4. Lorcan
Lorcan
Her breath hitches, a tiny, stuttering sound that I feel against my own skin. "W-what?"
I smirk and move closer, not giving her an inch of space to breathe. Up close, her hazel eyes are blown wide, the pupils swallowing the gold. She smells like the hotel's floral soap and something else. Something warm, female, and entirely too tempting.
I want to see what she looks like when that sassy mouth isn't throwing insults at me. I want to see if she makes those same little gasping noises when I’m buried deep inside her. The air between us is thick and heavy. My thumb is still on her jaw, my skin humming where it touches hers.
I’m about to lean in to find out if she tastes just as good as she looks, when the phone in my pocket vibrates.
Fucking terrible timing.
I don’t take my eyes off her for a three-count. I want her to see that I’m choosing to stop, not because I want to, but because I have to. I pull back, the loss of her heat makes me want to snarl and snatch her up.
I pull the phone out. It’s Echo, my third in command.
“This better be good, Echo,” I snap.
“We found the bastard, boss. Basement. Room four. He’s been talking. It’s worse than we thought. He’s been using the Syndicate’s coastal routes to move ‘small stock.’ Using your name to bypass the patrols.”
My jaw tightens until I hear a faint click in my ear. Small stock. Children.
The man is O’Malley. A rat I should have put in the fucking ground six years ago in South Boston when he stole my shipment of cigars. I’d been "merciful" then. I’d let him walk because his wife was sick.
It was a mistake I won’t make twice. People don’t change. They just get better at hiding the rot.
“Wait for me,” I say and end the call.
I look at Atara. She’s staring at me, her chest heaving under that cream knit dress. She’s smart—I can see her processing the shift in my energy. The ‘businessman’ she was just flirting with has left the building.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Good. Go,” she snaps, though her voice is breathy. “I didn't ask you to stay.”
“I’ll walk you to your room.” I grab her arm and lead her toward the door without hearing what she has to say. I walk her down the long, silent hallway toward her suite. She doesn’t fight me, but I can feel the tension radiating off her. We reach her door, and she fumbles with her key card.
When she finds the card, she spins back to glare at me. “What the fuck was that about?”
I raise a brow. “Walking you to your room?!”
She scoffs and throws her hands in frustration. “Dragging me around the hotel like a child!”
I watch the way her boobs lift with her movement and fucking hell… it won’t be nice if I leave here with a fucking hard on.
“Ahh.” Is all I can say and her eyes flash. She seems to have random flashes of cute little angry episodes. She’s like a sexy angry bird.
“Ahh?! Next time you drag me like that, I’ll stab you with my… with my key card!”
I bite my lips to keep from chuckling at her cuteness because she would probably go rabid on me.
“I wasn’t joking, Atara,” I say instead, stepping into her space one last time. “I want you. And I can see you want me, too. Your body is a lot more honest than your mouth.”
She lets out a sharp, defensive breath. “In your dreams, mister. You’re too arrogant for your own good.”
I lean down, my mouth inches from hers. “I have work to finish. It’s going to be a long night. But when I’m done, I’m coming back here.”
I reach past her and tap the door handle.
“If the door is unlocked, I’ll know the answer. If it’s latched… I’ll take my loss and you won’t see me again. Think about it.”
I don’t wait for her to reply. I turn and walk away, the sound of my boots heavy on the carpet. I don't look back to see if she’s watching. I know she is. I can feel her eyes on my shoulder blades.
The transition from the luxury of the hotel to the service basement is a descent into a different world.
Most people think this resort is owned by a conglomerate out of London. They’re wrong. I co-own this place through three shell companies. It’s the perfect spot for "discreet" business. No one looks twice at a black SUV in the service bay.
I step into Room 4.
The smell hits me first. It’s a mix of damp concrete, old grease, and the sharp tang of dry blood. O’Malley is strapped to a heavy wooden chair in the center of the room. He looks like a pathetic pile of laundry—bloody, shaking, and leaking fluid from his nose.
Disgusting bastard.
Echo is standing by the wall, tossing a heavy brass knuckle in his hand. Echo is younger than me, harder in some ways. Skin tanned and smooth even with all the bullets he’s taken for me and while working, his hair is cropped too close to his scalp but it makes him look even more rugged.
“Boss,” Echo grunts.
I strip off my suit jacket and hand it to Kieran, who is standing by the door. I roll up my sleeves, slowly and methodically.
“He’s been moving them out of the Cork harbor,” Echo says, his voice flat. “Fourteen kids in the last month. Using your seal on the manifests. He told the port authorities you were overseeing the ‘expansion.’”
I finally look at O’Malley. He’s sobbing now. A wet, pathetic sound.
“B-boss… please,” he blubbers. “I was in debt, m-my wife is sick. Boss! I didn’t have a choice!”
I walk over to the table where Echo has laid out his tools. I don’t go for the knives. I go for the heavy iron pipe.
