Chapter 7
SEVEN
Lochlan
I gave her the fork on purpose.
Sorcha came to me wringing her hands like she usually does when she’s worried, and she reported that the girl still wasn’t touching her meals.
Apparently, she thought she was too good for the canned soup we’d been offering her.
Three days of sulking and sobbing and hunger strikes, and I was starting to wonder if Senator Banks’s precious daughter had more spine than I gave her credit for, or if she was simply too stupid to realize starving herself wasn’t going to change a damn thing about her situation.
So I told Sorcha to make her some imitation eggs this morning. Give her a fork and see what she’d do. A real fork with metal tines. None of that plastic spork bullshit.
Would she finally cave and obediently eat the eggs? Or would she rebel and try to use the fork to her advantage?
The answer was both.
Being the clever people person she is, Chantal ate some of the eggs. Enough to make it look like she was actually hungry. As if she was actually trying.
The fork magically disappeared.
Call it a test of character, but I’m genuinely surprised when she stabs the guy delivering her dinner.
I watch it happen live, reclined in Grandpa Finn’s old creaky office chair, Akio’s surveillance app up on the computer screen.
She jams that shit straight into his arm and then bolts for the door.
Hilarious considering she doesn’t even know where the fuck she is. She’s got no clue where to turn or how to find the exit.
Yet she’s bold—and obviously delusional—enough to do it anyway, fleeing from the room and tumbling down two flights of stairs.
Even more hilarious considering there’s nowhere to run. There’s no way for her to escape. She can dash for the front door all she likes; the property is heavily guarded and surveilled. She’ll be tackled and subdued before she ever sets foot in the real world again.
But it doesn’t even get to that point. She takes herself out, foot catching on the rug at the bottom of the stairs and sending her crashing to the floor.
I close out of the app and push myself up from the chair, taking my time as I make my way down the hall.
No need to rush. She’s not going anywhere.
By the time I reach the foyer, a small crowd has already gathered to witness the spectacle. My men have emerged from various corners of the estate like roaches when the lights go out, their masked faces turned toward the girl currently rolling herself onto her back.
She looks up, eyes unfocused and bleary from the hard tumble. Chin bashed and chest rising and falling from exertion.
It dawns on her who I am and how badly she’s screwed up.
“Fuck,” she puffs out.
Fuck is right. I stare down at her, seconds passing by, as the silence grows deafening. My men hover at a distance in the hall, not brave enough to interrupt but nosy enough to crane their necks for a look.
Everybody wants to see what’ll happen next; how this girl’s outright defiance will be handled.
To put it mildly, I don’t have the nicest reputation, and they seem eager for somebody else to be on the receiving end for once.
My head slants to the side. “What exactly did you think you were doing?”
Fear shines in her gaze as she blinks and peers up at me. Rather than answer, she pushes herself up onto her knees, still dazed from the hard tumble.
“Hey,” I growl, snapping my fingers in front of her face. “Answer the fucking question. Just what were you doing, you little brat?”
Suddenly the fear’s fading for frustration and rage. Her pupils dilate and nostrils flare as she musters up the same nerve she’d had in the villa. The version of her where she’d screamed about who her daddy is and expected us to give a fuck.
“What am I doing?” she repeats shrilly, chest heaving. “What does it look like I’m doing?! I’m trying to get the hell out of here! I’m trying to escape from whatever psychotic game you people think you’re playing!”
“Game?” I repeat.
“Yes, game!” she shrieks, gesturing wildly. “You think you can just snatch me from my vacation and hold me hostage and my father’s going to roll over and give you whatever you want? You think Senator Keith Banks negotiates with criminals? You’ve got another thing coming!
“And don’t think I haven’t figured out who you are!
You’re in bed with the Ferreras, right? That’s how Greg was able to sell me off so easily!
You’re aligned with the Italians, and you’re pissed because Dad couldn’t be bought to support your candidate, Rothschild!
Guess what? He’s not dirty, that’s why! He wants nothing to do with—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap over her.
I’ve heard enough of her ranting and raving about her fucking corny senator father. Enough of her acting like she’s some big shot just because of her last name.
As the son of an important man myself, it’s the last kind of shit I’m interested in hearing right now.
