Wicked Ruin (The McCarthy Family Legacy #3)

Prologue

Three years earlier…

brIDGET

“I don't want to die a virgin, Erin.”

One sentence. Six words. And now I’m in a sex club, being led to a dance floor by a man in a mask, and my sister’s been practically confiscated.

“Just one dance,” the masked man says. His voice has a low, unhurried quality, the kind that makes you feel like you're being persuaded. It’s strangely off-putting. “Your sister's safe with McCarthy. Nobody else will touch her.”

Cavin McCarthy is my sister’s fiancé, but he’s also one of Ireland’s most feared. And didn’t he just get out of prison?

“Is safe really the right word?” I ask. I’m pretty sure it’s his family that owns the club we’re in.

A pause. “Well… no,” he admits. “But nobody else will hurt her. That much I can promise.”

Grand. Just what I needed to hear. Is that supposed to be reassuring?

His hand shifts to the small of my back, and his voice is close enough that I feel the warmth of it at my temple.

I am… flattered. Curious. Someone who isn’t a doctor, a nurse, or a blood relative is paying attention to me.

I haven't felt like anything other than a patient in so long—I find myself dancing with him, even though I’m not really into the gothic vibe this bloke’s giving off.

But two choruses in, and I am losing myself entirely because this man can dance, and there is nothing polite or restrained about it.

His hands are on my hips. I am moving against him in a way I haven't moved against anyone in longer than I care to admit. I’m high on life and feeling good for once, and no one’s going to take that away from me.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before?” he asks. “Are you new here?”

“Wouldn't you like to know,” I say in a voice I hope sounds coy rather than breathless.

He laughs, like he's delighted with me. Then he goes still. Completely still. His hand comes up in a gesture almost like self-defense, and I don't understand what’s going on until I hear a voice behind me.

“Hands off her and find somewhere else to be. Now.”

I blink, then turn.

My mouth drops open. A candle on the table beside us flickers out, and I try very hard not to think about the potential meaning.

The man standing behind me is tall and lean and sharply dressed, with a predatory stillness that makes everyone around him stare. Including me.

Dark hair. Blue eyes that have no business being on a face that already has everything else going for it. A jaw with a few days of stubble, tattoos crawling up his neck, and a very expensive black shirt, open just enough to be a problem. And a frown that suggests he is deeply unimpressed.

“Who are you?” I whisper.

I turn to find my masked dance partner, but he’s already fled into the crowd.

“Your keeper for the moment,” the man says. His eyes are narrowed. His voice is soft in the particular way that can be dangerous. “And you're Erin's sister.”

It isn't a question but an identification. A filing-away.

I stand there, my heart doing something mad in my chest, and realize with sudden, total clarity that my sister is marrying into a family of men who look at a woman like… this. As if they're already calculating the most efficient way to rearrange her entire life.

I think I understand her a little more now.

He's older than I am, bigger than I am, and wearing a gold band around his arm that means something I haven't worked out yet. Why does that bother me? I don't even know his name.

And what does keeper mean?

“You’re Bridget,” he says, like my name is a minor inconvenience.

“Yeah. And you are?”

“The man sent to fetch you.” He reaches for me, and I back up.

“Who sent you?”

“Erin’s fiancé, Cavin.” He reaches for me again. “Come with me.”

I slap his hand away before he can make contact. His eyes narrow.

“I'm going to give you a choice, Bridget.” The same low, even tone. “You walk with me quietly, just a short walk, and you stay out of trouble until Mr. McCarthy's ready for you. Or,” he adds, the corner of his mouth pulling, “you make me choose for you. I wouldn't recommend it.”

I try to look lofty. I think I fail. “Why does Mr. McCarthy have anything to do with me?”

“He owns this establishment. He's also about to be your brother-in-law, which makes you his concern.” A pause. “And therefore mine.”

“That's not how family works.”

“It is in this family.”

“Excuse me?”

I toss my hair. Even for a sick girl, I have exceptional hair. Erin says I look like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, which I choose to take as the highest of compliments.

He blinks. Then something shifts in his expression, really shifts, and he smiles at me.

And I know right then that this is a man who gets whatever he wants.

I swallow hard and stand up straighter, which does absolutely nothing. I'm still a full head shorter than him, and the hair toss has only made his eyes drag slowly down and back up in a way that feels distinctly like a caress.

