Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
KIERAN
I am the world's biggest prick.
With every step I move forward, I can hear Ada’s pleas echoing over and over inside my head. I need to get her out of my head and focus on work.
Patrick isn’t the sort of man who reached the position that he presently occupies because he gives second chances. One fuck up with him and I’m out.
It was hard enough to get a job as his nephew. I never would have been afforded a second glance if my father had still been alive. Brothers or not, they were rivals. Plain and simple, I’m still a liability to him.
My friendship with Liam isn’t something that Patrick tolerates well. He wants to keep the wedge between us nice and obvious for when Liam will have to step into the role he has to fill.
Liam’s just as duty bound as I am.
There’s no chance of me going straight. A mundane lifestyle making little money and having to revolve around others? I would suffocate and die in a setting like that.
The family is the only life that I know, and the only one that I ever wanted.
My black SUV pulls into the designated location that Liam texted me. As always, the intel that he provided is solid and detailed. It doesn’t matter who I am ordered to kill, as the clan’s Reaper it is my job.
Do my job and never ever leave trails that will point back to the family. Plain and simple. A glorified soldier. That’s all that I am.
For the next hour, my revenge has to wait.
The moon is moving higher in the sky as I put the car into park and start to unload my bag of weapons from the back.
I am dressed in head to toe black, little more than a shadow among the backdrop and eerie glow that the moon casts over the ground. Shadows lurk all around me, just as sinister as I am. The location beacon leads me to a plain office building. Simple enough, although the large windows in the front are going to be the real issue.
I have to move quietly, but since there aren’t any visible lights on inside it should be safe. I can’t afford to get caught. I scan for security cameras first and disable them. Then the alarm and any external power cords are unplugged so that I can easily repair them when I’m done. When I do my job correctly, it’s like I was never here in the first place.
Jeremy Rizzo isn’t a large man. He’s a businessman with a brilliant mind but he looks like he has never stepped foot inside of a gym in his life. He’s not a threat to me, not physically at least.
Again, my mind goes right back to Ada and where she’s locked in that room. I need to get this over with and return home to her. Not that she’s ever going to speak to me again.
Something feels wrong. If there’s a man burning the midnight oil in this building, there should be signs. The coffee pot is usually the most obvious one. But it’s cold and still half full. The cleaning crews haven’t even been here yet, that much is obvious.
It’s too quiet, the air is far too still. I can’t even hear the hum of an air conditioning unit running in the ceiling. No fan, no whir of computer or printer… something is wrong.
I pull my duffle bag higher on my shoulder. Most of the items inside of it are nothing more than a precaution. I pull my pistol out, the silencer screwed onto the end, and hold it ready in front of me. I move through the space slowly, checking the various rooms of the office as I move forward.
I hit about dead center of the building before I realize that I’m no longer alone.
As one, at least a dozen figures emerge out of the darkness. I would know them from their movements alone. Every unit has a particular style of training and as theirs is similar to my own, I know they are Patrick’s men.
Both Patrick and my father were raised and trained together. But naturally, they put their own flare on the moves. They are all heavily armed as they surround me like ghosts.
I suppose that some part of me ought to be flattered by the sheer number of them and the lengths that they have gone to, to ensure that I am outgunned and surrounded. Helpless. At least, that’s what I want them to think.
But one of them steps forward, the build and height of him instantly familiar - Liam.
My eyes close as I sigh, then I hang my head. Of course. I should have seen this coming. Somewhere along the line I must have become more of a liability than useful. Perhaps Patrick had gotten word of my ambitions. This is so much worse than a routine hit, this is a setup.
Patrick is behind this, of course, but seeing Liam standing on the opposite side as me? That hurts worse than if Patrick had rammed one of his knives into my gut.
The target of this assassination isn’t some associate of the Dominio clan - it’s me.
This is supposed to be my downfall. Kill the guy and then blame me for it anyway. Of course, the target will have miraculously gotten off a lucky shot that ended up killing me too. That way, when Patrick goes to the Dominio clan, I’m the bad guy, the expendable tool in Patrick’s machinations.
My own flesh and blood is bad enough - but Liam?
When I open my eyes, I channel every bit of rage and frustration at my cousin. He has the decency to wince back seeing the force and intensity of my accusation. But only for a moment.
Within the span of a blink, Liam’s whole face shifts into something I don’t even recognize. A sort of smarmy smugness that is reflected in the way he shifts his weight onto one foot. He draws his gun, holding it with an arrogant looseness in his palm as he seems to savor this moment of victory over me.
