by Henry, Jane
Nolan.
With effort, I keep myself from knifing up and demanding answers, calling attention to myself. We’d just gotten Nolan, just brought him to Sebastian, when we were fucking ambushed. Cormac said it was the Martins, but I didn’t get a good look before they assaulted me.
Did Cormac get away? Thank Christ Nolan was with Sebastian.
Is Caitlin safe?
“Thought he could tell us where to look for the rest if we brought him here,” one says.
“You feckin’ eejit,” a hoarse, raspy voice says, in a thick brogue. “You took the feckin’ heir to the throne. You’ve got no brains in that head of yers, do ya? Could’ve taken any of the lot, but this feckin’ heir’s the future Chief.”
“Fuckin’ shut it,” the other snaps. “He’s as guilty as the rest.”
“Could’ve gotten retaliation without a fucking war,” the raspy voice continues. There are several distinct voices, several men in the shadows of this room. I can’t quite tell how many are here.
So someone took me without permission. That bodes well for me. Maybe they won’t kill me.
Mention of retaliation confirms they’re Martins. They know of the men we killed at St. Albert’s, and now they’ve come for vengeance.
They argue among themselves, before they finally realize I’ve come to.
“Take off his gag,” the raspy voice says. He’s the leader, it seems.
The light casts across their features. This one’s dirty, his hair matted, and he’s missing a tooth in the front. My stomach churns. My father’s told me they’re a manky lot, but I’ve not had much interaction myself. They’re underhanded and conniving, he says. Unprincipled. They’re known for seeking easy money and spending it as quickly as they can earn it.
We may be violent ourselves, but I shudder to think of Caitlin among the likes of these.
Someone unfastens my gag. I move my tongue around my mouth. No missing teeth. The few broken bones I have won’t keep me from fighting.
“State yer name,” the leader says. He knows who I am. He’s already chided them for taking me.
“Keenan McCarthy, Captain of the McCarthy Clan” I say, my voice laced with anger. I want them to know exactly who I am. “And you’re…” I want to hear them say it. I don’t want them to know I know who they are.
“None of your damn business,” he snaps, but he looks nervously over his shoulder. Where are we? The blanket beside the bed where I’m sitting is familiar, but I can’t place it. Why would a place they take me to look familiar? It doesn’t make any sense at all. I look about the place, and realize the light is coming from above us, natural light filtering in through small glass windows. The room is so small, I couldn’t stand up straight if I tried, but would smack my head. It’s too dark to see much else, the only light cast from an oil-burning lamp on a table.
“Why’ve you taken me here?” I ask. “Where are we?”
But they don’t answer. One of them, a large, burly man with a shaved head and jaw, pulls out his cell phone. He speaks hurriedly into it. “They took the feckin’ Captain.” He looks over his shoulder at me. “Bloody hell.”
He continues to talk, and my mind is churning. They didn’t mean to take me, and I have to use that to my advantage. These are the lackeys in the group, not the ones with power. Taking me, or any attack at all, was likely retaliation for the weekend, for the men they lost that we questioned. We’re at war with the Martins, and there’s only one way we can end what’s to be inevitable bloodshed: my marriage to Caitlin. But hell, if they’ve already seen her, she isn’t safe. She’s in mortal fucking danger.
He slides his phone back into his pocket and looks to me. I need to decipher two things in this conversation: where I am, and if they know of Caitlin.
It’s so dim in here, it’s hard for me to get my bearings. I can talk to them, though, maybe even set them up.
“Do you know what it means when you kidnap the Captain?” I ask, my mind racing to come up with something that would scare them. They look at each other. My mark was right.
One swallows. “We were told to take you,” he says, the fucking idiot, as if I don’t have brains in my head.
“I didn’t ask if you were told to take me,” I say, letting my head flop back on the pillow as if I’m exhausted, when what I’m really trying to do is move my hand enough to see if I can reach the knife I keep at my belt without them seeing. “I asked if you knew what this meant.”
Silence. I speak quickly.
