Chapter 23
Ciara
“Everything okay?” I ask as he pushes open the door to his bedroom. “I mean, other than the obvious.”
He glances around the room with a grimace. “Yes, fine.”
I don’t push. He is clearly reliving what he went through in this room not that long ago. It’s enough to make anyone shut down for a while. I close the door quietly, and he spins to it, expecting the lock to click into place. When it doesn’t, he relaxes.
The room is clean and fresh, but I go to the window to open it for a bit of air. I find that it is sealed shut. “Of course,” I mutter.
“I’m going to shower,” he says suddenly and disappears, closing the bathroom door behind him.
I leave him to it and kick off my shoes before crawling onto the bed.
I’m tired from lack of sleep last night.
I open my backpack and pull out the gun, slide it under my pillow, and drop the bag on the floor.
I settle back and close my eyes, listening to the sound of the shower as it lulls me to sleep.
My phone vibrating draws me out of a half-slumber, and I reach for my bag and pull it out, expecting it to be my dad.
It’s not. It’s an unknown number.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Mrs. O’Neill,” a male voice says. “Put your husband on.”
“He isn’t here,” I say instantly. “Who is this?”
“Tell him it’s Oisin Murphy.”
I frown. Murphy. Not an uncommon name, but only one family jumps out, and it’s not a good one.
“Like I said. He isn’t here,” I lie smoothly, swinging my legs off the bed. I keep my voice low, eyes darting to the bathroom door where the water has just cut off.
“Don’t play games, Ciara. I know he’s there. Connor’s paid off the damages, but Sean and I have unfinished business. Personal business.”
My grip tightens on the phone until my knuckles ache. “If you have business with Sean, call him. My father doesn’t take lightly to rival families contacting his daughter unannounced.”
The mention of Donal O’Byrne gives him pause, as I knew it would. I need to get him on the backfoot while I figure out what the fuck he wants.
“Tell Sean I’ll be seeing him, and that he now owes me for the three men he put down.”
The line goes dead.
The three men he put down. They were working for Oisin Murphy? What isn’t Sean telling me?
I stare at the darkened screen, the connection settling over me like a shroud.
Oisin Murphy. That’s not a gambling debt; that’s a blood feud waiting to happen.
If a rival family is sending hit squads into O’Neill territory under the guise of debt collection, the rot goes deeper than Sean’s poker habits.
The bathroom door opens, spilling steam and the sharp scent of soap into the cool bedroom air.
Sean steps out, a towel slung low around his hips, water droplets clinging to the dark ink covering his chest. He looks cleaner, the physical grime washed away, but the tension is still woven into his muscles like steel wire.
He sees the phone in my hand, the rigid set of my shoulders. The predator in him wakes up, alert and dangerous.
“Problem?” he asks, his voice rough.
“You tell me. Oisin Murphy just decided to call me out of the blue,” I say, watching his face closely for a flinch, a tick, anything.
Sean’s face goes carefully blank, a mask I’m learning to hate. “And what did Oisin want?”
“He wants payment for the three men we just put in the ground, along with some personal debts you owe him.” I step closer, invading his space. “You told me there was no one else, Sean. You looked me in the eye and lied.”
“I didn’t lie,” he growls, looming in that way that is meant to intimidate me. “If he was working for Murphy, I didn’t know.”
“Ignorance is just as dangerous as deceit in this world,” I snap, jabbing a finger into his damp chest. “Murphy thinks you owe him despite Connor paying off the debt. So what is it? Why did he send three idiots around that he must’ve known you would take out, drunk or sober?”
“To flush us out,” he says, his jaw clenching tight. “He wanted us out of that apartment.”
“And here? Where not even a fly can get in?” I gesture to the sealed window.
“No, he clearly thought we wouldn’t come here. He is a wounded bird. I hurt him. He’s looking for payback.”
“Hurt him how?”
He shrugs. “Either sprained or broke his ankle and flattened his nose.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why did you fight him?”
“He came looking for his debts. Then he asked me to rat on my family. I didn’t take kindly to that offer.”
Silence hangs heavy between us.
A rat.
In this world, that’s worse than being a drunk or a gambler. It’s a death sentence, and Oisin Murphy tried to goad Sean into signing his own warrant.
“You didn’t rat,” I say, the anger draining out of me to be replaced by a cold, hard knot of realization. “And you didn’t tell Connor because...”
“Because Connor thinks I’m a liability who’d sell the family out for a bottle of Scotch,” Sean snaps, turning away to grab a t-shirt. He yanks it over his head, the movement sharp and agitated. “Oisin knew that. He thought I was the weak link.”
“He was wrong.”
Sean freezes, his head popping through the collar. He looks at me, surprised by the lack of venom in my voice.
“He was wrong,” I repeat. “But now we have a problem. Oisin isn’t just looking for money, Sean. He’s looking for what he thinks you owe him that Connor can’t pay off.”
“And he sent Mick Rankin to the apartment knowing you would be there.” His face drains of all color. “They were sent there to use you as leverage.”
My heart kicks against my ribs. They were sent there to assault me so Sean would comply. “I’m the weak link,” I mutter, turning away from him.
“No,” he growls, coming up behind me and placing his hands on my shoulders. “You are not the weak link, Ciara. You’re the only reason I’m not currently drinking myself into a coma. You put a bullet in a man’s head without blinking. That’s not weakness. That’s survival.”
I pull away from his grip, needing distance to think. Being the leverage puts a target on my back, painted in neon by a man who thinks Sean is soft enough to break. “It makes me a liability, Sean. If Murphy thinks he can get to you through me, he won’t stop at sending low-level thugs like Rankin.”
“No,” Sean says, shaking his head. “He sent low lifes like Rankin because no other crew with half a fucking brain would touch Donal O’Byrne’s daughter, Connor’s daughter-in-law, an O’Neill wife. Rankin clearly has no idea how the upper echelons of the Dublin underworld work.”
He has a point, but where there is one stupid lowlife, there are more waiting for their chance to make it big.
“You said Oisin wanted us flushed out. So where did he think you would go?” I ask, getting back to the matter at hand.
My planned rape and torture can wait until I’m face-to-face with the man who ordered it.
Then we’ll see how much he likes something shoved inside him without his consent.
I’m thinking the barrel of my gun up his arse.
Sean runs a hand through his damp hair, the water spiking the dark strands in a way that makes him look feral. He looks tired, worn down by the adrenaline crash, but the sharpness in his blue eyes is back. It’s a predator’s gaze.
“He thought I’d run,” Sean says finally, his voice low and rough. “He thinks I would be too ashamed to come to Connor, enough to take the first exit ramp. He expected me to leave you, grab whatever cash I had stashed, and bolt for the ferry or the airport.”
It makes sense. A coward runs. A junkie runs. Oisin Murphy is betting on the version of Sean that existed a week ago, not the man standing in front of me now. Oisin bet on the spare, but he got the sober husband still in withdrawals with a mean, possessive streak that just got lit into an inferno.
Good for me, I suppose.
“He has men watching the exits to the city, I guarantee it.” Sean paces to the window, staring out at the manicured grounds that double as a prison yard.
“By coming here, we went to ground in the one place he can’t touch.
We ruined his ambush. That is why he made contact with you.
You are the variable he thought I’d abandon. ”
“So we turn the tables. I told him you weren’t here. We make him think you are neck deep in the booze, and…” I cut myself off, cursing my stupidity as Sean’s expression goes hard.
“No, you’re right,” he says, letting me off the hook. “We give him what he expected. We get out of here. I make my way to the Copper Lantern, and then we take him out.”
And hope you can stay sober long enough for the plan to work.