Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
CLOVER
I ’d once read that there were only two real emotions—love and fear. In my years of research, trying to understand my father’s behavior, the consensus was that anger was a manifestation of fear, and that when a parent lashed out at their child, it was because they were afraid that someone they loved was going to get hurt.
Well, I didn’t give a shite what those articles had said. I knew that the only two emotions Oliver Doyle had ever felt were love and hate . He’d lashed out at me because he hated himself for what he’d done to my ma, and he’d hated me for reminding him of her. And I could tell that the same two emotions were what fueled Damien Hughes. He loved Ireland. He loved his ma. And he hated his father and the Bratva and the Russian government so much for destroying them that it literally burned inside of him, making his skin hot to the touch.
Damien had said very little after that crushing embrace. Once Dublin was out of view, he’d simply taken to the helm and driven in silence, scanning the cliffs and sea for any sign of danger.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fueled by hate. I was fueled by hope and food—two things that were in short supply on the Pride of Howth .
Honestly, my growling stomach was but a tickle compared to the stabbing pain in my ribs and throbbing bruises that ached every time I moved, but sitting still hurt more. I thought too much when I sat still, so I busied myself trying to figure out how to trawl for fish. There was an entire system of pulleys and ropes and hooks dangling from the tall poles on either side of my father’s boat, but he’d never explained to me how they worked, and none of the switches or nets were labeled.
After countless failed attempts, my energy, my pain tolerance, and the daylight all ran out at the same time. Using the last rays of light to tie the largest net I could find to the back of the boat, I watched it drag behind us—immediately becoming a tangled, twisted mess in our wake—as I drowned my sorrows in another bottle of rainwater.
When the boat suddenly slowed and the engine began to sputter and lurch, I turned to see what was going on. The cliffs of Howth were hours behind us, replaced by flat, sandy beaches that gave way to a large harbor full of boats and glowing streetlamps up ahead.
“We’re running out of petrol,” Damien announced, turning the wheel and easing the lever back like a seasoned seaman. The visual reminder of who he’d been was unwelcome, as was the sight of a massive gray battleship docked in the center of the harbor.
As soon as he saw it, Damien switched off the lights and killed the engine.
Causing my breathing to stop as well.
We’d just escaped from a harbor full of Russian sailors by the skin of our teeth. Damien was wanted for murdering more of them than I could count. And now, we were headed right back into the same situation?
“Damien?” I whispered, hoping for some kind of reassurance, but he had none to give.
He simply ignored me as we drifted closer to the ship in slow, agonizing silence. He was a silhouette in the glow of the harbor, but I could tell from his rigid posture and swiveling head that he was on high alert. He steered toward a row of fishing boats that were docked along the left seawall. Then, he glanced at me over his shoulder, his face obscured in the dark of the cabin, and extended a hand in my direction.
“Rope.”
Tugging the closest one I could reach out of its pulley, I handed the end to Damien and watched as he quickly tied it to a hook on the side of Da’s boat. We were drifting straight toward the last trawler in the row, but Damien made no attempt to straighten the wheel. Instead, he grabbed the other end of the rope, climbed onto the bow, and leaped onto the boat we were a meter away from hitting. In the span of one held breath, he dashed across the deck, scaled the ladder attached to the seawall, dug his bare feet into the ledge at the top, and pulled until the Pride of Howth stopped and reversed course.
Shadows settled into the valleys between his bulging muscles as he guided her backward and sideways into the empty spot behind the other trawler. Moonlight clung to his chiseled features and furrowed brow as he tied us off. And once he was satisfied—hands on his hips and head thrown back in relief—I gazed up at him in absolute awe. I felt as though I were seeing him for the first time—the real him. Damien wasn’t my burden or my enemy or my grief-induced delusion anymore. He had a name. He had a story. And he had my undying gratitude.
I’d been too confused and upset to understand the magnitude of what he’d done for me at the fish market, but it was clear to me now how much he’d risked to save me. How terrifying it must have been to walk into that place, injured, unarmed, outnumbered, and how far he’d had to push himself, mentally and physically, to get us both out alive.
What wasn’t clear to me was his motivation. Had it been love … or hate?
My heart sank as I weighed those options. There was no way he cared about me enough to do what he’d just done. He barely knew me, and even if he did, I wasn’t the type of girl men risked their lives for. I wasn’t even the type they risked being seen with in public.
Which meant that it was option number two—hate. Just like Oliver. That killing spree had probably been fueled by a personal vendetta against his father and the Bratva, and I was just along for the ride.
He probably felt obligated to save me because I’d kept him alive in the cave, and that’s fine , I told myself as I clomped up the ladder to the top of the seawall in Damien’s oversize boots.
It was more than anyone else would have done , I rationalized, accepting his warm, outstretched hand.
