For a beat she just breathes. Then she reaches across the console and catches my wrist, pulse to pulse. “You don’t get to be a hero either,” she rasps. “Be smart.”
“I’ll be both.” I squeeze once and let go before I can take it back. “I’ll give you two minutes. If they don’t bring her out by then, I breach anyway.”
She nods. “Two minutes.” Then she whips the door open.
It takes every ounce of restraint to keep from racing after her.
From the rain-drenched window, I watch as she and one of our local guys haul the hooded weight of Donal from the trunk of the van and drape a tarp like a body bag. Cat takes the lead, the picture of a trigger doing her job. They keep to the bright strip of wet concrete between stacked crates and a corrugated wall until they reach the warehouse with its big doors cracked and a sliver of light bleeding onto the ground.
Cat steps through first, shoulders squared, and then she’s gone.
My fingers curl into fists as I start the countdown. Every breath is a struggle, despite reassuring myself time and again that she knows what she’s doing. She’s not my innocent little Kitty Cat anymore. She’s so much more.
When the time is finally up, I shoot out of the car toward the warehouse, gun clenched in my fist. I take my position beside a rusted out, broken window.
Cat’s steady voice echoes over the rain. “I brought you the body.”
A half-dozen heads swing toward the gurney. But not one of them is Tiernan. Guns lift, and then someone further back barks, “Hood off. Let’s see the corpse.”
“Not until I see my sister,” she fires back. “Tiernan wanted proof, but he didn’t say I had to be stupid.”
A beat. Then from the shadow in the back, a gesture. A man drags a chair into the light. Siobhan. She’s zip-tied, tape overher mouth, and eyes furious and wet. Cat’s breath hitches loud enough for me to hear from the gutter. She tips her chin likethere you areand takes two steps closer. The men surge to the tarp, greedy for a face.
“Four on the floor,” Reni whispers through the earpiece. “Two by the office. Two above.”
“Copy,” I breathe. “No one makes it out to tell Tiernan I’m still alive.”
“Understood,” four voices echo back.
Then I raise three fingers, more out of habit than anything else. “Now.”
The hood rips back. A dozen eyes settle on Donal’s face, not mine, and confusion detonates.
Chaos. Men shout. A second guard lifts his gun and Cat puts him down, clean, two to the chest. Pride twists with something darker in my gut, and I grind both down. Not now.
I crash through the window as my men hit both doors.
One of the Irish guys, Reni, drops from the catwalk and takes out the man closest to Cat on the first shot. Then, Tadhg smashes through another window and floods the mezzanine with commands and muzzle flash. I race toward Cat and shoot two rounds into the closest idiot still gawking at Donal’s face, then shoulder through the chaos to the chair.
“Matteo!” Cat’s voice, sharp. A man appears behind Siobhan holding a knife. He’s young, terrified, and the blade knows only one language.
I lift my hands, gun low. “Easy,” I mutter, Irish cadence I can mimic well enough to be rude. “Walk away, kid. This isn’t your hill.”
His eyes flick to the door, to the girl, then back to me. He puts the knife to her throat in pure, stupid panic. Cat moves before he finishes the thought. Two steps, a twist, and her shoulderslammed into his wrist. The knife hits concrete, and my boot pins it there.
He lunges for Cat. I catch him midair and drive him into the floor. He goes limp.
Cat is already on her sister with her knife out, ties sliced, and tape peeled back. Siobhan sobs and clutches at her. My heart breaks at the sight. Her sister gulps in air and then cries a little from the shock of it. Then Cat drops to her knees and takes her face in both hands, foreheads touching and something wordless and old as blood passing between them. “I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”
Siobhan’s focus ricochets to me, blue and a little wild. “Who?—”
“Friend,” Cat replies, not looking away from her sister. “The only one we need.”
My throat does something unpleasant. I cut the zip on Siobhan’s ankles and wrap my jacket around her shoulders. The girl is shaking hard enough to rattle. Cat pulls her up, small and stubborn, like she thinks she could carry the whole ocean on her back if it meant getting her sister out.
Sirens cry out in the distance.
“Out!” I roar, covering them as Leo sweeps the floor right to left.
