Page 54

"It is corporate taxes, sweetheart," I smirk, shifting the Rover into fifth gear as the engine hums along the winding tarmac. "Just with higher-caliber receipts."

Her lips twitch, fighting the ghost of a smile, but she suppresses it quickly, leaning her head back against the leather headrest.

She is exhausted. I can see the bone-deep weariness hanging in the dark hollows beneath her eyes. For three years, while Iris was recovering behind locked doors in Manhattan, Elizabeth was trapped inside the diocese compound, playing the submissive nun while Father Alistair used her brother's life as a leash. She lived on razor wire every single day, waiting for the axe to fall.

I reach into my jacket pocket, pull out a fresh silver tin, and pop open the lid with my thumb.

"Eat," I command, tossing a bar of dark hazelnut chocolate into her lap.

Elizabeth looks down at the foil-wrapped bar with a raised, cynical eyebrow. "Are you trying to poison me, mobster?"

"If I wanted to poison you, I wouldn't waste imported Swiss chocolate on you," I reply smoothly. "Your hands are shaking, Elizabeth. Your blood sugar is on the floor from adrenaline shock. Eat the goddamn chocolate before you pass out against my door."

She stares at the bar for three seconds, her stubborn pride warring with her starving stomach. Hunger wins. She tears the foil with her teeth, breaks off a thick square, and lets it melt on her tongue. A tiny, involuntary hum of pleasure escapes her throat, so soft and genuine it hits me straight in the gut.

"Better?" I ask.

"It will do," she mumbles, taking another bite.

She looks down at the metal briefcase resting between her boots on the floorboard. The ledgers. The Swiss accounts. The sixty million pounds in bearer bonds that cost her brother's life and spilt blood for the O’Connors.

"What happens to the ledgers?" she asks quietly.

"They go to Iris," I answer. "She is Donna Messina now. Between my docks in Boston and Romeo's operations in Palermo, she has the legal leverage to seize every property the Scottish council bought with stolen tithes."

Elizabeth goes completely still.

"Iris," she whispers, her fingers curling tightly around the chocolate foil. "Your sister. The blind girl from the cathedral."

"Yeah."

"Is she... is she whole?" Elizabeth's voice cracks on the question, the first real crack in her hard armor. "I tried to untie her, Jamie. That night in Queens, before Romeo kicked in the heavy oak doors. I had the knife behind my back. I was going to cut her loose and run for the rectory exit with her, but the bishop grabbed my hair and slammed me into the pews. He broke my cheekbone."

Her hand rises, her fingers lightly touching the faint yellow-green shadow above her left eye.

"And then the shooting started," she continues, staring blindly at the dashboard. "The stained glass exploded above the cross. I watched the shards fall right into her face. I can still hear her screaming every time I close my eyes. It sounded like an animal being butchered."

A cold, heavy knot tightens in my throat.

I reach across the console, my large, calloused hand coming down over hers on her thigh. Her fingers are icy, but she doesn't pull away.

"Iris survived," I tell her, my voice rough and low. "She lost most of her sight, but she didn't lose her spine. She wears Romeo's ring, she commands his soldiers, and she doesn't flinch from the dark anymore."

Elizabeth looks down at my hand covering hers. The warmth of my palm seems to seep into her skin, her fingers slowly uncurling until they rest against my rough knuckles.

"She has good men watching her back," Elizabeth whispers.

"She has monsters watching her back," I correct her. "And now so do you."

She turns to face me fully, her slate-gray eyes piercing through the dark of the cab.

"I don't need a protector, Jamie O'Connor. I survived three years under the church's thumb with nothing but my wits and an iron poker. I am not a damsel to be rescued."

I pull the Rover onto the gravel shoulder of a scenic overlook, shifting into park. The engine idles with a low rumble, the rain lashing the roof above us.

I turn in the driver's seat, unbuckling my seatbelt, leaning across the console until my face is two inches from hers. The scent of her fills the cab: dark chocolate, rainwater, and that wild, untamed female defiance that makes my blood roar.

"I don't want a damsel, Elizabeth," I growl, my hand sliding from her fingers up the inside of her wrist, pinning her forearm to the console. "Damsels get buried in shallow graves. I want a fighter. I want a woman who looks at a burning world and grabs the matches."