Lawless Rivals (Irish Mafia Dynasty #1)

Saint

“How are ya getting the girl out?”

The collar of my starched white shirt bites at my throat.

“Same as always.” I tap the gun under my jacket. “Negotiate.”

The night reeks of wet earth, a heavy downpour turning the fields beyond us to swamp. We stride toward Cork’s prestigious Ardglass Stud, its grand entrance gleaming beneath the floodlights.

The armed doormen straighten when they see us. I breathe out a cloud of frosty air and wait. After a glance at the guest list, they find our names and step aside.

Inside, the air’s thick with roasted beef and top-shelf liquor. Laughter rings hollow beneath chandeliers that sprinkle fractured light across jewels and watches worth more than most could afford.

My smart shoes click over marble while portraits of long-dead men watch me, judging, or maybe recognizing their own ruthless kind.

Maybe the snobby bastards can sense the storm I’m bringing through their front door.

“You’re good, Saint,” Dane mutters, eyes sweeping the crowd. “But ya really think a Harrington will leave a charity event quietly—just because you ask nice?”

I cut him a sideways look. “You ever known me to fuck up a job?”

A crack of static hisses in my earpiece. Then Rafe’s voice comes through: “Do we even know what Keira looks like these days? Last I heard, she was holed up in Paris.”

Dane snorts, snatching a champagne flute from a waiter whose bow tie looks tight enough to cut off air. He drains it in one swallow.

“You can always spot a Harrington,” he says, lowering the glass. “Stuck-up. Polished. Smells like money and lies.”

The Harringtons are old-blood horse breeders and mafia royalty, born with ancestral wealth and judges willing to look the other way.

I weave through the crowd, scanning exits, counting cameras, noting the staircase curling up to the mezzanine.

We’re their neighbors across Black Heath, but we built our legacy with grit, muscle, and jobs that don’t leave clean hands.

There’s a stretch of our land between them and us that runs to the river. When I was fifteen, my father’s corpse turned up there, and nobody ever gave me a reason that made sense.

That strip doesn’t just hold my father’s blood. It controls the only quiet route from our yard to the river, and Harrington knows exactly what that’s worth.

I’ve been fighting for access ever since.

Tonight, we remind Alasdair Harrington whose land he’s stolen.

Rafe’s voice comes again, full of amusement. “I’ve got eyes on Fionn Vaughn Harrington. Jesus, he’s such a pretty boy prick.”

“Where?” I ask, angling my face toward the balcony overhead. “Is Keira with him?”

“I’m in the trophy room. But she’s not here.”

“Maybe she’s with her da.” Dane nods toward the ballroom. “We’ll split up.”

I give a curt nod before he disappears into the sea of suits and arrogance. Reaching into my jacket for a smoke, I grit my teeth and sigh.

This crowd would frown on indoor smoking, and I can’t risk getting thrown out before I’ve found the Harrington girl.

I keep the cigarettes in my pocket and make for the stairs instead. A higher vantage point will give me a better view. The string quartet’s music trails after me, a ghost of sound rising with every step.

From the top, the people below blur into a mass of glitter and obnoxious noise.

Movement catches my eye. My head snaps up, focus narrowing on the mezzanine opposite me. A flash of silk, the curve of a feminine shoulder, and heels tapping.

Keira Harrington.

Christ.

She’s not the bland brat I barely remember from years ago. Tonight she’s all curves and elegance. Paris has molded her into a fine woman. Completely untouchable for any man beneath her social status.

Chestnut hair hangs loose around milky white shoulders, and that slinky dress of hers clings to curves like it’s liquid gold.

She slips into a side room off the mezzanine, the door not quite closing behind her.

Seizing the opportunity, I follow, keeping my steps light so she doesn’t hear my approach. I give her a minute and then step inside the room, meeting warm air scented with lilies and furniture polish.

Keira stands by the window, half-lit by the moon, her silhouette perfect in its proportions. The phone glows in her hand while she stares at the face of some French guy.

“Keira, mon amour… I made a mistake. You know I love you, always.”

