The window over the sink splinters into a million pieces. The mug beside Leo explodes into dust. He shoves us down before another shot hits, his body between us and the door, but the next one finds him. Leo grunts, staggers, and red blooms under his jacket.
“Down!” he barks, already drawing his weapon and firing back through the door frame.
Livia screams. I reach for her, my heart a battering ram against my chest, but Noreen yanks her off the chair before I can move. She folds her to the floor, shielding her with that rope-thick braid and a body that has never once lost an argument.
Outside, boots crunch on gravel. The back door bangs against the frame, and a man creeps inside, gun up, and face bare.
Sean.
Fucking, Sean?
For a heartbeat my brain refuses it, makes him a ghost, a bad dream with a cheap jacket. He was my keeper in Manhattan, a Quinlan lackey, a shadow at the edges. Then he smiles, and it’s all teeth.
“Morning, Cat.” The pistol looks very at home in his hand. “Since Tiernan’s dead, somebody has to do the honors.”
“What, why?”
Leo fires again, even as I’m certain he’ll bleed out. Sean moves like he trained for this, fast and wrong. He catches Leo across the temple with the butt of the gun and Matteo’s faithful guard drops, dazed, and more blood slickens his cheek.
“Sean,” I whisper, moving to cover Noreen and Livia beneath her. “Don’t. Please.”
His gaze flicks to my daughter then focuses in on the copper hair, blue-green eyes, and something ugly lights in him. The math is too easy. “Well now,” he breathes, delighted and sick in the same instant. “Will ya look at that?”
“No,” I snarl. “You touch her and I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” He waves the gun toward me, casual, then moves for Livia.
I go for the knife on the counter because there’s nothing else left. I get my fingers around the handle and slash. He jerks back and the blade skates his forearm. He roars and fires.
The shot is a thunderclap inside bone. My shoulder snaps hot, burning, but not shattering, and I crash into the cabinet. The knife clatters away.
Livia screams again, her cries echoing across the chaotic space.
“Caitríona!” Noreen’s voice is a whip. She’s up and between us before I can drag air back into my lungs. She plants herself in front of me like a tree that refuses the storm. “You will not take that child,” she hisses, low and even, as if she’s scolding the goats.
Sean doesn’t hesitate.
The gun barks again. Noreen staggers once like she’s changed her mind about where the floor is, then crumples. The sound Livia makes is a sound I’ll never forget. It’s a desperatetangle of fear and rage, and something inside me tears clean in two.
I lunge, bleeding and useless, and Sean kicks me flat on the ground. Then the barrel of his gun kisses my cheek.
“Stay down,” he hisses. “Or I’ll make the next one count.”
Leo drags himself up, firing from the hip, but he’s slow and wounded, and Sean is lucky. A pan explodes and plaster rains down.
Livia sobs into my hip, fingers clawed in my sweater, and I know, like a map burned into me that Matteo is on his way back.Please, God, where are you? My phone buzzes across the table, screen lighting with his name in confirmation.
Matteo: Almost home.
I make a decision so fast it feels like it was made for me years ago. I let my knees buckle so I hit the floor, and I’m at Livia’s height. She whimpers.
Drawing close, I whisper, “It’s going to be okay,a stór, I promise. Papàis coming.”
Then I go still, promising myself Sean won’t hurt her. He wouldn’t. He needs her alive to get to Matteo. I let my eyes roll, and I spill into Noreen’s blood and hold my breath until my body believes me. I make my mouth slack, and I become a ruin.
Sean curses, breathing hard. He grabs Livia by the back of her sweatshirt. She kicks and bites and screams, “Mammy!” The sound rips me open and leaves me breathing through a gaping hole. But I force myself to remain still. An icy statue. Just like I’d pretended to be for the past four years.
A cold, emotionless assassin.
