Nightshade

by McAdams, Molly

  “I’ve never knocked.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the weight of what we were about to go into, or the stress of the last few days—the last weeks—but a laugh bubbled up my throat.

  Because I wasn’t sure if I’d ever knocked either.

  He looked back at me, a strained smile on his face. With a brush of his lips across my forehead, he faced forward and knocked on the door.

  Kieran tensed seconds before I ever heard anyone on the other side, and then the door was swinging open to a livid expression.

  “The fuck you doing here?”

  From the way Kieran’s chest was pitching, I had a feeling he was forcing himself to stay in control.

  Funny, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt him shake.

  “Is Lily here?”

  Dare stepped closer toward us, blocking entrance into his house, his dark eyes narrowing. “I asked what the fuck you’re doing here.”

  Kieran was silent for a long time, and for a second, I thought he was going to give up on what he’d already almost talked himself out of so many times.

  “This is important, I need to talk to her. And you.”

  “It’s all over the news about Holloway. There’s nothing to talk about.” Dare stepped back and reached for the door, but Kieran dropped my hand and lunged forward, stopping him from shutting it.

  “You screwed me at the eleventh hour,” he seethed. “Now you’re going to let me in here so you can know what that betrayal cost me. Or I’ll wait until Lily’s at Brooks, and I’ll tell her there.”

  Dare ground his jaw, his eyes darting from Kieran to me before he took a step back and held the door open.

  Kieran glanced over his shoulder and reached for me, waiting until my hand was secured in his before he stole into the house.

  We hadn’t made it more than a handful of feet before we came to an abrupt stop.

  When I looked ahead, there she was.

  The girl I’d seen more times than I could count, but didn’t know.

  The girl who was supposed to be standing where I stood but didn’t belong there.

  And she was staring at me with open fascination and shock, as though she never thought she’d see someone at Kieran’s side. And was maybe a little relieved she was.

  I gripped Kieran’s hand tighter and looked up at him. His eyes were locked on Lily’s rounding belly.

  “You can stop looking,” Dare growled as he passed us.

  Kieran blinked quickly, his stare going to Dare and then me. He cleared his throat and said, “This is Jessica.”

  “And she is?” Dare asked slowly.

  “Mine,” Kieran said in a low, lethal tone.

  Dare huffed in amusement. Lily blinked slowly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing and hearing.

  “You should sit,” Kieran said.

  “We’re fine,” Dare replied and rubbed a hand along Lily’s back.

  “You should fucking sit.”

  Being in the room with them, it was hard to imagine they’d ever worked together.

  Then again, the girl standing across from me could change a lot.

  Lily looked at Dare and whispered something, and he reluctantly led her away.

  We followed them into a living room, but Kieran stopped in the center of it, away from any chairs or couches.

  When Dare gave him a frustrated look, Kieran said, “I don’t want to be here longer than we have to.”

  Dare relaxed into the couch and Lily immediately fell into his side, her eyes now locked on where my fingers were laced with Kieran’s. “Like I said, we’ve seen all over the news about Holloway and Mickey’s business. So, you either sent in your shit to take him down, or you finished him first.”

  “The latter,” Kieran replied.

  Lily’s head snapped up at that. The relief that burst from her was so great, I wanted to revel in it for a moment before Kieran destroyed it.

  “Really?” she asked. “He’s really gone?”

  Kieran dipped his head in confirmation. “Conor,” he said quickly when Lily started to thank him. “It was Conor.”

  She looked surprised, but no less relieved as she rubbed a hand over her belly.

  “Lily . . .”

  Her ice-blue eyes lifted to Kieran, her face falling at his tone. “What?”

  “Beck . . . Beck’s gone.”

  Dare cursed and dragged a hand over his face, then hurried to grab Lily when her arms shot out, like she was going to faint.

  A strangled sob ripped from Lily, heavy tears immediately falling down her cheeks.

  We said nothing. We didn’t cry.

  I didn’t think I could after how many tears I’d shed in the last few days.

  We stood there for a few minutes, waiting in silence as Lily tried to accept this reality.

