CHAPTER 3
HIS FIANCÉ
Caitríona
One Week Earlier
The rain hasn’t stopped coming down for days in Belfast. It reminds me why I left this dreary city all those years ago. I’d tried to put all of it behind me, to escape my past, the soft girl I was, all of it. The incessant drops drum against the windows of my father’s study like a ticking clock, each one a reminder that time is running out.
The fire crackles low in the hearth, casting orange shadows on the oak-paneled walls, but the warmth doesn't reach me. I sit on the edge of a stiff leather chair, spine straight, hands clasped in my lap like the dutiful daughter I’m expected to be. But inside, I’m nothing but ice.
Across from me, Da, the infamous Seamus McKenna, nurses a tumbler of single malt. His weathered face is carved from granite. My older brother, Donal, lounges to his right with his legs spread wide, fingers absently flicking the hilt of the knife at his belt. He’s the one who taught me how to be a killer. And nextto him sits Tiernan Quinlan, Eoin’s father, draped in black like he’s still in mourning.
But this isn’t a condolence visit to his grieving betrothed. It’s an order.
“She was his fiancée,” Tiernan spits, his voice soaked in smoke and spite. “If anyone deserves to put a bullet in the bastard’s head, it’s her. It’s time to put the girl’s mettle to the test.”
“She will.” My father’s voice is flat. Final. “Won’t you, Caitríona?”
I meet his eyes, steady. “Yes, Da.”
Donal snorts under his breath. “You sure? The Rossis and Valentinos are nothing like the scum you’re used to handling on this side of the Atlantic.”
I don’t flinch. My brother is just bitter because the student has surpassed the master. I’ve been training for this very moment for over a year. No one suspects a sweet, pretty girl would have the balls to be an assassin. But for the past year, I’ve been putting my father’s enemies down one bullet in the head at a time. They call me the Angel of Death. I’ve become quite a legend in our circles. “Then it’s time I move onto bigger and better.”
A flicker of pride, or maybe approval, passes through my father’s eyes. But it’s brief. “This is about blood. Vengeance. Loyalty. You’re not going over there to ask questions, Caitríona. You’re going to finish what the rest of us can’t. And you don’t come home until he’s dead. Do you understand me?”
Or I am. The threat is clear. I’m not welcome home unless I bring Matteo Rossi’s bloodied corpse with me. Nausea crawls up my throat at the vivid image I’ve conjured in my mind.
“Yes, Da.” My reply is quieter this time. Because anything louder might betray what I’m really feeling.
Not grief. Not fear. Shame.
Because what none of them know, what I’ve buried deeper than any grave, is that Ilovedthe man they want me to kill. He was my first…everything.
Not Eoin. God rest him. He may not have been my choice, our engagement was a business transaction, but when I was young, I thought maybe… And who knows, perhaps over time I could have really loved him.
Matteo, on the other hand.
Matteo fucking Rossi.
The playboy prince of the Gemini mafia.
The boy who kissed me under Sicilian moonlight and whispered things no one had ever dared to say to me before. Who left me on a dock in Taormina with a hand over my belly and a secret I never told a soul.
I didn’t even know he had been the one to kill Eoin. Not at first. Not until I saw the reports from the Quinlan estate, the photos, the names. The bodies.
My thoughts flicker back to the day I found out it washim.
I unfolded the Quinlan brief on my kitchen table. The photo ofhisface sat in the middle like a dare. My thumb traced the corner until the paper softened. Matteo Rossi. My throat closed. Someone had resurrected the name of the ghost I’d kept in my belly.
Eoin Quinlan was dead. And Matteo Rossi was the trigger man.
What are the damned chances?
I couldn’t breathe when I saw it. It was the first time I’d seen a picture of him in years. I stared at the dossier for an hour, trying to find some mistake. Some alternate truth. But there was no denying it. That cocky smile. Those green eyes. Older, harder, but still him.
I swallowed the scream that rose in my throat. And I’ve kept swallowing it ever since. I’ve kept my head down, traininghard, focusing on everything I’ve learned over the years since I decided to join the McKenna ranks.
