Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Ronan
Кощей
I stare at the business card in my hand, glaring at the lettering written in Russian, blood roaring in my ears harder than a drumbeat.
What the fuck would Simone be doing with something like this?
Oona wasn’t sure what it was when she found it in a pocket of Simone’s coat. But she used her phone to translate it. A translation I’ve double checked myself. Sure enough, it translates to exactly what I suspected:
Koschei.
Vodka Room, Brighton 4th Street, Building 27. Brooklyn, NY 11235.
I know a hitman card when I see one. This is the contact information for a Russian hitman nicknamed Koschei after some figure from Slavic folklore known as “The Deathless.”
Whoever this asshole is, my wife has his business card for one reason and one reason only.
She wants somebody dead.
I have a pretty good fucking guess who that somebody is.
The questions start piling up in my head, each one worse than the last. How did she get this?
Why would she have it if she’s not up to something nefarious?
Is she working with Malcolm to assassinate me and my family from the inside?
Did Rurik Raguzin lie to my fucking face at Gossier’s when he said the Bratva has nothing to do with what’s going on?
…has this whole goddamn marriage been a setup from the start?
“Ronan...”
Oona pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts. I look up to find her standing near the door, fussing with her apron. She looks uneasy. Nervous.
Two things Oona never is.
“It could be a mistake,” she offers. “Simone could have that card by accident. Maybe someone gave it to her and she didn’t know what it was. Maybe she—”
“How would that happen, Oona?” I snap irritably. “How does one accidentally come into possession of a Russian hitman’s business card?”
She opens her mouth then closes it a few more times before coming up with a stammering excuse. “I... well, I… I suppose... it does look bad, I’ll grant you that. But you should hear her explanation first, Ronan. Things’ve been so good between the two of you! Surely there’s a reasonable—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be leaving for your vacation?”
She blinks, caught off guard by the sharp pivot.
“Then you know what to do. Go finish packing. Get out of my sight.”
It’s the first time in the twenty plus years I’ve known her that Oona doesn’t fire back. Usually her hands would notch at her girthy hips and she’d lay into me for mouthing off to her. She’d have no fucks to give that I’m a warlord in the Irish Mob and she’s just some caretaker of our home.
Instead she simply sighs, shoulders sagging, and turns toward the door. Before she leaves, she pauses long enough with her hand on the knob.
“You’re not in your right mind since Lochlan’s passing. Don’t do somethin’ you’ll regret.”
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
I stand in silence, my chest heaving, the business card crumpled in my fist. Seconds tick by following her absence where I don’t budge an inch, fuming on the spot as nothing but the grandfather clock fills the room with noise.
It’s out of the stillness that suddenly I lose it.
A roar rips out of me from deep within my chest, where it’s been welled up since the business card was brought to my attention. It’s so loud and powerful it rivals thunder rumbling during a storm.
It spreads across the grounds of Callahan House and reverberates against the walls of this room.
I whirl around and send everything on my desk clattering to the floor. My laptop. The table lamp. A glass tumbler that shatters on impact. Some fucking cup of pens that scatters everywhere.
But it’s not enough.
I spin in the opposite direction and knock books and a potted plant off the bookshelf, soil spilling across the hardwood. Then my fist is slamming through the oval-shaped mirror on the wall, glass exploding against my knuckles, blood dribbling down my hand as shards bite into me.
It doesn’t fucking matter. I don’t feel any of it.
The only thing that consumes me right now is the white-hot rage that’s pumping through my veins and burning me up like a deadly blaze.
So it’s fucking true.
I can’t trust anybody. Everybody’s got their own motives at play. Everybody’s scheming and plotting and lying through their fucking teeth. Right down to my own wife, who apparently wants me dead.
All after I’ve been defending her. Protecting her. Growing to actually care about—
I cut the damaging thoughts off with a clench of my jaw, my glare hardening.
The Langstons have probably been behind the funny business all along. Maybe they’ve been sabotaging us by working with Dren and the Albanians. This whole arrangement was a ruse from the start, and my family fell for it like goddamn fools.
Dad might be an asshole, but it seems he was onto something…
My phone buzzes amid the wreckage on the floor.
I snatch it up, blood smearing across the screen as I read the message. It’s from Fionn.
