The Devil Himself (Devil of Dublin #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

DARBY

T he end.

I held my breath as I stared at those words, as if a single exhalation could blow them right off the screen. They were so small—just six little letters—but their significance was enormous. Time seemed to stand still as I admired the very shape of that sentence—tall letters on the outside, short letters on the inside, a space right in the middle. It looked like a smile that was missing a front tooth. I smiled back at it, lost in the moment, until the subtle blink of the cursor at the end of that sentence reminded me that time was most definitely not standing still, and based on the encroaching darkness of the woods and the pinks and corals sliding down the sky behind them, I didn’t have much of it left.

Once I saved my final edits in at least fifteen different places and emailed them to my publisher, I closed my laptop and waited for my bleary, aching eyes to adjust to the soft lighting and dreamy colors of Glenshire Lough at sunset. The view was stunning on a regular day, but after staring at the harsh blue glow of a computer for hours on end, it was absolutely delicious.

Perfect really. I was in my favorite place, sitting on my favorite bench, which had been carved for me by my favorite person, doing my favorite thing— okay, maybe my second-favorite thing —and thanks to my agent, I was actually going to get paid for it.

I could still see the announcement in Publishers Weekly .

Ableman Publishing Group bought Darby Donovan’s debut middle-grades series, Legend Has It, in a preemptive four-book agreement. The series is a collection of spooky fairy tales based on the folklore of Glenshire, a mysterious farming village in County Kerry, Ireland.

Kate, Kellen’s mom, had been so excited that she printed it out and framed it for me … causing me to immediately burst into tears. No one had celebrated an achievement of mine since my own mother had passed away. I’d forgotten how amazing it felt.

Kellen, on the other hand, was having a much harder time accepting Kate’s love. After she’d abandoned him at the age of five—leaving him in the care of the sick, sadistic priest who’d impregnated her—Kellen would never fully trust Kate again. He couldn’t. It didn’t matter that she had been a child herself, with no one to turn to and no idea that Father Henry would actually keep him rather than put him up for adoption. After everything he’d been through, the damage was done. But Kate kept showing up, week after week, with a smile on her face and a fresh box of pastries in her trembling hands.

I knew the hug she wanted was from him, but the one she got was always from me. She’d lost a child, and I’d lost a mother, so whenever we embraced, it felt like a fresh bandage being wrapped around an old wound.

Plus, having a bakery owner for a mother-in-law was a nice perk, especially considering the sugar cravings I’d been having recently.

I smiled, picturing the white stick with two pink lines on it that I’d hidden in my bathroom drawer that morning.

I’d wanted to tell Kellen right away, but he was out, making deliveries at the time, and I had edits to finish, so I’d decided to wait until I could tell him in person.

When I’d told him that I wanted to try for a baby once I graduated from college, I’d expected him to ask for more time. We were still young, and after everything he’d been through with both of his parents, I didn’t expect him to be too eager to become a parent himself. But much to my surprise, Kellen had said yes.

Actually, he’d pulled me into his arms, kissed the top of my head, and held me like that for what felt like an eternity. So, it hadn’t been a yes exactly, but it hadn’t been a no either.

I knew Kellen was scared to be a father, but the past was finally behind us. We’d finished turning the barn into a workshop for him. He was making good money with his custom wood-carving business. I had my first book deal. He’d severed all ties with the United Irish Brotherhood. The Bratva kingpin who’d wanted him dead was behind bars. And Kellen’s hacker friend, The Butcher, was making sure we stayed untraceable online in case any other enemies of Kellen’s might come looking for us. After a lifetime of struggle, of pain and terror and powerlessness and violence, we were finally free from it all. We were safe. We were settled.

And now, before the ink was even dry on my creative writing degree, we were pregnant.

As thrilled as I was, a little part of me worried about how Kellen would react. He’d seemed paranoid lately, more so than usual, and I wondered if it was because there was a possibility that I might be pregnant or if maybe something else was going on.

My joints creaked and muscles groaned as I stood and stretched. Kellen’s bench wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it was beautiful, but there was no better place to go when I really needed to concentrate. The woods behind my grandfather’s house had a way of transporting me into a completely different world.

Plus, I thought Saoirse might like the company.

Plucking a handful of blackberries off one of the bushes next to the bench, I popped one into my mouth and tossed the rest into the water. The thousand-year-old lake spirit was partial to much shinier gifts, but honestly, I thought she liked the attention that came with getting a present more than anything. She had a pretty lonely existence down there, and her only friend, other than me, was a creepy old forest witch that I’d only seen once.

