presence after she put away a healthy dose of breakfast. “Shouldn’t you be doing inventory? I know you rarely deign yourself to come and help out down here, but you can at least do that, right?”
Marianne blows out a frustrated growl as she slams down her own coffee cup on the bar, the liquid sloshing over, before stomping into the back room, leaving the two of us giggling conspiratorially at her departure.