Exiled Heir (Five Boroughs War - O'Shea Mafia Duet #1)

1. Saoirse

Saoirse

The Girl in the Chapel

The atmosphere in St. Brendan’s chapel is different during the day. It’s serene and full of hope beneath the vaulted ceiling. Sunlight glimmers on the organ pipes and turns the stained glass windows into saintly rainbows.

That’s why I prefer coming here at night. My candle shines brighter in the dark, and the soft golden glow brings me comfort.

Catching sight of myself reflected in the glossy veneer of paint on the statue of the Virgin Mary, I shiver.

My eyes look haunted and I’m pale as a ghost. It’s a sign, not from heaven but for my health, telling me that it’s time to stop mourning and get on with my life.

Such as it is. Twenty-one years old and already I feel like I’ve buried more than my mother.

Demure dress, light shawl draped over my head, sensible flat shoes. Zero attention to fashion and with the emphasis on modesty.

I’m giving the sort of virgin alert that would make my Da proud. Ah, well. I guess I’m in the right place for it.

“Light without and light within.” My whispered prayer interrupts the silence.

It can get creepy in the chapel once the sun sets and the constant hum of Brooklyn traffic dies down. This close to midnight, the sanctity of church shifts to being more… flexible.

I’m safe, at least I think so. I’m standing on that sweet spot of neutrality between the O’Sheas of Bay Ridge and the Woodside Byrnes’ territories.

But there’s only so much a girl can curtsy and make the sign of the cross before it begins to look less like praying and more like dancing with the devil. I’m already here, so I better get up the gumption to close my eyes and say a Hail Mary for my dear departed Mam.

“Sé do bheatha, a Mhuire, atá lán de ghrásta, tá an Tiarna leat.”

The words are imprinted in my memory. Our Holy Mother’s prayer said in my Mam’s tongue, and the tongue of those who came straight from the old-country before her.

The Byrnes didn’t adapt, we were transplanted; at least, that’s what my Da says.

A warmth fills my heart. It’s not spiritual—the sensation is far too determined for it to be connected to my soul.

Being here alone in the middle of the night, with my eyes closed shut, makes me feel brave. There’ll be no more Mam to hold my hand or turf me out of bed at six a.m. in winter to attend Mass with her.

I’ll either have to do it on my own from here on out, or not do it at all. That seems to open up a world of opportunity to me.

“Guígí ar ár son, na peacaigh, anois agus in uair ár mbáis. áiméan.”

A man’s voice rumbles from the direction of the door. “That’s sweet of you, darlin’.”

I spin around to face the voice, a gasp stuck in my throat. My prayerful hands fly up defensively.

Nothing about the man makes me lower my guard. Sure, he’s young—closer to being a boy than a man—but he’s got a look in his eyes that suggests his sins are old and Biblical in breadth, width, and dimension.

I see blood under the soft glow of candlelight. On his knuckles, on the collar of his dark shirt, and drying at the corner of his mouth.

My reaction is all muscle memory. I’ve been trained not to flinch… to never show those emotions that might point me out as weak or fearful.

I’m Saoirse Byrne, and proud of it, and this fella shouldn’t be bringing his trouble in here.

“Sweet, you say? That’s not the word I would use to describe praying.” There. That should tell him that he’s not welcome.

If he’s come here to pray, which I highly doubt from the look of him, then he can go do it somewhere else.

If he notices my eyes searching for an exit he doesn’t mention it. Probably because he’s standing in the doorframe blocking the only way out.

My body registers the fact before my mind does. Calculating an exit strategy lies deep in my bones. It’s more than survival; it’s instinct.

Chapel should be the one space where violence can’t enter, and yet it has come close enough for me to smell the tang of rust and iron in the air. The taint of blood spilled reminds me of many things.

Death. The slow suffering of that final battle. And lunar cycles.

His grin unnerves and charms me in equal measure. I’m quite sure he’s relishing something about this moment that remains hidden from me.

“‘Pray for us sinners’? You don’t look like you need praying for, darlin’, so it must be me, I’m guessing.”

He understands Gaelic, but I’m not getting old-country from him. All I can hope is that he respects the old ways enough to let me walk past him and go home. With that said, it can’t hurt to stick around and see how this plays out.

But it feels weird to hear one line from the prayer spoken as if it stands alone. I’ve started at the beginning of every Hail Mary I’ve ever said and not stopped until the Amen. Like a compulsion, I say it out loud.

“Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

His smile slows and spreads. He points, and when he moves his arm so suddenly, the urge to duck and run is almost overwhelming. “It’s a fierce lot of candles for one woman.”

If he expects me to explain the reason for all the candles, he’ll be waiting an awful long time. “And that’s a fierce lot of blood for one boy.”

He doesn’t even flinch, and the grin doesn’t waver.

I read the signs. The lad’s built like an athlete; tall, broad at the shoulders and slim at the waist. He fights first and runs only when he must.

He treats the blood like it’s stopped being an event. Bleeding must happen often enough for him to ignore it. “You’d be the praying sort, then?”

This is the Five Boroughs, New York City. Half the city is the praying sort.

“And you’d be the bleeding sort?” Did my lashes just flutter? I think I’m enjoying our exchange, not because it isn’t dangerous… but because it is.

