Liam
The last few hours have been chaos. Campus had to be locked down, questions fielded, surveillance footage scrubbed, dead bodies removed.
Taryn and Gráinne were both cleared by the medics and sent home while I stayed behind to do damage control with Rowan.
Timmy had been taken straight to Rowan’s house—to a place he jokingly calls “the workshop.” No one’s laughing now.
When we finally got back to Rowan’s place, we were met by Gráinne’s fiancé pacing on the front lawn.
Luca lost his shit when Rowan refused to let him into the estate so he could finish off Timmy.
I had to be the one to hold him back with help from his brother and two guards.
It was Gráinne who got through to the meathead when someone finally alerted her to her fiancé’s presence.
We were settled for all of a minute before Taryn’s brother Nolan showed up and came at me for putting his sister in this situation.
It was Rowan who managed to talk that big guy down.
So, yeah. It’s been a complete and utter shit show.
The entire time, all I wanted was to get back to my wife.
See for myself—again—that she’s whole. That she’s safe.
Instead, I’m forced to sit here, in the O’Toole library. I fucking hate this room. My father, Darragh, Rowan, and Taryn’s two brothers are all gathered to discuss what’s next. Tempers are running high as we wait for Taryn’s father to arrive. When he does, he’s escorted into the room by Gráinne.
She gives me a soft smile before turning to her brother. “Luca is out front with Matteo. I’m going home with him if that’s okay.”
Rowan looks his sister over. “You all patched up?”
She nods and glances at her leg. “It really was just a scratch. The bullet barely even grazed me.”
Rowan pulls her into his arms and speaks into her ear as she nods. She squeezes him before turning for the door.
“Gráinne,” I call after her.
She stops and turns back to me.
“Thank you,” I breathe. I have to clear my throat, which suddenly feels too thick. “If you hadn’t stopped them…”
She walks over and shocks me by throwing her arms around me. “I would do anything for Taryn. You don’t need to thank me. It’s nice to see her finally happy.”
I nod, mainly because I have no words. She turns and walks away, but I don’t move. Because I don’t know if she’s right.
I think maybe it was Taryn who was right all along—about leaving, about building a life far from all this blood and deception. Maybe if I’d let her go, she wouldn’t be a target. She wouldn’t be covered in dirt and bruises and trauma she didn’t ask for.
I wanted to protect her. I still do. But I brought her into this world like it was a gift—like love could shield her from the reality of what we are. What I am. And today? Today, I nearly got her killed.
“We have an issue,” my father says, and I almost laugh. An issue? A man put a gun to my wife’s ribs. Shots were fired. Gráinne bled. I killed someone. Call it what it is—we’re at war. We are in the exact place I wanted to avoid. My naivety is going to cost us everything.
My father doesn’t flinch. “A courier dropped this off at the house this morning.”
He tosses a cheap flip phone onto the table. It clatters and spins, the plastic casing cracked at the hinge.
“It rang once. When we picked it up, a voice simply said, ‘Consider that a warning,’ and hung up. Number was blocked.”
Rowan grunts. “Cowards.”
My father nods, but that’s not the end of it. He reaches into his coat pocket and produces something else—a coin. He sets it beside the phone.
The room stills.
“What the hell is that?” Rowan asks.
My father sighs. “A drachma.”
Everyone goes quiet, contemplating why they’d give us an outdated, worthless Greek token, until a voice from the doorway speaks.
“It’s Charon’s fare.”
We all turn to see Taryn standing there in leggings and an oversized hoodie, pale but steady, her hair pulled back in a loose braid. There’s a thin red mark across her cheek where the shattered window cut her—it’s just a scratch, but it causes my blood to boil.
“In Greek mythology, he carries the souls of the dead across the River Styx,” she continues, stepping into the room like she belongs there. “But only if they have a coin to pay him.” Her eyes flick to the silver piece on the table. “So I’m not an expert at this, but I’d say that’s a message.”
“Taryn,” Nolan grits out, rising to his feet. “You shouldn’t be in here. You need to rest.”
She opens her mouth, but I’m already moving.
“No,” I say. I push my chair back and cross the room to her, guiding her back to where I’d been seated. I pull her down onto my lap before anyone else can argue. “She stays.”
Nolan bristles. “She was almost taken, Liam.”
“And now she’s protected,” I growl. “By me. And by everyone at this table. She’s not just my wife. She’s a member of the clan. Both clans. And our enemies made a mistake the second they laid a hand on her.”
