by Fox, Nicole
He pauses. The forest murmurs around us. Birds and branches and a little stream flowing somewhere unseen.
“I’ve missed the land, Saoirse. I’ve missed my brother. Hell, I even missed my parents. I told myself that this was just about making amends and then going back to America. But that was the lie I needed to tell myself in order to get on that plane in the first place.”
I listen intently, feeling him draw closer and closer to me. His hand lands on my arm and I pivot on the spot.
He’s looking at me as though begging me to understand.
He has history here. A past he treasures and memories he wouldn’t give up for the world.
He’d been forced out the first time and I had unknowingly asked the exact same thing from him. I had asked him to leave when he wasn’t ready to go.
“This is my home,” he says again softly. “Home.” He says the word like it’s holy.
I give him a tentative smile that doesn’t quite manage to hide the sadness I’m feeling. “I understand, Cillian,” I say. “Of course I do.”
This really is his home.
The scary part for me, though… is the realization that he may be mine.
“Do you?” he asks.
“Yes.”
And I do understand. I really do. It’s just not the answer I wanted to hear.
Cillian may have a future in Ireland.
But where’s mine?
I can’t have a future that’s anywhere close to where Tristan still draws breath. The man will hunt me down and scrape the happiness from my soul if he could.
That angry, bitter nagging voice inside my head screams at me. You should have left with him the first time. It’s too late now. The window is closed.
He reaches up and cups my face with his hand. I can feel the hard calluses of his palm, but despite their roughness, I press my cheek into him.
Then I turn my lips into his palm and kiss it gently.
When I turn my eyes to his, there’s a spark in them that has driven all the calm right out.
“I thought about you a lot when I was gone,” he confesses softly.
“I thought about you a lot, too.”
“Did you ever regret it?” he asks. “Not coming with me?”
My breath hitches up a little. I’ve been a coward too long now.
It’s time to be brave. And bravery always starts with the truth.
“Of course I regretted it,” I tell him. “I regretted it every single day.”
There’s three seconds of silence.
He looks at me and I look right back at him.
Then his fingers curl around the side of my neck and he pulls me to him, our lips crashing together in a torrent of pent-up emotion.
His tongue winds its way around mine and suddenly, abruptly, chaotically, we’re tearing each other’s clothes off.
I know already that this is one of those memories I will look back on and marvel at. How fragmented it is. How beautifully broken.
I know this because even as it’s happening, I can’t hold together the pieces of it.
I don’t remember tearing off Cillian’s shirt or undoing his pants. But suddenly, he’s naked and hard beneath my palm, and I’m just as bare.
I don’t remember getting down onto the grass, but that’s where I find myself.
It doesn’t really matter, though.
Because the things I do process, the moments I do absorb, are so clear and vivid and intense that I know they will last me until the end of my days.
Like the moment he rolls over, forcing me on top of him.
The moment he pushes inside me from below, fusing the two of us together with such force that I gasp so loud it echoes across the wide-open sky.
The moment he grabs my hips and locks eyes with me as I ride him to another orgasm.
I come once with my hands on his chest.
I come the second time with my face pointed towards the sky as an eagle circles overhead.
I’m struck by how opposites can exist in the same breath without competing for space or energy.
Despite the passionate urgency with which we make love, there are moments of quiet, too.
The way Cillian brushes his lips against my nipples.
The way he smiles at me.
The way he encircles my body in his arms just before he finishes.
I want so badly to make this day stretch out into eternity so that we never have to make the journey back down the lonely trail to the car.
But I know it’s not possible. No matter how strong your will is, time is the one thing you can’t bend.
So I give up and give in. Because I’m trying not to be a coward anymore. And that means facing the truth.
That means accepting that Cillian and I… As perfect as it might feel when we’re together, our paths have always diverged.
We’re going in different directions.
But until he disappears from my line of sight, I can cling on.
For as long as he lets me.
52
Cillian
Saoirse is quiet as we drive back down to the castle. A little too quiet for my liking.
She keeps her face turned towards the window so that I only catch glimpses of her expression. When I do, her jaw is tight, her eyes distant.
But that’s the way it is with Saoirse. The moment you think things are going well, she pulls the rug right out from underneath you.
As infuriating as it is, I’m self-aware enough to understand that that’s one of the reasons I’m so damn attracted to her. She’s mysterious and complicated and unpredictable in a way I have never encountered before or since.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask when we’re almost at the lake.
“Nothing,” she mumbles.
I grit my teeth. But I can’t force her to talk to me. I can’t force her to trust me, either.
Just before turning the corner, I notice a billow of smoke wrinkling in the air.
As we round the bend, my eyes zero in on the car stalled in the middle of the road, a few yards away from the bridge itself.
It’s got two punctured tires hissing air and a pattern of bullet holes in the rear fender. The back glass has shattered and caved in.
