26. Killian
KILLIAN
Standing in the early morning sun, I let the rays warm my shoulder blades. Holding the cigarette to my lips, I can still taste Maeve on my tongue. Like danger and sin, I don’t ever want to forget how she floods my mouth, or how her thighs wrap around my head.
I don’t believe in heaven, but I’m sure it exists between her legs.
Inhaling deeply, the smoke fills my lungs. The nicotine sings in my blood, and the burn warms my chest. I hold it one second too long—before blowing it out to mix into the cool air. Something to remind me of what it’s like to be alive.
Leaning against the brick wall, the world continues on. Cars drive by, people yell, but further back, hidden from view, I’m an outsider looking in. Nothing new there.
I take out my phone, checking my messages. Briar’s clipped text shines back at me.
Briar: Player meet. 7AM.
He’s lucky I’m a light sleeper and saw it after the night his sister put me through.
Rolling my neck, I check my hip. Both blades are there, my gun stuffed down the back.
Tucked in my bomber jacket, I look unsuspecting—a guy having a smoke on his break while the world turns. But I’m ready for anything.
I wonder if Maeve’s awake yet?
After our night, I’m learning—I left a note before sneaking away. I didn’t want to wake her after how rested she looked, but I made sure she knew she wasn’t alone. That I would be back.
“That’s a terrible habit,” a deep voice says to my left.
My body locks, butt hovering by my mouth, the smoke reaching high. I know that voice. It still haunts me—the yells, the shouts, the commands that drifted through the locked door.
My mother begging—pleading for it to stop.
I don’t let my fingers tremble—I’m too fucking old for that shit.
“Is it?” I smirk, inhaling again. Turning, I blow the smoke into his polished face. Pale face, dangerous black eyes that hold more secrets than warmth, and peppered black hair swept over his skull. Only a few inches shorter than me, he swallows up the air in the alley as if it belongs to him.
Typical. He thought even people were his property.
Yoon Kwan waves his hand, dispelling the smoke. “Yes. It could kill you.”
Tsking, I flick the spent butt away before grabbing another. Do I need it? No, but it irritates him.
“I don’t know, Appa, I think the bullets will get to me first.” Lighting the cigarette, I look to the mouth of the alley, avoiding his eyes.
Kwan is big on respecting your elders. Not looking at him when I speak? A big no-no. I had a good beating when I disobeyed him as a kid. At his irritated face, I remember the pain, but laugh. It fucking tickles me.
“Why are you here?” I flick away ash, watching the wind take it away.
“I’m here for a meet,” he answers. He comes closer, and my body tightens, coiling together as if I’m a small child again and he’s overshadowing me.
Instead, I push back against the wall and side-eye him.
“You don’t say.”
As I bring the cigarette to my mouth, his hand shoots out, halting it from touching my mouth. It’s cold—like a block of ice wedges against my skin—and I pause, dead eyes looking into his furious ones.
“You will show me respect, Kil-hyun.”
The little boy who used to listen to him abuse and take from his mother nightly shudders at the touch. The man who grew up in the dark and embraced the murderous psychopath inside his soul grins.
With two fingers on my opposite hand, I jab my thumb into the sensitive point of his wrist, using my index to hold him still. Grinding those bones together, his weak grip relaxes and frees my hand.
Placing the cigarette into my mouth, I flip his arm around, holding it behind him, high above his head. He groans—I love it—and I wrench it higher. At this angle, I could dislocate his shoulder.
He did it to my mother.
Slipping his dress shirt down, I glare at the expensive watch and admire the tattoo that covers his forearm.
A winding dragon slithers up his arm, stopping short of the cuffs.
I know that underneath the cotton, it covers both arms, over his chest, and most of his back.
The dark blue ink etched into his skin will forever haunt me, gleaming through the night, as he holds a belt in one hand, rope in the other.
He used it on my mother when she fought too much.
My father is a monster in polite company, using his lucrative shipping business as a great cover. He’s a smart businessman, but at night, he gives into the depravity that formed my childhood.
