“Kee,” my brother said, his voice low but urgent.
“I’m okay,” I said, though I was lying through my teeth. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Harrison caught me by the arm two steps in. “This was a bad idea. Let’s go.”
Too late. The marauder had locked eyes with me, stealing every ounce of my will to move, and before Harrison could turn me, had already ordered Raff to shut the door.
With the click of the closing door, I was snared and trapped, a fletching sticking out of a tiger’s mouth. Arrows be damned.
Even after Cash Kelly stood from behind his desk and extended his hand to my brother, it took me a minute to move. After I was able to tear my eyes from his eyes, they went straight to the side of his head, which was stained with blood that had almost turned completely black. Some spots were still ruby with fresh blood. His nose had been broken. It was crusted with blood, too.
“Boss,” my brother said. “You want me to get Susan to—”
“Flesh wound.” Cash waved him off. “Any blow to the head makes it seem worse than it really is.”
Huh. He was an expert in wounds.
He seemed like the kind of man everyone would want to kill. It was clear that if he wanted what you had, it was his. That sort of power came off of him in powerful waves. It smelled like the blood seeping from his head and nose, except it probably came from men who tried to stand in his way.
Maybe even some women. Their hearts. He stole their hearts in the metaphorical sense.
In that moment, there was no doubt that I was in big trouble. Cash Kelly was mayhem in a glass bottle, all of the chaos coming from his thoughts aimed straight at me.
What are you up to, Marauder? The tattoo on his neck, the tiger, never seemed more appropriate to describe a man before. No wonder he had it inked over the artery in his neck.
“Ms. Ryan,” he said, his voice causing me to shiver a bit. It was low, soft, but with a jagged edge that could slice through most defenses with its sharp intentions. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, darlin’.”
Good thing my highest defenses were up. He might reduce other women to puddles with his charm, but he’d die holding his breath before I fell at his feet.
“Why am I here?” The words came out blunt, even though my heart was beating too fast and my stomach kept rising only to keep plummeting. My breathing was chaotic, and I hoped he didn’t notice how my chest heaved.
“You get shorter and shorter every time I see you.” Cash shook his head. Then he nodded toward my brother. I hadn’t noticed until then that Harrison hadn’t taken a seat. He wasn’t getting comfortable, either. “Take a seat, Harry Boy. We have business to discuss.”
Cash took a seat on his marauding throne. He probably stole the regal-looking chair from someone more important than him.
“Sit,” he told my brother. Harrison stared at him for a moment and then did what he was told. After he did, Cash eyed me expectantly.
“If you expect me to sit, you’ll have to answer a question first.”
“She always this angry?”
My brother shook his head, but it wasn’t to deny Cash’s stupid-ass remark. He didn’t seem to want to entertain small talk.
“Shorter and shorter, darlin’,” Cash said and then sighed. “Usually after time apart, most people grow, either in height or in maturity. Your maturity always seems to get shrink each time we meet.”
“That’s because you bring out the worst in me.”
“Why is that?”
He settled in his seat, getting comfortable. Like he didn’t have fucking care in the world. La de da. I could be like any other singing Irishman in the world. Except it would be a grave mistake to believe that about this man.
“Tell me why I’m here so I can go. I have better things to do, and better people to spend my time with. People who don’t make me feel like committing murder. Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels that way.” I nodded toward his head, which was still bleeding. I also noted that his white dress shirt was stained, too. He was a dangerous animal dressed in an expensive suit.
“You’re going to marry me.”
Seconds. Minutes. Hours. I had no idea how long I stood there staring at him staring at me.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Did.
He.
Just.
Say?
You’re going to marry me.
I wanted to laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh, like my brother, because he thought this was a joke. I knew better, and so did the muscles around my mouth.
“I’ll kill you first.”
The tone of my voice made my brother look between Cash and me. Harrison stood abruptly when he realized how serious the demand was.
“Mr. Kelly,” my brother said. It was ridiculous to hear him call Cash Mr. Kelly, because they were around the same age, but there was no denying the respect in the tone covering up for the shock. Or was it defiance? “You’re joking.”
“Not a bit.”
It all made sense in that moment. That was why Raff had checked us for weapons. He knew one of us was going to kill him after this. And there was still time. The day was fresh. There was no way in hell I was marrying this marauding animal. This…this...gangster of New York! I was engaged—wasn’t I?—to a man of the law!
“You kill me,” Cash said easily, “and you doom your brothers. To start. Each attempt on my life will cost you one of theirs.”
Harrison came to stand next to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Boss. Can we talk about this? Why my sister? She’s not—”
I barely heard the words from my brother’s mouth as mine opened. I knew Harrison felt like it was his duty to protect me, and I could tell he was trying to do that through reasoning, but this was between Cash and me now. “There will be no attempts. Plural. When I aim to shoot, I never miss my mark.”
“Don’t be so quick to anger, darlin’. Think this through. Be rational.”
“I already have. I can’t stand to be in the same room as you, much less be your wife.” I realized then how deadly my voice had become. Low. Soft. But with enough power to strike him in his heart and make it stop—if he had one.
