Chapter 18 Ava
EIGHTEEN
ava
“What the fuck?” Seamus growls, rising from the floor.
My heart pounds so hard, my ribs ache with each thump. Eyes wild, I look around the dimly lit place, trying to find the shooter.
But I can’t see anyone. It’s too dark, too impossible to find anyone in the ominous shadows.
A slight movement near Seamus’s left side catches my eye, and I aim, pulling the trigger. The shot goes wide. The gun’s more of a hand cannon than a reliable weapon, and the kickback hits my shoulder hard. The shadow shoots at me and I drop down before crawling to Seamus.
“Fuck.” He grabs me, pulling me behind the broken, upturned tables that the dead man used to keep his gear.
And there’s a lot here. Jars and bottles, wires, all kinds of explosives. I stare at it all, shock bleeding into realization.
I know who the dead man is. I know the setup.
Seamus has dragged me into a literal death trap.
I need to get out. I need him to get out. I fumble with the gun as I paw at him, but he snatches the weapon from me, flips me to the ground, and pins me down. “Let me—”
“Shut up.”
I choke on my next breath and whip my head around. My blood ices in my veins when my eyes slam into the sightless, vacant stare of Anton, someone I vaguely know.
Or rather knew.
I glance at Seamus, who’s checking the clip in his gun before slamming it back into place. “How many?”
“How many what?” I struggle to sit up, but he pushes a knee into my stomach to keep me down on the floor.
I can hear some New York traffic outside, but it seems a world away.
And there are a whole lot of things close by that can kill us.
I’m not even counting whoever it is with a gun.
“There’s someone else here. Someones, maybe. Seamus—”
“How many friends, Ava?”
My jaw drops. “They’re not my anything.”
His gaze flickers to me and he lifts an eyebrow. I look away, eyes falling on the case of money.
“Don’t even think about it,” he mutters, then adds, “Fine, don’t tell me.”
Fury beats hard inside. I don’t know whoever it is, whoever they are. I followed Seamus from my apartment. I used the alarm code I memorized to escape the brownstone, and then I went to my place because I just had a feeling. Turns out my instincts were right.
I gulp down another breath.
Footsteps run light across the floor, like very big rats, and the weird, empty echo makes it hard to identify which direction they’re coming from. We’re sitting ducks. Protected on three sides and in our own funeral pyre.
“I swear I don’t know who’s here,” I whisper. “I met Anton once, but—”
“With your Paddy?”
The fury burns hotter. “He wasn’t my anything!” What am I saying? “This isn’t the time. I—”
“Shot him.”
“No, you fool,” I say right as he moves to squeeze off a shot. Someone screams and a barrage of shots are aimed back at us.
Seamus dives on top of me. “You shot at me.”
“They shot at you.” I try to keep my mind on the situation and not him on me; all that heat and hard male flesh, the scent of him taking over the smell of death, and I want to cling, bury my face. I don’t do a thing. “Do you see where we are?”
He glances to the left and right. “Well, sweet thing, I can definitely see we’re fucking stuck in some shithole building.”
“You don’t need to be sarcastic,” I snarl.
He shoves his face right near mine. “Oh yes, I do, because otherwise I might kill you.” He starts digging through Anton’s things. “But we’re gonna talk, right after we get out of here.”
Seamus grabs a small explosive, then tosses it.
It hits the ground and fails to do a damn thing. I let out a shaky breath, ignoring the building panic inside.
He shoves more things around, and every move he makes is like nails on chalkboard down my spine.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He grins. “Looking for boom, sweet thing. This is shite without the setup. But… oh fuck, yes.”
Seamus pulls out an array of bottles.
“Is that…?”
“Nitro. Don’t believe everything you see in movies.” Another bullet flies and he shoots back, the exchange quick and furious. Then silence slams down, louder than the gunshots. “They’re reloading. Back there, behind us, is a door. We have to run for it, got it?”
“They know where we are. They’ve got the advantage.”
“No way. I’ve got the advantage now. Ready?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He picks up the bottle and then stands, hurling it as far as he can. Seamus aims. A bullet almost hits him, and I swallow my scream.
The room rocks as an explosion lights everything up, and sound slams into me like I just ran face-first into a brick wall.
Seamus grabs me by the arm and runs.
I try to aim, but his manic flight doesn’t give me any bit of balance. He forces me to keep low, and we make our way out of the carnage of flame and debris and into darkness. “This way.”
