Chapter 26
Sean
“Same clothes as yesterday,” Ciara says as I reach for a fresh tee, “but a bit more disheveled.”
I nod and grab the same sweats and tee I had on yesterday, dressing quickly and scrunching them up so I look like I’ve been on a twenty-four-hour bender. I muss my hair, and then I turn to her. “Hit me.”
Her eyebrow goes up. “Excuse me?”
“Hit me. I’m an angry drunk. I fight a lot.”
“I can’t,” she says, twirling her wedding ring.
“Why not? Do you care or something?” I try to goad her into saying something I desperately need to hear.
Her eyes flash. “No,” she says and draws back, punching me in the face with more strength than I expected.
“Jesus!” I snap, hand going up to cover my mouth. “You didn’t hold back, did you?”
“Did you expect me to?”
“Fuck,” I draw my hand away to see blood smearing my fingers. “That fucking ring is a weapon.”
She gives me a smug smile. “Happy now?”
“Ecstatic,” I growl and grab the Glock that I lifted from Mick’s man yesterday morning. I’d prefer to be more armed, but this will do. “Let’s go. Down the back and around the side. The last thing we need is to run into Connor and have him interrogate us.”
“Don’t need to convince me,” she mutters and opens the door a crack, poking her head out. I go up behind her and look out over the top of her head. She looks up at me in annoyance, and I grin, then wince as it splits my busted lip.
“All clear,” she whispers, and we creep out like thieves in the night.
My heart thumps, but not out of fear of being caught and detained by Connor, but of what lies ahead.
The pub, the stench of booze, the people drinking freely around me.
Can I really do this just to get to Oisin Murphy?
Isn’t there a better way? But I know there isn’t.
If he sees me coming sober as a judge, he will disappear, and I won’t be able to gut him for using my wife to get to me.
We slip down the back stairs and appear in the laundry room where the washing machine is already on the go, masking the sound of us creeping through. Ciara pauses at the back door and opens it, peering out again. I lean over her to also look, enjoying her huff of irritation.
“Is your cock seriously hard right now?” she mutters.
“Hadn’t noticed,” I say honestly. “But I guess having you punch me in the face turns me on.”
She rolls her eyes, a flicker of that iron-clad control slipping just enough to show she’s annoyed, but she doesn’t pull away. “Keep it in your pants, Sean. We have a job to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I drawl, tasting copper from my split lip. The pain is sharp, grounding. It’s better than the phantom burn of whisky that’s been ghosting my throat since I woke up.
We slip out into the gray morning, sticking to the shadows of the hedgerow that leads from the back to the front of the house.
The air is damp, clinging to my skin like a second layer of sweat.
I scan the perimeter and spot the SUV we will take parked at the back of several other cars on the driveway.
I gesture to it with my head, and we move out. When we reach the car, I bend down to grab the keys from the front tire as a sleek Mercedes fires up the driveway like a bat out of hell.
“What the hell?” I ask, pushing Ciara behind me.
“Get down!” A male voice shouts.
I have grown up in Connor’s house. When someone shouts to duck, you fucking duck. I yank the door open and shove Ciara onto the backseat as a bullet hits the ground at my feet.
The man in the Merc, along with Millie, pile out and take it upon themselves to dive into the backseat of the SUV as Ciara clambers over the front seats to the passenger seat.
Yanking the driver’s side door open, I get in, fire up the engine and gun it out of the driveway as another bullet hits the driveway in front of me.
“Care to explain why someone is shooting at me?” I growl to Millie and Dermot, her husband.
They exchange a look I see in the rearview mirror. Ciara turns in her seat as we speed out of the gates and onto the street.
“Long story short,” Dermot says, looking back. “There is a hit out on your head, Sean.”
“What?” I snap as Ciara’s gaze shoots to me. “What the hell for?”
“Who the fuck knows?” Dermot snaps. “I was on a job and came back to this contract on the dark web.”
“Whoa,” Ciara says, pulling her gun out and aiming it at Dermot. “You’re a contract killer?”
He doesn’t reply, simply glares at her.
“Hardly the point, dear,” I mutter, patting her leg as I take to the lane with the tree tunnel. No one is following, so it was a stationary shooter taking a shot at my fucking head on my father’s ground. Christ. Connor is going to go ballistic. “Any idea who?” I fire at Dermot.
He shakes his head. “It’s been active for twenty-four hours. Several bounty hunters have picked it up. Winner gets five hundred grand.”
“What?” Ciara snaps.
“Five hundred grand?” I ask in disbelief. Connor spent more than that on his horses this year already. “How fucking insulting.”
