by Jane Henry
Jesus. Three blokes approach Nolan all at once, and I can tell by the way they carry themselves they’re after him.
“Stay with me,” I say to Aileen. I can feel her at my back as I head to Nolan. I have to warn him before they attack him without notice.
I get to him seconds before one of the men pulls a knife. Son of a bitch wants to stick him without anyone noticing.
“Nolan!”
He looks my way. There’s no time to warn him. I tackle him to the floor as the man attacks. Boner and Tully are at my side. Fists are flying, women screaming. Glass breaks, and something hot and sticky covers my hands.
I blink in surprise when I see someone’s cut Nolan. There’s a savage laceration across his forehead. Blood drips into his eyes.
“Motherfucker,” he mutters, trying to see who attacked him. I catch the prick by the back of the shirt, tackle him to the ground, then knock him out with a solid blow. Security officers swarm us, and seconds after we’ve got his attackers under wraps, I look around me for Aileen. She was just there, just at my back.
Son of a bitch.
“Aileen!” I shout. “Aileen!”
But she’s nowhere to be found. She’s fucking gone.
Chapter 20
Aileen
I follow behind Cormac, certain that something’s wrong. Does this have anything to do with why I’m here? Why I was summoned? Goddammit, I let myself get seduced by my own husband and damn near forgot why I came here to begin with.
Has Blaine come into the club? It’s so stifling in here, crowded and dim, that I’m surprised Cormac saw anything at all. In any other place, the crowd would’ve noticed the sudden disturbance, but it seems as if we’re the only ones aware that anything at all is wrong.
But just as Cormac reaches his brother, someone calls my name.
“Aileen! Help!”
The sound of a high-pitched feminine voice in distress makes my pulse spike. I freeze and spin around, trying to find the source of the voice. Who called me?
I swing my gaze wildly around me, and at first I see nothing amiss, when red hair catches my attention. She’s dressed in black but being dragged to an exit by two strong men. I can’t see the men, but when she sees me looking her way, she screams again.
“Aileen!”
I turn back toward Cormac, and gasp when I see someone pull a knife. I look to him, and then back to her. I can’t help both of them. Tully and Boner and another man I don’t know show up beside Nolan and Cormac. Those men can hold their own. My decision’s an easy one.
He’s going to throttle me for running away, but I hope he understands why I did. I race toward the exit where they took the woman.
It’s impossibly darker down this corridor. I don’t know what to expect, so come short when I find door after door, lit only by one dim lightbulb overhead. Which room did they go into? I try first one knob, then the next, but they’re all locked, like I’m in some sort of fucked-up labyrinth. I wring my hands, and try to think of another plan, when I hear a high-pitched scream come from the door at the furthest end of the corridor. I run to it, yank the doorknob, and it opens.
I shove the door open. I don’t have a plan except to help her. She’s the one that told me to come here tonight, the very one they’ve taken. I can’t let anything happen to her.
The room’s cloaked in darkness save one eerie greenish-yellow light at the furthest end. Her screams grow louder. I’ve come to the right place, but now that I have I feel as if my feet are made of lead.
“Stop!” I shout. “Leave her alone!”
I step into the room, and the door slams behind me. I look wildly about me, but no one is there. Someone shut this door from the other side. I yank the doorknob but it’s locked.
We’re in a small bedroom that looks as if it’s a hotel room straight out of a porn flick. I stand in the small, narrow entrance, a bathroom to my left with a sink and mirror, but I can only see narrowly in front of me because of the passage. One bed sits in the center of the room, complete with rings and chains, a mirror at the head. My redheaded visitor’s tied fast to the chains, stark naked. Tears stream down her face.
Panic floods me.
“I’m sorry,” she says. Dark black mascara trails down her cheeks, as she quietly sobs. I stand still, taking everything in. The bed, made up in gray bedding, the blanket neatly folded and pillows plumped, as if prepped by a maid for tonight’s events. The cold metal cuffs around her wrists. A whip coiled on a nearby table, a hideous-looking mask, a vicious knife, a thick metal bar that makes my skin crawl.