“How’s business?” I ask around the butt. “Still stealing children and selling them to monsters?”
“I haven’t done that in a long time,” he says behind gritted teeth.
Chuckling, I jerk the arm. He moans, and a sick part of me laps up the agony.
“Now, now, Appa,” I taunt, “I don’t like liars.
You think I’m not aware of what you’ve been up to?
” Lowering my face close to his, I blow smoke into his wide eyes.
“I’ve been watching. You think our meet at the warehouse was the first time we’ve seen each other?
That’s cute.” I twist his arm, putting pressure on his shoulder. “Why are you here?”
“Contract.”
Figured. Briar was finding all the players in the city that would answer the Board’s request for a hit. Kwan sells kids on the black market, but his specialty is assassinations. He thought he’d come here, get a target, make quick money, and be gone.
My mother never wanted me to be like him. But the sins of the father run too deep to ignore.
Snapping his arm, I grin as I hear the bone slide from the socket and his gruff shout. I drop him, letting him fall to his knees, and stain those perfect dress slacks.
Holding his arm, he glares up at me, glasses skewed. It’s fucking unnerving looking at him—I might share traits of my mother, and I hunt for them whenever I look in the mirror—but I am fully my father’s son.
“You would condemn me to death?” he shouts in Korean. I roll my eyes—he’s too dramatic.
“We all die, Appa,” I reply, words smooth. “No use in being afraid.”
He made sure growing up, my culture—his culture—was branded into me with private tutors and only allowing the Korean language at home. The words still don’t hit my ear right—because I gave it up. I gave up that part of myself—that part that was him.
I fully embraced my mother’s heritage—taking the English name she whispered to me after my father was finished with her. Killian Ambrose Linwood—named after her grandfather.
“I owe money,” he pleads, crawling to lean against the brick wall. “This hit was supposed to settle all debts.”
Something he and Ferguson had in common—neither could balance a checkbook.
“Sounds like a personal problem.” I flick the spent cigarette at him. “How did you make this meet?”
His lips twist, and I smile, the part that’s wholly him rising to the surface. Pulling the knife from my pocket, I wave it in front of his face. “I don’t give second chances, so answer the question, Appa. How did you set this up?”
I level the knife at his nose, and he swallows. “Through an outside party.”
“Who?” I growl.
Shaking his head, I touch the tip to his cheek.
“Did you know I have more confirmed kills than you?” I grin, tongue running over my teeth. “Quite remarkable, given how long I’ve been active. You have what, decades on me?” Glancing up, I wink. “I guess I’m more my father’s son than my mother’s.”
I follow along his jaw, resting the blade to his pulse. My father doesn’t move, just stares at me, emotionless.
This? This is the face of the man who would drag my mother from me. Day, night, public or private. He would take her away, use her, then leave her to clean up the mess.
He did it so many times in front of me; I started interfering. Fighting, clawing, beating him to leave her alone. It got so bad, he threw me into a closet, locking the door before assaulting her. I was forced to listen—to hear everything—and never be able to stop it.
“Give me the name,” I murmur, voice full of all the darkest promises. Promises of his death, of his torture, at my hands if he doesn’t cooperate.
“Murray,” he grumbles. A bead of sweat drops from his brow.
Murray. That fat fucking piece of shit…
“Where do you find him?”
Kwan gestures with his chin. “Bar downtown. Irish pub. The Black Skull.”
It’s a little place, off our radar. It’s run by innocent people—but I’m going to paint the walls red with Murray’s blood.
Staring at my father, I remember every horrid thing that he did to us. What he made my mother endure before she escaped with me. We spent months on the streets, hiding from him, until she died. All the money he had, and she chose the rats over his brutality.
When she died, he never came looking for me.
“Where is she?” I ask, emotions wiped clean.
Kwan sighs. “Nowhere you can visit.”
As an assassin, you have limited ways to dispose of a body.
Lye, acid, fires, or dumping sites are the most common.
