CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Age seventeen
He hated most months, but December took the damn cake.
First of all, he had to spend Christmas with his family. His mama always stared at him like he was going to kill someone at the dinner table. Like he was inhuman. His fault, really, for surpassing all of his father’s expectations and becoming a well-oiled killing machine.
All he’d ever wanted was to be loved, and he’d been stupid enough to hope that if he just executed enough enemies and carried out enough dangerous tasks, he’d win his father’s affections.
Secondly, and more importantly, he knew Tierney loathed December.
His girlfriend partied too hard, drank too much, and by the time he dragged her home from a party or a hangout, she was too plastered for him to do more than give her a chaste kiss on the lips.
Was he doing something wrong? Dammit, if only she would tell him what was bothering her, he’d fix it. He’d find a way. Even if he had to dedicate his life to making things right.
They still hadn’t had sex. He’d waited for her to initiate, treating her as delicately as you would a soap bubble. If she needed more time, he’d give her that. Hell, he’d let her lose her virginity to his best friend if it made her happy, even if he had to watch.
Thank fuck he had no friends.
Tierney was a good, understanding girlfriend.
They’d kept their relationship a secret because he knew his dad wouldn’t approve of him dating her.
She never gave him shit for it, never asked where he’d been, never complained when he disappeared for days at a time, because his father needed him to kill someone, dump a body beyond state lines, or handle stray drug shipments.
She tended to his wounds when he got hurt, was always ready with her arms open for a hug, and always talked him through his emotions, listening to him for hours on end.
The fucked-up part was that she kind of became a mother figure for him.
She kissed his boo-boos. Threaded her fingers in his hair.
Made sandwiches for him. Cleaned those pesky bloodstains from his shoes.
She pulled him out of his dark thoughts after he killed, grabbing a book they both liked and reading his favorite scenes out loud.
She’d become so much more than a girlfriend, and he was terrified, because every time he talked about the future, she changed the subject.
The night she turned seventeen, they lay in her bed. He was holding her tight, kissing her temple, contemplating the future.
“I hate my birthday.” She soaked his shirt with tears that night. December was the month in which the Bratva’s pakhan, Igor, carved her mother’s stomach open and pulled out the twins, kidnapping them after he left her for dead. “It reminds me of everything I lost before I was even born.”
“Next year, I’ll change that for you,” he promised, stroking her hair.
“How?” she murmured into his neck, lips pressed to his tattoo of her kiss.
“Your birthday gift will be an engagement ring, and we’ll start our own family. I’ll never let this happen to our children. To you.”
She froze in his arms. The air stood still.
“I’d forfeit my life to save yours,” he assured her, stroking her beautiful hair, the color of rich red wine. “Dad will fall in line. You’ll see. He thinks I’m the best with the knife and the gun, so he wants me to have a lot of heirs. When he sees you’re the only one I want, he’ll come around.”
“It’s that important to him?” She cleared her throat. “Heirs?”
He snorted. “It’s all he talks about. Me giving him grandchildren.”
“I heard he wants you to wed someone from the Outfit.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll fight him on it. I’d rip my entire family apart to keep you, Tier.”
“Achilles…” She squirmed in his arms.
“Yes?”
“There’s more to this life than me, you know.”
It was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, and it made his stomach churn so badly, he vomited twice as hard as he did the night he ate a human heart.
Because he had a feeling Tierney was about to break his.
It was Tierney’s eighteenth birthday, and his palms were clammy.
He had to face the music: tell his father he would not be entering an arranged marriage to strengthen the Camorra ties with whoever the fuck they needed to form an alliance with these days. It might land him in a world of pain, but nothing would hurt more than losing her.
He chose a ruby for her engagement ring. It reminded him of her hair, but more than that of her indomitable spirit.
He got into his car and drove to her new house in the suburbs, knowing full well her father and brothers weren’t there.
Tyrone and Fintan were visiting family in Ireland.
They largely ignored Tierney’s existence.
Only Tiernan cared, and while he loved his sister in his own screwed-up way, he wasn’t the type to celebrate with a cake and fucking beer pong.