I’m horrified when he steps all the way into the chapel. I regret my harmless banter with him immediately.

“Ah, sure, there’s worse hobbies.” He comes closer and leans in to watch my face now that it’s in the shadows.

I manage to smother my panic when he pulls down the shawl covering my head. My black hair doesn’t gleam under the candlelight; it sucks up the glow and spits back darkness.

He doesn’t know who I am—I can read it in his face.

“It’s your name you’ll be telling me, right about now.”

It never crosses my mind to refuse. We’re alone, which gives him all the power. “Saoirse Byrne is what I call myself.” Make of that what you will, blood-stained boy.

His lack of recognition flickers and fades when I tell him my name. He knows. Not me, but of me.

“Saoirse Byrne, you say?”

I try to cover my head with the shawl scarf again, but he’s holding it. The boy’s brazen, I’ll give him that.

“It’s not likely I’d go from praying to lying about my name in front of the Holy Mother’s statue.”

If I’m short with him, I have reason to be. Justifying myself to a stranger has never happened before.

The way his jaw ticks dares me to try it again, but the calculating glint in those piercing storm-gray eyes warns me not to. “Lying is a dangerous road to be walking.”

The glint doesn’t fade when his calculation finishes. It lingers, like a lesson I must learn. Like an unquenchable flame.

Snapping the corner of my shawl scarf out of his fingers, I try to pass by him. Only he doesn’t move.

I’m tempted to push past him, but I’m in the place where temptations mustn’t be listened to.

“Please—,”

The word seems to snap him out of his fixation. He steps aside.

“I’ll be seeing you, chapel girl.”

But it’s not me who departs, but the lad. He leaves me alone in the chapel with all my candles still burning and the fragrance of warm copper and hot wax teasing my nose.

When I look down, my hands have started shaking.

And when I look up at the door, the knowledge that I want him to come back scares me.

***

I’m back in the chapel.

How could I stay away? This is where we met, and so this must be the place where I face my demons.

Devil. Blood-drenched, devil with the storm-gray eyes.

So tall and athletic. Mmm… masculine.

All power, no nonsense. Built to kill.

I look down, and my nightgown drapes over the sharp tips of my taut nipples as they strain against the white cotton. The candles flicker; the hot wax ready to spill my secrets.

“Saoirse.”

He calls me. No, he’s coaxing me the same way a gypsy whispers the fear out of a nervous pony.

I turn, bound to obey.

My blood-stained boy.

His diamond smile pierces my soul, its dazzle distracts me from the blood dripping from the side of his mouth. The part of me that I keep untouched and secret gives me away.

It surrenders to him before I even get the chance to think about my options. My core melts and my essence rises.

“I’m not a line you want to cross… you understand that, don’t you, Saoirse?”

The smile fades, but not enough to break the spell he holds me under.

A rough sound distracts my fixation. His zipper is down. He wants to show me what he’s made of… what I’ve been hoping and wishing for in my silent prayers.

It’s more than enough in length, girth, and ecstatic expectation. I’m transfixed by the sight of his rampant cock rearing out. He holds it… grips its thickness like a weapon.

“On your knees.”

Yes, yes. Yes.

“Crawl to me.”

The flagstones feel so cold on my hands and knees. I only stop crawling when I see the leather of his blood spattered boots. My dark hair trails on the ground in the shadows.

I look up. My submission gives him pleasure. He’s smiling, which makes me want to please him more.

He strokes himself, accepting the worship of my hungry gaze. “Are you ready for me, darlin’?”

When I try to offer my confession—how molten my pussy feels and how desperately I want him inside me—he grabs my hair at the top and pulls my head back. My neck presents itself to his mouth like a broken flower stem.

But he holds back his bite for now.

“Play with yourself. Do it.”

I need you to fuck me! It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

But my voice makes no sound.

Lifting the nightgown, I lie on the stone floor. My black bush glares against the whiteness of my skin. Something stirs in my memory.

He kneels between my thighs, and his concentration is fierce as he prepares to penetrate my glistening cleft.

Eager to obey, I part the pubic hair at the perfect point and gently touch the pulsing hood of my love bud. To feel the rasp of his veiny shaft as he cleaves me open is my destiny, but that will have to wait.

Opening my thighs wide, I insert a finger inside me and then withdraw it. It gleams brighter than the candlelight.

“I’m ready.”

“You’ll take all of me and ask for more, yeah?”

Yes.

A strange blend of pleasure and pain builds inside me. I open my eyes and watch. It’s uncanny, but I thought it would hurt more.

Then the wave hits me. My climax rips a scream out of me. I’m looking down, but there’s no blood.

He kisses me with all the savage passion I’ve longed for. I touch my lips and look at my fingertips. I’m bleeding.

The bloodthirsty boy grins down at me and blood drips from his teeth. “With skin like snow and hair like midnight and lips blood red.”

I wake up drenched in sweat and pussy juice, the shudders of a massive orgasm fading away reluctantly. My virgin body betrayed me into fantasizing about a stranger.

A young man I will never see again. Because saints will spin in their graves if I ever go back to St. Brendan’s to pray at midnight.