Touch of Dark: Dublin Devils 3

by Laurence, Selena

  O’Connor snorted. "I won’t go after Finn until Cian’s been convicted, how’s that? Then, I’ll go after any MacFarlane that’s left standing." He shook his head, mumbling to himself. "Not go after his brother. What the hell does he think I’d do with all my time if I wasn’t hunting MacFarlanes?"

  Keira raised an eyebrow but was smart enough not to respond. "Then it’s a deal?"

  "Fine. It’s a deal." He wagged a finger at her. "Only until he’s convicted of this murder."

  "I understand. Do I have your permission to go interrogate him more? The Feds are going to be pissy about letting me see him. They have a finders keepers thing going on."

  "Do it. And give me a full report and a copy of the confession. The Chief is going to want to use this for P.R. We’ve been after these assholes for years. Having this arrest under his belt will make him a shoe-in when he runs for mayor."

  Keira nodded and headed out the door. She wondered what it would do to the Chief’s political career when she helped Cian escape?

  * * *

  "Why would I let you do that?" Don asked as he stared her down, arms crossed in front of his chest. "You saw him yesterday. You’ve had plenty of time to tie up whatever loose ends he’s providing on your murder case."

  "In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a law enforcement official, too," she snapped. "He’s broken more laws than the ones you’re prosecuting. I’d think you’d want him taken down for anything and everything he can be."

  Don snorted. "I don’t care if you’re the fucking Chief of the NYPD, I don’t have to share my big catch with you."

  Dammit. Keira had been afraid of this. She shifted tactics, adopting a softer expression. "Look, Agent Wagner, I know this is a big ask. Here’s the thing—" She lowered her voice as if she were telling him something in confidence. "My Chief has had a hard-on for the MacFarlanes even longer than you have. And you know my dad was everyone’s darling. They’re so tough on me over there. If I could walk in the front doors with a signed confession from Cian MacFarlane, I’d be golden for the next five years."

  He seemed to consider for a moment, barely restraining the eye roll she knew he wanted to give her. "Fine. I’ll have him brought from his cell. Meet him in the attorney-client interview room. It’s the same one you used the other day. Just ring the intercom when you’re done and someone will come take him back to lock up."

  "Will do," she answered with a disingenuous smile.

  "Don’t fuck with me, Detective. I’m not in the mood."

  She kept smiling. "Sure thing, Agent Wagner."

  Twenty minutes later, the door to the small room opened and Cian was propelled through by a burly Federal prison guard.

  "He needs to stay cuffed," the guard instructed as he attached Cian’s shackles to the metal table and forced him into the chair.

  Keira nodded. "I’ll just buzz when I’m done."

  The guard left, and the door closed and latched behind him.

  She looked at Cian, who’d been relieved of his street clothes and every other thing he owned. He sported a bright orange jumpsuit with the corrections department logo and a string of numbers across the chest.

  "It’s a good look," she told him from where she leaned against the wall across the table from him.

  "Thanks. I think I’ll keep it." His chains rattled as he set his hands on the table, wrists cuffed together. "Not a big fan of the ankle bracelets, though."

  "I’m not a fan of any of this, just for the record. How is this going to play out?"

  Cian’s face darkened, and he rolled his shoulders once before he spoke, his expression determined and hard.

  "You’ll need to take these cuffs off me, then give me your gun."

  She snorted. "Give you my gun? I’m thinking that would be really stupid on my part."

  "I’m serious. I’m leaving here today, no matter what. If it’s in a body bag so be it, at least I will have done everything possible to get to Lila. I’m sorry, but that means taking you hostage and walking out of here."

  Keira scowled. She’d known he wanted to do this, but overnight her conscience had really gotten ahold of her. She was a cop. How could she allow herself to be taken hostage in order to let a mob boss loose on the city?

