Chapter 16
Sorcha
Idon’t look back. I know Cillian’s got Ciar as they swear and stumble out of the townhouse behind Axl. Whoever this phone fucker is, he is about to—
“Fuck!”
The blast knocks me flat on my face.
The world is a high-pitched scream, a roaring whine that blanks out everything else.
Tarmac grinds against my cheek, the sharp smell of burning and cordite filling my lungs.
I lie flat, unable to move, my palms scraping raw against the road.
My head throbs in time with the noise, a sick, dizzying rhythm.
I push myself up, my arms trembling under my weight.
The world tilts, a nauseating blur of fire and smoke against a grey sky.
The ringing in my ears fades, replaced by the hungry roar of flames devouring the townhouse.
A thick, acrid smoke chokes me, and I cough, a dry, racking sound that tears at my throat.
“Axl?” The name is a broken whisper. I scramble to my knees, spitting grit from my mouth, the coppery tang of blood on my tongue. The back of the house is gone. Just a gaping, flaming maw where it used to be.
Panic, cold and sharp, slices through the daze. “Ciar! Cillian!”
A hand clamps onto my arm, yanking me hard.
I cry out, stumbling into a solid chest. Axl.
His face is streaked with soot, a fresh cut bleeding over his eyebrow, but his green eyes are a furious blaze.
“Move!” he bellows, pulling me further away as a section of the roof collapses with a deafening crash.
My gaze frantically searches the chaos. Then I see them. Cillian and Ciar are collapsing onto the grassy verge of the campus on the other side of the road.
They’re both alive and conscious, and relief floods through me.
I stumble forward, my legs unsteady. Axl’s hand is a vice on my arm, keeping me upright.
My ears are still ringing, but I can hear the crackle of the fire, the groan of tortured wood and stone.
Black smoke billows into the sky, a funeral pyre for the only place I’ve felt safe.
“Fuck,” I breathe, the word a puff of white in the cold air.
We cross the road, the heat of the blaze a scorching wave against my back. Cillian is already on his knees beside Ciar, who is flat on his back, staring at the sky. “Jesus,” he croaks. “What the fuck?”
“The cross!” I bellow, suddenly enough for him to sit up. “It’s gone!”
“Guess we don’t have to have three guesses to know who did this, then,” Axl remarks.
“Phone fucker is dead!” I growl.
“Is he the one responsible for this though?” Axl asks. “Or just the informant? If he warned you before Cian blew up the kitchen and took you, maybe he’s an insider.”
“Or some fucking creep who is watching us like hawks and therefore the house and sees who decides to plant fucking explosives right under our noses!”
“Who is he?” Axl snarls as sirens cut through the air.
“We need to move,” I say, sharply, helping Ciar to his feet. He shakes me off, playing hero again, and I let him. Whatever it takes to get us moving away from the exploded building, or those terrorism charges will come crashing down around us faster than we can blink.
A car screeches to a halt right in front of us, and the door flies open. “Get the fuck in,” Alex says. “Can’t leave you alone for five seconds.”
I shove Ciar towards the open door and pile in after him with Cillian right behind.
Axl takes the passenger seat, the smell of smoke and soot clinging to us like a second skin.
Alex doesn’t wait for us to get settled; he slams his foot on the accelerator, peeling away just as the first fire engine screams around the corner.
My head hits the headrest, and I stare out the back window at the column of black smoke rising into the grey sky. Gone. All of it. The cross. The deed. Our sanctuary. Fucking gone.
“Who?” Ciar’s voice is a low, vicious rasp from beside me. He’s leaning forward, his forearms braced on his knees, every line of his body screaming murder.
“We don’t know,” I say.
“They wanted us dead,” Cillian says, his voice flat, emotionless.
The warning was sixty seconds. Long enough for us to get out, obviously, but someone left it really fucking late to tell me.
“We are screwed,” I exclaim. “The deed was in the fireplace.”
“No, it was filed,” Alex reminds me. “It wasn’t in the house.”
“Oh, thank fuck,” I mutter. It’s a win, even if the cross went up in flames, but it doesn’t feel like a win.
It feels like we’re pawns in a game where the board keeps getting blown up.
The timing is too perfect. Right after Brady threatened us.
But he’s a man of quiet threats and legal machinations, not fucking C4.
My phone buzzes in my hand. I hadn’t even realised I was still clinging to it. The screen is cracked from hitting the road, but it is still fully functional.
No Caller ID.