It doesn’t take long for the gunfire to rip open the air.
Bullets chase us and Seamus careens us into doors and walls in the darkness, the scattered pieces of broken furniture a hazardous maze beneath my feet.
I can’t see and stumble, but Seamus holds me close, hauling me with him, down into a room. Light streams in through a window, the paper covering it in tatters. “Watch your face.”
He slams his gun into it, shattering the glass and knocking it out of the pane. Then he pulls off his jacket, throws it over the ledge, and pushes me to the window. “Go. Run, and don’t look back. There’s a bar two blocks east. Go there.”
“But—”
“Go.”
And then he does something I don’t expect. He hauls me to him and kisses me hard, fast, deep. My head spins as he pulls away and gives me a shove.
“Always wanted to do that. Go.”
He takes off out the door we just came through and pulls it shut.
I do what he says and climb out, hitting the ground hard. I wince as my hands and knees scrape against the jagged concrete, but I stagger to my feet. And then… for the first time, I listen to his commands, and I run.
My nerves are beyond frayed. They’ve turned into slivered shards of glass, designed to slice into me with every breath, every movement.
I should have stayed. Fought with him.
“Fought who, Ava?” I mutter. Because I never even saw them.
I sip the well whiskey. I had some cash in these old jeans, a whole twenty, so I need to make the drink last.
The thing is, I know why I followed him. I wanted to know why he was at my apartment. I wanted to know what he was up to. The fact that he thought the alarm would keep me in is idiotic. Of course I watched him punch it in. I memorized the code.
And no one was home at the brownstone. Or maybe they were in bed. I don’t know and I don’t care. Not about his family or the pets. I don’t care about anyone other than my little sister and my legacy.
When I followed him from that bar to the abandoned building, I realized it was the one I went to with Paddy and Stan. Paddy was… I don’t know. I never disliked him or liked him beyond his being Stan’s friend and someone who knew things that might help me get what I wanted.
But it was all surface crap. He was always showboating.
He’s nothing like Seamus.
I try to stop myself from looking around, my hand wrapping tight around my glass. He’s fine. I’m sure he’s fine. I might want him dead, but not yet, and no one else gets to do it. No one.
That’s all. I need him alive for at least a year. I need…
I don’t care about him.
My pulse throbs hard against my throat as I glance at my phone.
Five minutes. Another five minutes have passed. That makes it ten. Ten minutes too many. My chest tightens. I down my drink and stand up on shaky legs.
I have to go back in there for him. I swallow hard, turn, and slam straight into someone.
My blood surges as strong hands close on my arms. My stomach flips when I catch that familiar scent. It’s now mixed with copper.
I don’t mean to, I swear I don’t, but I grab Seamus’s face and bring it in for a long kiss. Then I snarl out words. “Are you hurt? I can smell blood.”
“Just some cuts. I’m good.” His smile is dark and lazy. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t. But I need you alive.”
“Good to know I’m still of some importance.”
The bartender comes over with a bottle and two glasses. Seamus slips her a wad of cash as he takes it.
“Nice corner, sweet thing,” he says, gesturing for me to sit.
When I hesitate, he pressures my shoulder down so I sink into the booth.
He follows, sitting next to me. Taking his time as though he didn’t just survive some kind of mad shootout that came with a fireworks display, he pours two drinks. He picks up his and downs it, leaving some blood on the glass, then pours another.
I frown, snatch his hand, and use my phone light to inspect it. I grab a napkin to clean some of the drying blood. There are small cuts but no glass, nothing but dirt, so I pick up the bottle and pour some of the liquid on the base of his palms.
“Ow, fuck.” He tries to pull his hand free, but I don’t let him. I try to clean him up as best I can. “You’re a fucking weird creature, Ava. I thought the idea of my blood outside my body made you come in your pants.”
I shoot him a withering look. “Only if it’s life blood, Seamus.”
“Girl like you, I bet she’s got a blade on her.”
I don’t, but I just continue to clean the wounds. They’re mild, but for some reason I don’t want to stop. And for some reason he’s not fighting me.
“You being dead doesn’t help me get my bratva.”
“That’s true.” He pauses, fingers curling up over mine, holding me there. “How’d you get out of the house without all the alarms going off?”
“No one’s there.”
“Dec’s home. No one’s stupid enough to leave you alone.”
