Chapter 20
Cillian
Her breathing evens out, a soft, steady rhythm against my chest. Her body goes limp in my arms, a dead weight of trust. I stare at the ceiling, my arm tight around her.
My mind catalogues threats, runs through kill scenarios for this Kavanagh fucker.
He’s made it personal. Axl and Ciar are in the other room, quiet for now, but I know they’re the same coiled springs waiting for the signal.
This quiet house is a fucking lie. It’s a temporary ceasefire in a war we didn’t see coming.
But we see it now. Tomorrow, we’ll start taking pieces off his board until the king has nowhere left to run.
Kavanagh made a mistake. He didn’t kill us. Now, he’s just prey.
Footsteps outside the bedroom pause before a sharp knock. “Cillian.”
It’s Dad.
I climb off the bed, careful not to disturb Sorcha, and slip out. “What is it?”
“Brought you all some stuff. Clothes, burners, hardware. Your mother is having a fit, by the way.”
I ignore the comment about my mother. It’s not relevant. “Kavanagh?”
“Gone to ground. Wiped his digital footprint clean. He’s a ghost.”
“Ghosts can be found.”
A thin, cold smile touches his lips. “They can. We have eyes on the daughter. She’s been moved to a safe house. One of his properties near the college.”
Bait. He’s setting a trap, using his own kid as the lure. Fucking pathetic.
“We’re not touching her,” I state. “And this just proves that assessment is correct. What a dick.”
“Yeah,” Dad says. “But he doesn’t know that.
Be ready for him to make a move through her.
” He claps a hand on my shoulder, a rare, solid gesture.
He turns and walks out without another word.
I follow him and retrieve the bags from the living room.
The weight of the one filled with weapons is a familiar, solid comfort in my hands.
Axl and Ciar look at it, then at me. No words needed.
We’re armed. We’re ready. I dump the contents of the bag onto the small coffee table.
The metallic clatter is a fucking beautiful sound.
Axl picks up a Glock. “Christmas came early.”
Ciar says nothing. He just reaches for a Sig. His face is a fucking mask of stone, but his eyes are burning. The pain is just fuel for him now. He’ll use it to tear Kavanagh apart piece by piece.
We work in silence. Cleaning, loading, checking.
The familiar smell of gun oil fills the small room.
It’s the smell of retribution. Sorcha is asleep in the other room, a fragile peace in the eye of the hurricane we’re about to unleash.
She’s the reason for this. She’s the only reason that matters.
Kavanagh just put himself between me and her.
Fucking amateur. He has no idea what he’s just woken up.
“I want to go back to the townhouse,” Axl says suddenly.
“Now?” I ask with a frown.
“Yeah, now. The OCU is probably done with it for now. We can sneak in and survey the damage.”
“You mean see if the cross is still there,” I read between the lines.
He gives me a grim stare.
“Fine,” I say, shoving a Glock into the back of my pants and picking up another one. I move an armchair over to the entrance of the hallway that leads to the bedroom and say to Ciar. “Sit there, and if anyone comes through that door that isn’t family, shoot them.” I hold out the gun.
He breathes through his nose sharply, but he knows two things.
Someone has to stay with Sorcha, and he can’t walk for more than five minutes.
He takes the gun, his jaw a hard, unforgiving line.
He doesn’t argue. He knows the fucking logic of it, but I can see the rage simmering just under the surface.
Being sidelined is a special kind of hell for him.
He hauls himself into the armchair, the movement stiff with pain, and settles in, his gaze fixed on the door. A fucking dragon guarding his hoard.
Axl and I slip out into the night. The street is quiet, a row of identical houses sleeping under a blanket of fake peace.
It’s a fucking joke. A few streets over, our world is a pile of smoking rubble.
We move like shadows, sticking to the dark spots, our senses on high alert.
Every car that passes is a potential threat, every flicker of a curtain a possible observer.
We cut across campus, the moonlight painting the old buildings in shades of silver and black.
The air is cold, carrying the faint, acrid scent of smoke.
As we get closer, the smell gets stronger, a fucking punch to the gut.
The townhouse isn’t a house anymore. It’s a skeleton.
Police tape flutters in the breeze, a pathetic yellow ribbon around a gaping wound.
“Fuck,” Axl mutters.