“Why are you sorry?” I ask. I don’t move toward her. We’ve been set up here, and I don’t know why or how.
She sniffs. “They told me to find you. They told me to lure you here tonight. They told me if I didn’t they’d kill my mother.”
Icy cold fear trickles down my spine. I swallow hard. I have to keep my senses about me. I was set up, but I’m not alone. My husband and his men are right here in this club. They can help me if I need them. Hell. I’m going to need them.
“Who?”
“They were sent by your brother, but it isn’t him,” she begins. Her face contorts in pain and she writhes in her restraints, her eyes flitting to a wall I can’t see yet from my narrow vantage point. I blink in surprise. How are they causing her pain when we’re the only ones in the room? I take a step toward her.
“Don’t!” she screams. “Don’t! If you come any closer, they’ll—”
Her words drown in screams once more. Someone’s punishing her for warning me. How?
I freeze. I look back toward the door that’s locked. There’s no escape there. She’s warned me not to come closer. If I do, someone’s liable to do something terrible, I know it.
“Go on.” A cold voice comes from inside the room. She’s not alone.
I reach for the door knob again to find it still shut tight, and I make up my mind. I can’t leave, and I’m not going to turn around in fear. I walk toward her. She screams and tries to warn me, but I’m going to find out who the hell is behind this. I’m going to defend myself if they hurt me, and then I’m going to call my husband.
“Don’t come nearer,” she pleads. “Please.”
I don’t heed her warning. Where else am I going to go? I’m not the girl who cowers in fear in a fucking hallway. I walk past the bathroom, march straight into the room, and the second I do, sharp pain erupts across my skin. I scream, raising my hands as if to ward it off, but I can’t do anything to stop it. My skin’s on fire, everything in my world blinding, searing pain.
I drop to my knees when it stops as suddenly as it started. I’m braced on the floor, my hands in front of me, panting in relief, when a cold, hard, nasally voice I recognize sounds behind me.
“Aileen.”
I look up from the floor to see Blaine sitting placidly in a chair, one foot crossed on his knee, his hands clasped.
“Blaine.” My words are tight with anger. He brought me here. He lured me.
But she just said it wasn’t my brother.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him. “What have you done? Who made you? I know you’re not capable of doing anything on your own.”
“Fuck you.” His lip curls in a snarl and he’s on his feet. He hits a switch in his hand and pain explodes in my senses once more. I’m twisted in pain, my own screams drowned out by the other woman’s. The sadistic son of a bitch. I’m writhing in pain, my whole world blackness and vivid agony, as if someone’s found a switch to my nerves and set them on fire.
“Enough.” A sharp command comes somewhere in my periphery. The pain instantly stops.
I look at Blaine, whose face is still contorted in anger. Someone told him to stop. Who?
I look around the room. No one else is in here, yet somehow, someone just commanded him.
“You weren’t supposed to go to the McCarthy clan,” the woman pants from her restraints. I freeze, staring at her, afraid that one more word will have her tormentor
torture her again. But maybe this was part of the plan. “They had me come to you, had me get you in the shops and lure you here.” More tears. “I couldn’t let them get my mum. Please forgive me.”
“Who?” I demand. “Not my brother, then who?”
“The man who was supposed to marry you,” my brother says. “You don’t pay attention, do you? Not the fucking man who’s name you carry. You were promised to another, and Martin fucked up. I tried to stop him. I warned him.”
What the hell is he talking about?
Another voice carries through the room as if spoken through overhead speakers. The voice behind the curtain, as it were. “Did you get the McCarthy’s attention, then?”
“Aye,” Blaine says. “But I’m not letting them in to get her quite yet.”
“You’ll do whatever the fuck I tell you, or you know what happens.”
Blaine winces and rubs a hand across his nose. How could I have not noticed before? My brother’s a goddamn addict. Does the man who commands him now get him his fix?
