by Maura Rose
“Love doesn’t come into it.”
Patrick’s face clearly said he thought that was bullshit. “Sinead—”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pulling away. “I can’t.”
She slipped away, before she gave into him again and changed her mind and welcomed him back in. This evening had been—it was—all right, the sex had been fantastic and Patrick had been very sweet and she’d been the one cranky and pushing because she was nursing her old wounds and scared of being hurt again, but that didn’t mean that she could trust him over the long term.
Patrick had always done a good job of making things up to her when he’d upset her, smoothing it all over, but that didn’t mean that he’d stayed that way. He’d slip right back into his old habits. She had no way of knowing that he wouldn’t do that again this time.
It wasn’t until she’d gotten out to the parking lot that she realized she’d left Lawrence behind with Patrick. Oh, well. Let him keep the penguin as a memento.
She still had all of the stuffed animals he’d won her in a box under her bed. She tried not to think about them too much, but they were all there, all sporting names like Reginald and Dwight.
Not that she’d ever name any of her children something like that. Those kinds of names were for adorable stuffed animals only.
The pier and the carnival wasn’t too far from her house, so she’d walked here to give herself time to change her mind or, alternately, psych herself up. Now she had plenty of time to think.
As she exited the parking lot, though, she couldn’t help but notice that she felt… off.
She looked behind her. She didn’t see anyone; the street was dark and empty.
Sinead faced forward again. It was just paranoia. Growing up both a woman and in the mob, you were bound to see bad guys behind every shadow.
Yet… she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. Tracked.
She looked around again. Nothing.
She picked up her pace a little. Just in case. Her feet sounded terribly loud on the concrete and she felt so small, and cold, and alone.
Maybe she should’ve let Patrick walk her back, maybe… no, she was being silly. She was fine. There was nothing—
The white van came out of nowhere, the side door sliding open as two men in black grabbed her. One hand covered her mouth as she tried to scream, terror shooting through her like an arrow of ice—she felt something horribly sickly sweet against her mouth, in her nose, chloroform, but it was too late and she was inhaling, breathing it in, and the world swum in front of her eyes and then went black.
Chapter Seven
Patrick woke up the next morning to someone banging on the door.
He clambered out of bed, grabbing some jeans and hurrying down the stairs. “Coming!”
One of the security team passed Patrick a hand gun. He tucked it into the back of his pants. “You two go up, guard the boss.” Sean was technically the boss now but that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t try to come and attack Seamus. Patrick braced himself.
But when he looked through the peephole—it was O’Leary.
Patrick yanked the door open and ushered him in, locking it behind him. “What’s going on?” He squinted at the clock—only seven in the morning. “Did something happen to Sean?”
O’Leary shook his head. His face was pale, drawn. “I got this with the morning paper.”
He shoved a piece of paper into Patrick’s hands.
Patrick opened it.
Inside were some very specific details about what O’Leary needed to do to portray the Donaghues…
“…if you ever want to see your daughter alive again,” Patrick finished.
“They sent this as well,” O’Leary said, his voice gruff and strained.
He passed a photo to Patrick, his fingers trembling. Patrick’s stomach dropped.
It was a picture of Sinead, unconscious, tied up. It looked like she was in the back of some kind of van.
Patrick crumpled the photo in his hand, his jaw clenching. Those bastards. Those bastards. “She wouldn’t let me walk her home. They must have grabbed her then. I should’ve insisted—but I wanted to respect her, show I was listening—”
“They want me to turn on you,” O’Leary said. “It’s the McCourts. They must be angry we found out about the Doc and now…” Patrick had never once seen O’Leary in any mood except for stern. He was unflappable. Now his eyes glittered wetly. “They’ll kill her if I don’t turn traitor.”
“They’re not going to,” Patrick snarled. Nobody was going to hurt Sinead. What kind of—the McCourts had always been bastards but this was a low fucking blow. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to Sinead, not if he had anything to say about it.
Sean and Father, however, saw it differently.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sean demanded. “They know they’ve got us in a vise. If we move against them to save her we’ll start a war, and we’re not prepared for that kind of thing.”
“The McCourts aren’t prepared for it either,” Patrick snapped back. “O’Leary trusted us to tell us this instead of saving his daughter by turning traitor, and this is how we’re going to repay him?”
“If we go to war, whether the McCourts are prepared or not, it’ll start a territory war and we’ll get weakened, if not destroyed, and then someone else will swoop in and pick us off like fucking vultures,” Sean replied.
“We have to do something!” Patrick yelled. He knew he was emotional, he knew that he was showing his hand, but damn it this was the woman he’d been in love with his whole life. This was the woman he wanted to marry. He wasn’t going to let someone, anyone, hurt her and he didn’t give a damn what he had to do to make it happen—he was getting her back. “Every second we waste, the McCourts get impatient and next thing we know they’re sending O’Leary fingers.”
Sean grimaced. Father sighed. “Patrick. There’s no need to get dramatic.”
“There is every need!” he shouted.
“Calm. Down,” Father snapped.