“My father’s the head of the firing squad. You’re outnumbered, lads, three to one. Soon as my family knows you’ve taken me, he’ll send out his top shooters to go straight for yours. Our best fighters, our heaviest artillery, and you well know we’re outfitted better than you lot.”
One whispers to the next, “He knows who we are then, bloody hell.”
Christ, but they’re idiots.
“You have what belongs to us,” one says.
“No fucking idea what you’re talking about,” I say, facing the wall, my fingers on the very edge of the handle. “We did nothing against you.”
“You took what’s ours!”
If they’re talking about Caitlin, I’ll kill them. I’ll fucking tear their hearts out with my own bare hands.
“And what’s that?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
“As if you don’t know you’ve got intel from the keeper that was rightfully ours? Hmm?”
I blink in surprise, truly astounded they’re so brainless. “You mean the spying he did on us?”
“We paid half a million quid for that intel.”
I laugh out loud. “And you think I’m going to hand you back information he stole from us?”
One of them grumbles. “We paid for that intel. Furthermore, you killed our men.”
“Fair kills,” I counter. “They attacked our women and bylaws are clear as fucking day. You attack a woman of The Clan, your life is forfeit.”
“We’re due retaliation!” one says, getting to his feet. I have to use their stupidity against them.
My hand just barely gets the very edge of the knife. “They’re coming now,” I say, shaking my head at them. “I hear them. You’ll be surrounded. You’re outnumbered. And when your Captain or Chief catches word of what you’ve done, who you’ve taken…” They look at one another, buying every word of my bluff, and at that very minute the sound of a motorbike goes by the window. I doubt my men know I’m here or that they’ve come, but it’s to my advantage to distract them while I cut my bonds.
“Go look,” the bald man says to the manky one. “Fucking look.”
He rushes to the center of the room, and I blink, my eyes finally adjusting to the darkness. I watch as he descends a spiral staircase to the floor below.
Bloody hell. I know where we are.
They took me to the lighthouse. The lighthouse. Why are we here?
A second man ascends to the top floor, and I’m left with the bald guy, who paces around, looking out the window below. I’m not going to be left alone. I use the momentary distraction to draw my blade up. It slices through my finger and I brace against the pain, fumble with it, my back my captor. Thank Christ the blade is sharp and my bonds makeshift and weak. My hands spring free. I pretend I’m still bound and tuck the blade under my body.
“There’s no one here, boss. He’s either delusional or lying,” one yells from above.
“Anything below?” he asks. “We need to—”
But he doesn’t get any further than that when I lunge and strike. He isn’t prepared for me, as I vault across the small room. My knife meets its mark, and he screams in pain. I hear the sound of the others coming, but I have an advantage. In seconds, I incapacitate the one beside me, and knock him out. The manky one’s on the stairs, but I kick him swiftly and send him flying, and the second becomes victim to my blade. Now that my hands are free, I can reach for my pistol that the idiots didn’t even realize I had on me.
The man beside me launches himself at me, and in
his haste, he knocks over the oil lamp. It crashes to the floor,, the oil leaking onto the hardwood, and flames begin licking at the oil. It flames like a match to tinder, and the bald man howls when the flames hit him. I reach for him, drag him into the heart of the flames, and he screams as the fire meets its mark.
In seconds, the small interior’s filled with smoke and flame, and I can’t stop it. I drag him to the edge of the fire and leave him, howling in rage and pain, unable to escape the flames. I assess my situation. I’m too high to jump, and I’ve got two barely incapacitated men after me. I cover my face against the heat and flames, everything igniting so quickly I fear I won’t make it out.
I run to the stairs, but one of them’s after me. I kick his face, and he screams, falling to the floor. I leap off the stairs, crouch on the ground beside him, and when he attacks, I roll with him. I’ve still got my knife in hand and use it to my advantage. I slash his chest, and he howls, rears back, and decks me so hard I see stars, but I keep my head about me. I slice at his neck, and when crimson blood spurts out and he gasps for air, I whip out my handgun and shoot. My mark is certain, and he slumps to the ground with a bullet through his temple. I toss the dead body to the side and run for the exit.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Caitlin
I go with the men Seamus hands me to.