I was so damn ignorant. And what does he mean, Martin promised me to another? I stare at the mirror, at my own reflection, Blaine’s twisted face and the other woman’s naked, tortured form. Something’s wrong with it. I blink, trying to understand what’s off about it, and it finally dawns on me. I’d bet anything it’s a one-way mirror. This room is meant for voyeurs, the exhibitionist’s delight. On the other side of that mirror sits the man talking to Blaine.
“Who are you? Are you too cowardly to show your face, then?”
Pain shoots through my limbs. They’re sending some type of electric shock. I remember with a sudden stab of fear that I’m pregnant. What if the pain they’re causing me will hurt the baby? I begin to tremble but try to hide it.
I close my mouth. I can’t provoke them.
How will I notify Cormac? How do I alert the men of the clan where I am?
First, I have to stop the pain. The controller in Blaine’s hand is like a switch. When he flicks it, I’m in agony. I have to get to that first.
“Fine,” I say, dropping my head to the floor. “Please, stop. I’ve done nothing.”
“Nothing but play along with every fucking order Martin sent you.”
“Then your gripe is with him, not with me.”
“Believe me. My gripe is with both of you. McCarthy knew you were promised to another and he acted on it anyway. Said it would bring peace to the clans.” Cold rage takes over his voice. “Fuck him and the cart he rode in on. Fuck his brother. Fuck all of them. Blaine, start recording.”
I have to get to Blaine. If I can stop the device in his hand, I’ll be able to control myself better. I can scream for Cormac. Cormac will come.
How will I get to Blaine? Then I remember the teasing words Cormac spoke to me not thirty minutes ago.
“The way to bring a man to his knees is always through a solid kick to the bollox.”
I make my plan.
I turn to him and start to speak in a placating voice.
“Blaine. I’m your sister. I know you hate me, but—”
“Shut up.” His face is red and blotchy with fury.
I’m slowly edging closer.
“I know that you—”
“I said shut up!” he’s on his feet, the device in his hand. I lunge at him. Pain explodes through my body, but I’ve met my mark. I’m at his feet. With a savage scream, I butt him between the legs with my head. With a howl of rage, he topples to the floor, clutching his bollox, but I’ve got him now. He can’t cause pain anymore without the damn device. I step on his hand until I hear bone crunch.
The man on the other side is howling in rage. I have seconds. I turn to Blaine and kick him one more time. He’s clutching himself in agony, unable to chase after me. I run to the woman bound, but she shakes her head at me.
“Don’t worry about me. Break the mirror. He can’t hide behind it anymore, and Cormac will hear.” She jerks her head at the table. “Get the bar. Smash it!”
I look wildly about the room and see the table with tools. I lift the bar, run to the mirror, and slam it. The glass splinters into web-like lines. I have to hit harder. I hit it again, and again. But before I can take in details, someone grabs at my ankles. Fucking Blaine. I kick at him, when the wall of the mirror topples fully to the ground. I was right. We aren’t alone.
Dermot sits on the other side, his eyes narrowed on me.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Would’ve been convenient for you, wouldn’t it?”
I freeze. He’s pointing a gun at me.
“Not another word,” he says. “You bought it all, didn’t you? The bumbling fucking fool without a brain?”
What?
“You didn’t know Martin had promised you to me. Told me if I found you, you’d be mine, and McCarthy could fuck himself. But no. You thought you could manipulate me, just like you manipulated everything else, didn’t you?”
He’s out of his mind. I knew nothing about this, and yet he blames me. How will I escape?
“Thought I answered to your fucking brother, you slut.” His hand shakes on the gun.
I hear shouts in the hallway, and my heart gives a jolt of hope. Is it Cormac? Has he heard anything?
“Now, Dermot,” I say, trying to distract him. “You know it was nothing personal.”
His eyes narrow on me.
“Call his name, and I’ll shoot,” the man says in a voice of deadly calm. “Go ahead. I dare you.” He heard them, then.
I don’t speak.
Someone’s at the door. They’re pounding on it, trying to get in. Blaine grabs my feet and I kick at him, but it’s no use. He’s got me.