Walking up to the edge of the lake, I clutched the laptop to my chest and smiled down at the berries floating on the surface. “I finished my final edits, Saoirse. All four books are done. Can you believe it? I’ll bring you a set once they’re published. They’re gonna turn them into fancy hardbacks with gold foiling. You’ll love them.”

As excited as I was about the books, it was my next piece of news that had me grinning like an idiot. Crouching down next to the water, I dropped my voice to a whisper and added, “Also … I’m pregnant.”

I knew that would get her attention. An iridescent blue sheen rippled across the darkening lake, shimmering like the northern lights in January.

I ran my fingertips over the glowing water, grinning as the light brightened beneath my touch. It reminded me of the way a cat arched its back against your hand when you petted it … when it wasn’t trying to bite your fingers off. That was Saoirse.

“We’re gonna have a baby.”

I laughed, tears pricking my eyes as I placed my palm flat on the cool surface. Cobalt energy pulsed and bubbled beneath it, tickling my hand with the same giddy effervescence as the butterflies in my stomach.

I’d never seen her so happy.

After saying my goodbyes, I hauled ass up the hill, hoping to make it out of the woods before it got too dark to see the trail. Past the crumbling stone cottage Kellen and I had played in as kids, through the patch of bluebells I’d once thought was a field of fairy hats, and past a thousand mushrooms and moss-covered trees, I finally made it to the pasture behind our blue farmhouse, where Vlad was grazing by the gate, waiting for me to return.

I gave his black woolly head a few pats, but I was too distracted by what I saw behind him to greet him properly.

The light was on in the woodshop.

Kellen was home.

Vlad trotted behind me as I ran across the pasture to the converted barn.

When I stopped outside the door, my heart pounded as I listened to make sure Kellen wasn’t using any power tools. I was always careful not to barge in on him when he was sawing or sanding. He startled easily, thanks to a lifetime spent in survival mode, and I would hate for him to lose a finger because of me.

I was partial to all of his appendages.

The only sounds I heard inside were some clanking and thudding, no heavy machinery, so I knocked on the door and pushed the creaky, old thing open.

I smiled as the sweet scent of sawdust filled my lungs, but the moment my eyes landed on Kellen, I released that breath, as well as my laptop, with a startled gasp.

“Darby!” he snapped, tucking the pistol he’d just pointed at me into the waistband of his jeans before rushing over to apologize. “Sorry. Shite. I didn’t hear ya knock.”

I bent over to pick up my computer, hoping to give myself a second to wipe the terror off my face, but Kellen’s strong, scarred hands beat me to it.

Standing, he brushed the sawdust off my device before returning the laptop and his attention to me. Callous fingers reached up to trace the side of my face as glacial-gray eyes took in the rest of me. It didn’t matter how many years I’d known Kellen or how much we’d been through together; his gaze never failed to send a chill up my spine. It was silent and still. Haunting and haunted.

But what truly froze me to the spot was his appearance. It was as if I’d stepped through that doorway and into a time that I never wanted to experience again.

As a child, Kellen had had the most beautiful crown of loose black curls. To me, it made him look like a handsome fairy prince. But Father Henry hated it. So much so that when Kellen came home with a French braid one day after playing hair salon with me in the woods, Father Henry had beaten him unconscious and shaved his head.

Kellen had kept his hair short after that to prove to everyone that it hadn’t bothered him. That he actually liked it that way. The look became part of his persona—the tough exterior he projected to the world. But when I had returned to Glenshire as an adult, our reunion had reminded him of who he used to be, before the world had made him hard. He hadn’t cut his hair since.

Until now.

I would never forget the way he’d looked the night that I came back. Bulging veins extended up his temples into his black buzz cut. Black beard stubble dusted his clenched jaw. And white skin covered his shaking knuckles as they tightened around my abusive fiancé’s neck. Kellen’s cold gray eyes had bored into mine while the life drained from John’s.

And I was looking into the face of that killer again.

Confused and terrified, I glanced around the converted barn, half-expecting to find myself in a kitchen with John’s lifeless body on the ground next to me. But it wasn’t a flashback, and it wasn’t a dream. Kellen—my Kellen—was gone, and in his place stood a man I hadn’t seen in two and a half years.

Black buzz cut.

Black beard stubble.

Black soul swirling behind ghastly gray eyes.

The Devil of Dublin was back.

Panic exploded through my nervous system, making my hands shake and my heart race as the deadliest man in Ireland reached over my shoulder and pushed the door shut behind me.

The click of the latch made my entire body jump.

I stood, clutching my computer, as Kellen stalked back over to his workbench, where a collection of guns lay scattered on the massive table.

“Kellen, what’s going on?”

“We have to leave. Now.” He didn’t look up as he placed the weapons into a plain black backpack. I knew he kept guns in the house. I just hadn’t known it was that many. “I’m sorry, angel. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

Kellen slammed a full magazine into a machine gun, making me jump.