Patrick clenched his jaw, forced himself not to say anything more.
“You’re upset,” Father said quietly, “and that’s understandable. But we can’t let our emotions get away with us. We have to approach this logically.”
“Fine. You two approach this logically. I’m going on a fucking walk. Clearing my head.”
“Just don’t steal my damn car while you’re at it,” Sean snapped.
Patrick flipped him off as he stormed out of the room.
McCourt territory was just on the other side of some turf owned by a bratva clan, the Sokolovs. There was a narrow point that he could sneak across easily, but it was near the docks and so there was a good chance that there’d be some kind of Sokolov business going down on it if he tried to move across.
If he was caught skulking around, he’d have a damn hard time explaining himself.
But if he went to them and negotiated permission to go across…
It was a risk, but if a war did break out between the McCourts and the Donaghues, the Sokolovs would be caught in the middle—and they sure as hell wouldn’t be happy about that.
Perhaps he could leverage that to his advantage.
Patrick still had the handgun from earlier. He went into his father’s closet, sneaking upstairs while the other two members of his family were still debating, and grabbed an old suit. He and Father had always been built the same.
Sneaking out the back door, he walked around and got into Sean’s car.
Because he was, in fact, stealing it.
“Where do the Sokolovs tend to eat lunch?” he asked Sean’s driver.
“This one restaurant…”
“Take me there.”
“Yes, sir.” Drivers and other grunts were trained to obey, not to question. Patrick would be sure to explain to Sean later that it was all his idea. He’d take the blame.
Patrick knew that waltzing right into a mob-owned restaurant at lunchti
me was probably the stupidest thing he could possibly accomplish, but he had to get to Sinead and he wasn’t going to be able to do it alone or without the Sokolovs detecting him.
She was worth the risk. She was worth any risk.
There was clearly some kind of meeting going on. Patrick had never met any of the Sokolov family in person but the man with hawkish eyes sitting at the head of the table had to be the one in charge. Conversation ceased as everyone turned to look at him.
Patrick nodded at the man at the head of the table. “Sokolov, I presume?”
The woman sitting next to him raised an eyebrow. “Donaghue boy, I’m guessing,” she said.
Patrick was taken aback. “How—”
“Kate Sokolov, formerly of the Reilly family,” the woman replied, smiling sharply.
Ah. The Reillys were another Irish mafia family.
“I’m Patrick, I’m the younger son, not the heir.”
“You’ve been MIA for a while,” Kate said dryly.
“Yeah, well, I’m back now, and I have a problem that affects both of us.”
Sokolov raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
Patrick gestured at an empty chair. “May I?”
“Be my guest.”
Patrick sat down. “We’ve got a long-standing rivalry with the McCourt family. They occupy the territory on your east flank.”
“Yes, we’re aware.”
“They’ve recently violated the territory lines by sneaking across your territory to kidnap the daughter of our best lieutenant. They wanted to use that as leverage to turn him, but he’s loyal and let us know what had happened. Now, neither of us wants a war. You’re trying to establish yourself and my father’s got other things on his mind.” This was what he was good at—charming people, getting them to like him. Trick, as Sinead had always called him. It was for a reason. “So my whole family can’t mobilize against the McCourts, but if I just went in, I could get her in and out without any trouble.”
“All by yourself?” Sokolov didn’t sound all that impressed.
“Look up my criminal record if you want. Or, well, you can’t since nothing ever stuck, but I conducted several robberies and car thefts when I was a teenager. I was trained in strike teams by my father, the plan was for me to be a lieutenant before I skipped town. This is the sort of thing I’m good at. I could have walked right across your territory like the McCourts did without asking but I didn’t want to just cross into your territory to get her back without your permission. The Donaghues respect their neighbors, and so I’d like official permission, from you, to be escorted to the edge of McCourt territory, and then escorted back to my territory when I have the girl.”
Sokolov considered that for a moment. He looked over at a man who seemed to be a lieutenant. “Pavel?”
“If they get into a war, we’ll be caught in the middle,” the man, Pavel, replied. “And we did just sign a treaty with Sean Donaghue as the acting head of the family. I think it’s a risk that we should take.”
“A small strike team getting the girl to prevent a war that neither of us wants sounds like a win-win situation to me,” Patrick added. “And if we are caught, we’re only responding to their initiation. It’ll be within our rights to call in allies. They’ll be the war mongers, not us.”
Sokolov looked over at his wife.
Kate shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of leaving a girl to rot like that and it’s an underhanded move. And they disrespected us by crossing our territory without permission.”
“But do we have proof?” Sokolov asked.
Patrick pulled the photograph and letter out of his pocket. He’d held onto them, although he had shown them to Sean and Father.
The others looked at this all with concern, then handed the items back to him. “Why would I lie to you?” Patrick asked. “I’m alone, I left my gun in the car, if I was going to start trouble and fake all of this why would I bother coming to you for permission? Why would I care about that?”
“We can send some men with him,” Pavel said. “If he’s lying, we’ll make an example of him.”