“You’ve no right to tell me what to do,” I say, because someone has to say something, and apparently it's going to be me. “I'm not yours. You have no claim over me.”

I'm not entirely sure whether I'm pushing back out of genuine principle or because I am so exhausted—bone-deep and years-long exhausted. Tired of being told what to do, where to go, and what my body is and isn't capable of.

He leans in.

His mouth is very close to my ear. The warmth of him makes me shiver in a way I am absolutely not going to examine.

“You're right,” he says, very deliberate.

“You're not mine.” He pulls back just slightly to look at me.

“And it's very lucky for you that you're not.” He pauses.

“Because if you were mine, Bridget, I'd have dragged you by that gorgeous hair into a back room already, bent you over a spanking bench, and shown you exactly how it's used.” Another pause.

“And that would only be the beginning of your punishment for coming in here tonight, unaccompanied and unwelcome.”

I cannot speak.

I finally get my breath back. “But you… you can’t do that, and you’re not available,” I blurt out. “The gold band…” I try to toss my head again to distract him from my flaming cheeks.

He smirks. God above, he has a dimple.

“The gold has nothing to do with my relationship status, but my rank here.”

Behind him, someone calls his name, and he turns around. Thank god because I don’t realize until it’s far too late that my mouth is hanging wide open.

I am suddenly very aware that the people around us have given us an extremely wide berth, and I'm not sure I like what that means.

What’s his rank?

“Declan.”

“I’m busy.”

No, no, no.

Declan. His name is Declan.

Cavin’s cousin Declan? Declan McCarthy?

Oh no.

Declan McCarthy has a reputation in Ballyhock that reaches all the way to the craggy cliffs overlooking the churning waves of the Irish Sea.

He turns back to me, and the smile is back—easy, warm, and completely at odds with everything he just said.

“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot.” He tilts his head. “Why don't you walk with me? It would be wise for you. It would certainly be easier for me. And then we can both do what Mr. McCarthy has asked without either of us having a terrible evening.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Where's Erin?”

“Having a conversation with her future husband. She's fine. Cavin wouldn't hurt her.”

“But he would if she weren't about to be his wife?”

He exhales through his nose, something between impatience and resignation crossing his face.

“Follow me,” he says. “Stop stalling, or I swear to Christ I'm going to put you over my shoulder and carry you, and you won’t enjoy it.”

Is he so sure about that?

I came here to get fucked, goddamn it, and I'm not leaving until I've been properly handled. I have a good reason.

I'm dying, and no one wants to admit it.

My illness has taken center stage my whole damn life, and I'm over it.

I'm desperate to feel something normal. I try to be optimistic, to be cheerful, so I don't have to watch the light dim in my sister's eyes one more time, but inside?

Inside, I'm neither. I feel like every hour of every day, another grain of sand falls to the bottom of the hourglass of my life.

But I want to see my sister.

So I lift my chin, school my expression into something approaching indifference, and follow him. I have to walk quickly to keep up.

He stops short outside a closed door in a darkened hallway, and I nearly slam into his back.

On the other side of the door, I can hear two voices: One is Erin's, and the other is a man's, low and controlled in a way that doesn't ask to be obeyed so much as assumes it.

Must be Cavin, my future brother-in-law.

I don't know how I feel about that.

I edge closer, without meaning to, and feel the warmth of Declan's back. He smells way too damn good, but I'm intent on listening.

“That's Mr. McCarthy?” I whisper. “Cavin, I mean Cavin.” I'm not going to call my sister's future husband Mr. McCarthy, for Christ's sake. He’s my brother-in-law, or soon to be. I swallow hard and lick my lips. “He’s… scary.”

Declan glances down at me with something that might be amusement, the corner of his lips quirking up, his eyes almost sparkling at me as a smirk crosses his face. “He's not the only one who can be scary, sweetheart.”

“You don’t say.”

I feel as if my head is floating. My heart is pounding way too fast. My hands are clammy, and the rest of me—I can't think about that right now. I swallow hard, face forward, and say nothing. I don't know what I would say. I don't trust my voice right now.

The room he takes me into is private and distant, but I can see Cavin on the other side of a half-open interior door. Declan holds up a hand—not to push me back, but to keep me from going any further.

“You alright, Bridget?” Erin asks me.

“I'm fine.” My eyes feel wide open.