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I wipe my blade clean on the priest's cassock, slide it back into my boot, and pick up the metal briefcase Alistair dropped. Inside are the bearer bonds, encrypted ledgers, and account codes for every offshore diocese account between Edinburgh and Zurich.
Everything Iris needs to claim total financial ownership of the northern routes.
Callum walks into the refectory, his rifle slung, holding a five-gallon red jerrycan of petrol.
"Priory is clear, boss," Callum reports, his eyebrows lifting in surprise when he spots Elizabeth standing against the wall. "Who's the lass?"
"She's with me," I say, my tone leaving zero room for argument. "Douse the altar, Callum. Burn every timber in this place to the ground."
"Aye, boss."
I turn back to Elizabeth. She stands with the iron poker lowered, her gray eyes watching me with a mixture of shock, exhaustion, and a dark, dangerous fascination that mirrors the fire in my own chest.
"Your war here is finished, Elizabeth," I tell her softly, extending my hand toward her. "The men who held your leash are rotting on the floor. You have no home in Scotland, and the Scottish cops will be all over this place by sunrise."
She looks down at my open palm, then back to my face.
"And where are you going, O'Connor?" she asks, her voice husky, guarded.
"New York," I answer with a wicked grin. "My sister has an empire waiting for her signature, and I need a woman who knows how to swing an iron poker watching my back."
Elizabeth stares at me for three long seconds.
Then, slowly, the tension melts from her shoulders. She drops the heavy iron poker to the flagstones with a loud clatter and places her small, calloused hand firmly inside mine.
"I don't take orders, Jamie O'Connor," she warns, her fingers tightening around mine with surprising strength.
I pull her flush against my chest, catching her by the waist as the warmth of her body seeps into my coat.
"Good," I growl against her ear, inhaling the scent of rain and lavender on her neck. "I like a woman who bites."
Behind us, Callum drops the match.
The priory explodes into a roaring wall of orange flame, lighting up the Highland rain as I lead Elizabeth out into the dark, claiming the one treasure the church couldn't break.
EIGHTEEN
JAMIE
The heater in the armored Land Rover groans as it blasts dry, lukewarm air against the frosted windshield.
Outside, the narrow ribbon of the A9 highway cuts through the black heart of the Cairngorms. Sleet batters the armored glass, turning the pine-covered hills into towering black shadows. In the rearview mirror, the faint orange glow of Saint Ninian's Priory burning to the bedrock has long since vanished behind the ridges.
Sitting in the passenger seat beside me, Elizabeth Byrne has not said five words since we crossed the bridge over the River Spey.
She has discarded her soaked wool sweater, wearing only a black ribbed tank top that shows the sharp curve of her collarbones and the pale, freckled skin of her shoulders. Her hands rest flat on her denim-clad thighs, knuckles bruised purple, dried blood flaking beneath her fingernails.
Her head is turned toward the window, watching the sleet strike the glass.
"You're quiet, Elizabeth," I say, keeping one hand casual on the steering wheel while my other rests on the console beside the Benelli shotgun.
"I'm listening for sirens," she replies without looking at me. Her voice is low and smoky, carrying that Dublin lilt that scrapes against my nerves in the best possible way. "When you butcher three church enforcers and blow up a fourteenth-century monastery, police generally take notice."
A short chuckle rumbles in my chest. "The Inverness police force won't be touching that valley tonight. Callum put two calls into the local constabulary through our Edinburgh shell firm. They’re logging the fire as a gas leak in an abandoned historical structure. By the time the arson squad sifts through the rubble tomorrow noon, every bone in that refectory will be ash."
Elizabeth turns her head slowly, her slate-gray eyes assessing me in the dim green glow of the dashboard.
"You make mass murder sound like filing corporate taxes, O'Connor."
