“Of course. I forgot you Russians enjoy a proper bloodbath.” John chuckles and moves on, the sound of his steps circling behind me now, closer to Declan.
“Let’s get to the point,” Stepan cuts in, impatient.
John stops near Rurik. “You said without the Callaghans and Flynn in the way, you’d be next in line.”
Rurik’s tone sharpens. “What about the women? Their wives? Don’t they inherit?”
John laughs, actually laughs, the sound scraping down my spine like nails on glass. “One of the oldest rules of the Consortium: only a man cantake the seat. And neither of them had children. If they had, I’d have handled it tonight while the bodies were still warm.” He claps once, delighted with himself.
My finger twitches against the trigger. Blood roars in my ears.
“Good,” Rurik says simply.
“Who knows?” John continues, dripping with slime. “Maybe I’ll make that pretty young thing my next wife.”
Every muscle in my body locks. I feel Declan go rigid beside me.
“Flynn’s wife?” Stepan asks, curious.
“Of course. Declan’s is Italian. She never should have married the leader in the first place.” John’s footsteps come back toward me, slow, savouring. “Some rules are sacred.”
I can practically hear Declan’s teeth grinding.
“I never thought a Consortium member would turn on his own,” Rurik muses. “Your call surprised me.”
“I know you want more than the guns returned,” John says, greedy now. “A better deal. That’s what this is about. Money.”
Rurik and Stepan both laugh.
“Oh, Flanagan,” Rurik says, his tone dropping to something lethal. “You really think money is the most important part of a deal?”
Boots shift. Rifles click softly as safeties come off. Russian shadows move along the walls.
“We have a deal,” John insists, urgency cracking through the smugness. “Sixty percent us, forty you—”
“True,” Rurik interrupts. “But we struck a better one.”
The shrouds fly off in perfect unison.
We rise, like the dead come to collect.
John Flanagan goes corpse-white, mouth open, eyes wide enough to fall out. His knees actually buckle.
I step forward, pistol pressed dead-centre to his forehead, the cold muzzle kissing skin.
“Surprise, motherfucker,” I smile, slow and vicious.
Declan, Kian, and Connor fan out beside me, weapons up. John’s two remaining bodyguards reach for their guns; Russian suppressors cough twice each. Two soft thuds. Two bodies hit the ground before John can finish blinking.
“No—” he chokes. “We have a deal!”
Rurik steps to my side, hands loose at his thighs, grinning like a wolf.
“Let me teach you something, Irishman,” he says pleasantly. “There is one thing more important than money.”
I lean in until John can smell the gunpowder on me.
“Loyalty,” I growl, voice raw with every second I had to lie still while he planned to put his hands on my wife.