“Fuck.”
“What is it?” Saoirse asks, sitting up a little straighter. “Kinahan?”
That was my first thought, too. Then I notice the license plate on the car.
“Not Kinahan,” I growl, speeding up until we’re right behind the fucked-up car. “It’s mine.”
I park and leap out of the vehicle. Rushing to the driver’s seat, I expect to find it empty.
But it’s not.
“Kian!”
My brother groans and tries to lift his head off the steering wheel, but he barely manages. His face is slicked with blood and his eyes are fluttering between reality and unconsciousness.
“Fucking hell,” I roar, peeling him off the wheel and leaning him back against the seat’s headrest. “Kian, what the fuck happened?”
His eyes flicker to me and beyond me. I sense Saoirse at my shoulder.
“I was ambushed on the road,” he groans with immense difficulty. “Fuckers tried to get me. But I was too fucking smart for them.”
His voice fades off in another warble of pain. He looks like death warmed over.
I’m not about to sit here and watch him wither away in front of me. “Come on,” I say through gritted teeth. “Let’s get you inside.”
I help him get out of the car. Every motion draws another hiss of agony from him.
I look around for Saoirse, only to see that she’s disappeared. Then I realize that she’s calling for help from the side gate next to the portcullis.
The gates open a minute later and Eiric runs out towards us to loop an arm underneath Kian from the other side.
“Come on, brother,” I tell Kian. “You’re going to be okay.”
“They were looking for you,” Kian tells me, choking a little on his words. “Th
ey were looking for all of us. You, me, Ma, Da.”
Fear grips me immediately.
“Did they find them?”
“No, no,” Kian says quickly. “The safehouse was a stroke of genius. But the Kinahans are frustrated because of it. They started tailing the only person they did have eyes on.”
“You.”
Kian nods as we limp towards the castle. He tries to say something else, but words fail him.
“Easy, brother,” I soothe. “Save your breath for later.”
* * *
We manage to get him inside and into one of the bedrooms on the ground floor. The stone walls are an onyx white that makes the blood-red carpet look almost sinister.
The moment he’s in bed, Matilda and Mary appear with hot water, warm clothes, and a huge first aid kit. Saoirse and I stay in the back of the room while they clean Kian up and see to his wounds.
It’s not actually as bad as it seems. Half the damage was from the crash when his tires finally blew, not the Kinahan assault. His vehicle took the brunt of the gunfire. He did get his arm singed by a stray bullet, but it’s only a flesh wound.
All in all, it’s more the panic and chaos of the chase that has Kian so out of sorts.
“How bad is this, Cillian?” Saoirse asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But it’s definitely not good. They’re desperate to keep the upper hand they gained when they managed to abduct my parents.”
“But now that they can’t find them, they’re coming after you and your brother,” she points out.
I place my hand on her shoulder. “I will protect you, Saoirse.”
She shakes my hand off. “I’m not worried about myself, Cillian.”
Then she moves to Kian’s bedside as Mary starts stripping off his dirty, bloodied clothing. I head over there as well, taking note of how much better Kian looks. There’s still little color in his face. And he looks weak, possibly just from sheer exhaustion.
But he’ll make it.
“How’re you feeling?” I ask.
“Is that a trick question?” Kian manages to quip.
“Physically,” I clarify.
He gives me a tight smile. “Better,” he replies. “Cillian, I’m sorry…”
“For what?”
“They came out of nowhere. They must’ve been watching the highways.”
“Where was your backup?” I demand.
“I wanted to keep the majority of our men at the manor,” Kian explains. “We can’t afford another breach. And I didn’t want to travel too deep in case it gave away the location of the safehouse. So after Mark and I got Ma and Da settled, we left.”
Kian shakes his head as though he memory is too painful to linger on.
“There were so many of them. We lost them for a time, or at least I thought we did. But then they caught up to us, and… Fuck, I tried. But they got Mark. Gunned him down like a dog in the road. And my leg is so fucked up that I couldn’t drive well. I couldn’t turn back to the manor on my own. Didn’t have the means or the manpower to get there. This was the only option I had left.”
I frown, realizing that there’s a specific reason for Kian’s apology.
“I was about four miles from here when the Kinahan jeep showed up again,” Kian admits. “I would never have come here if I had a choice, Cillian.”
Then it clicks.
I glance at Saoirse as I realize what Kian is saying.
The wolves will be on our doorstep soon.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again.
“Don’t be,” I say firmly. “There’s no point. You did what you had to do.”
Kian shakes his head, but before I can say another word, Saoirse reaches out and puts her hand on his. She sits on the edge of the bed next to him.
He looks at her for a long moment and then he gives her a weak smile.
Slowly, he turns to me.
“There’s at least one Kinahan asshole that walked away from that fight,” Kian tells me. “It won’t take them long to figure out where I am.”