He leaned forward, steepling his fingers, taking me a bit more seriously now. “Let me be honest. This is not personal. You’ve found yourself here because you have a heart I want. I’ll stop at no cost to have it. Actually. I already consider it mine. You, darlin’, are mine. End of story.”
“I—” I took a deep breath, releasing it silently, forcing my voice to come out even “—will never marry you. And if you even think about hurting my—”
Before the words were fully out, Cash had drawn a gun from underneath his desk, and with a blast that sounded like a bomb going off inside of my heart, shot my brother. He hit the wall and slid down it. I fell to my knees beside him, running my hands along his body.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” I chanted, frantically feeling for my brother’s pulse.
“I’m all right, Kee,” he said, his voice strained. “My shoulder. He hit my shoulder.”
“Then why did you fall?”
Harrison narrowed his eyes at me. “I got hit with a bullet, Kee. Out of nowhere.”
I shook my head, applying pressure to his arm. Even though he assured me that it was just his shoulder, he was my big brother, and his wound hurt me as much as it hurt him. I looked up into light eyes that pierced through the darkness that had settled around me.
“Fuck you!” I spat out.
“Later, after I hear your vows.” Cash grinned at me.
“Kee.” Harrison’s voice brought me back to him. “Say no. The boys would want you to do the same. Say no. Run.”
“Why?” I said to Cash, feeling the closest thing to weak that I’d ever felt. My brother’s blood stained my hands. “Why me?”
“It’s not personal,” he said causally. “It has nothing to do with you directly. I don’t want your body. I’m takin
g you.”
“Stealing me,” I whispered. “Why?”
“Because I can.” There was something in his eyes—knowledge. He knew. He knew that only after meeting twice, not counting this time, he’d gotten underneath my skin.
“No!” Harrison roared, about to get to his feet.
I stuck my finger in Harrison’s wound, making him stay put, because the animal had scented blood and he was ready to shed more. Harrison growled again, the pain making all of the color drain from his face, and I looked the marauder in the eyes.
“I’m going to kill you regardless.”
“You kill me.” Cash shrugged. “My brother will continue to kill your family.”
Our eyes held, and something told me he was bluffing, but I couldn’t take the chance. He had shot my brother like it was nothing, like it was something he did every day, and maybe he did. I knew he’d kill my brother in front of me, and the more trouble I gave, the further I’d run and hide, the more he’d go on a spree and kill the people I loved the most.
I didn’t have much time to figure this out, because I didn’t trust him enough not to shoot my brother on his other shoulder, waiting for me to agree to whatever he wanted from me. He’d said that I was his already, he’d already decided, but the question kept stabbing me. Why?
Why me?
He didn’t want my body. I highly doubted he wanted my love.
What else?
What could he possibly want?
Something about a heart.
My heart?
How can someone steal a heart and not expect to love?
I almost growled in frustration. Think, Kee. Think!
I couldn’t.
He was staring at me, and fear was the only thing I felt. Not for me, but for my family. My brother kept bleeding.
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I’m yours. Whatever you want.”
“Kee,” my brother said, and my name on his lips almost made me come apart.
The marauder took a knee next to my brother, patting him on the shoulder. He handed him a glass of whiskey before he set a handkerchief against the wound, over my hand, helping me staunch it. I almost took it away, but I refused. I wasn’t going to let him rattle me. Or allow him to see it.
He thought he could steal my heart?
I met his green eyes and grinned. Game on, you marauding bastard. There was more than one word for vengeance, and getting even sounded just as sweet.
I wasn’t sure how it happened, but the worst day of my life had also become my best.
After Cash drove my brother to the ER, where we fed them some bullshit lie about a robbery gone wrong, and they took care of him, I received a call about a part on Broadway I’d been after. The name of the show was The Blood Queen, and it was based off of a script that felt eerily close to my own life.
That line about art imitating life had never felt so true.
I’d be playing the part of Joan McDougal, a Scottish maiden who refused to marry for the sake of family and obligation. She wanted to marry for love, if she ever married at all. She gave her parents a choice. She’d either marry for love, or she’d bleed her heart dry with an arrow before she settled for anything less. That way, if there was no other way, the man who made her a bride out of obligation would get a raisin instead of a heart.
Was it melodramatic?
Overtly, but my current state of mind was not being rational. I was being forced into marriage by a marauder who couldn’t care less about me.
I studied his face as he drove us home from the hospital. This man had a reason for each of his steps, and I knew I was nothing but a conquest that was going to move his journey along in some way. I still couldn’t piece it together, though.
I hated to sound like a broken fucking record, but why me?
Cash hiring my brother was no accident or coincidence. The cemetery. Showing up at the fair under the guise that he wanted to meet me.
This plan of his had been in play for a while, based on the timeline, but he had just decided to act on it. What had changed?
Why me?
WHY ME?
