Chapter 5
TIERNEY
“Don’t go home yet.”
Damien circles my waist from behind and pulls me into him.
“I stayed all weekend and you need to be up early for work tomorrow.” I try to peel his hands away, fighting the reflex that snaps up as instinct.
I could easily break his arm, flip him, and cut off his breath before he has time to understand what’s happening.
While I let that training fade, I must go rigid, because he senses it and lets go. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?” I ask, brushing it off as I pivot to face him.
There’s a look on his clean-shaven face, a flash of hurt behind his pale green eyes.
“Freeze up like that.” He folds his arms across his chest. “It’s like you don’t want me touching you half of the time.”
“I was doing more than touching you this morning.” I cock my head and reach for his face, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Don’t read into it. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Stuff you won’t talk to me about.”
I sigh and grab my duffel bag from the bench by the front door.
“Are we really doing this again, Damien?”
He shrugs. “I love you, Tier. But if we’re talking about a future, I need more than half-truths. Maybe being shut out isn’t something I’m willing to live with anymore.”
I drop my gaze, my hair falling forward as I close my eyes for a beat, violent memories seeping out from the dark corners of my mind.
“What if I tell my da I want to travel?” I say, lifting my head again. “I’ll just… take a break. We could head off for a few months.”
He steps closer and thumbs my jaw. “Just me and you? No Declan Blake dragging you back every five minutes?”
I nod. “Yeah. Would that make you happy?”
His brow furrows as he considers it. “I’d have to sort my rent. Talk to my boss.”
“Don’t worry about money,” I say. “If it’s what we want, I’ll make it happen.”
“I’m not taking your da’s dirty money.”
I give him a tight smile. “The money you’re talking about isn’t dirty. It’s earned. I work hard, Damien.”
The gap between us is cavernous. Damien collects a basic wage every month, and I’m handed thick bundles of hundred-pound notes often enough that I’ve stopped counting them.
“I know you do… I’m sorry.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Do you think he’ll agree to it?”
I shrug. “Connor needs me to handle something for him, and I promised my da I’d help. Once that’s done, he’ll let me go if I sell it to him as a holiday.”
Damien kisses the top of my head and pulls me into a hug. I pat his back with the hand I’m not holding my bag with.
“You deserve time out, Tier,” he says. “I’ll make sure every day we’re away is better than the last.”
Deep down, I’m scared this won’t last, that my slice of normal life with him will rot under bad things I’ve done.
All I’ve ever known is my father’s world, obeying every order he’s given me without question. Meeting Damien opened a door to a place I didn’t even know existed.
Usually, being curled up with him gives me a sense of peace. This time, it felt… different, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
“I’m excited.” He smiles, stepping back to look at me properly. “The two of us taking off with no one to come between us”
“Yeah.” I smile, unsettled by the absence of excitement in my chest. “Just give me a few weeks to get everything sorted on my end.”
He grins and scrapes his bangs back off his forehead. “I’ll start pulling together an itinerary.”
My phone vibrates in my jeans pocket. When I pull it out, my brother’s face lights up the screen.
“It’s Connor,” I say, waving the phone at Damien and blowing him a kiss. “Let’s do Europe. I’ll call you later. Bye.”
I’m already out the door and jogging down the path when I answer, Connor’s voice crackling through the line. “Tier-Tier… why are you avoiding me?”
My stomach drops. “Don’t be daft. I’m just knackered. I stayed at Damien’s all weekend and had my phone on silent.”
“Yeah?” Connor teases. “You two up all night? Painting little bits of plastic and giving them names?”
I chuckle as the Range Rover's lights blink when I unlock it with the key fob. “Yeah. It’s probably better if you stick with that version, Con, instead of knowing what we really got up to.”
“Oh God,” he groans. “Please, no.”
Once I’m in the driver’s seat, the engine running, and the call synced to the car, I let my head fall back against the headrest and clip on my seat belt.
“Look, Con… I couldn’t get my hands on the footage.”
He goes quiet, though I can hear him breathing on the other end.
“Don’t worry,” I say, forcing steadiness into my voice. “This isn’t the end of it. I got something else instead, and Da’s figuring out a way forward. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah…” he replies, the word heavy. “You shouldn’t have to. I’m the one who messed up. I got myself into that situation.”
“You didn’t know you were being set up,” I say, checking my mirrors as I pull out into traffic.
“I thought he liked me,” Connor says quietly. “And he was playing me all that time. Shit like that always happens when people find out I’m a Blake. They assume I’m already up to my neck in da’s business. But I swear to fuck, Tier, I didn’t kill him.”
Connor doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. Growing up, he was the one who cried when Da clipped a badger on the country road and left it for dead, heartbroken over something Da didn’t care about.
Even when Da shoved a gun into his hand and threatened him to use it, Connor just froze, wet himself, and stood there trembling in the mess, eyes wide and empty.
My brother isn’t a criminal. And I’ll make sure he stays that way.
“Just carry on as normal and I’ll drive down to Dublin tomorrow to see you, okay?” I put my foot down on the gas and head straight for the motorway.
His sigh crackles through the car. “Yeah… normal. Whatever the fuck that is.”
The call ends and I grab a packet of mints from the inner console, tipping one into my mouth as another call comes through.
“Tierney,” my da’s voice fills the space. “Where are you?”
I glance in the rearview mirror at the steady stream of headlights behind me and change lanes. “Leaving Belfast and heading home now.”
“Meet me at the farm.”
I keep my sigh to myself and agree. “Okay. Is something wrong?”
“On the contrary, honeybee. Everything is working out as it should,” he says. “Don’t dilly-dally.”
The line disconnects, the car returning to silence.
I press harder on the accelerator; the engine responding as I push past the speed limit. The last time I drove with Damien in the passenger seat, he almost shit himself gripping the door handle. I get off on speed and efficiency; he prefers slow and steady.