  “We buried him next to Aric,” Kieran finally said. “It was just us and Conor. There wasn’t a ceremony with everything that’s going on with Holloway.”

  Dare nodded in understanding when Lily didn’t respond.

  When we turned to go, Lily spoke in a numb voice. “We just found out a couple days ago we’re having a boy. I was trying to figure out how to tell him the next time he came to see me because he’s always so mad about what happened.”

  “He loved you, Lily,” Kieran said.

  “Think Beck sounds like a good name,” Dare said softly, then looked to Kieran for his reaction.

  “Beckham.” Kieran cleared his throat. “His real name was Beckham.”

  Dare nodded. “Beckham Borello.”

  When Lily’s shoulders hunched and another sob fell from her lips, Kieran tucked me close to his side. “Lily meant the world to him. He would’ve liked that.”

  Without another word, Kieran led me from the house.

  I laid my head heavily on his chest as we walked to the car and let him pull me into his arms when we reached the sidewalk.

  “Do you want to go tell your brother about your mom?”

  My head rolled slowly along his chest. “Not today. I’m not ready. She wasn’t a mom to him anyway.”

  Pressing his mouth to my head, he whispered, “I’m here when you are.”

  “Promise?”

  He leaned back and waited for me to look up at him. “Always, Chaos.”

  Six Months Later

  I moved soundlessly to where Jessica was stretched up on the balls of her feet, leaning over the vanity as she did her makeup. She was wearing one of my shirts, and from the glimpse she’d given me when she’d shifted, nothing underneath.

  Exactly the way I preferred her.

  She dropped her hands to the marble counter and pushed up, her ebony eyes finding me in the mirror, amusement dancing in them.

  “Thought I felt you.”

  My head tilted, the corner of my mouth stretching into a grin as I slipped up behind her. “Never have been able to sneak up on you.”

  I ran my fingers over her arms, watching the chill that followed in my wake.

  Bringing her arms behind her back, I gathered both wrists in one hand and pulled down so her arms were stretched tight and a gasp fled from her lips.

  Her head immediately dropped to my shoulder, her mouth parting slightly as her eyes slid shut.

  “I have to get ready,” she whispered halfheartedly then moaned when I trailed my hand over her breast and down her waist to her flat stomach, her nipples hardening in response.

  I raked my teeth over her jaw and murmured, “We have time.”

  We had all the time in the world for this.

  When the lease on the apartments ended a couple months ago, we bought a house in Wake Forest. Jessica wanted to stay here once she and her brother started trying to repair their damaged relationship, and she’d found out she was going to be an aunt.

  It had been slow-going at first. There were numerous failed attempts of Jessica trying to open up to Jentry. Numerous days where she left without ever uttering a word of what had really happened in her life.
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  But the truth eventually came out—why she’d stayed with their mom and chose her path and acted out against him. Every heart-wrenching detail.

  Over time, she forgave her brother for years of abandonment, and Jentry and his wife now trusted and readily welcomed us. Not to say they appreciated the way we appeared inside their house instead of knocking when we had dinner with them every week—where we were supposed to be headed now. Our saving grace was Conor, since he came with us. He always waited at the door to be let inside and was clearly the baby’s favorite.

  Probably because there wasn’t a speck of darkness in the guy.

  He’d bought a house a few streets from Jentry’s. Together, the three of us had opened a private investigating firm, Arck Investigations. Named after the two empty chairs at our table.

  Things weren’t always done legally, but some habits were hard to break when you’d lived the way we had for so long. But there wasn’t a person who could track better than I could, and no one could get in and out of places the way Jessica and I could.

  Conor was the only one who ever met with the clients. He had a way of making them feel safe and comforted, despite his burly stature. And we quickly found out he was the only one of us who didn’t scare people off.

  Then there was Einstein, Dare’s hacker from the Borello gang before they’d disbanded. She still worked for Dare, but she came to us when we opened—anything to be able to hack. She found any information we needed then made everything look legal when we were finished. If any clients came from situations they needed to be removed and hidden from, she took care of that too.

  Jessica didn’t want the two hundred grand Beck had put away for her.