I say nothing. I just scan the perimeter, my hand resting on the hilt of my Glock.
The OCU might be gone for now, but that doesn’t mean we’re alone.
I duck under the yellow tape, the plastic snapping against my jacket.
Axl follows, his movements silent, lethal.
The air is thick with the smell of wet ash and burnt plastic.
A cold wind whistles through the skeletal remains of the ground floor. It’s a fucking tomb.
Axl picks his way through a mess of splintered wood and shattered glass, his phone’s torch cutting a sharp beam through the darkness.
I follow, my light sweeping the corners, the gaping hole where the ceiling used to be. My feet crunch on debris. Every sound is magnified in the dead quiet. This isn’t just a destroyed building; it’s a monument to our collective failure.
The study is relatively intact, considering.
“Fireproofed,” he mutters, and I roll my eyes.
He could’ve fucking told us that before.
Axl directs his beam to where his desk sort of still stands. “Lo and behold,” he mutters.
“Well, I didn’t expect that. Did you?” I stare at the cross, split across two sides of the desk just as we left it, only covered in ash.
“Can’t say that I did. The OCU must be a right bunch of boring pricks.”
“I suppose it is kind of difficult to abscond with if you’re a crooked cop.”
“Just slightly.”
We move towards it just as a beam of light flashes through the windows. We both duck for cover, cursing silently.
My fingers tighten on the grip of my Glock. Axl is a breath away from me, his body rigid, a mirror of my own coiled tension. We’re tucked behind the remains of one of the armchairs, the only solid cover in this fucking graveyard of a room.
The beam of light cuts through the darkness again, slower this time, more methodical.
It’s not the Garda doing a sweep. It’s a hunter.
Footsteps crunch over shattered glass, slow and deliberate.
A single figure steps through the blasted-out frame of the front window.
He’s dressed in black, moving with a predator’s economy of motion.
His torch beam lands on the desk, on the glint of the cross. He hasn’t seen us.
He moves towards the desk. Axl catches my eye. He tilts his head, a silent question.
I give a single, sharp nod.
We move at the same time, two ghosts rising from the ash. I go left, Axl goes right. The man turns, a flicker of surprise on his face as he registers the movement, his hand already reaching for a weapon at his hip. He’s fast.
We’re faster.
Axl’s boot connects with the man’s wrist with a sickening crack that echoes in the dead space.
The gun he was reaching for clatters to the floor.
The man grunts, a sharp intake of breath, but he doesn’t have time to scream.
I’m on him, my arm wrapping around his throat, one hand clamping over his mouth as I haul him backwards into the shadows.
He thrashes, a desperate, panicked dance, but it’s fucking useless.
I squeeze, my bicep a steel band cutting off his air, and drag him to the floor behind the ruined desk.
His struggles weaken, his body going slack against mine.
Axl is there in a second, scooping up the dropped weapon before kicking the man’s legs out from under him.
Axl shines his torch directly into the man’s face. He’s young, maybe mid-twenties, with the hard, empty eyes of a professional.
“Who sent you?” Axl’s voice is deceptively calm, the tone he uses right before he starts taking souvenirs.
The man lifts his hand and gives Axl the finger.
I grab it with my free hand and squeeze until I hear a satisfying crack.
The man grunts and struggles to get free.
“Wrong answer,” Axl says. He crouches down, pulling a knife from his jacket. “Let’s try again.”
I tighten my hold, letting the man feel the edge of consciousness fray.
Axl leans forward and slowly buries his knife into the man’s stomach. Then, he twists it.
“Kavanagh,” our captive chokes out, the name a wet, desperate surrender.
Axl’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “See? Was that so hard? What was the plan? Grab the cross and leave?”
The man nods frantically, his body trembling.
I ease the pressure on his throat, letting him suck in a ragged breath before tightening my grip again. His struggles are pathetic, a fish on a hook.
Axl stands, withdrawing the blade. He doesn’t need to say anything. We both know the next step.
With a final, brutal twist, the fight goes out of him. The sound of his neck breaking is a dull, satisfying crack in the silence. I let his body slump to the floor, a discarded tool.
We don’t speak. Axl turns to the desk and picks up the pieces. He slots them back together, and we move back through the wreckage, two ghosts leaving a tomb. Kavanagh sent a message with fire. We’re sending one back in blood.