Just be grateful, make yourself useful, and don’t piss him off , I thought, unable to look him in the eye as he helped me up.
I opened my mouth to say thank you , but before I could, Damien whisked me across the street and into the shadows of the last building in the row of shops facing the water.
We stood face-to-face, each with a shoulder against the brick, and when he released my hand, I wished that he hadn’t.
“Where are we?” I whispered, trying to ignore the ache in my heart as I looked around at the empty roads and dark windows. “And why hasn’t this place been destroyed? The Russians are here.”
“Wexford,” Damien replied, his voice as soft and gentle as a feather against my cheek. “Howth was the only coastal town the Navy had orders to destroy—they wanted to clear a path from the sea to Dublin. The rest of the ports and harbors they want to keep intact. Russia’s cut off from most first-world countries, so Ireland’s going to be its primary trading hub once it falls.”
Once it falls. Not if.
“Is everyone gone?” I whispered.
“I fuckin’ hope so.”
I glanced up, and Damien’s guarded eyes were the same color as the fog in the harbor.
“The crew will sleep on the ship—encampments are only for prisoners of war and surveillance teams—but until lights out, they’ll be raiding the shelves of every pub in town.”
Surveillance.
My hands began to shake.
I couldn’t face another drone. I couldn’t.
Just then, a crash shattered the stillness, followed by raucous laughter and booming Russian voices.
I jumped, but Damien clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my shriek as his head twisted to the side, listening.
Without looking at me, his other hand wrapped around the back of my neck, guiding my ear toward his mouth.
“Shh … it’s okay,” he whispered, only loud enough for me to hear. “Some arsehole just lost a poker game … threw a chair out a pub window.” He paused to listen to the men shouting, their argument spilling into the night through the broken glass. “He’s accusin’ somebody of cheatin’. They’re not too happy about that.”
Wrapping my fingers around the hand covering my mouth, I gently pulled it away, and Damien let me, turning to face me in the dark.
“They sound so close.” My words were barely audible over the panicked pounding of blood in my ears.
With one hand on the back of my neck and the other being gripped by both of mine, Damien pulled me even closer and whispered, “You’re okay. Just keep listenin’.”
Then, he led me by my clutching hands around to the back of the building.
It was nearly pitch-black in the alley behind the shops and restaurants. Damien ran his free hand along the brick until he came to the first door in the row. He felt the surface, possibly looking for a window, and tried the handle before continuing down the alley.
“Damien, we’re just getting closer to them.”
“Shh. Keep listenin’,” he whispered, trying the next door.
I listened, but all I heard was a horde of drunk sailors, my own heart pounding in my ears, and the sound of me failing to walk quietly in Damien’s massive boots.
By the third shop, it took all the courage I had to keep going. My throat had gone dry, my legs trembled, and despite the evening chill, a trickle of nervous sweat rolled down the length of my bruised ribs. Every step we took closer to the hell we’d just escaped from made me want to scream and run in the opposite direction, but I trusted Damien’s instincts more than I trusted my own. He was the only reason I was still alive—a fact I had to repeat over and over in my head to keep from bursting into frightened tears.
The muffled rumblings of male voices grew louder as Damien approached the fourth door, and I knew we had to be close to the pub that they were drinking in. Panic gripped me, and I dug my feet—still warmed by Damien’s socks and boots—into the pavement, pulling him back before his fingers could graze the handle. Damien turned to face me, and as he did, the ground shook with the sudden blast of a bugle being played at full volume over a loudspeaker. A series of long, proud notes punched through my chest, filling me with even more dread. I didn’t know what the song meant, but it felt like a victory cry. It was proof that no matter where I hid, they could find me, and they could terrorize me, and I was helpless to stop it.
The voices inside the building grew louder and were accompanied by the sound of glasses breaking and heavy wooden chairs being shoved across a floor. I clung to Damien’s arm with both hands, listening as their shouts and grumbles spilled out into the street. But soon, their voices faded away, and on the last bugle blast, long and loud, Damien pulled out the gun he’d taken from the encampment and shattered a small window on the back door as quietly as possible.
By the time the last shard hit the ground, the trumpeting stopped, and all was quiet in Wexford again.
“They play that before lights out,” Damien whispered, reaching into the black hole and unlocking the dead bolt inside. “A few patrolmen will have the night shift, but the rest will be tucked away inside the ship until sunup.” He tried the handle, and the door cracked open. “As long as we’re quiet and don’t turn on any lights, we should be safe until then.”
Safe until sunup. It wasn’t much, but eight straight hours without fearing for my life sounded pretty damn good after the week I’d had.
Tucking me behind his back, Damien stood to one side of the door and opened it slowly in case a hail of gunfire was about to come pouring out. When the coast was clear, he entered before me, broken glass crunching quietly under his extremely graceful bare feet. It sounded like firecrackers under mine.