  "There has to be another way…"

  He just stared at her, unflinching, without emotion. And in that instant, she realized that while she still saw the resemblance between Cian and Finn, it became less every time she looked. Because Cian was shutting down, moment by moment, painful inch by painful inch. She could see that once this was over, there wouldn’t be much, if anything, left that looked like Finn. There would just be ice.

  "I’ll look completely incompetent. Why on earth would I remove your shackles?"

  "Maybe they weren’t locked in the first place," he said as he shook his wrists and the one cuff expanded until he pulled his hand free.

  Keira’s heart skipped a beat.

  "Fuck. Cian what are you doing?"

  "The only thing I can, and it’s better if it looks like what it is—" He reached down along his leg and she heard more metal rattling. "Me paying off a guard to leave my cuffs unlocked and then overpowering you."

  He moved so fast she barely had time to blink. Her hand was on her weapon in its hip holster by the time he reached her, but she didn’t have time to pull it free.

  He grabbed her arm and pinned it behind her back the way Finn had that first time they’d kissed. But this felt so different. Scary and dangerous, not illicit and arousing.

  Three times MacFarlane men had gotten the drop on her. Three times they’d shown her that she wasn’t nearly as good at this job as she hoped to be. In fact, this whole experience was a lesson in how ill-suited for the life of a detective she seemed to be. Her instincts were garbage, her self-defense mediocre, and her ethics practically non-existent.

  He reached across between them and removed the gun from its holster.

  "Now,” he said quietly, his ice chip eyes pinned to hers as her breath came in choppy fragments. "We’re going to walk out of here through whatever backdoor you know about, and you’re not going to do anything that makes this harder than it already is."

  "I can’t believe you’d do this," she gasped as he pulled her around so she was between him and the door, her back to his front. "I’ve done everything you asked."

  "And I appreciate it," he said softly in her ear. "And that’s why I’m doing you a favor now. No one will be able to fault you for this. They’ll blame it on the guard who took my promise of five grand and didn’t fasten those cuffs. And trust me, big boy Walter is a reprehensible human being, so everything that happens after this, he’s earned."

  Her heart hammered, because while she wanted to believe that Cian wouldn’t actually harm her, she wasn’t sure. Would his desire to save this woman he loved outweigh his desire not to hurt Finn? And that was assuming her being shot or killed would hurt Finn. There were a lot of ifs in all that. Cian might be a genius, but she was pretty damn sure he wasn’t a very stable one at the moment.

  "Now," he continued. "This is all very easy, just be discreet, and move quickly."

  Right. Discreet and quick. Keira knew she ought to be looking for a way to turn the tables on him. It’s what she’d do if she were being a cop instead of a patsy. But the fact was, she’d started the ball rolling on all this by agreeing to help him yesterday. She wanted him to find his girlfriend before something horrible happened to the woman. Part of Keira—a bigger part than she cared to admit—was a lot more interested in what Finn would want than in what a cop should want. Her insides were still battling, and she wasn’t sure which side was going to win.

  Cian held the gun pressed against her shoulder as she turned the doorknob. She pulled it open, the sound of voices coming from the right where the guards were stationed. She turned left, Cian pushing her slightly, and began a quick walk down the hallway toward the back entrance to the building.

  Her boots didn’t make much sound as they struck
the epoxy flooring. Just a small squeak and a dull thud. Cian was silent, moving like a jungle cat behind her. No wonder he’d been able to evade the FBI for weeks, the man was like a ghost.

  They’d turned the last corner before the doors that led to the alley loading dock and back parking lot when a guard came walking toward them. She felt Cian stiffen, and it took the guard a moment before he realized that something wasn’t right. Now was the moment. The chance she’d get to make a move. But she already knew she wouldn’t. She wasn’t only afraid of losing her own life, but of losing someone else theirs.

  "Please don’t kill him," she whispered before Cian shoved her to one side and aimed the gun at the guard.

  "Shit!" the man spat.

  "Hands where I can see them," Cian directed. The guard moved his hand away from the gun at his hip, even as his other moved toward the radio on his shoulder.

