Chapter 2
Axl
My head pounds like someone’s taken a sledgehammer to my skull. I crack my eyes open, but the world stays dark. I try to move my hands, and my wrists protest. Zip ties.
My vision clears, and I take in an underground bunker. I’m sitting in a chair, my ankles bound to the legs. The air smells like damp concrete and rust. Somewhere, water drips, making my headache worse.
I force myself to breathe slowly, to catalogue what I know. I’m alive. That’s something. I’m restrained but not dead, which means whoever grabbed me wants me alive. For now.
I shift in the chair and try to think back to what the fuck happened.
This morning, in the kitchen, someone shot Ciar through a side window while he sat drinking coffee.
Cillian and I moved outside, where I was shot with a tranq dart, and Cillian fought like a hellbeast. They were clearly after me and took out the biggest, most dangerous one of us to get to me.
All the while, Sorcha was asleep upstairs.
I test the zip ties again, feeling for any give. Nothing. Professional job. These aren’t amateurs who grabbed me. The chair is bolted to the floor, which rules out trying to smash it against something to break free.
Footsteps echo from somewhere above me. I count them. Two sets. Heavy boots. Men, probably both over six feet, based on the weight of the footfalls. They’re not rushing, which means they’re confident.
A door creaks open at the top of a staircase I can barely make out in the gloom. The footsteps grow louder as they descend, and I keep my breathing even, my expression neutral. Give them nothing.
Two figures emerge from the shadows. Both wearing black. The one in front is older, maybe mid-forties, with a scar running down his left cheek. The one behind is younger, broader, with dead eyes that tell me he’s a killer.
“Mr Rhodes,” the scarred one says, his accent distinctly Dublin. “You’re awake. Good.”
“Lord Rhodes,” I correct him with an arrogant smirk.
He chuckles. “My mistake.” He pulls up another chair and sits down, straddling it backwards like we’re about to have a friendly chat. “I’m going to make this very simple for you. Agree to pack your bags and leave Ireland, never to return, taking your new bride with you, and we won’t kill you.”
I snort. “Oh, really? And why would I do that?”
He doesn’t reply. He is stalling. He has no intention of letting me out of here alive, but he wants something from me first. My thoughts go to the cross, but no one knew about that… that we know of.
Eventually, he says, “My boss doesn’t want her dead. You, on the other hand, are fair game if you don’t comply.”
“And your boss is?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does, so I know who to kill when I get out of here.”
The threat isn’t idle, and we all know it.
The scarred man leans back, studying me like I’m an interesting specimen. “Brave words for someone zip-tied to a chair.”
“I’ve been in worse positions,” I say, keeping my voice casual. It’s true. This isn’t even close to the worst situation I’ve found myself in. “So who’s your boss? Give me a name so I know whose funeral to attend after this.”
“Robert Gannon.”
I wait a beat before I laugh in his fucking face. “Gannon, is it? Which branch of that illustrious tree does the mysterious Robert belong to?”
“The legitimate branch,” he says with a chilling smile.
The name clangs like a bell then. Robert. Cian’s younger brother. Sorcha’s other half-brother. “I see. Thought he was one of the good guys. What changed?”
He shrugs. “Not my place to speculate.”
“So you want me and Sorcha out of Ireland, away from St. Bart’s so he can… move in?”
Silence. Which means I’m getting warmer.
“But not as a student. He wants to rule, am I right?” Gannon might not be a founding family per se, but he is powerful enough to get the board on his side if he chooses to.
This makes me think, something bigger is going down that is separate to the cross, separate to Sorcha being a rogue and feral Gannon.
For some reason, he thinks Sorcha and I are standing in his way.
Me, most specifically, having the founding ties to St. Bart’s.
More silence, but it’s simmering now.
“If you kill me, Sorcha will come for you so hard, you won’t know what hit you.”
“We know, that’s why our boss is giving you this option to leave.”
“You think she’ll just pack up and leave with me? You clearly don’t know Sorcha Gannon.”
“We know enough,” Scarface says, standing up and picking up the chair to take with him. He nods to the silent killer behind him. “You have twenty-four hours to decide. After that, we start sending her pieces of you until she agrees to our terms.”
“Romantic,” I drawl, testing the zip ties again. Still nothing. “Does Robert know you’re threatening to dismember his brother-in-law? Seems like bad form.”
“Robert Gannon doesn’t care about you, Lord Rhodes. He cares about removing obstacles.” Scarface heads for the stairs, his companion following. “Think about our offer. We’ll be back.”
The door slams shut, plunging me back into darkness. I count to thirty, then start working on the zip ties. The plastic cuts into my wrists, but I don’t stop. Pain is just information, and right now, the information I need is how to get the fuck out of here.
Robert Gannon. Cian’s brother. Does Cian know about this?
Is he a part of it? He has been working overtime to get Sorcha back to England under his ‘care’.
It seems unlikely, seeing as he had her unconscious on the back of his van and then let her go.
Robert has gone rogue. Clearly not happy to be the younger Gannon brother, he is making moves to elevate himself back in the homeland, in Ireland, away from his brother’s kingdom.
It makes a sick kind of sense when you think about it, but that doesn’t help me get out of here and back to Sorcha.
My entire role here is to convince Sorcha to stand down from a venture she isn’t even plotting.
I shift in the chair again, the zip ties biting deeper into my wrists.
Blood makes them slick, which is actually helpful.
I keep working them, twisting my hands in small, deliberate circles.
The plastic stretches, but not enough yet.
Twenty-four hours. That’s what they’ve given me. But they’re idiots if they think I’m going to sit here and wait for them to come back and start carving me up like a Sunday roast.
I focus on my breathing, keeping it steady while I work. The pain in my wrists is sharp now, but I’ve felt worse.
The zip tie on my right wrist gives slightly. I freeze, listening for footsteps above. Nothing. They’ve left me alone, confident in their knots and their threats. Mistake number one.
I keep twisting, pulling, feeling the plastic stretch millimetre by millimetre. My skin tears, but I don’t care. Pain is temporary. Death is permanent. I’m not dying in this shithole basement for Robert Gannon’s power play.
I had no intention of making a move on St. Bart’s.
It hadn’t even entered my head as an option.
But now, oh, Robert, or this arsehole who works for him, has made a fatal mistake by giving me the idea.
I will rip him to shreds and take control of St. Bart’s with Sorcha at my side if it’s the last fucking thing I do.
I am nothing if not petty.
The tie snaps. My right hand comes free, and I immediately go to work on my left wrist.