Saint
Dane is behind me before I reach my truck.
I reach for the driver’s door.
“No,” he says.
I don’t turn around. “I need to head out.”
“I know where you’re going and you’re not driving.”
My hand closes around the handle. “It’s not up to you.”
“Want me to shoot up your tires?”
That gets my attention.
Dane moves in front of me, clever enough not to put his hands on me because he knows better.
Rafe appears from the feed room, slower, curious at first, then wary when he sees Dane between me and the truck.
“What’s going on?”
“Saint thinks he’s driving,” Dane says.
“I am driving.”
“No,” Dane says. “You’ve had too much to drink tonight.”
I let out a breath through my nose and stare out at the dark road beyond the gates. “I’m not drunk.”
“I didn’t say ya were.”
“Then get the fuck out of my way.”
“You’re over the limit.”
I look back at him. “Since when do ya give a fuck about that shit?”
“Since you’re about to put yourself in a ditch before ya even make it to her.”
Rafe’s eyebrows lift. “Her?”
The keys bite into my palm.
“Keira Harrington,” Dane tells him. “He’s going across the heath to speak to her.”
Rafe stalks closer, eyes narrowing. “Are you for real? What are ya planning to do? Turn up at Harrington’s front door and ask if you can play with his daughter?”
“I’m gonna make things right with her,” I say.
Dane’s gaze flickers over my face, then drops to the keys in my fist. “Then I’ll drive.”
“No.”
“You’ve had enough liquor to make it illegal, and you’ve enough control left to know I’m right. I only had a few mouthfuls. We’ll go in my car.”
Dane holds my stare. As my brother, he knows he’s one of the few men who can challenge me.
Rafe folds his arms. “What’s the point, mate? They’re all liars.”
He should stop there but Rafe has always had a talent for stepping a foot over the line just to see how far he can go.
“She’s never going to want to be with a Tallon,” he adds. “Not now her name’s on the land and she thinks that’s all you’re after. Her da counted on her hating us after what we did to her. And now she’s left the stud, we can’t touch her again.”
Dane blows out a heavy breath. “Leave it, Rafe.”
I kill the space between us and fist Rafe’s jacket, driving him backward into the barn. His hands come up, not fighting, not yet.
“Don’t talk about what Keira wants. If she chooses me, that choice is hers. Not yours, not her da’s, and not even mine.”
Rafe’s chest rises beneath my fist.
I hold him there, long enough for him to know I’m not asking him to understand this. I’m fucking telling him.
“She walks to me, or she doesn’t,” I say. “And if she does, you’ll get the fuck over it.”
Rafe straightens his jacket when I unhand him. “It’s not me ya need to convince. Ma will try to kill her.”
“Then you’d better stop her,” I tell him. “Stay here.”
His eyes flash. “Saint.”
“Stay here.”
This time, he hears the order under it.
Dane opens the Ford passenger door. “C’mon.”
I get in and light a cigarette while Dane starts the engine and puts his foot down. He drives in silence for the first mile.
The road out of Black Heath runs narrow between overgrown hedges, black fields on either side, the sky navy and moonless.
“This is more than her name being on the land, right?” Dane asks. “It’s about you and her.”
I stare through the windshield. The headlights carve the road into brief, violent pieces.
“Yeah.”
I don’t say anything else. Some truths turn weak when spoken out loud, and this one is still raw enough to hurt. When the solicitor told me her name was on it, I knew I couldn’t make her stay, or the land would’ve torn us apart.
“Drive faster.” I draw in more smoke and fidget with the lighter.
By the time we reach the Harrington estate, the front gates are closed. Black iron rises between stone pillars, the Harrington crest worked into the center as if old blood becomes cleaner when it’s forged into metal.
Lights glow along the treelined drive beyond, the gothic mansion set back in shadows, all windows, wealth and power pretending it has better manners than everyone else.
Dane slows the car in front of the gates.
Two security men move out the gatehouse when he pulls up the handbrake. Another appears near the side entrance, hand already moving to the radio clipped to his jacket.
When I get out one of the guards lifts a hand. “Mr. Tallon, you need to leave.”
“I’m here for Keira.”
He comes forward, palm out. “You’re not getting in.”
“Tell her I’m outside.”
Another guard speaks into the radio. “Saint Tallon is at the front gate wanting to speak to Miss Harrington.”
I move closer and catch a guy’s wrist when he pushes me back.
He has half a second to regret it.
I twist, throw him down against the bonnet of the car, and strip the baton from his belt. My elbow catches a second guard under the jaw, sending him into the stone pillar.