“But they’re stupid enough to let me walk out?” Our gazes clash, meld. “I saw you put the code in, Seamus. I remembered it.”
“So you went up, changed, snuck back down, and escaped. With my gun. At least you didn’t try and shoot me with it. Instead, you used his giant-ass weapon,” Seamus says.
“You should hide your weapons better in your room,” I say.
“They’re not hidden.” Seamus’s eyes are dark liquid heat, but there’s steel in their depths. “Just put away.”
“I didn’t try to shoot you.” I’m no longer trying to clean his hands, and now he’s holding mine. They’re comforting, disturbing, and inside, things turn and twist and dance. “I tried to shoot the person aiming at you. I saw the glint of a gun.”
There’s a moment of silence between us, a beat of something that’s not hate but intensely more complicated.
It makes my mouth dry and my chest even tighter.
“Why did you follow me to your nasty little apartment?”
“It’s not nasty. It’s all I can afford.”
“Says the rich girl.”
I narrow my eyes, a part of me grateful to be back on safe, familiar ground. “My finances are tied up, remember? It’s why I’m in this charming marriage.”
“I think you came after me to try and stop me from finding things out.”
“Think what you want, but did it ever occur to you that I might be interested in knowing what you discover? Since it’s got to do with me and my bratva.” His face is blank. “Doesn’t it?”
“I really don’t know. All I know is if you weren’t involved with the other bomb, someone else was, and that someone might not have been trying to stop the Assisi/Romanov merger after all.”
I pull free of his disturbing and hypnotic touch. “Me? Because—”
“Because what, sweet thing?”
I could say because maybe someone knows Tatiana’s in Romanov’s care, and they think she could one day be more of a threat than me, being of pure Russian blood.
“Because I know Romanov, so of course I’d be there.”
“But here’s the thing, Ava. I happen to know you don’t show up to most of his events.
In fact, you seem to shun them, like you shun his help.
He told Cal that before we showed up the other day.
” He picks up his whiskey, downs it, refills his glass, and tops mine off, too. “Sounds like you’ve got a secret.”
“I thought you thought that’s all I had. Secrets.”
“Another secret. And you know what?” He leans in.
I do the same. “What?”
“I’m going to do my best to find out what it is.”
When we get back home—no, when we get back to Seamus’s place, not home—he pushes me against the door and takes my mouth in a deep, searing kiss. It spreads scorching need and heat everywhere.
My bones turn molten and I start ripping at his clothes, but he turns me, slamming me into the door. Panic beats hard in my veins as he undoes my jeans and pulls them down. He stands on them, forcing me to kick them and my shoes off.
But with the panic comes an erotic bite of pleasure. He hasn’t done anything.
Seamus doesn’t need to. He’s pressed against my back, his hand holding one of mine against the door, the other moving my hair so he can bite my throat and the nape of my neck, and I shiver with electric waves of heat.
It’s where we are.
In his foyer.
I’m half-naked, pressed into the front door.
He moves his hand from my hair to the alarm box that’s just at the side and punches in the numbers.
“Gotta change that.”
“Seamus, we can’t—”
“Do you think,” he whispers, hand now moving down to slide a finger into me, then another, to open me so he can push the head of his cock in, “I give a fuck who sees us? But it’s late, so if you’re quiet, maybe no one will come looking to see what the noise is.”
And then he pulls his finger out, only to slam balls deep into my ass.
I have to bite my lip, hard enough that I taste blood.
Because he doesn’t stop. He pulls out and then thrusts back in, taking me hard and fast and deep.
I come on him in minutes. All the danger and worry has morphed into desire and the desperate need for release.
Seamus isn’t far behind me, and he mutters, “Fuck, yes, sweet thing,” as he comes, his cock swelling, twitching inside my ass.
Then he pulls out, puts himself away, and throws me over his shoulder. His fingers move into my pussy, keeping the fires burning. I can see my jeans, shoes, and panties on the floor as we turn the corner to the stairs, and he marches us up the flights to his room.
He tosses me onto the bed and disappears into the bathroom and the shower starts. Without a word, Seamus returns and strips down, then removes my t-shirt and bra. He takes me into the shower with him where he cleans me and soon, it starts all over again.
I let it.
I need it.
Need him.
Because this is a wordless truth, a moment out of time.
Tomorrow, the war can resume.