The window explodes inward as we fire. Tiernan dives to the floor. The first round takes his shoulder and spins him. The second one ruins the lamp, plunging us into a storm of glass and low light. Donal drops, rolls, and vanishes behind a filing cabinet like he was born for this. Clever bastard.
Chaos ignites.
Men flood the floor from the far doors, muzzle flashes stitching light through the dark. Niall cusses in Gaelic and drops two Quinlan men. Orso takes a hit in the thigh but somehow stays standing on fury alone. I leap through the broken frame and land among paperwork and blood.
Tiernan is up, hurt and smiling like pain is an old friend of his. “You feckin’ bastard. You’re supposed to be dead.” He kicks the desk into me, driving the breath out of my lungs. The gun skitters out of my hands. “You will be soon,” he growls. He’s on me before I can curse, fist a hammer to my ribs. I feel something give and spit copper. “This city belongs to me,” he hisses, breath hot, accent sharpened on glass. “You’re a child with a crown you didn’t earn. How dare you come forme?”
I headbutt him like my skull is an answer. He staggers, and I find a knife in my hand I don’t remember taking out and slash low. He jumps, fast, and the blade skims his thigh instead of an artery. He laughs, and the sound is sharp and brittle.
He’s strong for an old man. And mean. He fights like a butcher, all close work and ruin. He pins my wrist and slams me into the wall so hard the glass in the frame above us cracks. The world flickers white, and then he goes for my throat.
Outside the office, the boys are busy making orphans. I hear Luka shout, hear the metallic bark of a jam, then I hear Orso roar like a wounded beast. Tiernan’s forearm bites down on my windpipe. My vision narrows to a tunnel rimmed with stars.
He leans in, eyes bright and empty. “Tell your cousins the Quinlans don’t kneel. Ever.”
My lungs burn, vision darkening. I struggle against him, but the damned old bastard is strong. Then, I see Cat’s hand pressed flat over her chest. I see her at the door saying don’t you dare. I see a white, orcream, sundress dusted in sugar and a lemon between us like a coin the sea will never give back.
Not tonight.
I open my left hand, let the little blade I palmed a moment ago drop and then catch it with my boot and flick it up. It’s a stupid trick I learned at fifteen to show off, and it saves my life at twenty-three. The knife jumps. I catch it with my free hand and bury it under Tiernan’s ribs, hard and just as mean.
He grunts, the sound surprised. His weight shifts just enough so I can wrench my right wrist free. Then I bring my forehead up once more, twist and put my shoulder into his gut. We crash through a cheap bookshelf together, wood breaking, paper snowing down like a hailstorm.
He comes up slower this time. I don’t. I find my gun on instinct, metal friendly under my palm, and put a round through his knee. I want him on the floor with me when he goes. He screams and lunges with a last ugly sound. His hand finds my cheek, nails dragging. It burns like a bitch.
“For Caitríona,” I growl, and pull the trigger, straight into his chest. “And for thinking you could ever leash what wasn’t yours.”
He folds with a resounding thud, a big man suddenly understanding gravity. His eyes cut up to me for a name to curse with his last breath. I glare down at him and watch as he sucks in air with lungs that are already drowning.
“See you in hell,bastardo,” I spit.
The silence trickles in slowly. Out on the floor, the gunfire finally dwindles to drips. A minute later, Luka limps into the doorway, blood on his sleeve and his grin feral. “Well, would you look at that? The old bastard’s prettier dead.”
“Prettier quiet,” I rasp, and nearly laugh on a cough that tastes like blood. “Where’s Donal?”
“Gone.” Orso replies, shouldering the wall. “He saw the window and took it.”
Damn it.
Outside, sirens blare in the distance.
Niall hauls a chair against the blown window, scanning the catwalks. “Gemini jets are on the approach,” he calls out, listening to a voice I can’t hear through his comm. “We have two minutes to look like we didn’t do what we just did.”
I stand over Tiernan because the nineteen-year-old in me needs to confirm the thing the twenty-three-year-old did. His eyes are open, staring at a ceiling with nothing left to say. Fury uncoils inside me, a beast never fully satiated.
You’ll never touch her again, asshole. No one will.
Then I turn away.
The office looks like a bar fight ate a paperwork fire. I glance at the corner where Donal disappeared. A smear of blood mars the filing cabinet, not enough to count for much. He’ll make another mess somewhere else. But at least the head of the snake is a stain at my boots. With Tiernan gone, Donal has no reason to come for Cat.
Still… he’s a problem I’ll have to deal with eventually. IfPapàtaught me anything, it was that loose ends don’t stay loose. They coil into nooses.
My phone buzzes.
Leo: Status?
I type out a quick reply.