“Fucking bitch,” he growls, dragging me to the floor.
“Let her go, Blaine,” Dermot orders. “She comes to me unharmed. Let her go or you get nothing.”
“Fuck you,” Blaine says. “Fuck your blow. I’m not letting this bitch get away.”
I scream when he pushes the device and pain shoots through me. I’m panting with fear and pain, the world around me dim and hazy. A gunshot rings out as the door breaks down. I see Cormac and Nolan and Tully enter the room.
“Cormac!” I scream, when gun shots ring out again and bright red blossoms across his chest. “Cormac!”
Tully lunges at the mirror, and Nolan throws his body at the woman in restraints. It’s confusion and red-hot pain as Blaine pulls the trigger relentlessly. I reach for him, but can’t get to him.
Cormac’s stumbling toward me. Oh God, oh no. He’s hurt. My husband. Shot.
He falls to his knees but cocks the gun in his hand.
“Let her fucking go.”
But a gunshot rings out before he does. Tully slumps to the ground, shot by Dermot. Cormac takes the opportunity and pulls the trigger on Blaine, who screams and twitches on the ground. More men rush into the room, men with badges and uniforms. There’s pain and confusion, blood and screams. I’m in Cormac’s arms, and they’re tight around me. He’s covering me like he did in the greenhouse, his body over mine.
“Lay still,” he whispers, his voice contorted in pain. “Stay right there.” Blaine lies on the ground, unconscious, in a pool of blood.
“Brave lass,” Cormac whispers in my ear. “Such a good, brave lass.”
“Someone help me!” I scream, my voice tattered in pain and fear. “Please, help me. My husband. He’s shot! Nolan!” I look to see him holding the woman in his arms, covered haphazardly in a blanket, tucked up against his chest.
“Stay strong, Aileen,” Nolan says. “He’ll be alright. Stay strong, lass.”
In the end, they have to take me with them, in the ambulance that goes to the hospital. I won’t let him go. We fought for this. We fought through this. They’re not taking him away from me. No one will.
I’ve never seen my husband so pale and wan. He’s strong as an ox. He’ll pull through this.
“Stay with me, Cormac,” I whisper. “Stay with me, and the baby.” I
don’t know if he even hears me. I close my eyes, the wails of the sirens speaking the song of my heart.
Chapter 21
Cormac
Bright lights and hazy vision are for the fucking birds.
I rub a hand across my brow, and blink to clear my vision, but it’s not working. Bloody hell.
“You should go home.” It’s Keenan. He’s to my left, and he’s standing by Aileen, speaking to her. My vision begins to clear.
“No,” she says stoutly.
“For Christ’s sake, woman, you listen to the Chief,” Keenan growls.
“You’re not my Chief,” she says staunchly. “You can’t make me.”
I smile even though it hurts to, my heart swelling at the sound of her stubborn voice. I love this fierce, headstrong, beautiful woman.
“Feisty lass,” I mutter. My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
“Cormac!” She’s on her feet and rushing to my side before I can catch a breath, but she stops right before she launches herself at me.
“My God, I thought they’d killed you. I was half ready to wake them from the dead and kill them all over again.”
I look down at myself. “Eh, shot through the feckin’ shoulder, they’d have to try harder than that.”
“Aye,” she says, her beautiful eyes brimming with tears. “My God, you scared the hell outta me!”
“Scared the hell out of both of us,” Keenan says grimly. “And brother, I’d appreciate it if you’d get yourself better so you can tame this woman of yours. Escaped her own fuckin’ room barefoot in a hospital gown to find you, hasn’t listened to a doctor’s orders, damn near killed herself waiting for you to wake.”
“Silly girl,” I say, taking her hand. “You’ve got to take care of yourself.”
“Ach, go on with you,” she says, shaking her head at Keenan. “He’s exaggerating. I put shoes on.”
Mam enters the room, takes one look at me, covers her face and bursts into tears.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she weeps. “Just when I think I get a handle on you men, you go and do something like this. I’m done, I tell you, done.”
