Chaos (Savage Crown #3)

Chapter 1

Logan

My knuckles split, smearing blood over his cheek. I grin and dance back, hearing the cheers of the crowd. The violence. The atmosphere. The stench of sweat and blood is better than standing at the front of a church preaching piety while your conscience stabs you in the back.

“O’Neill!” A loud voice booms over the cheering. “Flatten him, or I will flatten you.”

I acknowledge the order with an imperceptible nod. Paddy O’Rourke is not someone you ignore. Even if you’re an O’Neill.

My opponent, a spry lad about a decade younger than me, so no older than twenty-two, lashes out, but he has no control. This isn’t a fair fight. I could’ve made him hit the mat several rounds ago, but I want the fight. I want the adrenaline.

The bell rings for the end of the round, and I go to my corner, sitting on the small stool that Seamus flings over the ropes. His hand lands on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” he grunts.

I spit out the mouthguard and say with a wry smile. “Getting my money’s worth.”

“O’Rourke is about to hit the fucking roof, boy. He’s got a lot of money on you.”

I turn to look at the old man. In his fifties, but looks a damn sight older, he could still smash your face in as hard as he could in his twenties. One of my Uncle Connor’s tough guys, he retired to run the less-than-legit fight club a few years back.

He wipes my brow and sticks the mouthguard back between my teeth. The bell goes. I stand, and he whisks the stool away.

The kid rushes like I knew he would. I flick a jab to blind him, step right, dig a hook into his ribs. He folds a little. I rip another into the body, then crack him with a straight right on the chin. Lights out. He hits the canvas and doesn’t move.

The noise spikes.

I flex my shoulders and then lift my hands. Bare-knuckle fighting is a brutal sport. My hands are a fucking mess. But fuck. The dark thrill is coursing through me, and I know nature over nurture will always win out.

This is what I was born into.

The Dublin underworld, where danger is your closest companion. Trying to leave that, to try to atone for the rest of the family’s sins, was a pathetic attempt to be better than I was.

“Boy-o!” Paddy roars with a grin.

I give him another nod. I don’t really give a shit how much he bet on me. That’s his business. I didn’t do this for him. I don’t fight for him or Connor. I do it for myself.

To feel.

To feel fucking something that isn’t guilt and sorrow and regret.

“Nicely done, lad,” Seamus says with a nod as I climb out of the ring. “Although you took your fecking sweet time about it.”

“Next time, find me someone who doesn’t make me feel bad for hitting them,” I retort.

Seamus snorts. “O’Leary is no slouch. You’re just better.”

“Learned from the best,” I say, punching Seamus in the shoulder with my free hand as he starts to unwrap my other one.

“Don’t be a soft arse,” he growls.

I chuckle because I can see he’s pleased, even if he would never admit it in a thousand years.

Seamus finishes with the wraps, and I flex my fingers. Skin splits again, and a thin line of blood runs across my knuckle. I wipe it on a towel and let the ache sit there.

Paddy barrels through the bodies with two lads at his back. He grins up at me like he owns the ground he walks on. “Nice one, O’Neill. You just made me a few thousand euros.”

“A few thousand? Is that it?”

Paddy snorts. “Ten grand. Next time, I double it.”

“Next time, my opponent will give me a real fight.”

“Looks like you were struggling in there.”

I scoff. “I wanted the fight. I drew it out. Don’t make the mistake of thinking anything else.”

Paddy’s eyes narrow, and he gives a slight nod. “Noted, O’Neill. I think you just became my new hobby.”

“I got better things to do with my time than fight on your timeline, O’Rourke.”

“So I hear. You back in the fold?”

It’s a casual comment laced with meaning.

“Maybe,” I say. “We’ll see.”

He smiles slowly. It’s a savage grin, and he knows I’m bullshitting. “See you around, O’Neill.”

Paddy wanders off like he just won ten grand, and I turn my attention back to Seamus, who is eyeing me up with interest.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says with a shrug. “Go and get cleaned up.”

I grab my bag and hit the corridor. The concrete hums under my boots. Lads clap my shoulder as I pass. I give them nothing more than a nod and push into the back room with the showers.

Water hammers down and turns pink for a minute.

My knuckles throb in time with my pulse.

I killed the collar six months ago, but it still sits around my throat like a brand I can’t scrub out.

I tell myself I don't care. Then I flex my hand, remembering how Christine's fingers went cold in mine while I prayed to a God who didn't answer.