  "Don’t." Cian’s voice was firm, and the guard moved both hands to the side, palms open. Keira could see the fear in his eyes.

  "I have kids," he said quietly, but his tone of resignation showed he didn’t think it would make any difference.

  Cian didn’t glance at Keira. "Stand by him, but not in touching distance," he instructed.

  The guard looked at her, then recognition lit his face. "Detective, right?"

  She nodded.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  Her gut clenched with guilt. He was genuinely concerned for her. And she was a crap cop and an even worse human being.

  "Don’t worry about me," she instructed. "Let’s just get you home safely to those kids, huh?" She gave him a quick smile as she stood an arm’s length away to his left side.

  Cian stepped forward, the gun pointed directly at the guard’s belly. "How old?" he asked as he reached forward and quickly disarmed the guard.

  Smart, Keira thought as she’d watched him. He’d distracted the guard with the question, right at a critical moment when the man could have made a move.

  "Uh, seven. And um, nine," the guard answered, his voice catching.

  Cian dropped the extra gun down the front of his jumpsuit.

  "Girls? Boys?"

  He’d done it again. Asked a question right as he reached for the guard’s radio.

  He dropped the radio on the floor and kicked it. It slid down the hall, bounced off the corner of a wall and disappeared around the bend.

  "One of each," the guard answered, his gaze following the radio.

  "On your knees," Cian said then.

  Keira’s heart stopped.

  "Please," the guard said, tears coming to his eyes.

  "Down," Cian repeated.

  The guard slowly knelt, a gasp of anguish spilling out before he gained control of himself.

  "Face the wall," Cian instructed.

  Keira began looking around for a way to stop this. She now stood at the guard’s back as he faced the wall. Cian was to her left. He could easily swing that gun between the guard and her. It ought to be her, not the guard. Not a man with children. She was no one. A crappy cop who’d wasted her whole life on trying to be someone she never could. What did she have to show for her years on this planet? A studio apartment with a dead houseplant. A dead father. A mother she hardly spoke to.

  And a career that she’d tanked because she had a crush on a gangster.

  "Cian," she said in warning. His gaze never left the guard on his knees.

  He pulled the second gun from the front of his jumpsuit, holding the barrel in his hand.

  "Take good care of those kids," he told the guard. "They deserve the best you can give them."

  Then he brought the handle of the gun down on the back of the man’s head. The guard slumped forward with a grunt, bumping against the wall before he slid down further, into a lump on the floor. He groaned slightly but didn’t move more.

  "Come on," Cian said, grabbing Keira’s elbow. They were out the doors and into the back parking lot in seconds.

  Bile rose in Keira’s throat as the adrenaline burst through her system.

  "I think I might—" She coughed and gagged, but Cian kept them moving toward a row of vans parked along the wall.

  "No, you won’t," he murmured. "You’re tougher than that."

  She swallowed the bile back down and nodded, trying to keep up with his long strides.

  "I do what I have to, Detective. But only what I have to. I needed him slowed down, not dead. Now, which is your car?" he asked.

  She pointed to the generic sedan and he walked her to it, waiting for her to open the doors and get into the driver’s seat before he climbed in the back.

  "Give me your jacket," he demanded.

  She clawed her way out of the trench coat and handed it to him as he laid down on the floor in the back and covered himself with it.

  "I could tell you I have the gun pointed at your back and you know it’ll shoot right through this seat. But the fact is, if you want to signal the guard at the gate somehow, I can’t stop you. While all those cameras were watching, I forced you to do all of this. But now you get to decide. Now it’s back to our original plan. If you give me a couple of hours to find Lila, then you can be the one to bring me back to custody. You’ll be a hero, and I’ll be a model prisoner from there on out."

  She should have thought about it, should have done the right thing. But instead, Keira Watson, probably a soon-to-be former CPD detective, drove the car past the guard at the gate, and into the snarl of Chicago traffic.