That’s probably why we work.
It doesn’t take long to hit the country roads, where there aren’t any streetlights and the fields are washed silver under the high moon.
I swerve off the road, taking a hard right and bouncing over potholes as I drive across the hill toward the old farm we acquired for business.
From here it looks like any other working cattle set up, but at the back, in the outbuildings, there’s a fresh shipment of ammo and crates of weapons waiting to be moved stateside.
When I roll into the yard, a man with a flashlight circles the vehicle, the beam spreading across the doors and windows before he nods and gives me the all clear. I kill the engine, pull my hood up, and climb out into the wind.
He leads me to the farthest barn, where my da is pouring himself a black coffee from a flask.
Behind us, our guys are checking the crates, splitting the shipment into groups for dispatch. It’s one of the jobs he first gave me when I was ten. That evening, I held a machine gun for the first time and loved everything about it.
Connor hated weapons. Me, I wanted to know how they worked, how they fit together, where they failed, and how to use them.
It probably explains the collection I keep locked away at home, every piece cleaned and catalogued inside a cabinet with a keypad only I know the code to.
“Tierney.” My da lifts the flask. “You want a coffee, honeybee?”
I shake my head, a low unease settling in my chest. Something feels off.
“Is everything all right with the shipment?” I ask as I step into the barn, tugging on a pair of gloves and lifting an Uzi to check the weight. “Did they short us?”
“Nah.” Da chuckles. “They’d know better than to try it.”
“Right.” I set the weapon down and move toward him. “Is this about Connor then?”
“It sure is.” He takes a sip of coffee, steam curling into the night air. “You hit the jackpot when you pulled those files. It got the Viacavas’ attention.”
My spine prickles, and Bronx flashes through my mind without warning. The buzz in my veins when we wrestled, the way he owned the elevator just by looking at me, the weight of his gun at my back when he could’ve pulled the trigger and didn’t.
I’d never make that mistake.
“Did they make contact?” I ask, my breath fogging white in the cold air.
My da props his hip against a stack of unopened crates and takes another sip, slower this time. “None other than Kingston Viacava accepted my call and agreed to a proposition he couldn’t turn down.”
Unease creeps through me as he pushes off the crates and moves closer, tugging at the strings of my hood in a playful gesture.
“You’re getting married, honeybee,” he says, smiling. “Engaged to one of the most powerful men in New York.”
I balk, my face twisting before I can stop it. “I’m not getting married.”
“Yes, you are.” His tone hardens. “If you want the Viacavas to rally around and protect Connor, then you’ll marry Kingston’s brother like the good little honeybee you are.”
My stomach drops. “No, Da. Please. I have plans with Damien.”
“Who?” He takes another sip, pretending he doesn’t know who I spent the weekend with.
“You know who,” I grit between clenched teeth. “My boyfriend.”
“As of tonight, you have an official fiancé,” he corrects. “A man who respects the leverage we hold over his family and understands that a union safeguards all of us, including your precious little brother.”
Something in me snaps at that, and my spine straightens. I raise my chin and stare up at him, squaring shoulders in a standoff that has my stomach flipping.
“You don’t get to decide who I want to be with, Da,” I say, breathless because I’ve never pushed back like this before. “I’m with Damien. He makes me happy.”
His expression hardens. The blue of his eyes darkens to navy as a shadow crosses them.
“You decided this yourself when you stole that family’s file,” he says, his voice stripped of any warmth. “They could send a man to our door tonight who’d be gone by morning with photos of your body as proof the threat was eliminated.”
He pauses, assessing my every quick breath.
“I’d tell you to grow a spine,” he says, “but I’ve already wasted that advice on your brother.”
My blood boils at that, and I stand a little taller.
“This arrangement is our chance. And that boy you’re clinging to is no match for a Viacava.”
“I told Damien we’d go travelling together,” I insist, forcing the words through the tightness in my chest. “I need a holiday.”
He kills the space between us, close enough to smell the coffee on his breath.
“The only travelling you’ll be doing,” he says, dipping lower, “is boarding a jet to the States.” My pulse stutters. “And then you’ll walk down the aisle and marry Bronx Viacava.”
That name ignites traitorous flutters in my chest before I crush them with anger.
“No,” I whisper. “Please. Don’t do this to me.”
“Pull yourself together,” he says, unimpressed. “You’re smarter than this. This marriage is the checkmate move. With you tied to the Viacavas, every rival we have will think twice before making a move. Irish blood in the Italian mafia ends conversations before they start.”
I shake my head and take a step back. “You can’t force me.”
His gaze pins me in place as he lifts the mug again. “Well, walking off with that other lad isn’t an option.”
My stomach knots at the icy tone he uses.
“Leave Damien out of this.”
“Then don’t make him relevant.” His tone stays even. “He’s not built for our world. People like him wander into trouble without realizing it.”
My heart pounds.
“One wrong place,” he continues, the tone conversational. “One dark night. And suddenly there’s an accident. A misunderstanding. Something unfortunate that no one sees.”
“Da––”
“Or,” he adds, “he falls into a shallow grave somewhere out there.”
I freeze when he waves a hand to the farmland surrounding us, where only cattle graze.
“The Viacavas are your future, Tierney Blake,” he says, already turning away. “This is the beginning of a new life. Protection for Connor. And vows that bind us permanently to that powerful family.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Because somewhere between Belfast and Bucharest, and that goddamn elevator ride with Bronx, I lost whatever control I thought I had over my life.
“You leave tonight,” he says over his shoulder. “I’ll come with you to the airfield. Gimme five minutes.”
“Six months,” I snap, fists clenched. “I’ll do six months so we can clear Connor. Then I’m getting a divorce.”