“Since I’m not lying that sounds fair,” Patrick replied. He had nothing to lose since this was all actually true.
Sokolov gave him an exasperated look. Patrick had gotten that look a lot over the years. “I’m going to move now, before the McCourts get impatient,” he said, standing. “You can move with me, or without me—so long as I have permission to go through your territory, I’m good.”
Pavel stood. “I’ll go.” He directed a couple of men in Russian. “But we are taking your car.”
Patrick shrugged. “Fine by me.”
He was getting Sinead back, no matter what.
Chapter Eight
There was something about kidnapping that nobody ever really bothered to mention. It was scary, yes, and confusing, and Sinead was admittedly worried for her personal safety. But the thing that nobody ever mentioned was that it did a real number on your dignity.
For example, she had to ask for her hands to be freed to go to the bathroom.
This was not how she’d planned on spending her weekend.
The moment she’d woken up with her hands cuffed to a bed in some dingy apartment with a guard posted, she’d known exactly who’d done it. The McCourts. Who else would be so goddamn bold or want to hurt the Donaghues?
She might not be a Donaghue, by law or by blood, but her father was their most trusted lieutenant. She didn’t have any personal enemies, but if someone wanted to get at the Donaghues, going through her father was a good way to do it. And who else besides the McCourts would want to, who else had just had their would-be assassin taken down by Sean, their plan foiled?
It scared her, she couldn’t lie to herself about that. God knew what they’d do to her. Her guards had been rotating, checking on her and making sure she had food and water but she hadn’t spoken to any actual McCourts—the wife was in charge now, Sinead struggled to remember her name, and she had two sons and a daughter—or even a lieutenant.
She was just an object to them. Just a bargaining chip. And Sinead knew that they’d have no problem hurting her to punish her father if that was what it took.
If they thought she was going to go quietly or take this lying down, though, they had another think coming.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Can you assholes maybe bring me some takeout? I want Chinese! Some mushu and some kung pao? Orange chicken? Shrimp fried rice? Don’t forget the fortune cookies!”
The guard sitting in the chair looked like he really wanted to be anywhere but here listening to her yell, but tough shit. If she had to literally ask permission to use the damn restroom then she was going to be as bratty as she damn well pleased. Couldn’t they at least put her up in a hotel or something? Someone’s home, maybe where one of the lieutenants lived? There was no reason to be such assholes about it.
“Hello?” she yelled. “Haven’t you guys got dignity anymore? Civility? I thought we were supposed to be gentlemen about this! This is one step up from a warehouse! The spiders are bigger than my hand!”
“Then you don’t want to see the cockroaches,” the guy grunted in response.
“I’ll feed you the cockroaches,” Sinead snapped. Like a few little bugs were going to scare her. She rattled the handcuffs and supposed she should be grateful they weren’t using ropes on her. She supposed handcuffs were more convenient.
“Watch your mouth.”
“You watch yours. You couldn’t even put me up somewhere properly? You’ve got a gun, what am I supposed to do, try and take it from you? Are these handcuffs really necessary? I want to speak to your manager.”
The guard looked like he was seriously regretting taking this job. Sinead wondered if he’d volunteered or just been told that this was how he’d be spending his weekend. Not that she had any sympathy for him. He was keeping her hostage, for crying out loud.
She had no idea what was going to happen to her. Her best guess was that she was being used a
s collateral. Patrick being back wasn’t common knowledge yet, and anyway, few people would assume that they could use her to get to him. Why grab her when Sean had a perfectly good wife they could take. She doubted it was the first step in a full-on war. If it was, she would’ve been murdered and dumped on someone’s doorstep instead of kidnapped.
That just left being ransomed in exchange for Dad’s cooperation in turning on the Donaghues, just as the family doctor had—except he’d just been bribed. The McCourts must’ve known that no amount of money would sway Dad.
Dad wouldn’t turn on the Donaghues, she was certain of that. He’d go to them for help. And that was where the fear kicked in—because she might have grown up with Sean and Patrick and she might have affectionately called Seamus Donaghue ‘Uncle Seamus,’ but that didn’t mean they’d let their sentimentality get in the way of the family business. That wasn’t how this world worked.
They couldn’t move against the McCourts. With Sean newly married and cementing his role as the new head of the family and Seamus still recovering from his operation and near-death experience? There was no way they could afford an all-out war. That meant…
That meant…
Sinead swallowed. She wasn’t going to cry in front of this asshole. She had little doubt that she was being filmed somehow. No way were the McCourts ever going to see her cry.
It wasn’t like she’d had any big dreams or aspirations she was leaving behind. But was it so bad to be sad that she’d never have a child, or a house of her own, or that she’d never get to see Kate on the national stage or bake her parents another anniversary cake?
She wanted a simple life but that didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to be sad if she left it.
Well. It wasn’t like she had a lot of regrets. Her family knew she loved them. And she’d die before she turned yellow, showed her belly. The McCourts wouldn’t get any photos or videos of her crying and begging for mercy, hell no. She was an O’Leary. She was dying with dignity and defiance.
Although there was…
