Saint
The cuffs click shut before she wakes.
One second, she’s curled in the armchair, blanket covering her legs, air dried chestnut hair draping her cheek, and the next, her eyes snap open, wild and glassy from sleep.
“What the hell are you doing?” Her voice is a thick, sleepy rasp.
“What does it look like?” I mutter, tightening the second cuff.
She glares at me like she’d claw my eyes out if she could. “Saint…un-cuff me. Now.”
“Nope.”
“Yes!”
She sits up straight, the links pulling taut when she jangles the metal. The blanket slips and skims the empty whiskey glass I’d taken from her hand to set on the hearth after she’d fallen asleep.
“You can’t—Saint, what is this? Come on…”
I pocket the keys, ignoring the guilt twist in my gut. Because what the fuck’s that about?
“I’ve got people to see this morning. Away from the yard. And you—” I nod at her wrists, “—can’t be trusted not to run.”
“I wouldn’t run,” she lies.
“Yeah, you’d sprint,” I counter.
She clenches her fists. “So, you’re going to leave me here…like this…with nothing to do.”
“I’ll leave the TV on and give ya the remote,” I say, doing just that and dropping the remote on her lap. “I’m sure a princess like you is well used to having time on her hands.”
Walking to the door, I shrug into my jacket and pop the collar.
“You won’t get far with those on. Maybe about four feet before the dogs track your scent.”
“You’re a dick,” she hisses.
“And you’re not here for a holiday.”
Her eyes flash like a struck match. “Unlock me. Otherwise, how do you expect me to use the toilet?”
“You don’t need your hands to sit.”
She goes quiet and flops back into the armchair.
“Break the windows if ya want.” I open the door to leave. “There are surveillance cameras running twenty-four-seven. I’ll get an alert when someone comes or goes within a 2-yard radius of this place. All I have to do is call my lads, and they’ll be on ya like a swarm of flies.”
“I hate you.”
“Good,” I say over my shoulder. “There’s no point liking me. Eventually you’ll trot off back home to daddy and live your privileged Harrington life, thinking you can look down on us and steal our land.”
“When the hell have I ever looked down on you?” she grits. “I let you kiss me, remember?”
“Yeah, but let’s be honest. If you knew I was a Tallon, would ya have been that eager?”
Her pale face flushes. “I wasn’t eager…”
“Answer the question.”
She exhales, and for a second, I think she’ll admit it. But she just glares at me, chest rising with angry, uneven breaths.
“Thought as much.” I step outside where dawn hasn’t quite committed to the sky over Black Heath yet.
Stood on the porch, I inhale deeply and exhale a wintry white breath before stuffing my feet into cold work boots, not caring to lace them.
Damn that woman has my blood boiling.
The wind is bitter enough to freeze my bollocks off, and despite the drop in temperature, heat flares inside me. Not the good sort of warmth either. This is way out of my comfort zone.
After her little fireside story, she finished her drink and drifted straight to sleep right in front of me. I’d thought about carrying her to my bed and shutting the door tight.
I even stood up to do it.
But the alcohol buzzing through my bloodstream tugged me another way. I grabbed the fleecy blanket off the back of the sofa, draped it over her and stretched out on the couch.
She looked peaceful. Pretty, too.
But that tale she offloaded about her first pony told me more than she realizes.
Keira Harrington was raised to believe everything is replaceable.
Pets.
People.
Partners.
Loss doesn’t matter because her father will always buy a newer model, a shinier version, a distraction to stop her from noticing what she’s actually missing.
She thinks she’s nothing like that fucker. But Alasdair Harrington molded her into a carbon copy of himself.
A polished daughter who’s primed to pretend she doesn’t feel a damn thing about anyone, or anything… including my land.
The storm’s long passed and mist clings low to the far-off fields. I cross the yard toward Dane’s Escort, the cold biting at the back of my neck.
Dane lifts his chin and exhales a lungful of cigarette smoke. “Ready to rock n’ roll?”
“Always,” I say, opening the passenger door. “Get one of the lads to sweep the south fences. Make sure there aren’t any fallen trees.”
“Rafe and Shay took the quad bikes out half an hour ago.” Dane turns the ignition, cigarette dangling from his lips, and slams his foot on the gas. “They’ll fix any damage.”
Outside the car, the world is still caught in that twilight blue haze where time slows.
The windows are fogged and the fan blows out hot air while the engine rumbles in the early stillness.
Dane glances at me, eyes narrowed in the half-light.
“The buyer said he’d meet us at the usual place.” He cracks his window lower and tosses the butt. “Claims he’s got information about a potential hit on one of our bookies. Says it’s serious.”