After closing the door behind us, Damien raised his gun and whispered for me to stay put. So, I stood in the dark as he disappeared down the hallway, realizing once he was out of sight that the pistol he was carrying might have been unloaded. He’d shot so many bullets during our escape from Howth.
Shite.
Pulling the sleeves of Damien’s jacket over my hands and crossing my arms over my chest, I tiptoed down the hallway behind him. Up ahead, I could see that it opened into a large room with a wall of windows that let in enough light from the streetlamps to actually see what you were doing.
I wished Damien had let me keep that knife. Anyone could be in—
A hulking silhouette appeared before me, so suddenly that I ran straight into its hard, bare torso. He smelled like the sea and my father’s favorite whiskey.
“Damien!” I whisper-shouted, slapping him on the chest. “Ya scared the shite outta me!”
His answering chuckle rumbled through my bones. Deep and velvety, it was the most comforting sound I’d ever heard.
“You’re never gonna believe where we are, angel.”
Angel.
I smiled.
Damien took my hand, and the sensation of his warm, rough fingers sliding between mine sent a flush up my neck and into my face. Tiptoeing behind him into the open room, I realized that we were in some sort of restaurant, but it wasn’t a pub. Where the bar would have been, there was a counter instead. A glass counter, the kind you would see in a—
“A bakery?” I squealed as quietly as possible.
Glancing over his shoulder at me, Damien beamed, and for the first time since we’d met, it was more than just his eyes that reminded me of the fairy boy from Darby Donovan’s books. A lock of disheveled black hair grazed his eyebrow, a spark of mischief ignited his smoky stare, and beneath all that dark stubble, a hint of a dimple gave me the overwhelming urge to find a mossy wood to run through just so that he would chase me.
I was so happy, so … overwhelmed with relief that I returned Damien’s grin before breaking into a sprint. I darted across the seating area, weaving my way between the tables as I headed for the counter. My ribs and back ached with every step, but Damien’s bare feet on the tiles and his soft laughter behind me were a balm that could heal any wound.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had played with me.
“It’s all mine!” I whisper-giggled, stopping in the small pass-through on the side of the counter and turning to block his path.
But Damien didn’t stop. He stalked toward me with hungry eyes and a sinister smirk that made my knees go weak. I suddenly felt very naked, standing there in nothing but his blazer. Needing to defend myself, I grabbed a handful of forks off the counter, but before I could throw them, Damien charged. He grabbed the backs of my thighs and lifted me off the ground, plastic cutlery flying in all directions as I threw my arms around his neck to stabilize myself. His gun dug into my hip. His breath warmed my exposed throat. His hair found its way between my fingers. And when he set me down on the counter, his body settled between my parted legs.
Still clutching my thighs, Damien held my stare as our chests rose and fell in rapid unison. I wanted to kiss him again, but it didn’t feel right, not now that I knew I was only a charity case to him. My chest ached as my vision grew dark around the edges and the room began to tilt.
“Clover?” Damien’s voice sounded echoey and distant.
“Hmm?” My eyes fluttered closed as his hand slid into my hair, cradling my suddenly heavy head.
“Stay with me, love. Ya need to eat.”
I nodded and felt something rough slide along the length of my bottom lip.
“Open up, angel.”
I did as he’d said and immediately felt a flaky pastry come to rest on the tip of my tongue. Closing my mouth around Damien’s fingertips, I tasted the salt of his skin, mixed with the sweet, buttery richness of a chocolate croissant. I hummed appreciatively as I chewed—eyes closed, arms slack—feeling an immediate rush as the sugar hit my bloodstream. Cracking one eye open, I reached up and plucked the rest of the croissant out of Damien’s grasp before he could react.
With another soft chuckle—my new favorite sound—he leaned forward, still cradling my head, and placed his lips next to my ear. “You’re lucky they have more of those.”
Taking a huge bite from the end of the pastry, I turned my head so that our cheeks nearly touched and whispered back, my mouth full of heaven, “Why? Would you fight me for it?”
I was only teasing, but the question sent an icy shiver down my spine, as did Damien’s sudden seriousness as he slid his hand out of my hair and leveled me with that cold gray stare.
“No. I would do this.”
That was the only warning I got before he reached for my side in a flash of movement. My hands shot out to protect my tender ribs as I doubled over with a squeal.
“Don’t!” I cackled, the mere threat of being tickled sending me into hysterics, which only made my bruises hurt worse. “You can have it! I surrender!”
“I accept.” Damien smirked as he plucked the croissant out of my hand and took a bite.
Then, he closed his eyes and moaned quietly, causing me to change my mind. That was my new favorite sound.