There’s been a situation on the road. Simone’s safe. Headed back now.
My pulse jumps from the news. I type back with bloody fingers.
Bring her to my office.
Then I toss the phone aside and stride to the minibar. I pop the stopper off a decanter and pour half the whiskey into a glass.
Now all there is to do is wait.
No more than twenty minutes later, somebody’s knocking at the door.
“Ronan, I’ve brought the missus like you requested,” Fionn starts uncertainly. He’s entered red in the face, the look in his eyes apprehensive. “But I should let you know there was a mystery car that tried to run us off the road and then—”
“I asked you to deliver my wife,” I interrupt. “We’ll discuss the rest after the fact.”
“Oh… uh… alright.”
He’s obviously thrown off by my dismissal, clearly expecting me to care more about the news.
Still, he knows better than to question me. A beat passes before he’s stepping out of the room and letting the door shut.
Simone remains where she is, coat still on, her face unreadable. The true definition of an enigma.
I’m opposite her by the minibar, the whiskey glass in my bruised and bloodied hand. The business card’s crumpled in the other.
Neither of us speaks or moves. We let a moment go by where we stand our ground like the enemies we are deep down.
Finally Simone indicates she’s had enough with a sigh and roll of her eyes.
“I don’t know why you’re angry now, but I was almost involved in a serious car accident. Some psycho tried to ram us off the road. Then the police pulled us over like it was our fault. So whatever this is, I’m not in the mood for your mind games.”
She turns toward the door to leave.
“Don’t.”
She freezes at the singular command, hand hovering inches from the knob.
I’m striding toward her within the same second. Three long strides and then I’m on her so fast she barely has time to react. She flattens herself against the wall, eyes going wide with alarm as her lips part for a startled breath.
“Ronan—”
“Don’t,” I repeat, stopping mere inches from her. Close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat and smell her sweet floral perfume. “Don’t think for a second you’re going anywhere. Not right now. Not ’til you explain yourself.”
Her brows furrow, confusion flickering in her eyes. “Explain what? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t lie to me!” I slam my palm flat against the wall beside her head, making her jump. But she doesn’t break our eye contact, holding my gaze as I hold up the wrinkled business card. “This. Explain this, princess. Explain why you’ve got a calling card for a fucking Russian hitman.”
She stares, blinking, combing her teeth over her lower lip as if cycling through answers in her head.
“Where...” she stammers. “How… how did you get that?”
“Never you mind how the fuck I got it,” I sneer, my mouth tilting into half of a grin. “Don’t worry about that. Worry about how you’re gonna talk yourself out of this one, princess. How you’re gonna convince me you’re not a fucking double agent for your family.”
The accusation snaps her out of her shock.
“Double agent?” she sputters like the mere thought’s absurd. “You mean for my father? You’re being serious right now?”
“Save the indignation. We’re way past you acting innocent.” I crowd her further against the wall, my body blocking any escape. She’s at my mercy, caged in like prey. “Tell me what the fuck’s going on. Or you, your father, and the rest of your fucking family are about to be real regretful.”
Fire flashes in her hazel eyes. “Don’t you EVER threaten my family!”
“I’ll threaten whoever the hell I want to threaten. I’m the one who says how things go around here. You’re just a pretty pawn in this war. One your father’s used and you don’t even realize it.”
“You don’t get how insane you sound right now!” She’s shaking, whether from fear or fury I can’t tell. “You’re actually losing your mind, and I refuse to hang around and watch it happen.”
She ducks out from under me and bolts for the door.
I catch her by the arm and spin her around, yanking her back toward me so roughly strands of hair swing into her face.
“We’re not done, princess,” I growl at her, my grip tightening ’til she winces. “You haven’t explained yourself yet. Where did you get the card? What were you planning?”
She tries to wrench free, but I hold fast ’til she’s outright jerking against me.
“Tell me!”
“FINE!” she screams. “You want to know? You really want to fucking know?”
She stops fighting, her chest heaving, frustration glistening in her eyes.
“Chantal gave it to me! In case of an emergency situation! In case I ever needed it and was desperate enough!” she explains between sharp breaths.
“You want to know why I kept it? Because… because I didn’t know what I was facing inside this family from hell!
This house full of Irish gangsters who hate my guts!
So yes, I kept it in case I ever needed to use it! ”