Chapter 28
brONX
“The Murphy situation needs to be handled before—”
My phone rings, cutting off Kingston mid-sentence. Manino’s name flashes on the screen.
“What?” I say when I click to accept the call.
“Your wife left the building twenty minutes ago. She said she was going to the gym to get her phone, but security lost visual contact.”
Ice floods my fucking veins. “What do you mean, lost visual?”
“She never made it to the gym. She walked out the front entrance instead. When security tried to follow protocol and check on her location, they found her phone in a dumpster six blocks away.”
I’m already moving toward the door. “She threw her phone away?”
“Looks like it.”
Shit. Tierney doesn’t just throw away phones. Not unless she’s running from something.
Or someone.
Kingston and Reign stare at me. “What’s going on?” Kingston asks.
“Tierney’s missing.”
“Missing how?”
“She left the building twenty minutes ago and disappeared.” I grab my jacket, then stop. Something’s nags at me. “Wait.”
I put Manino on speaker and shoot off a text to Connor. She was heading to his place for dinner when we were out on Long Island. Maybe she said something to him.
Did you have dinner with Tierney?
When Connor doesn’t respond right away, my chest tightens. Fuck. Could she have come in here and overheard our conversation?
“Pull up the penthouse security footage for the past half an hour,” I order Manino over the phone. “I want to see exactly when she left and how she looked.”
“On it.”
I hang up and pull on my jacket. Ten minutes later, we’re downstairs staring at the security monitor in the building’s main office.
The timestamp shows Tierney entering the penthouse in workout clothes a little while after my brothers and I got back. A few minutes later, she walks out in street clothes, moving fast, her lips twisted and eyes fiery as hell.
“She looks pissed,” Reign observes.
Fuck.
“More than pissed,” Kingston says. “What are you thinking, Bronx?” “She must have overheard us talking in my office.” I rewind the footage, watching her face as she waits for the elevator.
Her expression is tight, controlled. Fucking furious.
“And that’s why she ran. But where the hell would she go? ”
Twenty more minutes pass and we’re standing outside the bar where security feeds last caught sight of her. The bartender, a middle-aged woman with a permanent scowl, barely glances up when we walk in.
“We’re looking for a woman,” I tell her. “Irish accent, dark brown hair, about five-foot-six. She would have been here within the last hour.”
The woman’s hand stills on the glass she’s cleaning. “You cops?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t know shit.”
I pull out a roll of cash and slap five hundred dollars on the bar. “How about now?”
Her eyes flick to the money. “She was here. Seemed upset, ordered two vodka and cokes. Then she paid me a hundred bucks to use my phone.”
“What did she say?”
“Said she’d lost her phone and needed to call her brother.”
“Did she make the call?”
“She went to the bathroom first and said she’d be right back.” The woman shrugs. “But she never did. ”
Every muscle in my body tenses. “How long was she in the fucking bathroom?”
“Maybe ten minutes? I figured she’d snuck out the back, happens all the time.”
“Show me.”
The bathroom is small, cramped, with one narrow window that’s painted shut. There’s no way out other than the way she came in.
“Anyone else come in while she was here?” Reign asks.
“Two guys with Irish accents like hers showed up. One of them ordered drinks while the other headed to the bathroom.”"
My heart slips in my chest. “What did they look like?”
“Big. Mean-looking. One had a scar across his cheek.”
I rake a hand through my hair. “Did they leave when she did?”
“Like I said, I didn’t see her leave. I’m paid to pour, not watch people. .”
I’m already pulling out my phone to call Manino back. “I need every surveillance camera in a six-block radius checked. Irish men, probably driving something dark and nondescript.”
We rush out of the bar, and I look at Kingston. “Give me your phone.”
He hands it over and I scroll through his contacts until I find Declan Blake’s number.
“Kingston,” Declan says when he answers. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s not Kingston. It’s Bronx,” I grunt. “Your daughter’s been taken.”
Silence greets my terse words.
“By who?”
“I’d be my left nut it was Murphy’s guys. The same bastards who you owe two million euros.” I grip the phone hard. “The same assholes who threatened to kill both your kids if you didn’t pay.”
He sucks in air. “That’s a mistake. I told you about the Tribunal’s th—”
“Cut the shit, Declan. We just met with the Tribunal. They told us there was no fucking threat. That you made the whole thing up about Connor. We figured it out, you son of a bitch. We know exactly what you did.”
After a long minute, he finally speaks.
“How much do you know?” he asks.
“Everything. Connor told me about the university course you destroyed in Dublin, how you forced him to coordinate with your people while he’s been in New York, how you’ve been using both your kids to save your own worthless ass.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“It’s exactly that simple. You manipulated your daughter into stealing intelligence, then used that intelligence to marry her off to protect yourself from debts you couldn’t fucking pay.”
“I was protecting them,” he says, his voice pathetically weak.
“Protecting them?” I shout. “Tierney’s been kidnapped because of your debts. Connor’s been living in fear because of the lies you forced him to tell his sister, the closest person in the world to him.”
Declan’s voice goes cold. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want you to fix it. Right fucking now.”
“But how? The Murphys won’t negotiate with me.”
“Then you better find a way to make them.” I stare at cars speeding past, feeling more and more helpless as the seconds tick past. “Because if something happens to Tierney, if they hurt my wife because of your lies, I’m coming to Dublin to finish what the Murphys started.”
“You’re threatening me?” he says, his voice edged with anger.
“No, I’m making you a promise. Your daughter married into my family. That makes her mine now. And anyone who hurts what’s mine answers to me.”
I stab the screen to end the call and look at Kingston and Reign. They just stare back.
I grit my teeth after a few seconds of silence pass. “Don’t fucking look at me like that, okay? She’s not a pawn. Not anymore. She may have started out that way but…” I let out a sigh. “I love her. Like, really fucking love her. And I will end anyone who hurts her.”
Reign exchanges a knowing smirk with Kingston.
“Fucking called it.” Then he turns toward me. “So what’s the plan?”
I scrape a hand down the front of my face, the image of Tierney laughing in my arms this morning, trusting me completely. She looked at me in the shower like I was her choice, not her enemy.
Whatever made her run from me, wherever she was going, she’s in danger because of her father’s lies and because she thinks I fucking played her.
“I know those bastards took her.” I swallow hard. “We need to find her. Whatever it takes.”
“And if the Murphys want a war?”
My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.
We have what belongs to Declan Blake. Two million euros buys her back. You have 48 hours.
Bastards. She stopped belonging to Declan the minute I put my ring on her finger.
I show the message to Kingston and Reign.
“Fuck,” Reign mutters.
“Yeah.” I pocket the phone. “Let’s get everything we have on their organization. Personnel, operations, weaknesses. Everything. And call our contacts in Dublin. I want to know exactly where these bastards are hiding.”
“We need to figure out what we’re dealing with before we make any moves,” Kingston says. “I want leverage to win before we go to war with these assholes. And right now, we have none.”
“Then let’s get some.” I turn to look at my brother. “Tierney is my wife. She’s family now. And nobody fucks with our family. You protected Livvie. And I’m doing the same thing.”
Kingston gives a swift nod and we head back to the penthouse. I stare out the window, closing my eyes. Somewhere in this city, the woman I love is being held by men who want to use her to settle her father’s debts.
Men who have no idea they just declared war on the wrong fucking family.
Forty-eight hours to get two million euros or find another way to get her back.
I’m going with option three…find the bastards and make them regret the day they were born.