Tiernan was out on the streets, pushing the Albanians out of Harlem. He was Achilles’s age and twice as violent and vicious.
Achilles killed for his family and honor. But Tiernan? He killed because he fucking loved it.
Because she was alone, he’d decided to come early. He couldn’t stomach the idea of her sitting there all by herself.
He rounded the corner onto her street when he noticed flames dancing in the Callaghans’ open windows.
No. Not windows. Window. Tierney’s.
He screeched to a halt and threw the driver’s door open, sprinting down the street. Fire had already devoured her curtains and the edges of the wall.
Shit. Tierney would be there, in her bedroom.
He kicked the door down so hard it flew off its hinges.
Tucking his mouth and nose into his shirt, he stormed inside.
The first level was smoky and scorching hot but no fire yet.
He had the good sense to run to the kitchen faucet, tear off his jacket, and soak it in water before donning it again.
Then he took the stairs three at a time and headed straight to Tierney’s room.
He knew Igor must have been behind the fire. The pakhan. That damn fucking monster came to finish the job on the twins’ birthday.
Achilles was going to kill him.
It’d be the first thing he’d do as the new don.
Declare war on the Bratva and obliterate it for what they’d done to his girlfriend. No, to his future wife.
The fire seemed to be coming from her room. He’d have to walk through it to reach her if she was still inside.
He didn’t hesitate.
Covering his face with his forearm, he plunged inside.
The fire pounced on him as if it were a living, breathing thing, nipping at his sodden jacket like a rabid animal.
A spike of agony shot through his body everywhere he was exposed—face, ears, hands.
The flames branded him, etching scars onto his flesh like pointy teeth.
Would she love him scarred? Ugly on the outside as he was on the inside?
The answer was irrelevant. Because he’d still love her, and he’d never let anything happen to her.
He found her curled on the corner of the bed, facing the wall, her back to him. The flames didn’t touch her. Like they knew she was made of the same elements. He scooped her up, his hands trembling so hard, he could barely feel them, and placed two fingers to the side of her throat.
She had a pulse.
It was faint, but it was there.
The little clean air he had in his lungs swooshed out in relief. He ripped off his wet jacket and covered her with it entirely. Then he picked her up, pressed her to his chest, and turned back to the door only to find he couldn’t see it past the flames.
To get out, he had to get through.
Inhaling a lungful of smoky air, he pushed forward, running into the fire.
He was burning alive for her and he couldn’t give half a shit. His entire being was focused on one thing—saving her.
As he charged down a stairway that crumbled beneath his boots into dust, giving in to the heat, he felt his skin pruning, curling at its edges, morphing him to look like the monster he’d long ago become.
The scent was unbearable. Like the back of a butcher shop.
His face. It was ruined. He knew without looking in a mirror. But it was his lungs that nearly failed him. They scorched so hot, the smoke inside them so thick, he couldn’t see himself making it past the door.
Do it. Not for you. For her.
He’d heard of parents finding Herculean strength to protect their children but had called bullshit on it.
He now believed it. He’d probably inhaled too much smoke.
Suffered burns too deep for recovery. But he was past pain and discomfort.
A force of nature, he hugged her tighter, protecting her body from the heat and flames; God forbid her pristine skin suffer so much as a blemish.
Down the stairs and out the door, where he collapsed onto the hail-caked front lawn, rolling back and forth to extinguish the flames on his body.
She lay next to him on the grass, and he kept yelling to her. “Baby. Please. Please! Show me you’re alive.”
The broken sound coming out of him was pure polluted smoke, not voice. “Truth? You want the truth? Here’s the truth—even if I die…even if—” He coughed again, his lungs giving out. No. He’d say it, he had to. Just in case she could hear. “It was worth it. You were worth it, Tierney. All of it.”
She was so still and so pale, he was ready to rip his lungs from his body to give them to her. Then her chest constricted, and she sucked in a desperate breath.
Only then did he let himself pass out and succumb to his wounds, the swirling red lights of the fire trucks and ambulance dancing behind his eyelids.