Legacy Of Ashes (The Kavanagh Crime Family #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

"Traditional import dependency models are bullshit."

The word lands like a slap across Oxford's pristine conference hall. Three hundred economists shift in their seats. Professor Morrison's eyebrows shoot up. Good—I have their attention now.

"Sorry," I say, not sorry at all. "But polite academic language won't fix broken systems. When we examine Southeast Asian markets, we're not looking at numbers on a spreadsheet. We're looking at human lives."

I click to my next slide, adrenaline singing through my veins. Six years at Oxford taught me that being brilliant isn't enough—you have to be memorable. Dr. Saoirse Kavanagh doesn't play nice.

My phone buzzes against my thigh.

"The correlation between infrastructure investment and trade dependency—" I glance down. Text from Mother: Emerald down. Come home.

My mouth goes dry. The remote slips in my suddenly sweaty palm.

Emerald down. Dad's code name. It means one thing: Tiernan Kavanagh is dying.

"—shows a clear pattern when we account for political instability," I continue, muscle memory taking over while my world collapses. "As demonstrated in this regression analysis?—"

Another buzz. Cillian: Emergency. Call NOW.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I speed through the remaining slides, my heartbeat drowning out the applause. Colleagues swarm forward with questions, but I'm already moving.

"Family emergency," I throw over my shoulder, pushing through bodies toward the exit.

The corridor's limestone walls close in around me. These ancient stones were my fortress for six years—undergrad, PhD, fellowship. I built Dr. Saoirse Kavanagh here, piece by careful piece. Someone respectable. Someone clean.

Someone who's never killed anyone.

My phone rings.

"What happened?" I demand.

"Stroke," Cillian says without preamble. "Massive. He's alive, but barely responsive. Right side paralysis, speech fucked."

I lean against the wall, fighting nausea. "Recovery?"

"Unknown. But that's not why I'm calling." His voice drops. "Word's out. Every crew in Boston smells blood. Moretti. Donovan. New players we don't even know yet."

"How long do we have?"

"They're already moving. Shipments intercepted. Bribes falling through. Three of our judges just recused themselves from pending cases."

Of course they are. Vultures always circle the wounded.

"What about—" I stop myself.

"Conall?" Cillian knows me too well. "He's holding the line. But this isn't about muscle anymore. It's about legitimacy. Political connections. Financial networks. The stuff you actually understand."

Conall. Even his name sends heat spiraling through my belly. Stupid, considering I haven't seen him in two years. Considering he's Dad's enforcer and I'm supposed to be the reformed academic daughter.

The memory hits without warning: age ten, pressed against his chest in the panic room while gunfire erupted outside. His heartbeat steady against my cheek. The smell of his cologne mixing with gun oil and danger.

"Quiet, princess," he whispered, lips brushing my hair. "I'll keep you safe. Always."

I was too young to understand why his touch made me feel strange. Why I wanted to curl closer. Why I cried when they sent me to boarding school the next week.

I'm not too young anymore.

"Saoirse? You there?"

"Yeah." I shake off the memory. "What do you need?"

"You. Here. Tonight." Cillian exhales. "The family's hemorrhaging money and influence by the hour. Mother's holding vigil at the hospital. Eamon's knee-deep in street wars. I'm drowning in legitimate business crises."

"I can't just abandon my research?—"

"Your research won't matter if we're all dead."

The brutal honesty hits home. I've been playing academic while my family bleeds.

"There's a plane at Heathrow," Cillian continues. "Wheels up in two hours."

My emergency bag waits in my bedroom wardrobe. Always packed, always ready. Fake passport, cash, encrypted phone. Because no matter how far I run, I'm still Tiernan Kavanagh's daughter.

I'm still the girl who learned to strip a Glock before she could drive.

Who speaks four languages and knows seventeen ways to kill someone with household objects.

Who earned her PhD in international economics while writing her dissertation on money laundering networks—partly to understand how to dismantle them, partly to improve our own.

The other academics see Dr. Kavanagh, brilliant researcher and EU consultant. They don't see the princess who was groomed to inherit an empire.

They don't see the woman who's been running from her desire for her father's most dangerous man.

"How bad is it really?" I ask.

"Bad enough that Conall asked me to call you personally." Cillian's voice gentles. "He knows you hate coming home. But he also knows you're the only one who can navigate both worlds. Legal and illegal. Academic and street. We need that bridge, Saoirse."

Conall asked for me. The knowledge shouldn't make my nipples tighten, but it does.

"Is he..." I stop, hating myself for asking.

"He's fine. Worried about you, though. Says you've been away too long."

My throat closes. Two years since I last saw him. Two years of avoiding family gatherings where his presence would fill the room like smoke—dangerous and intoxicating.

"I'll be there," I hear myself say.

"Really?"

"Really." I'm already walking toward the exit. "But I'm not staying long. Just until Dad recovers or?—"

"Or until we crown a new king," Cillian finishes quietly.

The thought stops me cold. Dad's empire without Dad. The family without its patriarch. Chaos.

"Two hours," I repeat.

"Two hours. And Saoirse? Pack everything. This isn't a visit anymore."

The line goes dead.

I stand in Oxford's hallway, surrounded by centuries of academic tradition, and face the truth I've been avoiding: I was never really free. The blood of Irish kings flows in my veins, mixed with the ruthlessness of Boston's most feared crime family.

And somewhere in Boston, Conall Devlin waits for me.

My pulse quickens at the thought of seeing him again. Of those gray eyes that strip away pretense. Of hands that have killed for my family now reaching for me.

I have two hours to pack up six years of lies and become what I was born to be.

Two hours before facing the man I've wanted since I was old enough to understand desire.

Game on.