“I don’t want to be protected! I want to be respected. Like every damn woman should be.” I tilted my head and thought about what he’d told me, how he wasn’t with women anymore, how his wife had left him before she’d been found dead. I knew I might be overstepping, but I had to say it. “I’m not your wife, Jameson. I wouldn’t up and leave you or Franny without giving you a reason.”
He reeled back as if I’d slapped him. But after a few blinks, it was like that slap instilled some sense into him. He frowned at me, and I saw turmoil in his eyes. He just nodded and quietly turned toward the door. “We should go home, Mia.”
His tone was tired, defeated, and maybe held a bit of remorse. It sobered me up—from the alcohol and all the emotions running through me. I sighed and nodded as I walked past him. But I froze when I saw all the men still blocking theentrance. I turned to wince at Jameson. “Is Archer okay? You seriously do owe him a freaking apology, Jameson Knight.”
It was clear then.
I was going insane if I thought a crime boss would listen to me telling him to apologize.
But then his hand went to the small of my back as he walked me inside. “I don’t ever apologize, baby,” he murmured. “But for you, I will.”
Jameson
MIA SUBDUED THE MONSTERin me all the way down to the first floor, and I actually smiled at a few of the guys on the elevator before I heard it.
That faint popping sound.
Sharp. Precise. Deadly.
Mia heard it too. Her eyes widened and locked on mine. “What was that?”
“Stay behind me.” I tucked her there as the music stuttered out, and I looked at one of my guys. “First priority is alerting everyone to secure my daughter.”
He nodded and spoke into his earpiece, then the elevator doors opened to complete and utter chaos.
The club detonated into frenzied fear and mayhem. Screams echoed as people shoved one another to get out. The shoving turned to a stampede, their fear turned to survival. My men surged forward, organized and calculated. They scanned, looking for the culprits, and I immediately saw them.
O’Connor’s men must have found out we were here, and they’d come for blood, no matter the cost. This wasn’t just bad luck—it was a hit, and they’d pay in the form of me taking out their whole damn family after tonight.
Normally I would have embraced the rush. I enjoyed delivering a wound that a man couldn’t come back from, relished in an enemy’s life slowly bleeding out. But tonight wasn’t normal.
Tonight, I had a woman by my side who was suddenly a weakness of mine, and I felt fear course through my veins and fog my judgment. I held her close with one arm and rushed forward, pulling out my Glock. Gunshots rang out around us as my men took O’Connor’s out fast. Bodies dropped.
Over and over again.
A damn army had been sent to take me out. And rightfully so. We all were good shots, and when I lifted my Glock to aim and fire, I didn’t normally miss. One of O’Connor’s men ran screaming toward me, bloodied from combat with one of my men, and I shot him in the center of his forehead.
We moved as a unit, fast and effective. When another man a whole damn head taller than me rounded the corner of the hallway we were exiting, I shielded Mia behind me for only a second so I could take my shot. I was faster than most with a weapon, and even though the guy aimed, he never got to pull the trigger. Instead, my bullet blew through his head and he dropped to his knees, dead.
I heard her whimper, but I yanked her around him and kept moving. Her safety was my only priority right then. Getting her back to Paradise, where she belonged, where she’d be protected, whereIcould protect her, was the only thing that mattered right then.
“Our SUV is up ahead,” Hades yelled as he met us at the door. Normally I didn’t operate this way. I didn’t need to go out of the back alley and hide or drive off. Instead, I’d deliver all these fuckers to death’s door for putting her life in danger. But her life was in danger, and that meant sacrificing my pride to get her out of here.
The fact that the Irish were bold enough to come for me onour territory meant war. Not just for them. War for the Italians, for the Diamonds, for the cartels. For everyone.
Didn’t they know who they were fucking with? Retaliation after I’d put one of their family members in the ground was warranted, but they were grossly outnumbered here.
“Franny?”
“Safe and sound at your mother’s.”
I nodded once as the ball of tension unraveled only to create a new one. “I want every one of them … every single Irish wiped out in the Midwest,” I told Hades as our driver screeched out onto the road.
Mia looked at me with concern. “Jameson, some of them might be innocent.”
“Every single one of them better be found, Hades,” I told him.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Hades said quietly. “Just the Irish?”