The ache answers back, but so does the rage—the black, choking need to make someone pay for every prayer that fell on deaf ears.

The violence I crave isn't holy. It never was.

I dry off, pull on jeans and a black tee, and shrug into my jacket. Phone buzzes.

Connor: Drop by the house when you’re done playing.

I smirk and pocket it. He never asks. He orders with a smile.

My mother is probably rolling in her grave right now.

She was so proud of her son, who got out of the life, only to walk straight back into it the moment things went sideways.

I stride out of the building into the night, pushing it aside.

Prayers didn’t help her, and they didn’t help Christine either.

The memory of her last words to me are etched into my brain for all eternity.

Stop fucking about, Logan. Quit. Go do something real. Go find a woman who knows how much you’re worth.

I stop walking as I get to the black Porsche 911 and close my eyes.

Tilting my head back as I see her face again.

My friend. My best fucking friend since we were kids.

She always saw me. She always called me out on my bullshit.

She always wanted whatever I thought was best and supported me, even when what I wanted was stupid and ultimately meaningless.

She knew who I was born to, and she didn’t care. She wanted to be my friend anyway.

And I fucking failed her.

Cancer ripped her away decades too soon because my link to God was worthless.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” I mutter for the millionth time. If only there were something I could do to avenge her. But there is nothing to hit, nothing to kill. Nothing to do except visit her grave and blame myself.

Opening the Porsche, the extravagant, flashy dick extension I bought the same day I ripped the collar off, I slide inside and rest my head on the back of the seat.

“Fuck this shit.” I fire up the engine and scream out of the parking lot with the recklessness of someone who doesn’t give a fuck anymore.

The city blurs by in a stream of lights and tarmac. I cut across the Liffey and gun it through a yellow. The wheel hums under my hands, knuckles split and tight.

Connor’s place sits behind a gate with cameras that track like eyes. The guard gives me a nod and hits the button. I swing up the drive, park beside his Range Rover, and kill the engine. My hands itch for another fight that isn’t there. I roll my shoulders and go inside.

Bridgit, one of the housekeepers, spots the blood on my hands and the split at my brow. “You’re dragging muck into my hallway,” she snaps.

“I’ll send flowers,” I say, already moving past. She mutters something about saints, and I almost laugh.

I enter Connor’s study with a knock on the open door as I pass. I slump into one of the leather chairs as he looks up at me.

“You look like you had fun,” he says dryly.

“Got paid. Kid is a bit worse for wear, but will live. What’s this about?”

“Rumblings.”

“There’s always rumblings in the criminal underworld. Be more specific.”

He glares at me with eyes that are just like my mum’s, that she passed to me. Bright blue with flecks of silver. I run a hand through my dark hair, watching how he notices the nervous action.

“Are you sure about this?” he says bluntly, sitting back.

“Sure about what?” I ask, even though I know exactly what he is thinking.

“About giving up the priesthood,” he says.

I laugh, but the sound scrapes my throat. There is no humor in it.

“That part of my life is over, Connor. Done.”

He watches me, his gaze heavy. He looks for the man who used to preach forgiveness, but that man doesn’t exist anymore.

“God didn’t show up when I needed Him,” I say, my voice dropping, feeling the need to explain myself. Connor has that way. Stronger men than me have folded under that steely stare. “So, I stopped waiting.”

Connor sighs. He reaches for the crystal decanter and pours two glasses of whiskey, a fine aged Bushmills. He slides one across the dark wood toward me. I take it. I knock it back in one go, feeling the heat travel down my chest. It settles in my gut, hot and heavy.

“Did you just drag me here to ask me if I was done being a priest?”

“No,” he says. “I’m making sure you know what you signed up for.”

“I know. I was born into the O’Neill empire, Connor. I don’t need a lecture on how things work.”

“There’s a deal going down tomorrow at the Sailing Club. Private bankers are… plotting.”

“Plotting what?” I ask with a frown. I’m intrigued enough to lean forward.

“That’s what I need you to find out.”

I nod slowly. “Leave it with me.”

He stares at me for a long moment and then picks up his pen to sign a document in front of him, his way of dismissing me without words.

I take the hint and get up, leaving his study as I head for the door.

The Sailing Club.

An exclusive place where mafia men go to be… themselves. I’ve never been, but it looks like that is about to change.