I spent years studying Kwan under Ferguson’s roof, watching what he did and who he worked for, to learn.
And to keep tabs on him, should we ever run in the same circles.
People are afraid of the Ghost—but they fear the Reaper more.
My father, though, liked to bury his victims in mass graves. I’m sure that’s what he did with my mother.
Grabbing the gold chain around my neck, I give it a kiss. For her.
Standing, I keep my knife pointed at him. “I don’t need to. I’ll see her soon.”
Eventually, in death, we’ll meet again.
But not before I have my second chance with Maeve. And not before I get Murray.
Turning my back on him, I stalk to the entrance, only for him to call out to me. “Why do you protect her?” He stands, using the wall for support. “Ferguson is dead. She’s a woman running a sinking ship. She’s as good as dead, too.”
My shoulders bunch. “Know something I don’t, Appa?”
His face closes off, and I laugh. Going back, I haul him up, slamming him back. His head smacks into the brick, and pain dances in his dark eyes. Withdrawing my gun, I point it at his neck and grin.
I know why my father hasn’t done more work lately—he’s slow. Sloppy. He’s asking to be killed.
“What do you know?”
He struggles, but I have him too high, and my finger is a little jump-happy. I’ll gladly end his life if he tries to react.
“They’re having difficulties filling the job.” He twists his head, looking for relief. “Apparently, everyone knows of your involvement. They’re too afraid of your retribution.”
Chuckling, I drop my father back to the ground. “No, Appa, it’s not me they’re afraid of. It’s her.”
Rubbing his neck, he shakes his head. “For now. I’ve heard she’s killed the last three hitmen. Eventually, they won’t miss. Where will that leave you?”
Bending down, I wink in his face. “In Hell, right by her side.”
I’m done with him. I go to leave, but his hand snaps out, gripping me tight. Sighing, I glance down.
“You can’t just leave me. If I don’t pay?—”
“Word of advice,” I say, plucking his fingers off of me.
I snap one as I go and drink down his gasp.
“If it’s who I think you owe money to, scream when they start sawing off the limbs.
They tend to go easier on you if you make noise.
” Lighting another cigarette, I let the burn dull the rage in my belly that my father stokes. “If you don’t, the torture gets worse.”
Shuffling away, I wave with two fingers.
“I’ll send my condolences to your new wife when they find your body.
Does the gang still dismember and burn the remains in empty fields?
” His face pales, and I shrug. “No matter. I won’t come visit.
In the meantime,” I say, lowering my voice, “keep your hands off of her. If I see another bruise, you won’t have to worry about your debts. You’ll have to worry about me.”
I don’t stop until I’m blocks away, hunting through my pocket, mentally willing the fury to leave me. Fury at my father—his actions, the unfairness, his hand in harming my mother—before dialing Briar’s number.
He picks up on the first ring. “Next time you have a lead, vet it better. I didn’t need to speak to my father first thing in the morning, kid.”
His laugh floats through the line. “You have a father? I assumed you were spawned from Hell.”
“Briar.”
“Maybe next time,” he drawls, “when my big sister is in trouble, you won’t leave me in the fucking dark.”
Slamming the car door, I glare out the windshield. “Is this your way of getting even?”
“Even?” He scoffs. “We both know if I wanted to get even, I’d turn your car into a bomb and trap you inside.” The doors lock, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from cursing the little fucker out. He’s messing with me from God knows where. “This? This is a warning.”
“A warning about what?”
“Keep her safe,” he growls. “Otherwise, the next time we talk, it’ll be in person. I don’t care who gets pissy, I’m back in town.”
Fuck. If Briar comes back, the city will erupt.
Pinching my brow, I exhale slowly. “I know, kid. I’ve got her. I’ll keep her safe.”
“You fucking better.”
The line goes dead, and I growl, tossing the phone aside. All the O’Briens are working my last fucking nerve. Instead of calling him back—and making his day worse—I throw the car in drive. I have a messenger to kill.