“Sean!” Ciara snaps. “This is serious. Oisin Murphy,” she barks at Dermot. “Is he a bounty hunter?”
My cock goes hard as her mind not only makes the connection but keeps her calm in the face of just being shot at and sitting next to a guy with a price on his head.
“Yeah, word on the street is, he is bragging he is going to get this. He sent three thugs after you, yeah?”
“Yeah. Mick Rankin and two others.”
“They’re dead,” Ciara adds.
I check the rearview mirror. Nothing but empty road and wet tarmac. Swerving around a pothole without lifting my foot off the accelerator, I say, “The Copper Lantern is a trap.”
Ciara nods and raises the gun a little higher. “And how convenient you two showed up right as we were getting shot at.”
“Put that down, girl,” Millie says. “We are not your enemy. Dermot was coming to tell Connor about the hit. We ran into you two eejits standing on the driveway out in the open.”
“So, you’re saying you had no idea there was a sniper waiting for us?” Her voice is full of scorn.
The ringing of several phones in the car signifies that Connor is about to hit the fucking roof.
“Someone better answer that,” I murmur, racking my brains for someone I crossed who took it personally enough to put a price on my head, knowing Connor would start a war.
“Connor,” Ciara says into her phone. She puts it on speaker.
“What in the blazes of the seven hells was that?”
The emphasis on the last word assures me the sniper has scarpered.
“Some fucking idiot who took a shot at your son on your home turf,” Ciara snaps.
“Where are you?” His tone is deathly quiet.
“Safe,” I shout over the console, cutting across whatever demand he’s barking. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Who have you fucking pissed off this time?” he clips out.
I shake my head, scoffing at the predictability. But can I really blame him?
“Fuck knows. Dermot says there is a price on my head. Find out who put it there, would you?”
“Are you fucking joking?”
“No, sir,” Dermot says, leaning forward, despite Ciara’s gun still trained on his face. “I picked it up on the dark web. Active twenty-four hours and counting.”
“Jaysus fecking Christ,” Connor mutters, letting his accent slip for the barest moment at this shitshow. Then he’s back to business. “The men at your apartment?”
“Paid for by Oisin Murphy,” Ciara says before I can. “Cannon fodder to flush us out.”
“Get your arses back here immediately,” he snaps.
“No,” I say. “My problem. I’ll fix it.”
“You can’t even fix a fucking sandwich,” Connor growls.
The insult washes over me, just as natural as breathing.
But Ciara doesn’t let it slide. Like a fucking leopardess defending her cub, she snarls back.
“You don’t give your son enough credit. He is capable, competent, he is sober, and he is staying that way.
We will fix this.” She hangs up and flings the phone onto the dashboard.
The phone slides across the dash, hitting the corner with a dull thud that echoes the finality of her words.
Capable. Competent. Sober.
She defended me.
Not because she had to, not because of some twisted mafia code, but because she actually believes it.
Or maybe she’s just stubborn enough to refuse to be married to a failure. Either way, the heat that flares in my chest has everything to do with the woman sitting next to me with a Glock trained on a contract killer in my backseat.
“You hung up on him,” I murmur, eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror.
“He was being a prick,” she says, her voice clipped, eyes still locked on Dermot. “And we don’t have time for his ego.”
“Fair point.” I tighten my grip on the wheel, my knuckles screaming in protest. “Dermot, you better start talking fast. If you picked up the contract details, why aren’t you trying to collect?”
“Because I work for your da, you thick fuck. I get paid more than five hundred grand for a job, and those jobs are fucking plenty,” Dermot snaps, though he doesn’t move a muscle with Ciara’s aim steady on his nose.
I blink and look over my shoulder at Millie in shock.
“What?” she says with a shrug as I look back at the road as I swerve up the curb. “I like to clean. Keeps my hands busy.”
“Jesus,” I say, rubbing my hand over my face. “How fucking deep does this go?” The question is mostly rhetorical, seeing as no one knows.
“Deep enough to drown us all,” Dermot mutters, eyeing the gun Ciara still has trained on him.
I shake my head, forcing my attention back to the slick tarmac. “Right. Well, consider the contract noted,” I say, spotting a side street that loops back toward the city center. I swerve hard, tires screeching against the wet pavement. “Now get out.”
Dermot bristles. “We’re not leaving you with a target on your back, lad. Connor would skin me alive.”
“Connor isn’t here,” I snap, slamming on the brakes near a bus stop. “And this is my life. You two are just extra weight.”
Ciara doesn’t blink. “You heard him. Out.”