Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Cavin
“Cavin,” my mother calls from the dining room. “Come here for a second, love.”
I let out a long exhale, stretch my neck, and reach my arms up over my head. My god, it’s been a long fucking week.
“Yes,” I say, stepping into the dining room where she’s got glossy magazines all lined up on the table. “We’re looking at options for the engagement party signage,” she says with a smile. “Care to take a peek?”
I shake my head. “Honestly, Mam, no. I don’t care to. I don’t care what you pick. Pick anything you want. This is a transaction, you know that.”
“Alright then,” she says with a pained smile. She likes to think sometimes that we’re normal, at least some of us. That she didn’t raise criminals who live by a different code of ethics than most of the damn world.
“Do what you like, and I’ll like it too,” I say, turning on my heel.
As I reach the entryway, the front door bursts open. Somebody screams, and another person drops a dish with a crash.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I push through and see Declan with a split lip, holding his arm at an odd angle. Ashland’s behind him, supporting him, as Declan drips blood onto the foyer tiles.
“Christ, Declan. You all right?”
“Aye,” he says through gritted teeth. “Fine.”
“That arm doesn’t look fine,” I mutter under my breath. “Looks broken.”
“Call the damn medic then.”
“Yes. What happened?” I nod to my sister Bronwyn in the doorway and gesture for her to make the call.
“The deal’s gone south,” he says, wincing.
“Aye,” Ashland growls. “Crowning’s crew ambushed us at the docks. Three of them, armed. We handled it, but it got messy.”
I sigh. Another night, another feckin’ battle. Thankfully, this one won’t blow back. He said he handled it, and I trust him.
Mam rushes in. “Declan!”
“I’m fine,” he says again. “Seriously, don’t worry about me. I’ve got this under control, okay?”
“Alright, but…” She shakes her head. “I thought you boys coming in the house with broken bones and blood dripping on the tile would have ended when you grew out of it. I guess not.”
“I’ve got this,” I mutter under my breath and take him into the study, where the medic quickly arrives—old Doc Sullivan, who’s been patching up our family for decades, no questions asked.
“What really happened?” I ask Declan in a low voice, while Ashland’s preoccupied on his phone, scowling. Declan gives me the full details. The ambush. The retaliation. The message Crowning’s trying to send.
Great. Just fucking brilliant.
My phone buzzes with a text.
“Jesus. Look who’s waking from the dead,” I mutter under my breath.
“Who is it?” Declan asks.
“My betrothed,” I say with sarcasm and an eye roll. “This little lass.” I shake my head. “Might've been something with the mobile service? I swear to Christ, I don't understand why when I sent her a message, it turned all green like this. And now it's blue again.”
“It's because she blocked you, lad,” Declan says, chuckling to himself despite the pain. “Christ, what did you do to get yourself blocked by your own betrothed?”
“I know she fucking blocked me,” I mutter, jaw clenched. “Question is why she unblocked me now.”
He snorts. “Maybe she's finally come to her senses.”
“Is this why she hasn't responded to any of my texts?” I glare at the screen like it's personally offended me.
“Probably,” Declan says, shaking his head as I examine his arm.
I clean his wound and take a closer look. “Aye, definitely broken, lad. We're gonna have to get that set for sure.” I clean up his bloody knuckles while Doc preps the splint materials.
“So what’d she say?” Declan says, wincing.
“Eh, nothing.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe I’m marrying this girl. She doesn’t have an ounce of respect for me.”
“You think it has something to do with you taking the mickey out of her in school, then?”
I scrub a hand across my brow and shrug. “Yeah.”
“Hmm, interesting,” Ashland says with another scowl. “You sure that’s the only reason she’s angry with you?”
“I don’t know. Probably good enough, aye? She was the one who was Miss Perfect, always getting me in trouble.”
“Uh-huh,” Declan says, wincing when Doc pulls the splint tight. “Fascinating, that. What’s she say?” he asks.
I read the text back to him, and he chuckles to himself.
“She is a smart one, I’ll give you that.”
“Aye, she is.”
I glance at the clock.
Today’s the fuckin’ tribute day, and I haven’t gotten a breath closer to figuring out who’s got my bollocks in a sling.
Five hundred thousand fucking euros a month that my family can’t know about is a bitch of a thing.
The fucking strings I’ve had to pull to make it happen could land me straight back in prison, a hell I swore I’d never revisit.
“What about you? What happened in Belfast last night?” Declan asks.
I shake my head. “Fucking catastrophe,” I mutter. “Three guns jammed, shipment was light by twenty pieces, and Murphy’s asking questions he shouldn’t be asking.”