I sit deeper in the seat, pulse still unsettled from leaving Keira in my cabin. The hayloft would’ve been less of a hassle.
My family owns a handful of bookmakers scattered across the South, cash-heavy and always busy, the perfect way to launder money and keep a finger on the throat of every racetrack within fifty miles.
Bloodstock is the respectable face. The real profit moves inside bets, favors, transport routes, and men who never put their names on invoices.
“He better not be full of shit,” I say, flicking the safety off my gun and sliding it back into the holster. “Dragging us out here at dawn for nothing won’t end well for him.”
A few miles east of the stud, Dane steers the car onto a narrow lane with overgrown hedgerows blurring as the car hurtles past.
Eventually the road forks, and we take the track that leads to a dense pine forest where problems could be buried without witnesses.
When Dane kills the engine next to the buyer’s old Jag, we sit there in silence with only the faint ticking of the cooling hood.
“Where the fuck is this asshole?” I shove the door open and step onto soft mud.
Dane climbs out and peers inside his vehicle.
“Yoh!” he calls. “Don’t piss me off, Eion.”
In the mud, there are fresh sets of footprints that veer away from the Jag. Our guy didn’t come alone, and I didn’t give him permission to invite anyone else to our meeting.
Dane moves ahead, checking the edges of the clearing. “Something’s up, Saint. I think we’ve got trouble.”
“Yeah,” I say, drawing my gun. “Let them come.”
A twig snaps in the treeline. The buyer appears, stumbling out of the dense foliage.
He’s jumpy, pale, and already talking too fast. “I swear to fuck, Saint, I came alone—”
He’s scared of me. But something behind him scares him more.
Movement explodes around him.
A man with a shaved head and a butcher’s build comes through the undergrowth, machete raised for Dane’s throat.
I put a bullet in him then glare at the buyer. “Who did ya bring?”
Another figure moves to my right. The first swing hits my forearm instead of my throat. A second follows fast.
The blade opens the back of my bicep. Heat spills under my sleeve as my hand locks around his throat and I drive my forehead into his nose.
He staggers backward into the nearest tree, its thin branches rattling and a rain of needles falling around us.
Blood pours from his nose, staining his gnashing teeth.
When he spits blood at my face, I don’t give him a reaction.
“Bet ya thought the Tallons ruled the whole county,” he pants. “Seems you’re slipping.”
I squeeze the hollow of his throat until the next breath catches halfway up. His eyes widen, all that borrowed courage thinning out fast.
“Unregistered stock,” I say, pressing the barrel beneath his jaw. “On my land.”
He claws at my wrist. “Everyone…uses someone’s…land.”
“Not mine.” I jab the barrel in harder. “Whoever sent ya can pay me for the privilege, or they can lose men until they understand my rules.”
His eyes glass over and his body starts making small, useless bargains for air. When he goes still, I let him drop and glance at the blood trickling down my fingers from under my sleeve.
“Go back and tell them it ends now.”
I wipe his blood from my cheek with my thumb.
“Next time, I won’t send anyone back.”
He sucks in air and scrambles away, not looking at me for even a second.
“You’re bleeding,” Dane mutters.
“It’s just a scratch.”
“You sure about that?”
“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” I growl. “Let’s get him back to the yard and find out what Eion knows.”
“Wait…” Eion bleats. “I don’t know anything. I swear. They just showed up.”
Dane grabs him by the Barbour jacket and forces him into the backseat. “They just happened to show up in the arsehole of nowhere at the same time as us?”
“They must’ve followed me.”
Through the glass, the buyer keeps staring at me. Sweating. Praying.
I lift the gun just enough for him to see it. He looks away first, and I return it to the holster before climbing into the front passenger seat.
Dane looks over, takes off his puffy coat and tosses it at me. “For fucks sake, Saint, don’t bleed over the interior.”
I cock a brow at him. “Get Shay to feed the body to the pigs.”
As we pull away, dawn breaks over the treetops, welcoming a new day, a new body to dispose of, and a wound that’s not done bleeding.
The dogs bark when we pull up in front of the main stable block.
“Take him down the track to the old barn,” I say, half out of the car. “We need to know who thinks they can fuck with us. I’ll get sorted and join ya in five.”
“What about the girl?” Dane asks when I’ve climbed out and dumped his coat on the seat. “You just leaving her up there to rot?”
“Harringtons don’t rot.” I duck down and peer inside at him. “They always come up smelling of flowers. She’ll be fine.”
I straighten and slam the door shut. Tyson sits at my heel because the big Rottweiler was trained to sniff out blood. I rub his head and watch Dane drive off.
“Look after the yard, Ty… Be a good boy and stay here,” I order, before heading back to my cabin.