Chapter 10
Nuala
The suspension on this red tin can hits every bump in the road. I grip the plastic handle above the door as Logan takes a corner too fast. He looks absurd. His shoulders practically touch the glass on his side, and his knees jam against the dashboard. It would be funny if I wasn’t terrified.
“Stop staring,” he growls, shifting gears with a jerky movement.
“I’m wondering how you fit,” I say. “It’s ridiculous.”
He doesn’t laugh. He checks the rearview mirror for the hundredth time.
My heart rate spikes every time his eyes narrow, but the street behind us stays empty.
We pass rows of semi-detached houses with manicured lawns and tricycles in driveways.
The normalcy twists my gut. People live here.
They pay bills, watch TV, and don’t have hitmen chasing them.
“We’re here,” Logan says.
He pulls into a driveway behind a high hedge. The house is a beige bungalow with peeling paint on the window frames. It looks abandoned.
“This is the safe house?” I ask.
“It’s quiet. That’s all that matters.” He kills the engine. Silence rushes back in, heavy and suffocating with the stench of petrol lingering in the air.
He gets out, unfolding his large body from the tiny car. I grab my bag.
Logan unlocks the front door and ushers me inside. The hallway is dark. Dust floats in the sliver of light from the door. He shuts it and locks it. Three turns. Click. Click. Click.
“Don’t get comfortable,” he says. “We scan the perimeter first.”
I force my legs to move. I just want to lie down and sleep. I just want this to be over. But I follow him deeper into the gloom, because right now, his shadow is the only safety I have.
Logan moves through the rooms with deliberate steps. He checks the back door, the kitchen window, and the tiny bathroom with the yellowing tiles. I stay close. The floorboards groan under my feet, but he makes no sound at all. It’s unnerving.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing to a lumpy armchair in the corner of the small lounge.
I drop into it. The springs poke my thighs. I don’t care. “How long are we staying here?”
“Until I know who’s hunting us.” He stands by the window, peeking through a gap in the heavy curtains. He hasn’t let go of the gun. “You hungry?”
“I’m fucking tired, Logan.” My voice cracks. I hate how weak I sound. “I’m tired of running. I’m tired of people dying.”
He turns. The dim light catches the sharp line of his jaw. He doesn’t offer comfort. He doesn’t tell me it’s going to be okay. He just watches me with those blue eyes that see right through my bullshit.
“Tired doesn’t keep you alive,” he says. He walks over and stands over me, his shadow swallowing me whole. “Fear does.”
He reaches out and takes my chin, forcing me to look up. His thumb brushes my lower lip. I should push him away. I should run. But I don’t. I just sit there, trapped between the man who saved me and the secrets in the book.
Logan’s phone buzzes in his jeans’ pocket and he pulls back with a grimace. He pulls the phone out and answers it, turning his back to me. It doesn’t need to be on speaker for me to hear the roar down the phone,
“Where the fuck are you?”
“Somewhere safe,” Logan replies.
“Get your fucking arse here now. Hers too.”
“No.”
Silence.
“She stays with me.”
He ends the call and shoves the phone into his pocket.
He turns back to me. “He’s pissed. But he’s not getting near you.”
“He’s your family, Logan. Your uncle.”
“He’s the head of the O’Neill crime family, Nuala, and right now, you’re the most valuable asset in Dublin. Do you trust me?”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“No,” he says, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw. “You don’t.”
Logan pulls his hand back. He paces the small room, his large frame making the bungalow feel like a dollhouse. He’s too big for this cramped reality.
He pulls the book out of the back of his jeans and sits. He flips through the pages.
“This is more than bribes,” he mutters. “This is an old school loan book. Easy to flush if the Garda gets wind of it.”
“Loans?” I frown.
“Not the banking kind,” he adds.
“Oh,” I mutter. “Do you know who?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
I lean forward, peering at the cramped handwriting. “What does it mean?”
“It means whoever kept this was tracking debts. Big ones.” He runs his finger down a column. “Someone owed a lot of money to the wrong people.”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is connected?” I ask.
Logan’s jaw tightens. “Maybe. But the fact remains, is that you were right to begin with. You are still alive. They didn’t do a sweep, they didn’t ransack the place, so it doesn’t track that the gunmen were there for this. It is one big, fat coincidence.”
I sit back, the springs of the chair digging into my spine. “Okay. So we separate. The woman who died in the ladies’ room was a banker who kept records of illegal loans.”
“Looks like it.” He flips another page. “She was playing both sides. Taking money from families, tracking who couldn’t pay.”
“She wasn’t exactly hardcore mafia,” I point out, remembering how frantic she was.
“She didn’t have to be. She was the numbers woman. Someone else was the muscle.” He flips a page, and then his eyebrow goes up. “What was Stacey’s last name?”
“Landry,” I murmur. “Why?”
He raises his gaze to me, and I sit up straighter. “Why? Is she in there?”
He nods slowly. “But also… Landry? As in Thomas Landry.”
“Who?” I ask, shaking my head.
He rolls his eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I snap, all out of patience. “Us regular people don’t know every single gangster in the world, you know.”
He smirks. “Thomas Landry runs half the loan-sharking operations in Dublin. If Stacey were his daughter, or niece, or even distant cousin, it would explain why she ended up dead in her own club.”
“Does it?” I croak. It makes absolutely no sense to me at all.
“This is probably not Landry’s accounts. But someone else Stacey went to borrow money from, bypassing Thomas. She was struggling to pay it back, by the looks of it.”
“So they shot up her entire club, including her, to make a point?” I ask, bewildered that this is how people live.
“They wanted Stacey. They got everyone.”
“Not everyone,” I mutter. “Fifty two innocent people to make one person pay? I can’t… that doesn’t…”
My hands shake uncontrollably, and tears spring into my eyes.
Logan is crouching in front of me before I know he’s moved. His hands cup my face, thumbs brushing away my tears.
“Breathe,” he says. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”
I try. My chest hitches. The air won’t come.
“Nuala.” His voice drops, commanding but somehow gentle. “You’re here. You’re alive. Focus on that.”
I force air into my lungs. Once. Twice. The room stops spinning.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. His blue eyes lock onto mine, grounding me in the present. “Stay with me.”
I nod, unable to speak. My throat feels raw.
He pulls back slowly, giving me space. I miss his warmth immediately, which is fucked up considering everything.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t. You’re allowed to break down. You’ve earned it.”
“Have I?” I let out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t do anything except survive.”
“That’s more than fifty three other people managed.”
The words hit like a slap. I flinch.
Logan moves to the window, giving me space, to check the street. “We need to figure out who Stacey borrowed from. Who the bankers were in bed with and…”
He huffs out an irritated breath, and my heart almost stops. “What?”
“O’Rourke.”
His tone suggests he is not happy with whoever this O’Rourke is.
“And he would be?”
“The fucking arsehole who supplied the shooters with the weapons that massacred fifty three people. Come, we need to move.”
“Again?” I whine, getting up anyway. “Where are we going?”
“We are going to see a man about a crate of arms.”
I trail after him toward the front door, hoping he means guns and not actual arms. In this life, who knows anymore?