Chapter Three #2
Time ceased to hold meaning for Keira. It started with the sweating and only got worse from there.
Distantly, she knew she was going through withdrawal, but the thought couldn’t take root.
She lay on the bed in her underwear and a tank top, and stared at the ceiling.
An addict. I am an addict. The word felt as dirty as she did these days.
What would Devlin think if he could see her now?
There was no sheen of delirium to hold the memories of her late brother at bay. They assaulted her, one after another, an endless cascade of grief that she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since the day she came home to realize she had lost the sibling she loved most in the world.
Ten-year-old Devlin, so much smarter and more mature than her eight-year-old self, taking her into the woods surrounding their Connecticut house and showing her a litter of baby rabbits, and then telling her every single detail he knew about the animal. Being Devlin, he knew everything.
Devlin at fifteen, using a huge chunk of the money he’d earned working at one of their family’s legit businesses to buy her the fancy set of paints their father said was a waste of time and money.
Her brother had been so damn proud of her art, so proud that she had something of hers. Something she loved.
Rushing into his room when he was nineteen to tell him that she’d gotten into RISD.
Keira hadn’t told anyone else that she was even applying, and it was Devlin who insisted she submit her work for the scholarship competition.
Four years in art school, paid for because she earned it—a step she never would have thought to take without his urging.
Devlin at twenty, pale and still in his casket, shot in the street like a fucking dog because he was an O’Malley and their father had pissed off the Hallorans.
A casualty in a war he’d never wanted any part of.
A life snuffed out far too early. He’d had ambitions that actually meant something, and after he graduated college, he’d had every intention of putting his considerable knowledge and skill to use. For good.
What was her silly art when compared with that?
She blinked, her eyes gritty. Keira hadn’t cried at his funeral. She hadn’t allowed herself to. Instead, she’d done everything she could do to numb the pain.
There was nothing numbing it now.
She swallowed past her dry throat. “I miss you, Devlin. I miss you so fucking much. The world went to hell without you in it, and I don’t know how to do any of this without you.
” Her chest burned, each breath a physical fight she didn’t know if she would win.
“You left and the rest of us fell like dominoes. One right after the other.” She reached a shaking hand to mime tipping over the first domino. “What a fucking waste.”
Keira closed her eyes in an effort to keep the burning inside, and when she opened them again, the light had changed.
Darkness reigned, which was fitting, because he was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, his expression unguarded for the first time since she’d seen him.
She couldn’t work up the energy to do more than turn her head to get a better look at him. “Come to gloat?”
Dmitri didn’t move, but she felt his attention sharpen all the same. “You think so little of me.”
“Why should I think better?” She dragged in a breath, oxygen flooding her lungs. “You would have let my sister die. You would have let them all die.” A different shootout, a different enemy. Endless. The tide against her was endless.
“My priorities are not your priorities, moya koroleva.”
As if that made it better. As if she should be thankful that he apparently didn’t want her dead.
Keira turned her face away, preferring to look at the strange wallpaper instead of his treacherous gray eyes.
Was the curving print moving? She closed her eyes and opened them again.
This time, there was no time jump. It was still dark.
He was still here, taking up too much room. She shivered. “I’m cold.”
“You’re burning up.” A cool hand against her forehead.
“The good doctor assured me this is normal, but…” He smoothed her hair back, the touch gentle.
If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend this was another time, another place.
That she was just a woman and he was just a man, and nothing stood between them and the fabled happily ever after.
Hers wasn’t that kind of story.
If Dmitri had a role in her life, it was as the villain who locked the princess in the tower. But Keira wasn’t a princess, and the Russian was hardly a beast looking for a magic kiss to turn him into something less monstrous.
She had to remember that, but it was so hard to keep her eyes open. “You promised peace.”
“I promised to do everything in my power to ensure peace, short of sacrificing myself on the O’Malley altar.”
He had such an infuriating way of twisting her words to make them unrecognizable. Keira wet her dry lips. “Peace.”
“It takes more than one to broker peace.”