The third guy rushes at me. I catch his punch on my forearm and drive my fist into his ribs until his body folds around the impact. Another guy swings wild, but I put him on the ground with enough force to take the wind out of him.
Dane gets out of the car and swears.
Someone comes at me from behind. I reach round, grab him by the jacket, and force him into the gate.
When he reaches for my throat, I ram my forearm across his neck, pinning him there while I lean close enough for him to smell the liquor on my breath and the control beneath it.
“Open the fucking gate.”
Behind the bars, another security man raises a gun.
Dane joins me and he draws his gun. “We’ve got a cocky fucker here, Saint.”
I release the guard and turn toward the barrel pointed at me.
The guy holding it is young. His hands are steady enough, but his eyes keep flicking past me to the men on the ground. He’s heard stories about me. Everyone has.
I put a hand on the gate. “You’re not really going to fire that thing when there’s a big gate between us.”
“No one gets through these gates without Mr. Harrington’s say.”
I stare past him toward the mansion. “Then get him and lower your fucking gun.”
Dane keeps his gun aimed at the guy through the iron bars. “Saint, listen to me. If we go through him, this becomes something we can’t walk back.”
“This guy has ten seconds to stop pointing that at me.”
Headlights flare at the top of the drive.
For a second, everything in me stops moving except my pulse.
The car comes fast, its beams slashing through the iron bars and washing the guards in blinding light.
The car brakes on the other side of the gates, and the rear door opens first.
Alasdair Harrington steps out as if he has arrived for dinner rather than to face a man with blood on his knuckles and three of his guards trying to breathe.
He fastens a button on his jacket and assesses the carnage I’ve left at his front gates.
Fionn gets out on the other side, and then I realize she’s not in there. My heart kicks hard enough to make my ribs answer.
Alasdair smiles. “I heard you’re looking for my daughter?”
I spit blood onto the tarmac at my boots. “She’s not your daughter anymore. Keira’s mine.”
Fionn strolls to his father’s side. “She’s not here, Tallon.”
I lift the gun before the last word leaves his mouth.
The guards behind the gate react, hands moving, bodies shifting, but Alasdair doesn’t flinch when the barrel settles on his chest.
His confidence comes from years of men raising their weapons to protect him, so his hands stay clean.
“Bring her to me,” I demand.
Alasdair glances at Dane and laughs, quiet and rich with contempt. “Christ, boy. You really think she’d be with a man like you?”
My gun stays steady.
Smugness tugs the side of his mouth. “Your plan backfired, boy. This is my victory.”
I move to the iron bars, aim locked on Alasdair through the gaps.
“Let me see her, Harrington.”
His eyes flash at that. Satisfaction disturbed by an inconvenience he thought he had already cleared away.
“You have no shame,” he says with the flat disgust of a man who believes shame belongs to other people. “You come here after snatching her from my gala, locking her up in your filthy little cabin, and now you’re standing at my gates demanding to see her because she’s got what you want.”
My fingers flex once around the grip.
Fionn watches the movement. Dane does too.
Alasdair takes one step closer, stopping just beyond the reach of my arm through the bars.
“You’re only here to manipulate my daughter into giving you the land,” he says. “That will never happen. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m not here for the land.”
My voice comes out rough, blood still hot on my tongue, but the truth is clean underneath it.
“I’m here for her.”
Fionn walks to the gates. “Time to leave, Tallon.”
“Not without speaking to her.”
“Whatever you think she feels for you, she doesn’t.”
My aim slides from father to son.
Fionn’s expression stays stern. “Watch who you’re pointing that thing at, Tallon. You’re starting to get on my nerves.”
“You got on my nerves the second ya showed up. Now let me speak to her,” I say.
“No.”
“Tell her I’m here.”
“She’s already gone.”
My brows snap together.
Already gone.
Fionn lifts his wrist and checks his gold watch, the motion feigning boredom.
“My sister is currently in our jet, flying far away from all of us.”
The gun remains level in my hand even when my fraying temper is ready to snap.
“Where’s she going?”
Fionn lowers his wrist. “Somewhere you can’t follow.”
I jab my gun through the gate, making Fionn’s eyes flick to it before they return to mine.
“Where?”
“Somewhere warm probably,” he says.
Dane turns to me. “Saint.”
This time, it is a warning.
I hear him. I even understand him. Crowley’s team will be here soon. Harrington’s men are gathering on the drive, and every second I stand here gives Alasdair more to use against me.
But fuck it all.