“You had a choice, O’Malley,” I say. I’m not shouting. I’m almost whispering. “You could have come to me. You could have asked for help. Instead, you put my name on a crate full of children knowing fully well my one rule is to steer clear of children and women.”
I swing.
The crack of the pipe against his kneecap is loud in the small room. O’Malley screams—a high, piercing sound that bounces off the concrete. He tries to curl into a ball, but the straps hold him in place.
“That’s for the lie,” I say.
I swing again. The other knee. Another crack. He’s wailing now, his eyes rolling back in his head.
I’m not a man who enjoys pain for the sake of it. I’m a man who believes in branding. If people think they can use my name for this kind of filth, the Syndicate dies. And if the Syndicate dies, my daughter isn't safe.
I spend the next forty minutes breaking him. It’s not a quick process. I take my time with the small bones first—the fingers, one by one. I want him to feel every individual snap. I want him to understand the weight of the debt he owes.
By the time I’m done, O’Malley is a wobbling, shattered mess of meat and bone. His face is unrecognizable, a purple-black mask of swelling. He’s crying, but there’s no sound left, just a wet wheeze.
“Please,” he whispers, a bubble of bloody spit popping on his lip. “Just… kill me.”
I drop the pipe. It clatters on the floor. My shirt is ruined—speckled with red dots that look like a grotesque map. My knuckles are bruised, the skin broken.
“You don’t get to ask for favors,” I say.
I pull my piece from my holster. The weight of the Glock is familiar, comforting. I press the cold barrel against his forehead, right between his eyes. He closes them, a final, shaking sob racking his chest.
Bang.
The room goes silent.
I turn away, grabbing a rag from the table to wipe the worst of the blood off my hands.
“Clean this up,” I say to Echo. “I want the body in the harbor by dawn. And find the kids. Every single one of them, return them to their fucking families and find one for the ones who don’t have a family. If a hair on their heads is touched, I want the people responsible brought to me in Vegas.”
“Got it, boss,” Echo says. He looks at my shirt. “You might want to change before you go back upstairs. You look like a slasher flick.”
“I’ll handle it.”
I take the service elevator back up to the penthouse level. I’m exhausted, my adrenaline bottoming out, leaving me with a cold, hollow ache in my chest. I just want a shower and a drink.
I open the door to my suite, stripping off my ruined shirt as I walk through the foyer. I’m tossing it toward the laundry bin when I stop dead.
Maeve is sitting on the rug in the living room, surrounded by LEGOs.
Shit, shit, shit.
She shouldn't be here.
I freeze, my hand instinctively going behind my back to hide my bloodied knuckles. My bare chest is probably fine, but my hands are a crime scene.
“Dada!” Maeve shouts, jumping up and running toward me.
“Maeve, stop,” I say, my voice sharper than I intended.
She stops, her little face scrunching in confusion. She looks at my chest, then her eyes widen.
“Daddy! You spilled the tomato sauce!” she giggles, pointing at the red spatters on my trousers and the side of my neck. “You’re a messy eater, just like me!”
I feel a cold sweat break out on my forehead. I’m a man who can kill a human being without blinking, but the thought of my daughter seeing the reality of my work makes my heart stutter.
“Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile that feels like it’s breaking my face. “A very messy eater. Pasta is… dangerous, Maeve.”
“Well, I’m going to play with my puzzle now,” Maeve says and rushes out.
I sink onto the sofa, burying my face in my clean hand.
Fucking hell!
“We need a minder for Maeve,” I mutter.
“You’re always scaring them off, Lorcan,” Kieran says, stepping into the room. He’s carrying a fresh shirt and a bottle of whiskey.
Echo follows him in, looking bored. “We’re going to have to start kidnapping nannies if you keep it up.”
“Then they should stop being so fucking incompetent!” I growl, taking the whiskey bottle and taking a long, burning pull.
“When we get back to Vegas, we’re going to have a serious problem. You can’t raise a kid with just us and a rotating door of terrified nannies.”
“I’ll find someone,” I mutter.
“Who? Someone who isn’t scared of a man who breaks kneecaps for breakfast?” Echo snorts. “Good luck with that. You need someone with a backbone.'”
I freeze, the whiskey halfway to my mouth.
I think about a girl in a torn teal dress. I think about her poking me in the chest and calling me a failure. I think about her jumping a wall to save a kid she didn't know.
She has a degree in Finance. She’s smart. She’s brave. And she’s currently sitting in a room three floors down, deciding whether or not to leave her door open for a monster.
I need to go…
“What?” Kieran asks, watching my face. “You have that look. The ‘I have a plan’ look that usually ends with me doing a lot of paperwork.”
“Fuck off, I need to get clean,” I say, standing up.
I walk to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I need to get the smell of O’Malley off my skin. I need to be clean.
Because in twenty minutes, I’m going to see Atara. And I need to know if the door is open.
“Lorcan,” Echo calls out as I close the door. “Just don’t break this one. We’re running out of options.”
I don’t answer. I just step into the hot spray and let the blood of the man I killed wash down the drain.