As he pulled up to Harrison’s car outside of his building, he said he wanted to speak to me alone. Harrison refused to get out of the car at first, but after I told him to go or I’d stick my finger in his wound again, he got out and waited by his car.
Cash sat there a second, gazing out of the windshield. “No one knows about this yet. I’ll let you know the time and place, but start packing up your things. Tell friends and family that Harrison fronted you the money for a better apartment. Tell your family about getting the part in the show. We’ll have a party at your brother’s new place for family and friends. Including the man who gave you that ring.”
“That ring?”
He nodded to my left hand.
Scott’s ring. I’d totally forgotten about Scott in all of this. The emerald heart was crusted with blood. How was I going to tell him? Hey, about our relationship? I’m ditching you for a criminal. You know, the guys you usually go after. Yeah, that wasn’t going to go over well. It might even start a war.
“Don’t tell him a thing yet.” When Cash said “thing,” it came out as “ting.” “Clear?”
“Whatever you want.” I smiled sweetly at him, but bile burned the back of my throat.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I prefer your lash of a tongue. Sweet doesn’t suit you, darlin’.”
“Wait,” I said, just realizing something. So many things were coming at me at once. “How did you know about my part in the show?” I hadn’t even told Harrison. My good fortune and my shitty luck were at war with each other, each trying to vie for the biggest shock of my life.
“These are my streets. I know everythin’,” he said. “Just like I know Armino Scarpone won’t be bothering you.”
“You got me the part! You had a hand in that, didn’t you?”
He gave me a side-eyed look. “My wife gets what she wants.”
“But I’ll NEVER know if I deserved it now! And I’m not your WIFE!”
“Yet. You’re not my wife yet,” he said. “And you do deserve it. You’re good. I watched before I interfered. It was between you and another girl who couldn’t act worth a shit, but her uncle’s some deep-pocket dick who pulled some strings. I have a deeper pocket, deeper connections, and of course, the bigger dick, so you got the part instead.”
“Hold on. Hold on.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to stop the raging headache that was about to send me to the ER. “My brother’s new place?”
“Talk to Harrison.” He nodded toward the door. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Wow!” I said, feigning excitement. “You’re such a charmer! Man, what a winner I picked to get married to! Oh wait, I’m being forced.”
“Keely.”
“Yeah?”
“Get out of my fucking car.”
“Sure,” I said. “But let me tell you one thing before I do. I might be marrying you, but what you’re really doing is binding yourself to me. You steal my heart, and yours won’t be able to live without mine. It’s like a spell. The one who casts it is always connected to the one who’s under the spell. Being connected to you in this life—in this way—is enough. I don’t need you tagging along with me forever.”
I opened the door to his fucking car and then slammed it. I marched over to Harrison after, who was leaning against his car, waiting for me. “What’s this about a new place?”
“Keely—”
“I just swapped my life for yours, Harrison. The truth.”
He wiped a bubble of sweat from his upper lip. I could tell he was in pain, and not just physically. “I bought it for Mari, all right? I fucking bought the house she loves on Staten Island! The one next to our parents’ old place. The one she grew up in. The one she still visits when her life gets rough. I want her to feel safe. To…I don’t know. Feel loved for once in her life! And I want to give her something without her feeling like she owes me her soul! I want to m
arry her, Kee.”
“All right,” I said, my voice lower than I expected it to be. I held my hand out. My brother put his in mine and I smiled. “Give me your keys, lover boy. I’m going to drive you home and take care of you for a while.”
He refused to let my hand go. It trembled. “Don’t do this, Keely. Run. The boys and I—”
I squeezed his hand, hard. “This is between you and I, Harrison. Your word. If you tell them, or anyone, including Mari, and one of them dies because of me—I couldn’t live with that. Roisin—”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Tell that to five-year-old me, okay? Don’t meddle in this. I’ll get out of it. Sooner or later, I will. He doesn’t really want me. This is not about me. I believe him when he says it. So let’s figure out his angle. I’ll play my part, and once it’s done, he’ll have no use for me.”
“Stone?”
I blew out a warm breath. “This is not about him. He’ll have to understand. My family comes first. End of story.”
“I did this to you. I’ll never be able—”
“Shut up, Grumpy Jones. I’ve already forgiven you. But only because of one thing.”
“Grumpy Jones?”
I waved him off with my free hand. He still hadn’t let the other go. “I’m forgiving you because you did this for love. And if anyone deserves love, it’s Mari. If she decides she loves you back, you better name a kid after me!”
Harrison grinned. “I’m going to tell her soon, Kee. It’s time.”
“Agreed,” I muttered, pulling my hand from his. I opened my palm and he set the keys into it. Then he walked to the other side and got in.
I’d totally forgotten about the text I’d sent to Mari the same night Sierra was killed, telling her how I thought Harrison was in love with her, until that moment. What worried me, beside my own problems, was the fact that she had said nothing back.
If Harrison was wrong about Mam and her tea leaves? Where did that leave me?
Fucked.
I was truly and utterly fucked.
Harrison didn’t believe the truth in them, but I did.
9
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 9