His syrupy-sweet words pour through the speaker, and I shake my head. What a fucking loser.

As she listens to his bullshit, there’s no way to read her posture. She stands with the seasoned grace of a true Harrington. A woman trained to hide her emotions and never trade composure for fools.

“I’m not going back to Paris for you, Lucien,” she says at last. “You cheated. That was your choice.”

“Ah, bébé,” the man on the phone purrs. “We had good sex, didn’t we? You’re all I think about.”

The arrogance in his voice hits my gut. I prowl closer, a shadow on the hunt. This is my opening.

Keira startles when I reach her side, but she doesn’t say a word. Just nips her bottom lip when I slide an arm around her waist and jerk her into me, close enough for the camera to frame us both.

“She’s moved on,” I say, voice steady, eyes locked on the screen. “Find someone else to beg for sex.”

Lucien’s cocky smile falters. When he opens his mouth to argue, I catch her chin and press my mouth to hers, slow and teasing.

She goes rigid for half a second. Then her lips give, and everything shrinks to the sweet taste of her. To the warmth of her mouth opening under mine, the slick press of her tongue.

When I tighten my hand at her jaw and take it deeper, she lets me. Her fingers close on my lapel and pull.

The room fades. The job slips away. For a heartbeat the slippery kiss stops being a trick and turns into temptation itself.

She’s warm through the dress, and when I flatten my palm at the small of her back and drag her flush, her body answers before her head does. Her nipples draw up hard against my chest through that thin fabric, and my cock stirs behind my zip like I’m fifteen years old.

Her dirty little whimper slips free the same instant Lucien mutters something under his breath. Keira Harrington kisses me back with either hunger or sheer rebellion. I can’t tell which. And I don’t plan to read into it.

I catch her bottom lip between my teeth on the way out of the kiss and tug so her breath breaks. She chases my mouth. Actually fucking chases it. A Harrington, at her da’s own event, with the French prick still on the line.

All I know is she tastes of spearmint and sin, and my pulse has kicked up.

And I’m hard for the daughter of the man I’d fucking gut given half the chance.

When the call disconnects, her phone slips from her hand, landing without a sound at our feet.

I pull back just enough to see her ocean-gray eyes with inky pupils blown wide. Her mouth is wet and swollen, her lips parted while she catches her breath, and her chest rises fast enough to strain that slinky gold neckline.

“Do I know you?” she asks, tugging her brows tight. “You look…familiar.”

“Ciarán.” My real name comes out strange given I rarely use it.

She steps back, fingertips brushing her mouth. “Well, Ciarán, I came up here to grab five minutes alone. Not to entertain.”

I fish out a cigarette from the pack, needing the distraction, the ritual. The flint in my lighter flares, reflecting in the windowpane while it sets the tobacco on fire.

“We had the same idea. I came up here to get away from disapproving eyes.” I take a slow drag, the smoke drifting between us, as thin as the lie. “You won’t tell on me for having a smoke, will ya, princess?”

Keira tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “No, but the smoke detectors might give you away.” Her gaze cuts to the exits. “Was that kiss part of your plan, too?”

I take another long drag, letting the smoke fill my lungs and leave through my nostrils before I answer. “That was the fastest way to put down a begging mutt.”

She huffs a cute laugh, half disbelief, half amused. “Is that what you think he is?”

“That’s what I think guys like him turn into when they realize they’ve fucked up.”

She studies me through the smoke haze. “And what are you then? One of the few good guys?”

I flick ash into a vase and ignore her question. “You can do better than a prick called Lucien.”

The smile that follows is so damn genuine and unrehearsed that it lights something warm and stupid behind my ribs.

For a second, we just stand still, me with a cigarette hanging from my lips, her with that pretty smile of hers.

The evening feels too charged for what I’m here to do.

Then Rafe’s voice snaps in my ear. “Does anyone have eyes on her, for fuck’s sake?”

The world jerks back into focus. I stub out the cigarette, the ember hissing.

“Guess I should head back downstairs before the sprinklers start,” I say, forcing an easy tone while my pulse thrums under Rafe’s impatience.