After being betrayed and abandoned the way I was, bragging about your daddy is a guaranteed way to piss me the fuck off.
Chantal’s mouth snaps shut, though her dark eyes blaze with impotent fury. I just know she’s cussing me out in her head, and it makes me almost grin behind my mask.
Turning my attention to the assembled men, I jut my chin in their direction.
“Which one of you allowed her to slip out of her bedroom?”
More heavy silence follows as nobody steps forward. None of them want to be the guy who admits he fucked up.
“I’m not going to ask twice.”
Another second goes by, and then Dermott Keane finally bites the bullet.
He’s clutching his bleeding forearm as he breaks away from the others.
Short and stocky and passable as an enforcer, he’s a former associate of the Westies who came to me weeks ago looking for a second chance after his own crew discovered he’d been skimming profits.
I gave him that chance because I needed bodies and he seemed desperate enough to be loyal.
Apparently I overestimated him.
“It… it was me, boss,” he says. “Sorcha asked if I could help deliver the meal. She said she was busy cleaning and needed an extra hand. I didn’t expect the girl to stab me with a fucking fork.”
I turn back for another look at Chantal, who’s still kneeling on the dusty floor. Though I already know the answer, I pose the question anyway.
More so for everybody else’s curiosity. For the theatrics of it all, and in order to make a point.
Deliver a message.
“That true?” I ask. “You stabbed him?”
She blinks as if expecting to wake from a dream, then mumbles, “I had no choice. I had to do something.”
I stare at her for seconds to come, holding her gaze for so long it becomes uncomfortable. Damn sure crosses over into rude territory if manners were to be considered (as if I give a shit about those).
My mind’s already made up as I drag it out and let the tension rise.
Then I make my move, shattering it all at once.
“Neither do I,” I say.
I reach into the waistband of my pants and draw my pistol, finger curling over the trigger and squeezing. I shoot Dermott point blank in the face without even turning to look directly at him.
The bang goes off, ringing in the enclosed space, as I hold Chantal’s gaze and put a bullet between his eyes.
Dermott’s head snaps back in a gory spray of red mist. Blood and brain matter splash against the walls like some grotesque artwork. He’s already dead before the rest of his body gets the signal, finally giving out on itself as he crumples to the ground with a heavy thud.
Chantal screams.
It’s one of those horror movie screams you’d expect from the final girl—you know the one. The girl who you spend the film following as she screams and trips over her own two feet running away from Freddy or Jason or whoever the fuck.
It’s a sharp, high-pitched sound that’s shrill enough to shatter glass and make any birds outside startled enough to take flight.
Her eyes are wide, her round face slack with terror.
Unfortunately for the little brat, she was in the splash zone. Some of Dermott’s blood and gunk has splattered on her face and neck and that fancy green dress she’s so damn fond of.
I grin broadly behind the ski mask.
Now she’ll have to bathe.
Might as well officially introduce myself.
The bang from the gunshot is still ringing, and my men haven’t budged an inch, probably almost as shocked as she is.
So it’s time to make it clear where I stand and how things are about to go.
I reach up and wrench off the mask in a quick, smooth motion.
Chantal’s eyes snap to my face, drawn by the abrupt movement.
Recognition dawns across her features as she catalogues mine—the dark reddish brown hair and thick beard, the hard line of my jaw, near-identical to Dad and Ronan and other Callahan men, and the green eyes that are another signature.
What she sees registers and then clicks into place.
“Lochlan,” she sputters. “Lochlan Callahan? Ronan’s brother? But… but you’re supposed to be…”
“Dead?” I offer, then my lips spread in a crooked grin. “I am dead—legally speaking. Which, if you think about it, makes me the perfect person to go uncaught when committing a crime as serious as kidnapping a senator’s daughter.”
She goes to suck in air then chokes on it, releasing a noise that sounds more like a whimper.
I’ve taken a couple steps toward her, crouching down so that we’re eye level. Close enough to see the various hues of brown in her dark gaze.
“See, you’ve got it all wrong,” I explain. “Everything you thought you knew isn’t how things are gonna play out. The Italians didn’t take you. Neither did any of the other crime families. You haven’t stumbled into some get-rich-quick ransom scheme that daddy’s money’ll fix either.