  "All right. Where to now?" she asked, her stomach still aching from the fear she’d had for that guard. Her hands shook, but she tried to keep them wrapped firmly around the steering wheel so that Cian wouldn’t see.

  He climbed up onto the back seat, keeping Keira’s black trench over his orange jumpsuit.

  "I need clothes and I need to find Liam." He paused. "Maybe it would be better to reverse that order. Find Liam first. He should have my duffle bag with him."

  "And how do we do that?"

  Cian was quiet for a moment. Keira just drove in a winding line away from the MCC. She expected to hear sirens soon and wanted to get as far as possible as fast as she could.

  "They took my phone, so I have no idea what number he has at the moment. But Finn might."

  "This phone is my personal one," she said, handing him her cell. "I’ve never liked the idea that the department was monitoring my calls. I only use a CPD device when I have to."

  Cian took the device. "It’s me," he said a moment later. "Don’t ask…Is Liam with you?…Good, what’s the address?"

  A moment later, he handed the phone back. Keira heard the sounds of sirens in the distance and felt her skin tighten. She’d been trained to follow those sounds, not avoid them. It was surreal being on the other side of the equation.

  "No time for clothes. They’re on their way to the last property," Cian told her. "I need you to take me there."

  "I hope we can make it before they catch us," she muttered as she switched lanes abruptly and drove down an alley.

  "Me too," he answered. "Me too."

  Chapter 17

  Lila lay on a blanket on the floor and sobbed. As soon as he’d discovered what she’d done with the bed at the last place he’d held her, he’d told her no more beds. Then he’d beaten her with that crop until her back was nothing more than shredded skin. He’d done it with a smile, and she knew he’d been grateful she’d given him a reason to punish her.

  Afterwards, she’d been bound, gagged, and had a dark sack put over her head like a Middle Eastern POW, before he’d tossed her in the backseat of a car and driven for ten minutes. After the drive, he’d marched her through what felt like overgrowth, or woods of some sort. When he’d pulled the sack off her head and unbound her hands, she’d been here—prison number two.

  Between the beating, the loss of her escape plan, and the knowledge that the move might have set Cian’s efforts to find her back to square one, Lila had finally given in, curled up in a ball, and sobbed. She was dirty, bleeding, h
ungry, and in pain. If that wasn’t enough to make a girl cry, she didn’t know what was.

  But Lila wasn’t just any girl, so after she’d emptied her body of most of its fluids and salt through her eyes, she sat up, opened her swollen lids, and looked around her new prison.

  It was similar to the last place she’d been at—some sort of former industrial site. But the room she was in this time was shaped like a rectangle instead of a square. It was the right size to have been a garage bay of some sort, but if it had been a garage bay, the open end had been walled over long ago. The floor was concrete, the walls were concrete block, and the only door was made of metal, no handle on the inside.

  But unlike the previous room, this one had a window. High up near the ceiling on one wall was a single oblong window. There was no way Lila could get to it, the room didn’t have a single scrap of furniture, only the obligatory bucket in the corner for her to use as a toilet. But through that window she could see the sky, and that changed Lila’s world entirely.

  Now she would know day from night. Now she could keep count of how long she was being held. Now she was connected, however tenuously, to the bigger world. The world that had forgotten her. The world she might never exist in again. Now, at this very moment, it was light outside, but she could see clouds. The same clouds her mother could see. The same clouds she prayed Cian was looking at right now.

  She began a cursory examination of the room, walking slowly around all four sides, letting her fingers settle in the mortar that held the blocks together. She didn’t expect to find anything, he wouldn’t have put her here if there were a way out, but fate could be an angel just as easily as she could be a bitch. Lila wasn’t going to miss any opportunity said angel might provide.

  She’d just reached the wall where the door was when it flew open.

  "Come on," he demanded, his voice harsher than usual. "We’re leaving, and you’ll be silent as a church mouse or you’ll pay in ways you can’t imagine."