“Sorry for what?” I asked, taking a few shaky steps in his direction. I squeezed my laptop harder to stop my hands from trembling as I mustered the courage to ask, “What’s going on?”

Picking up a shotgun, Kellen cursed and dug through the tool chest behind him until he found a box of ammunition.

“We never shoulda stayed here,” he muttered to himself, pumping round after round into the chamber. “We shoulda left the country when we had the fuckin’ chance. I knew you loved this place, and I couldn’t make ya leave”—he snapped the barrel closed and ran a hand over his freshly buzzed head, pushing curls back that no longer existed—“but I shoulda made you fuckin’ leave.”

“Kellen, what are you talking about? We’re happy here.”

“But we’re not fuckin’ safe!” He slammed his hand on the table, his irate expression immediately contorting into remorse over my startled response.

I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my throat, behind my eyes, deep inside my spinning head. “I … I don’t understand. I thought we were safe. I thought The Butcher was keeping us off the grid.”

“The Butcher’s fuckin’ dead.”

The ground beneath my feet began to tilt.

“Found him myself. He hadn’t been answerin’ my calls, so I paid him a little visit while I was in Dublin this mornin’.” Kellen shoved the sawed-off shotgun into the bag and zipped it up. “The place had been ransacked. Doors blasted open. Dead guards. Missin’ computers. Found him on the floor of the server room, shot in the back.”

My hand flew to my mouth as the gravity of this new information set in. The Butcher had our entire lives filed away on those computers—our birth certificates, passports, marriage license, address. If that information got into the wrong hands …

“Who did it?” I asked, feeling the blood draining from my face. “The UIB?”

“Worse.” Kellen slung the heavy backpack over one shoulder and came around the table, extending his hand toward me as he approached. “I’ll tell ya ’bout it in the car. Right now, we gotta—”

A deafening blast rang out behind me, peppering my back with shards of wood as I ducked and covered my head.

When the ringing in my ears finally stopped, I opened my eyes to find my laptop on the ground again. But this time, Kellen didn’t come to pick it up.

I looked up and found him standing a few feet away, gun drawn, teeth clenched, eyes wild, like a cornered animal, darting back and forth between the people I heard shuffling in behind me.

The click of a pistol being cocked next to my head explained Kellen’s reluctance to shoot, and the deep, sinister chuckle that echoed through the rafters told me exactly who was holding the gun.

Alexi Abramov.

A Bratva leader who’d been so hell-bent on revenge for the murder of his uncle that he vowed war against the United Irish Brotherhood unless they handed over the hit man who’d done the job—the notorious Devil of Dublin. And the UIB, the only family Kellen had ever known, agreed. For days, Kellen and I had raced across Ireland, running from both the UIB and the Bratva, until one wrong move on my part got us both captured. But I’d learned from the best. The Devil of Dublin had taught me to fight back, to take control, to use every resource I had, so after escaping from the UIB and framing their leader, Séamus Rooney, for the death of my fiancé, I’d enlisted my detective uncle to help me rescue Kellen and take down both Alexi and Séamus at the same time.

Alexi had been given three consecutive life sentences—one for false imprisonment and attempted human trafficking, one for possession of contraband guns with the intent to distribute, and one for the murder of four police officers during the shoot-out.

Séamus had been given eighty years.

I should have known that it was just a matter of time until the Bratva found a way to get him out.

I should have listened when Kellen told me we needed to leave the country.

I should have asked him what was going on days ago instead of dismissing his behavior as paranoid.

But as I stood, staring at my husband’s beautiful, hateful, fearful face, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

There would never be any other life for me. Glenshire was my home just as much as Kellen was. As much as this little person inside of me. And all three of them were worth fighting for.

“Devil,” Alexi purred with that thick Russian accent. “Ve meet again.” Cold metal pressed against the back of my head as another chuckle rumbled through the air. “Be good boy. Drop zhe gun. You shoot vone of us, ve shoot zhe girl …”

Kellen’s pupils were trained on Alexi’s face like a pair of laser scopes as he lowered the gun to the ground.

“Nikolai, take zhat … and zhe bag.”

A machine gun–carrying henchman with a shaved head and a black tracksuit darted over to Kellen and jerked the backpack off his shoulder. He cursed and said something in Russian, obviously surprised by the weight as he hoisted it onto his own shoulder.

“Two years, I sit in cell … zhinking of vays to keel you. Torture you. Make you scream. But now, I see you …” I could almost hear the smile on Alexi’s ruddy, evil, pockmarked face. “I zhink of new vay.”