“Look at you, boy,” Alasdair chuckles. “Bleeding at my gate because a Harrington smiled at you in captivity. Did you think she’d want you? That she’d choose you over her own blood?”
My gaze drills into his.
He’s pushing me to shoot him. To make me the Tallon animal who reacted to a Harrington patriarch. If I give him that, Keira would never forgive me.
I lower the gun by a fraction, not as a surrender, though. More of a choice.
“She got the better of you,” he says. “And at the end of it all, she saw who you really are.”
I wipe blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand.
“How about ya let her speak for herself. Keira’s a grown woman, Harrington. Let her decide.”
Fionn sighs, and I look at him.
“Where did ya send her?” I repeat.
He doesn’t answer.
Alasdair’s voice cuts in. “Turn around now, before I have you put down in front of my gates.”
Dane’s hand grips my shoulder from behind. “We need to go.”
The first distant siren threads through the night.
“Run back to Black Heath, Tallon,” Alasdair flicks his wrist. “You lost.”
I glare at the two Harrington men. At Keira’s family.
Alasdair’s mouth holds its smug curve. Fionn stands beside him, suit jacket open, hands sliding into his trouser pockets.
“Time to leave, Tallon,” Fionn warns. “She’s gone.”
Gone.
The word empties something out of me so fast I almost don’t feel the blood running down my chin.
I came here ready to drag her away from them.
I didn’t come ready to find out she’d left without looking back.
My aim slides from Harrington to Fionn.
I step back from the gate.
One pace.
Then another.
I drag the back of my hand across my mouth, smearing blood over my knuckles. The taste of iron sits heavy on my tongue.
Dane says my name from behind me. “Saint.”
I lift the gun again.
Fionn’s hand comes out of his pocket at once, black metal catching the gate light as he draws and aims at my chest.
At least one Harrington understands the conversation has changed.
“Careful, boy,” Alasdair mutters. “You’re outnumbered.”
In a heartbeat, I aim past him, pull the trigger and shoot the front tire of their car.
The sound cracks across the estate. Rubber bursts, and the car drops forward on one side.
Fionn swears.
My second shot takes the other front tire.
“Walk back, motherfuckers.”
Dane reaches me and grips my shoulder. “We’re done here.”
I keep my eyes on Fionn.
“I’m going to find her,” I say.
His jaw tightens. “You won’t.”
“And you underestimate me.”
“She doesn’t want you, Saint,” he says. “And she never will.”
My chest locks so tight I can’t draw a full breath.
Dane’s hand tightens on my shoulder. “Saint.”
I wipe my mouth again, slower this time, and taste blood under my thumb.
Then everything in me shuts down.
I head for the Ford and stop with my hand on the passenger door. “You still think this is about land? Your daughter belongs to me now, Harrington. That’s fucking fact.”
I get in before he can answer. Dane slams his door, throws the car into reverse, and tears away from the gates.
My gun sits on my lap, one hand loose over it, my muscles braced, outwardly passing for calm.
Dane glances over. “He could be lying. They wanted ya off balance.”
I can barely breathe, so I don’t speak. My fingers close around the gun, then release.
“Saint.”
I stare through the windshield.
“Maybe this is how it really ends,” he mutters. “You just have to ask yourself if ya can live with knowing she owns the land and not her da. He’s the bastard we’ve grown up hating, and she’s—”
“Stop fucking talking.”
By the time Black Heath stud comes into view, I’ve buried the whole thing deep in my chest.
When the Ford pulls into the yard, Rafe is already waiting near the main barn, walking our way before the engine dies.
He comes forward as I get out. “What happened?”
I walk past him.
“Saint.”
“Leave it,” Dane mutters.
Rafe ignores him and calls after me. “I need to tell ya something.”
I keep walking, light a cigarette, needing something to ground me, and head straight for the cabin, passing the smoldering table.
The door is unlocked, and the lights are off. I move to the kitchen and pull the fridge open, grabbing a cool bottle of beer, hooking the cap against the counter edge, and flicking it off.
It spins across the floor and disappears. I drink until the cold numbs my throat, but it does nothing to kill the anger knotted inside me.
I slam the bottle onto the counter. Foam jumps up the neck. My hand stays wrapped around the glass.
Then I let go before I break it and drag my palm over my face, pressing hard enough to pull at the drying blood on my mouth.
My spine tingles. Awareness spreads across my scalp in a sudden, silent rush.
“Saint…”
I turn around, heart thumping to find Keira getting to her feet from the couch, her expression stone cold.