I nod. “They’ll come with reinforcements.”
“And what do we do then?”
“We’ll call in our men,” I say.
“If they can be spared,” Kian says.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Divide and conquer,” Kian says. “That’s their strategy. They’re going to hit us in all our known domains. While our focus is split, they’re going to come for us. If they kill you and me…”
“The O’Sullivan clan is all but extinct,” I breathe.
Kian nods slowly.
Before my legs give out, I sit down on the bed next to him. The three of us form a sort of lopsided triangle, but I still manage to draw strength from it.
I look at Kian’s face, weak yet still determined.
I look at Saoirse’s face, worried yet still beautiful.
I look around at the strong walls that engulf us.
We may be in a fucking castle, but it hasn’t functioned as such for a long time. We don’t have the weapons or defense structures we need to keep the Kinahans out of our walls.
I glance between Saoirse and Kian again. They’re both looking at me as though they expect me to have all the answers, all the solutions.
Ironically, I don’t feel pressure.
I feel like I’m where I belong.
“Do you think, if Sean hears about our gruesome deaths, he’ll come back and avenge us?” I wonder out loud.
There’s a split second of silence when both Saoirse and Kian look at me with wide, shocked eyes as they process what I just said.
Then the silence breaks with their laughter.
I join in. And for an instant, everything is okay.
The last moment of calm before the storm.
53
Saoirse
A Little While Later
I slip into Cillian’s room and shut the door behind me.
I don’t see him at first. He’s got the antique wardrobe door open and he’s almost completely hidden behind it.
Then he shuts the door, revealing the gun in his hand.
“What are you doing?” I ask. Stupid question, of course, but it’s the only way I can think of that gets anywhere close to the real question I want to ask.
A question like, Do you have to do this?
“Preparing,” he replies somberly. “How’s Kian?”
“He’s sleeping,” I tell him. “He was fighting it, but I managed to mix in a sleeping pill with his water.”
“Sneaky.”
“It’s a mild one,” I clarify. “But he’ll get in at least a few hours of sleep.”
“Good.” He sets down the gun in his hand and picks up another one. Hefts the weight. Nods, satisfied. It’s all so familiar to him, so routine, that he doesn’t even notice how I’m trembling, how my skin is crawling as I watch him prepare for war.
I circle around and peek into the wardrobe. And I realize with a jolt that “wardrobe” is a really loose term for what this is.
There are no clothes in there. What it does contain is enough weaponry to supply an entire army.
Knifes. Pistols. Rifles. Row after row of gleaming firearms nestled neatly inside this centuries-old armoire.
“Are those throwing stars?” I gape at him.
Cillian smiles. “I went through a phase when I was thirteen. Ma bought them for me for Christmas.”
I raise my eyebrows. “God help us all.”
“Is that not how Christmas gifts looked in your family?”
“No, not really. I usually got a pair of socks and a tenner, if I was lucky.”
Cillian sighs as he tucks another gun into his belt. “He’s a real Santa Claus, your pa.”
“I don’t think anyone is confusing the two of them.”
“No, I think not. And I suppose we’re not your typical family, either.”
“I gathered as much,” I say, looking around at the castle’s stone walls. “Not many typical fami
lies have a spare castle lying around.”
We both chuckle, but it fades away soon, lost amongst the stones. The quiet here feels deeper. Heavier. More dense than normal silence.
“Saoirse,” he says at the same time I say, “Cillian.”
He smiles. “You first.”
“How many people do you have on the property who can fight?” I ask.
“Fifteen.”
“And how many more are on the way?”
“Two dozen.”
“Will that be enough?”
He doesn’t have to answer. I can tell from the look in his eyes that it won’t be.
“I’ve spoken to my lieutenants across the country,” he says. “We’re being attacked on all sides. Our men are spread thin. They’re trying to hold down our defensive positions for now. So two dozen… Well, we’ll just have to make do.”
He says it casually, like he’s a dinner party host trying to feed ten people with enough food for five. As opposed to what he really is: a man with his back against the wall and every enemy he’s ever met coming hungry for blood.
I decide it’s better if I don’t point that out.
“Any news on the Kinahans?” I ask.
“There’s been movement,” Cillian says. “It seems they’re preparing to head somewhere soon.”
“Here?”
“That’s the logical assumption.”
“How long until they arrive?” I ask.
“Twenty-four hours at the latest,” answers Cillian. “Twelve hours at the earliest.”
“So we prepare for the earliest.”
His eyes snap to mine. “There is no ‘we’ here, Saoirse,” he says coldly. “There’s me. There’s Kian. There’s the clan. But mostly, there’s just me.”
I frown. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He sighs, sets down the latest gun in his hand, and turns to face me fully. “It means that you need to leave while you still can.”
“No.”
His eyes flash dangerously. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I retort, clenching my teeth. “I’m not leaving. You need me.”
