“How are you going to do that?” Kingston asks before taking a long gulp of his drink.
My lips lift into a slow smile. “I have my methods.”
“Jesus Christ.” Reign snorts from his spot in the room. “That means he's going to try to seduce her.”
I lance him with a glare. “No, smartass. It means I'm going to do whatever it takes to protect my family.”
Kingston looks at me for a long minute, and I won’t look away. I’m not the strategist in our family, or even a planner like Reign, but I understand people. And I always get them to see things my way.
Kingston’s considering the options in silence, weighing my fuck-up against my usefulness. My recklessness against the fact I'm the only person in this room who's actually faced the target.
I can read him like an instruction manual. My brother hates the odds being stacked against us and knows we’re all fucked if I fail.
He should have a little more faith.
“Fine.” He bites out, as if he's handing me a loaded gun and hoping I don't shoot myself. “But you report to me every step of the way. No more going rogue, or taking shit into your own hands. This is your chance to clean up the mess you made, Bronx. Don't fuck it up.”
“I won't.” I stand and fix my cuffs. “Are we done here? I need sleep.”
“Yeah.... And Bronx?” Kingston waits until I'm at the door with my hand reaching to open it. "If the woman becomes a liability we can't manage, or if she or her father make a move against us, you do what needs to be done. Are we clear?"
I walk out and bring a hand to the back of my neck, squeezing the tension in it.
“Yep,” I say over my shoulder. “No one fucks with us, K.”
It's past midnight and all I’ve done is toss around on the mattress.
My Tribeca penthouse is semi-dark except for the glow of my laptop screen. I didn’t bother pulling the drapes to cover the floor-to-ceiling windows in my suite. There’s something calming about the Hudson glittering black and gold below.
A few empty whiskey bottles sit on the dresser, books, magazines and clothes litter the floor, and my worn out punching bag hangs in the corner.
I should pop a sleeping pill and sleep, but my mind is lit and all the caffeine I’ve consumed isn’t helping. The smart play would be six hours of solid rest and come back with fresh eyes and a clear head.
Instead, I'm pouring my third whisky and buried in everything I can find on Tierney Blake.
There’s not much to read up on, which is impressive. She's been scrubbed from almost every database that matters. There’s no social media footprint, no criminal record, and minimal government documentation.
On paper, she barely exists.
But the underworld has a longer memory than any server.
I pull strings, calling in favors from hackers who owe me, and intelligence contacts who know better than to ask why. The picture of Tierney Blake builds in pieces through whispers, secondhand accounts, and intercepted communications.
Evidently, she's her father's secret weapon. Some called her a retrieval specialist, prettymuch a ghost who goes where others can't and comes back with whatever Declan needs.
He sent her off for training when she turned thirteen and on her return a year later, molded her into a tool before she was old enough to understand what he’d shaped her life into.
She’s the key to Declan’s empire.
I think about that. A kid, raised to be a weapon. No choice in the matter, just a father who saw potential and sharpened that skill into something lethal and hella lucrative.
I drain the last of the whiskey from my glass, thinking about their father daughter relationship. My lips twist. I know plenty about fathers who shape their kids into what the family needs.
Connor Blake’s file is a lot thinner than I expected and tells a different story than his sister’s. The guy’s clean, like legitimately clean, not scrubbed-clean like Tierney.
He’s studying at the University of Dublin and does a lot of volunteer work. Standup citizen. The kind of person who ends up teaching high school and coaching football on weekends. He's soft where Tierney’s hard, gentle where her edges are jagged as hell, and she'd clearly burn the world to keep him safe.
I lean back against the headboard and stare at the ceiling.