Doc stitches him up, and I douse the wound with antiseptic.
My phone buzzes again. This time, though, it’s not Erin but one of her guards.
Sir? That Erin and her sister may have ventured into the club.
“Jesus Christ, I’m tired of this fuckin’ eejit,” I mutter. “What’s he fucking talking about?”
I text back:
What do you mean?
I can almost hear him quaking through the text.
Did he let my fiancée go into a dangerous situation?
Another text comes through immediately.
They went to D’Agostino’s for dinner, sir. And then after that, they decided they wanted a drink. Someone let them in. Someone let them know that it was the entrance to The Craic.
“I’ll hang him for this,” I tell Declan before I slam my phone down on the desk.
“What happened?”
“Seems my betrothed and her sister got some wild idea, decided to go to The Craic.”
“Are you takin’ the piss?” Declan says. It’s not often he shows surprise, but he looks fairly gobsmacked right now. “Well then, looks like I know where we need to go next.”
“You’re not going anywhere with that arm,” I tell him. “We need to get some antibiotics, and you need to rest. Last thing you need is an infection.” I don’t want anyone catching a look at Erin at The Craic. “I’ve got to handle this on my own.”
“Jesus, Cavin, you’re as bad as your da,” Declan says. “Look at me. I’m perfectly fine. I’m fit as a fiddle. You shouldn’t be going alone. Plus, it seems like you’re going to have to handle Erin. Who’s going to handle her sister when you do?”
I grab him by the scruff of the shirt and pull him straight off the chair. “If you think this is a gateway to a free ride, think again, you son of a bitch.”
“Ogre,” Declan says, and he goes to kick me in the bollocks, but I drop him hard before he can connect.
“Cavin, you aren’t supposed to upset his stitches,” Doc says mildly from behind him.
“Right. My bad.” I grunt. “Fine, you’ll come with me, but you’ll behave. I don’t want you anywhere near her sister. Understood? All I fucking need is you and your shenanigans.”
“Right,” he says, nodding. “I understand.”
“Good.”
“Coming, Ash?”
“Not tonight. You lads go, keep each other out of mischief.”
Declan snorts and I blow out a breath. I need to get changed.
I text her guard again and again, but no word.
I glare at the phone in front of me, and a part of me hopes he doesn’t respond. I don’t want him laying his eyes on my betrothed.
“You know,” Declan says thoughtfully as we drive toward the club, “I know that you and Erin are trying to let bygones be bygones and all that.” He pauses.
“But this woman’s going to be your wife, Cavin.
Makes sense to me that you take good care of her.
She hasn’t had much of that in her life, has she?
I mean, look at her father. She doesn’t have any brothers.
And her father’s getting up there in age, isn’t he? ”
I growl under my breath and take a right turn, heading down the road toward the private entrance to The Craic.
“I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be love, you know. It doesn’t even have to be anything physical between you. Maybe it would be best if you could, you know, appreciate what’s actually happening between the two of you.”
“And what’s actually happening between the two of us?” I ask him, narrowing my eyes. “What are you saying, Declan?”
He shrugs. “I’m saying you have an opportunity to make good on the bullshit that you did in the past, you know.”
“I don’t need a lecture from my cousin.” I give him a glaring look.
“No, but you’ve been moaning and bitching since you became engaged to her. This is an opportunity, Cavin.”
“Is it?” I ask. “Why don’t you tell me, Mr. High and Mighty, what the opportunity is that I have here?”
“Put our family on the fucking map,” he says, shaking his head. “Do you know what it’s going to be like when we own all of the trade routes down the Eastern Seaboard and the West Coast of Ireland? My fucking god. It’ll change everything for us.”
I know.
I’m quiet for a long moment.
“She hates me,” I tell him, slamming my fist in frustration on the leather steering wheel cover. “I told you. She fucking blocked my phone number. Couldn’t even get through to her.”
“Ah,” Declan says, his eyes twinkling at me. “Do you mean to tell me there’s a lass in all of Ballyhock who doesn’t fall for every whim of yours?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you going on about?”
“What am I going on about? Ever since you were at St. Albert’s, women fall at your fuckin’ feet,” he says, shaking his head.
“Cavin McCarthy, the local fighter. ‘Ooh, Cavin the ex-con.’ Did you see that goddamn picture of you they posted when they announced your engagement? Half of Ballyhock’s ovaries cried. ”
I roll my eyes.
“Cavin, do you have any idea how many women would kill to have you at the club?”
I shrug.