Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Rurik nods and raises his glass. “Perfect,” he says with his thick accent.
He’s more amicable than I expected. Stepan barely speaks; I’m not even sure how much English he understands.
My eyes drift to the women’s table.
Viviana talks animatedly with Mila, her face bright.
Katya listens, amused.
But Autumn, she sits stiff, shoulders tense, lips pressed tight.
Something is wrong.
Or maybe she’s just overwhelmed.
Either way, I feel her unease from across the room like a wire pulled tight against my spine.
Did Mila say something? No.
It’s her face; Autumn’s gone pale.
“Excuse me.” I push back from the table. Every man nods except Declan, who watches me like he already knows something’s wrong.
Fuck this.
My wife comes first. She will always come first.
I cross the room, kneel beside her chair.
“Autumn.”
She doesn’t even blink. Viviana and Mila fall silent, eyes flicking to me with concern.
“Trouble.” I take her hand gently, and that’s when I see what she’s clutching under the table.
Her phone.
The screen lit.
“Miss me?”
My vision goes black at the edges.
She tries to yank her phone back, but I pocket it instead.
“You’re surrounded by Irish and Russian mafia,” I whisper against her ear. “Trust me—you couldn’t be safer.”
She nods, barely.
I take her chin and lift her gaze to mine. Her pupils are huge with fear.
I keep my voice calm. Controlled. But inside? I’m ready to tear the city apart brick by brick.
“I will never let anything happen to you, trouble.” I kiss the tip of her nose.
She gives me a tiny smile, no words. That’s enough for now.
I rise and walk back to the table.
Flanaghan is staring with a smirk, like he enjoys the thought of her being scared.
Say something, you prick.
Let the Russians hear it.
Give them a reason to rip out your throat.
I sit, and Declan arches a brow at me.
“Nothing,” I mutter. He doesn’t believe me for a damn second.
“So,” I say, turning to Rurik, shifting back into business. “Seventy percent for us, thirty for you.”
Rurik scratches at his thick black beard, blue eyes sharp.
“That is low. We bring the guns.”
“Yes,” I agree, “but we take responsibility for moving them safely. We pay the cops, the border, the coast guard. We take the heat.”
Rurik leans back, studying us like a man weighing bones in his hands.
“And if our shipment gets caught?” he asks.
“We take the loss,” Declan says. Stepan nods once, approving but still hungry for more.
It’s the only offer we’re giving.
Dinner moves on—wine, heavy food, too much Guinness that the Russians drain like water. And then Doyle enters just as plates clear.
Perfect timing for once.
Across the room, Flanaghan staggers toward Autumn, drunk, miserable. Doyle intercepts him, hands up, trying to steer him back. The boy is trying. He had too much to drink too.
“Everything all right?” Rurik asks, stepping beside me.
“Give me five minutes,” I murmur, eyes glued to John.
Rurik takes another sip, unfazed. “He does not like your wife.”
“He doesn’t even like his own,” I say with a dark laugh.
Rurik laughs with me, low and dangerous.
John finally gives up and storms toward our table.
Rurik straightens beside me; he’s not as tall as me, but he’s broad enough to break a man in half without trying.
John looks at me.
At Rurik.
He opens his mouth, but Kian slams a hand onto his shoulder. “Don’t fuck this up.” He tilts his chin toward the bar.
Declan’s standing there, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tattoos on display, jaw locked tight. He’s waiting for someone to throw a punch so he has the excuse to bury a body tonight.
John shoves Kian and storms out.
I tell the Bratva my goodnights and rest my hand on the small of Autumn’s back. She jumps slightly, then breathes out when she sees it’s me.
“Ready to go?” I ask softly.
Her breathing speeds up.
She nods, hugs Mila, Katya and Viviana goodbye, and we leave.
“Breathe,” I murmur as we walk.
“I can’t,” she whispers.
We reach the room. I close the door, and she lets out a shuddering breath.
“Promise me something,” she says, pulling her dress down from her shoulders.
“What?” I ask.
“If we ever have kids… we will never send them to a boarding school.”
I blink. “What?”
“Mila,” she says softly. “She was sent away at eight. England. She only saw her family twice a year. Even in summers she stayed. She barely knows her brothers.”
Autumn’s eyes lock onto mine, unblinking.
“Promise.”
“I’d never send mini Flynns anywhere,” I joke.
She rolls her eyes, but it cuts through some of the tension.
“She told us it was horrible,” Autumn whispers. “Her parents didn’t care enough to keep her close.”
Her voice cracks a little.
Not for herself.
For Mila.
That’s Autumn, feeling something deeply for someone she just met.
That’s the kind of softness that makes men like me violent.
She points at my suit pocket, hands shaking, her voice barely a whisper. “Did he text anything else?”
I pull her phone out, turn it on.
One new message.
“You shouldn’t have married him.”
She gasps.
“Oh my God, Flynn, he’s going to come for you.” Her voice rises, panic igniting like a fuse. She starts pacing, hair bouncing, breaths sharp and uneven. “He’ll wait for you somewhere; he’ll stab you or shoot you—I don’t know; he’ll do something—Flynn, he—”
She’s talking too fast, hands moving, spiralling.
I step right in front of her, take her freezing hands, and pull her against my chest.
“Breathe.” My voice drops low, firm. “You’re about to have a panic attack, and I don’t want to drug you, baby.”
Her eyes lift to mine, huge and wet, pupils blown wide with terror. She’s panting, lips parted.
“Maybe that would be a good idea,” she says with a nervous, broken laugh.
“No.” I frame her face with my hands. “Listen to me. You are safe. No one is getting into this hotel. And tomorrow you stay with Viviana at the Callaghans’.”
She nods. “Right.”
A tiny, trembling smile.
“Good girl,” I whisper, brushing my thumb under her jaw.
I let her go slowly, making sure her breathing is steady before I step back. “We need to sleep. The next few days are going to be complicated.”
I walk to the bathroom and close the door behind me.
The silence hits like a punch.
I strip off my suit jacket, my shirt, toss them aside, then I face the mirror.
The Celtic tattoo covers my chest, dark lines twisting over muscle, and there, threaded into the ink, her name.
Autumn.
She doesn’t know it yet.
I drag a hand down my face, chest rising too fast, the reality pressing in.
If I die in these next days…
If this war burns us all to ash…
I’ll carry her name across my heart.
Forever.