I have to find a way out of this.
It’s an impossible situation. I have to calculate my next move. I mentally run over the contents of my bag, hoping that I will have something useful in there. Firepower and rope. Gas canisters if shit goes the wrong way.
I don’t have a choice. I’m going to get shot at least a few times, but if I die? Ada will die in that room. Nobody but Liam even knows where she is and it will take the force of a tank to get through my front door without a code. By then, Ada will have starved to death or found some other way to kill herself. It could be days before Liam thinks to go and free her. I never should have put her in that room.
I have to get her out. I have to free her.
She’s the only thing good left in this horrible and dark world.
Liam steps forward, his posture relaxed and his eyes a detached cold. He speaks, no mirth or good-natured humor on his tongue - nothing but vitriol and ice. My rage boils my blood to the point that my ears start to ring.
I can see that Liam’s speaking, but I don’t even hear whatever threats that he’s throwing at me. The message is clear enough, comply or face the consequences. I have been complying. I’ve been doing my job exactly as I have been asked to do it, and this is the thanks that I get?
I guess Patrick thinks that I’ve gotten a little too used to my own freedom.
But they all should know me well enough by now to know that I’m not the one to bow to threats. I never have been, and I certainly don’t intend to start now.
Fuck this, and fuck them.
I move in the middle of Liam’s speech. I hope it pisses him off just that much more that his perfectly crafted speech has been interrupted by me. I drop my duffle bag to the ground and start moving. I pull another gun from the side pocket and start firing.
In mere seconds, the whole room is filled with bullet casings and the crack, crack, crack, of gunshots. But they aren’t as driven as I am.
A bullet grazes my ear, my calf, my thigh and my arm. I never expected to get out of this unscathed. It’s pure adrenaline and the need to survive long enough to free Ada that makes me move with lethal determination.
My aim is true and practiced. I don’t feel bad about a single life that I take. Why should I? They were all more than happy to kill me. They put up a decent fight, but my resolve is unbreakable.
Things end almost as quickly as they began.
Then it’s just Liam and me.
Spineless bastard hid behind a fucking desk the moment that I started shooting. I change out the magazine in my gun and walk slowly toward him. Every single one of these bullets is going to go into his worthless skull.
“Come on out, Liam. Or are you planning on being a coward even in death?” I snarl.
Liam’s hands lift out first. The gesture of surrender is punctuated by the small paper napkin that he waves over his head.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” I command, cocking my gun. “Come on, cousin. I’ll even give you the very first hit if you stand up and face me like a man.”
Liam stands, all right. His smirk is even still firmly painted on his face. I lift my gun and aim it right between his traitor’s eyes.
“Good job, cousin. I knew that you had it in you.” Liam says with a nervous chuckle.
The comment is strange enough that I pause, my arm bending somewhat. “What?”
“I hoped this was how it would end. It’s… shit, you don’t really think that I fucking wanted this did you?”
“You came here with a dozen men hoping to kill me. The fuck do you think that I think?” I bark.
“Oh, because you know how to say no to my father? If I had so much as breathed a hesitant word, then he would have ordered me dead. He would have strung my skin up like a fucking flag in the front yard, Kieran. And you know it!” Liam shouts right back. I can hear the tremble of fear in his words. A vulnerability that he’s only ever been comfortable enough to show around me.
“So then what the fuck happened?” I demand. He better have a damned good reason for this.
“Plans changed. I wanted to warn you, I tried to warn you but then things with Ada got out of hand! I just… I don’t…” Liam rubs his hands up and down his face before speaking again. “Patrick decided to make a deal with the Dominio clan. He decided that they would be a better ally for him than you are. Said that you are no longer profitable.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“It means that he wants me to marry Ada.”
I lift my gun and point it right back between his eyes.
“Wait! Wait! Kieran, do you really think that I want that?! I have plenty of other plans for my future, thank you very much. You can keep her. Really, Kieran, see reason.” Liam explains while waving that stupid little napkin in front of my face all over again.
I put my gun away. “So then, where do your loyalties lie, Liam?”
Everything hangs on his answer to this question. I would not blame him in the slightest if he said that his loyalties only lay with himself. It was the most sensible answer. It was the one that most people in our world would give. Really, it was the only correct answer. But instead, he says “I’m with you, Kieran. For as long as I can be.”
Good. I’m going to need him as my ally.
This is far from the end of things. Patrick has declared open war on me, and I don’t intend to lose.