Keira tilts her head, a smaller smile tugging at her lips. “Maybe I’ll see you down there?”

“Or,” I say, stepping closer, “we skip dinner and take a walk to the stables instead. A place like this must have a heated barn. I’ll have a smoke, and ya can steal five minutes to yourself, without the loneliness.”

I rake a hand through my hair, lazy, like I’m thinking about her instead of what comes next.

“Unless you’d rather sit through five courses pretending to enjoy the food while all those people stare at ya.”

She arches a brow, amusement flickering despite herself. “And why should I go anywhere with you? How do I know you don’t want something? Everyone I meet always wants something from me.”

“Well,” I say, a half-smile catching, “maybe that’s the problem. You keep saying yes to the wrong people.”

Her laugh is soft, reluctant. “You’ve got a strange way of giving advice.”

“I don’t hand it out often.”

“Then I’m flattered.” She looks at me for a heartbeat too long, then nods. “Fine. I’ll go for a walk with you if you give me a cigarette.”

“A good girl like you smokes?”

“How do you know I’m a good girl, Ciarán?”

I hold out a hand, meaning it to be polite, nothing more. But when her soft fingers link with my callused ones, warmth sparks through my chest like a match struck in the dark.

“I’m guessing you’re Fionn’s sister, right?” I start walking to the door. “The one who lived in Paris…with Lucien, the cheating dickhead.”

She smirks. “Ah, right. You know my brother. That must be why you look so familiar. I feel like we’ve met before.”

We step out onto the mezzanine and make our way downstairs, hand in hand. The hallway’s quieter now, the guests all seated in the ballroom at the far end.

Dane is stationed by the door, watching who goes in and out. One glance from me, a slight tilt of the chin, and he knows the plans are in full swing.

We’ve been doing this long enough that words aren’t needed. He disappears toward the side entrance, a shadow moving ahead of us.

Keira squeezes my hand as we push out into the blustery evening air and start down the steps.

“So, Ciarán,” she says, her voice light and a little shivery, “aside from pissing off exes, what do you do for a living?”

I smile sideways, slip off my tux jacket, and settle it over her shoulders.

“A bit of everything. Buying land. Breeding horses. Enforcing boundaries.” I meet her eyes. “You?”

“I studied architecture at uni, even though my father wanted me to be a barrister, or whatever.” She sighs. “I convinced him that having two children with law degrees was over the top.”

Keira laughs, the sound bright against the night as we cross onto gravel. Her high heels wobble, yet she steadies herself with grace and carries on.

“Did you study law with Fionn?”

“Nah, university wasn’t my thing,” I say as headlights flare.

A black SUV speeds along the driveway and skids to a halt before us.

For one stupid second, I look at her instead of keeping my head in the job.

Her smile fades as the SUV pulls in, and my pulse gives one hard kick.

She’s about to learn who I am.

“Wait.” Keira hesitates. “Is that—?”

Before she can piece it all together, Dane jogs out of the shadows behind her, fast and silent. The burlap drops over her head in one clean motion.

She jerks, cries out, but he’s already got her arms pinned.

“You’re a fucking legend, Saint,” Dane grins, hauling her toward the SUV. “Didn’t think ya had a hope in hell of getting her out here.”

I light up a cigarette while Keira thrashes, voice muffled under the fabric. “Are you kidding me? You’re Saint? Saint Tallon… You lying bastard!”

Before her screams climb higher, Rafe’s out of the driver’s seat, yanking open the rear door while Dane muscles her into the back and ropes her wrists together.

“I’ll hang here for a bit,” Dane says, slamming the door and killing the sound of her rant. “Make sure the plan unfolds properly.”

“Be careful,” I tell him. “We gotta play it cool for now.”

I clap his arm and slide into the front passenger seat. In the mirror, Keira’s neck twists under the sack, her breathing quick and furious.

Rafe guns the engine. Gravel spits in our wake, and the estate lights vanish behind us.

“Buckle up, princess,” I say, the words dry in my throat. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not one of the good guys. And now the countdown has started, you’re about to learn what kind of man I really am.”