“Then do it.” Unconsciousness threatened to pull her under despite her best efforts.
She twisted around to find him watching her with a strange expression on his face.
“I’m coming out the other side of this…” She had to pause and wait for her dizziness to pass.
How could she be dizzy when she was flat on her back?
“When I do, if you haven’t kept your word, I will make you pay, Dmitri.
Every single day for the rest of my life. ”
“I have no doubt about that.” It wasn’t a reassurance, but she didn’t expect that from him.
Keira nodded, and then grimaced when the top of her head felt like it might just explode and end her misery. “Why are you doing this to me?” The cry of a lost child with no safety in sight and a wolf breathing down her neck.
He didn’t answer, and unconsciousness won the battle, sucking her down into the deep dark. But as she closed her eyes, she could have sworn he answered her. “For you, moya koroleva. I do this to you so you have a fighting fucking chance.”
“It’s been a week. We can’t wait any longer.”
Dmitri closed the door to Keira’s room and gave Mikhail a long look. “It can wait.”
“With respect, boss, it can’t.” He fell into step as they headed down the hall toward the stairs. “Mae was released on bail.”
Dmitri stopped cold and swung around to face his second. “How is that possible? We did everything but gift wrap her for the feds. Even they shouldn’t be able to fuck that up.”
“And yet they managed.” Mikhail passed over a manila folder, his expression severe.
Dmitri flipped through it and resumed walking. “My office. Now.” This wasn’t business that should be discussed where anyone could hear it. The fewer people who knew he’d been caught off guard with this news, the better.
Once they were safely shut into his office, he spread the handful of papers onto his desk.
And cursed. “I should have known.” Since Mae had been found torturing an FBI agent’s daughter—also Aiden O’Malley’s fiancée, Alethea was claiming entrapment and a whole host of other things.
It shouldn’t have mattered—tricking someone into a petty crime and kidnapping a woman to torture with the intent to murder were two very different things.
Except apparently not according to the judge.
The charges against Mae hadn’t been dismissed, but the judge granted her bail—and it had been promptly paid despite being an astronomical amount.
There was no possibility of Mae suddenly becoming an upstanding citizen, which meant she and her mother were gunning directly for the one they’d blame for this whole situation—Dmitri.
“Blyad. If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. ”
“What are you going to do?”
That was the question. Dmitri prided himself on staying ahead of the game, but he hadn’t expected this.
He’d been confident that the FBI would ensure Mae was put behind bars to await her trial—and that she’d be found guilty.
The daughter of an FBI agent was a superb witness, and Charlie’s reputation would be cleared by the time they went to trial.
Another fucking surprise. Perhaps if he’d stayed instead of rushing to Boston to collect Keira…
It wouldn’t have changed anything. His reach within the local government was long, but no judge on his payroll would have granted Mae Eldridge bail. Ultimately, his being there or not wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
Alethea wasn’t the problem. She was a crafty woman, but she could be reasoned with. She wouldn’t do anything that would directly endanger herself or her family. If he pushed the stakes high enough, she’d take the hint and disappear.
Mae, on the other hand, was a wild card.
“Does Aiden know?”
“Hard to say. It went down in New York, and Finch doesn’t seem the type to give him a courtesy heads-up.”
No, agent John Finch was more likely to hang his daughter out as bait to see if Mae would bite again.
Dmitri could have told him it was a lost cause—Mae didn’t seem to have the same self-preservation that her mother possessed.
She was the type who is more than happy to cut off her nose to spite her face—perhaps even literally—but she wasn’t a fool.
Being arrested would infuriate her and, if she couldn’t get to Aiden and Charlie, she’d move onto the next best thing—Dmitri.
Worse, Mae wasn’t governed by the unspoken rules that most of the people who moved in their world were.
She didn’t give a damn about taking out innocents if it meant she was able to hurt her target.
She wouldn’t strike directly at Dmitri. Even she was smart enough to know that was suicide. No, she’d hit him where she suspected it would hurt most.
She’d target Keira and the families of his men.
They had to find her.