“Do exactly what they say, lass. Your safety is of the utmost importance. Do you understand?” It surprises me this is the man from day one, the vicious man who tried to slap my face. He’s concerned about me, concerned for my safety.
I’m one of them now.
I sit in the back of the car, but when I do, I see something up ahead on the cliff.
“Stop the car!” I shout. The men look at each other, but I pound on the seats. “Stop the car!”
They do, and I reach for the door handle. I need to tell Seamus and Maeve.
“Bloody hell!” one of the men shouts when I tumble out of the car, waving my hands at the car behind us.
But it isn’t Maeve. It isn’t Seamus. They’re… men I don’t recognize. Tires squeal as they come to a stop, and an older man, younger than Seamus but older than Keenan, rolls his window down. He stares at me as if he’s seen a ghost.
No.
He recognizes me. I scream when strong arms come around me, dragging me back to the car.
“Don’t fight me, lass. Get into the car or yer man’ll beat the shite outta me.”
He lifts me in his arms and carries me back to the car. I’m out of my mind, I’m fighting against him. Keenan’s in danger. The other man saw me. We’re all in danger.
I hear deafening gun shots but can’t see what’s happening, as he climbs into the back of the car with me and manhandles me inside. I haven’t seen this man before. He’s thinner than the rest, wears wire-rimmed glasses, but he’s got the same ink and sternness about him as the others. “You don’t fucking pull that shite again,” he says. “Seamus ordered you taken to the bunker, and we’re fucking doing what he tells us.”
“The lighthouse,” I tell him, trying to keep my nerves in check while the men in the front shoot their guns at our assailants. “They’ve got him at the lighthouse!”
He nods. “What’d you see, lass?”
“Flames,” I say, my voice choked, when the realization hits me. The lighthouse is on fire. My home. My childhood home is on fire.
He pulls out his phone and makes a few calls. I hear the blast of a gunshot and squeal of tires.
“Lost them,” a voice in the front says.
“The lass saw flames at the lighthouse. Thinks Keenan’s there.”
“Taking her in now.”
It’s a jumble of confusion as we race faster than I knew cars could even go, and we’re driving down, away from the lighthouse, away from the shore, deep into the heart of the city. We pass the church and the graveyard, the armory and the castle, as we drive further and further away. I swallow hard, kneading my hands.
They have to find Keenan. They have to save him. They have to save the lighthouse.
Why do I care?
God, what I’ve gone through since they took me… I don’t even know when it was. It feels like it was yesterday, and it feels like it’s been forever. I can’t imagine myself not surrounded by this family, by these men, by Keenan.
The thought of him being hurt, or worse, killed, makes me want to scream. He can’t die. He can’t.
We’re going downhill now, and my stomach swoops as they drive into what looks like a cave. What on earth? We’re surrounded by darkness when the car screeches to a halt.
“Nothing foolish, lass,” the man beside me says. “You’re under our protection, and it’s crucial you do as we say. It’s what Keenan would’ve wanted. Aye?”
Would’ve wanted? Why is he talking about him in the past tense? What? I nod dumbly, not sure what else I can do.
He holds my gaze as if gauging my reaction, when he finally opens the door. “Alright, then. Out you go.” He gets out first and takes me out, then holds my elbow as if I’m a child who might run.
“I’m not going to run away.”
He doesn’t respond, his jaw tight and his grip on my arm even tighter. There’s a door in front of us, barely visible, but another one of the men opens it. I step inside, the air instantly cooler. It isn’t used very much, that I can tell, by the musty, damp smell that clings to the air.
When all of us have entered the small room, I hear the heavy clanging of a door being shut, and someone flicks the light switch. I shade my eyes, not used to the light, and look around us. It’s a tiny apartment, windowless, with a door so thick and heavy, it looks as if it’s made of solid iron. There’s a refrigerator, a small, utilitarian toilet and sink, a sofa, and a cot.