The barrel of Alexi’s gun disappeared from my head, but before I could sigh in relief, pain exploded through my right inner thigh. It was so intense that I couldn’t hear, couldn’t see. It was just darkness and screaming, mind-erasing agony as my senses lost all contact with the outside world. I must have been falling because the next thing I felt was Kellen’s arms catching me, cradling me to his chest as he slid to his knees at Alexi’s feet.

“Torture begin now.”

The Russian’s voice sounded distant, muffled. Even Kellen felt far away, like I was perceiving him through the glass of a fishbowl.

Forcing my eyes open, I tried to focus on staying conscious, to focus on Kellen, stay with him, keep him safe.

“Vhat is English vord?” Alexi asked one of his henchmen as the sculpted ridges and valleys of Kellen’s perfect, panicked face began to blur together.

“Artillery? Artery? Artery.”

Alexi walked over to the workbench, pulled a stool out from underneath, and had a seat. I watched him over Kellen’s shoulder as he leaned back and rested his elbows on the wooden table. The pistol in his right hand dangled casually from his thick, pale fingers as he glanced at the watch on his opposite wrist.

“She bleed out in … mmm … five minutes.” He chuckled. “Seven if pregnant. Zhey have more blood, you know.”

Kellen’s wide, watery eyes fell to my stomach before colliding with mine for confirmation. A fraction of a nod and a hint of a smile were all I could muster, but the way his chest rose and fell in response, the way his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, made me wish that I hadn’t.

“It’s … okay,” I whispered. The pain was beginning to fade, along with my vision around the edges and my sense of fear.

It would be okay. I knew it. I just needed Kellen to know it too.

Tearing his gaze away from mine, Kellen unbuckled his belt one-handed and wrapped it around my upper thigh. I could see from the tension on his face that he was pulling it tight, but I couldn’t feel the pressure. I couldn’t feel anything other than the agony of watching Kellen’s heart break before my very eyes.

Raising my hand, I felt as though I were trying to control someone else’s arm as I ran my fingers over his freshly buzzed scalp. It was soft to the touch. I could feel that, but barely.

“You cannot stop zhis, Devil. You just make more time, more pain.” He laughed again. “ You do torture now.”

Kellen’s rough cheek dragged across mine as he buried his face in the crook of my neck. Everything below my waist was numb, but I could feel the moisture of Kellen’s tears on my skin, feel the shudder of his weeping body wrapped around mine.

There was so much I wanted to say to him. That I was going to be okay. That I believed in him. That I’d seen him take out three armed men before. That he could do it again.

But the only word I managed to rasp was, “Fight.”

“I know, angel,” he whispered with a nod. “I know yer fightin’.”

Kellen clutched me tighter, rocking me back and forth in a way that made staying conscious almost impossible. I was trying so hard to hold on. To resist the pull of the darkness that was dragging me away from him.

“But he’s right. This is torture.”

I heard the clank and swish of a belt being unfastened and felt a sudden rush to the head.

“Shh … it’s okay. You don’t have to fight anymore, darlin’. Neither of us does.” He kissed my forehead, my eyelids, my nose, my lips. “ ’Cause “I’m comin’ with ya, angel. Ya understand? I’m not lettin’ you go. I’ll never fuckin’ let go.”

His voice broke as he lifted my left hand to his lips and pressed a shaky kiss to the freckles on my ring finger. The ones that he bore as well.

“No.” I shook my dizzy, throbbing head. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. Not when we were so close to having everything we’d ever wanted.

Kellen could save us. All three of us. I knew he could.

Bored, Alexi’s men walked past us to the workbench and began speaking and laughing with their boss in Russian.

I clung to Kellen’s body as if it were the only thing tethering me to my own and turned my mouth toward his ear. “Knife,” I whispered, clutching his shirt in my fists.

Kellen kept a blade in his boot. Never walked out the door without it. He was still armed. We still had a chance.

Kellen nodded in understanding, and my entire body sagged in relief.

It would be okay.

It had to be.

With his hand clutching my jaw, Kellen pressed his tear-soaked lips to mine, and the world darkened around me until he was the only thing I could sense. His woodsy scent, his silent strength, his unbreakable, unwavering devotion—I sank into it like a warm bed.

But just before the darkness pulled me completely under, Kellen whispered something that I hadn’t heard since the day he’d offered his life to the UIB in exchange for mine. Something that pulled me back from the brink of unconsciousness, flooding what was left of my bloodstream with panic.

“ Is fíor bhur ngrá ,” he rasped, dropping his forehead to mine.

Saoirse’s blessing.

My eyes shot open as Kellen pulled the knife out of his boot and turned to face Alexi, and with defiance in his eyes and a scream on my lips, he plunged the blade straight into his own heart.