Taryn doesn’t speak. She leans back against me, her hand curling over my heart like she’s grounding both of us. She doesn’t need to say anything right now. She’s already said enough just by walking into this room.
“They’re angry. Embarrassed. And wounded.” My father’s voice commands the room once again. He looks at me. “Thanks to you and your brother.”
I tense, ready for the reprimand. But it doesn’t come.
“They know we’ve drained their trafficking accounts. That we moved their money and locked them out. Ryan rerouted it so cleanly, they didn’t even realize it was happening until it was gone.” He huffs a quiet laugh. “That boy’s a ghost.”
He taps the table with two knuckles. “But they haven’t made a move. Not yet. That means they’re regrouping. And that means we’re winning.”
Rowan leans forward, brows pulled together. “Okay, but can someone please tell me what the hell we actually did? Because the last time I checked, the Greeks weren’t this quiet. They don’t alert us to threats with old coins. They just strike.”
My father gives him a long, satisfied look. “We starved them.”
Rowan blinks. “Starved them?”
I answer this time, because the pride in my father’s voice is doing something to me I can’t even begin to name.
“Ryan was able to get into their network. He isolated the trafficking funds. Every account they were using to move money, every shell company they had under a false name—he rerouted it. They can’t launder it, can’t use it, can’t access it.
They’ve got assets, sure. But liquid cash? They’re bleeding.”
Mick Walsh lets out a low whistle. “Sweet Jesus.”
“They let us in,” I add. “Through Taryn’s account. Thought they were smart, setting her up so that we’d think she was intentionally funding them. They left a few doors open on purpose to bait us in—let us see what they wanted us to see.”
“But they didn’t account for Ryan,” my father finishes. “They didn’t know we’d bring a feckin’ scalpel when they expected a sledgehammer.”
Rowan laughs. Actually throws his head back and laughs. “Of course they expected a sledgehammer. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Yes. It’s what the Irish are known for. Blood first. We’ve always liked a good fight.
“So you’ve crippled their trafficking operations?” Taryn asks. She sounds…hopeful.
I kiss her temple. “For now.”
My father grins. “For long enough to weaken them. Distract them.”
“Then, what’s with the coin?” Nolan growls. Taryn shivers at his lethal tone.
I shift slightly, tightening my grip on her. She leans into me without hesitation, but I can’t stop the flicker of unease in my chest. She has no idea who her brother really is.
Nolan Walsh might wear his loyalty like a badge of honor, but no one in this room deals in blood more efficiently.
More creatively. He’s not just the youngest hitman the New York Irish ever produced—he’s a fucking artist. And if Taryn ever saw the pieces he’s left behind, I don’t know if she’d look at him—or any of us—the same way again.
He’s already antsy that he’s up here with us while Timmy is locked somewhere in the basement.
I’m hoping he keeps his fucking mouth shut before he further upsets his sister.
His father is the one who answers, his voice low and annoyed. “Because they can’t let us keep bleeding them out. They have to hit back. Hard. I’d expect it to be done publicly.”
“They need to remind us—and everyone else—what happens when you fuck with the Greeks,” Rowan agrees grimly.
“But how?” I ask. “They don’t know how we did it. And they sure as hell don’t know how to stop it.”
My father taps the coin again. “They don’t need to stop it. They just need to scare us into stopping it ourselves.”
“Scare us?” Nolan’s chilling laugh causes Taryn to tense. Yeah. The man is not right in the head. I’m surprised when Taryn speaks next.
Her voice cuts through the tension, steady and clear. “Maybe we should remind them who they’re dealing with.”
Everyone turns to look at her. My mouth drops open. I could not have heard her right.
“They’re trying to use fear,” she continues. “That only works if we flinch. So we don’t. What if we make noise instead? We could throw them off balance. We could force them to spend time and money managing a crisis if we leaked information about their activities.”
My father raises an eyebrow. “You want to bait them?”
“No,” she says, eyes locked on him. “I want to bleed them dry—but I’ll settle for making it hurt.” So…maybe her brother’s tactics wouldn’t scare her quite as much as I assumed.
Rowan chuckles, low in his throat. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” He grins at my wife. “No wonder Gráinne is so taken with you. Not afraid to get your hands dirty, Tare?”
I watch the corner of my father’s mouth twitch—barely—but it’s there. Approval. And just like that, she’s not my wife sitting at this table. She’s part of the clan.