  She said Beck kept the money to help her start a new life . . . a life she was living. So, we put it in a separate Arck Investigations account, and Jessica vowed to use every cent for our delicate clients. Einstein made new documents and IDs and gave them a small cut of the money, before Conor helped them disappear.

  And every night I was in bed, worshipping the girl currently pressed against me.

  I dipped my hand into my pocket and quickly moved it over to where I was holding her joined hands.

  I stared at her face in the reflection, watching as her eyes popped open when I placed the ring in her hand.

  “My mom died giving birth to me,” I began softly. “My dad loved her, and talking about her was the only time he ever stopped my lessons and training. But, somehow, remembering her would lead to a different training. Because he told me I had to love a girl exactly like her and I had to give this ring to that girl. And he told me who that girl had to be every night of my life until he died.”

  Her fingers slowly curled around the ring, her eyes shining brightly.

  “I need you to know that I did try to give that girl this ring once,” I said. “Because I was supposed to. Because I was told to. And when I did, I handed it to her in a box and walked away.”

  I released her wrists and slowly brought her arms in front of her, twisting her hand so her palm was up when she opened her hand.

  A tear fell down her cheek and her lips stretched into a shaky smile.

  “I think my mom would’ve wanted her ring to go to someone who calmed my darkness. I think she would’ve wanted it to go to someone who was made for me. And I want you to have it because I love you.”

  Using my free hand, I tilted her head back so I could search her obsidian eyes.

  “Marry me, Jessica.”

  She turned in my arms and pushed up on her toes, pressing her mouth to mine. A soft laugh tumbled from her lips when she pulled away only enough to say, “What if I said yes?”

  A growl built in my chest, and her beautiful, clear laugh rang free when I grabbed her in my arms and turned to walk us from the bathroom.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck when I laid her on the bed and pressed her mouth to mine. “Yes. Yes. I’d marry you a thousand times.”

  I sat back on my knees and grabbed for the hand clutched tightly around the ring, my body trembling when I took it from her to slip it on her finger.

  Nothing had ever felt as right as this moment.

  My heart had never felt more out of control.

  And my darkness had never been more distant.

  Fucking chaos.

  Look for more Redemption novels from Molly McAdams

  Blackbird

  Firefly

  Watch for more novels, coming soon from Molly McAdams

  The Brewed Series

  Cory – Where would I be without you? Don’t answer that, you’ll probably say something ridiculous and make me roll my eyes when I’m trying to be serious. But, honestly, you make all this possible. Thank you for being the best friend, partner, husband, and father ever. I love you. (I know.)

  Molly Lee – The best half of Molly Squared. Thank you for everything. Literally, everything. For always being there to chat, plot, laugh, cry, be frustrated, and stomp out the doubt. I love you. That’s all.

  AL Jackson – BB! Your friendship is seriously so special to me. I don’t know what I would do without you in my life. Thank you for the encouragement and the plotting and for being such a light. I love you.

  Mom – You’re the best. What else is there to say? Your support floors me and makes me super emotional, so now, of course, I’m crying. Thank you for everything. Thank you for wanting to know. Thank you for having my back. Thank you for being the best mom ever. I love you more than words can say.

  Nicole Janko – Here’s your Kieran. He’s all yours. I love you, friend.

  Jill Sava – I know without a doubt I couldn’t do any of this without you. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for your genius mind and for just getting me and what I want to do.

  Regina, Letitia, Marion, Karen, and Julie – Thank you for being the amazing women who help me make this series come to life. From the photo to the cover to the editing to the formatting. You’re all so amazing and I’m beyond grateful for all the hard work you do.

  Molly grew up in California but now lives in the oh-so-amazing state of Texas with her husband, daughter, and fur babies. When she's not diving into the world of her characters, some of her hobbies include hiking, snowboarding, traveling, and long walks on the beach … which roughly translates to being a homebody with her hubby and dishing out movie quotes. She has a weakness for crude-humored movies and fried pickles, and loves curling up in a fluffy comforter during a thunderstorm . . . or under one in a bathtub if there are tornadoes. That way she can pretend they aren't really happening.

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