“Sit, lass,” one of the men says, pointing to an ancient-looking loveseat in the corner of the room.
“Get us some drink, Tully, will you?”
“Aye.”
I sit and look at the two men. Tully I recognize from the day we went to the church. I blink in surprise when I realize the third man with me isn’t a man at all, but the boy called Lachlan.
“What’s your name?” I ask the man with the glasses.
“Name’s Carson.”
“And your role here?”
His lips twitch before he answers, and I’m not sure why. “Clan bookkeeper,” he says, holding my gaze.
I turn to Lachlan. “Lachlan, what are you doing here?”
The boy also holds my gaze without turning away. “Brought word to Cormac of his brother’s illness,” he says. “Keenan told me to shadow the men for the day, see what happens.” A corner of his lips quirks up. “Got lucky. Seems I came on a good day.”
Carson cuffs him good-naturedly. “’Tis about time we induct Lachlan anyway,” he says. “Once Keenan signs off.”
I exhale in relief. “He’s alright, then?” I ask. “Keenan?”
“Aye,” Carson says, his eye gentling, though he looks away this time. “Don’t you worry about Keenan, lass. The best of The Clan are onto the extraction right now.”
“Extraction?” I say, my voice oddly high-pitched. “That sounds painful.”
Why do I care so much? This is a man I wasn’t going to stay with. He’s highhanded and domineering, and, and…
I love him. I sigh.
“Sounds painful,” Tully repeats, not bothering to hide his booming laugh or the fact that he’s amused by me. “Aye, lass, it very well may be, but yer Keenan’s a champ. He’ll come out of this just fine, you’ll see.”
Still, I pace the small area back and forth, and every second that ticks by feels like hours. The men don’t do much more than guard the door, and after some time find food.
“Eat,” Tully says, handing me a plastic cup with soup in it. I frown at it.
“Where’d you get that?” I ask. I’ve never eaten anything out of a plastic cup, and I don’t trust it.
He snorts. “We keep rations here,” he says. “You add water, and
you’re good to go. I trust you’ve never seen such a thing?”
“No,” I say, “and I have no appetite anyway.”
“You best eat, ma’am,” Lachlan says, almost apologetically. “Keenan won’t be pleased if you don’t.”
I furrow my brow at him and frown. “How do you know what Keenan wishes for me?” I’m feeling petulant and moody. I want out of here. I want to know Keenan’s okay.
To his credit, Lachlan looks a bit abashed, but his voice and gaze don’t waver when he looks at me. “They sent you to the bunker, miss,” he says, as if that explains anything at all. When I look at him blankly, he continues.
“She don’t know what it is,” Tully says, slurping soup from the cup.
“I do so,” I protest. “It’s a safe place, where we are now.”
“Aye,” Tully says. “But you don’t know the purpose, lass. The bunker’s meant for the Chief only. In the entire history of The Clan, we’ve never had a woman in here. The Chief’s sent here if his life is endangered. Notice only one bed?”
I nod, looking around the dark interior a second time.
“That’s for the Chief. The others who accompany him are his watch. There’s no way in, except through the guard, sent here to watch the Chief. And yet here you are, the one under the deepest protection we can muster. Guard with you in a veritable fortress, and guards stationed outside as well. Absolute iron clad protection.”
I finally realize what he’s telling me. “Oh,” I say in a little voice.
Seamus sent me here for a reason. They don’t take this level of protection lightly. For some reason, my nose feels all tingly, and a lump forms in my throat. Maeve loves me like a daughter, and Seamus has given me the highest level of protection.
I… mean something to them. To all of them. To the man I’m betrothed to and the men in front of me now.
“I see,” I say finally.
“Eat, lass,” Carson suggests, pointing to the cup, though there’s a note of steel in his voice I recognize. He’s trying to be polite, but they want me to take care of myself. So I do. I frown at the cup and raise an eyebrow at the little square-shaped vegetables I recognize as peas and carrots. I take a tentative sip. It’s hot and salty, and surprisingly tasty. I finish it, hand the cup to Tully, then go to lay on the bed.