“Pull our men’s families into the available safe houses in the city.
Ensure there are men there on a rotating schedule.
” They couldn’t keep his people locked down indefinitely, but if there was one thing Mae lacked, it was patience.
Alethea’s leash on her daughter had snapped, and he saw no evidence that it would be reclaimed.
He picked up the phone and dialed Aiden’s cell. Dmitri hadn’t had any intention of reaching out so soon after the last less-than-civil conversation, but the situation had changed.
“You have a lot of fucking nerve calling me now.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to put your vengeance on hold for the time being.”
“Fuck that. We’re coming for you, Romanov.”
He clenched his fist and then forced himself to release it. Losing his cool right now might be satisfying in the short term, but he had bigger problems than his and Aiden’s pissing match. “Mae Eldridge is free.”
That seemed to bring Aiden up short. “The fuck she is.”
“She was released on bail this morning. Her attorney claimed she was entrapped by the FBI, and the judge bought it.” He had to take a few seconds to fight down the curses that threatened to escape. “She and Alethea have dropped off the radar.”
Aiden was quiet for several long moments. Probably living through those long hours in between when Mae took his woman and he was able to rescue her. Hours when they couldn’t be sure Charlie was still alive. “She needs to be stopped.”
“I concur.” In addition to doubling the manpower he had on the search, Aiden’s help would ensure the O’Malleys didn’t move against him for marrying Keira. Two birds with one well-placed stone, though he would have rather traded barbs with the man if it meant Mae was safely locked up.
“I’ll be in touch.”
“See that you are.” Dmitri hung up and turned to Mikhail.
The dark-haired man waited patiently as he always did, the ultimate hunter.
“Find them. Alethea’s too smart to have gone back to the family home, but we can’t take for granted that she didn’t.
” Bailing Mae out was a calculated risk.
Alethea had to know that both O’Malley and Romanov wouldn’t rest until the threat to their respective women was eliminated, so she wouldn’t have made that decision lightly.
Mae was brutal enough to last in prison for some time unscathed, which meant there was a deeper game being played.
Now it was just a matter of finding out what.
A pounding on the door had him fighting a sigh.
Only one person dared make an entrance like that.
Sure enough, when Mikhail opened it, a tall redheaded woman stood there scowling.
Always scowling. Between her coloring and size, she could easily pass for a lumberjack—and she had the shitty attitude to match. Dr. Jones.
Her thick brows lowered at the sight of him. “She’s through the worst of it.”
He didn’t let himself sigh, because any outward sign of emotion was handing ammunition to the enemy.
Dmitri had no illusions—the second the doctor left here, she’d call Aiden O’Malley and report everything.
The only reason she’d taken his call to begin with was because she’d been on the O’Malley payroll for years.
Keira might be married to Dmitri, but she was still an O’Malley in the woman’s eyes.
He’d called, and she’d come to New York to help see Keira through her withdrawal.
Dmitri crossed to his desk and wrote out a check for the agreed-upon amount.
Dr. Jones wasn’t a fool—she’d ensured herself a nice bonus for being inconvenienced.
He’d readily agreed to it because, even out of her mind, Keira was more likely to trust a doctor she had experience with than anyone on his staff. “Anything I should know?”
“She’s going to be out of sorts for another week, at least. Depressed, anxious, something else along those lines. No telling how it’ll present, because everyone is different, but she won’t be back to anything resembling normal even though she’ll think she is.”
Fragile. For all her fire and spikes, his Keira was so goddamn fragile.
“I’ll take it into account.”
She gave him a long look. “I’d also remove or lock up all the alcohol in the place, and whatever other drugs you might have lying around. She didn’t choose this, so chances of relapse are high.”
He’d already accounted for it. Keira would find no easy pickings in the household, and the men were under severe threat if they supplied her with something Dmitri had forbidden. All of that wouldn’t matter a damn bit if he couldn’t convince her that she had a good reason to stay sober.
Dmitri didn’t lose.
He sure as fuck wasn’t going to lose when it came to Keira.