My thumb swipes across the screen before anyone can react. “Who are you?” I demand. The guys fall silent, their attention sharp and focused on me.
“Someone who just saved your arse. Again,” he says. “Brady’s the puppet, little Gannon. You should be looking for the puppeteer.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone, my heart hammering against my ribs. “He says Brady is a puppet,” I relay, my voice hollow. “And we need to find the puppeteer.”
The car is silent, the only sound is the hum of the engine as Alex navigates the roads with brutal efficiency.
“Well, that much is obvious,” Axl says, eventually. “We find who pulls Brady’s strings. It has to be another founding member.”
“I’ve already got feelers out,” Alex says. “Hang tight.”
Like we’ve got much choice. We got nothing except the clothes on our backs. It’s not the first time I’ve been this down and out, it probably won’t be the last, but damn if I hadn’t got used to the luxury. “My flat, I guess.”
“No, my house,” Cillian says. “It’s small and sparse, but it’s around the corner and it’s not blown up.”
“Where to?” Alex asks.
I tune them out as Cillian gives him directions.
Moments later, we are pulling up to a small bungalow with a little garden at the front.
It’s a world away from the opulence of Axl’s townhouse.
This place is small, unassuming, blending into a row of identical houses.
It’s a perfect hiding spot. We look like refugees, covered in soot and grime, piling out of Alex’s pristine car.
Ciar leans heavily against the side, his face pale and drawn under the dirt.
The short, violent sprint from the house has taken its toll.
Cillian unlocks the front door with a key he retrieves from a fake stone near the gate.
He pushes it open and gestures for us to get inside.
The air is still, the house quiet. Inside, it’s clean, minimalist, borderline monastic.
Grey walls, a simple sofa, a single armchair.
No clutter, no photos, no sign that a person actually lives here.
It’s so fucking Cillian it almost makes me laugh.
“Sit,” he orders, pointing Ciar towards the sofa.
Alex’s phone is already pressed to his ear, his voice a low, dangerous murmur as he paces the small living room. We’re not just homeless; we’re targets. Pawns in a game I’m sick of playing. The puppeteer. The word echoes in my skull, a taunt and a clue.
Axl drops into the armchair, his gaze fixed on nothing, his knuckles white where he grips the arms. He’s plotting.
I can see it in the hard set of his jaw.
The four of us are a fucking wreck, but the fire hasn’t gone out.
It’s just been stoked. They blew up our house.
They think they’ve won. They’re about to find out how wrong they are.
“We need to find out who this mystery caller is,” he says after a few minutes.
“Next time he calls, keep him chatting. Thank him profusely, be all grateful and shit. Try to figure out who it is. We know it’s not Cian if he was the one who took you last time this caller rang.
It can’t be Robert because he’s up to his neck in this coup against you. Irish?” He stares at me.
“Yes, older, but not old.”
Alex shoots me a narrow-eyed glare before he goes back to chatting on his phone.
My gaze flicks from Alex back to the guys. An older Irish male. It’s not much to go on in fucking Ireland. It could be anyone. I run a hand through my hair. We’re sitting ducks in this clean, sterile house that smells of bleach and nothing else.
I look at Ciar. His eyes are closed, but his jaw is clenched tight, a muscle ticking violently. The explosion has taken what little strength he’d regained. Fucking bastards. I want to burn them for this. I want to find this puppeteer and rip his throat out with my teeth.
Alex hangs up and turns to us, the silence in the room stretching thin.
“Brady’s gone to ground,” he says, his voice dangerously quiet.
“The entire board is lawyering up. They’re running scared after Axl’s appearance at the meeting.
They were expecting Sorcha and instead got a Lord Rhodes who doesn’t take kindly to threats.
” He beams proudly at his son. I smile. It’s sweet.
“Good,” Axl says. “Scared rats are predictable.”
“Iain is tracking something on Brady. Darragh is handling the legal fallout from the explosion. Your job,” Alex pins me with his gaze, “is to lay low.”
“No,” I say, my voice steady. “We’re not hiding. They will have to line us up and shoot us if they want us gone.”
“That’s my girl,” Cillian murmurs, his gaze heated as he stares at me.
Alex purses his lips but doesn’t argue. “Fine. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
In the meantime, you and Axl are still expelled until the finalised ownership comes through.
St. Bart’s was part of a national trust. The government will give it up without a problem.
It’s one less thing they have to worry about.
It will become an independent institution with independent funds. ”
“I thought it was already,” I say.