by Fiona Keane
“Liam!” I shouted, unsure if his gaze followed mine. I watched him close in on Edward, holding the bastard’s wrist with one hand while violently tearing back Edward’s sleeve with the other. I stared, squinting at first, hoping the blur in my eyes was just their grandfather’s tattoo burned into my memory, like something I would expect on anyone’s forearm. But this was more than a freckle, a spot of ink, or a watch that might naturally fall on someone’s skin.
“Well, well.” Liam twisted Edward’s forearm, raising it toward me. “Does this look familiar, bird?”
I flinched when Edward’s tattoo was thrown in my face. My thoughts filled with the sterile odor of the hospital, the traumatic memory of almost dying beneath that arm. A tremble danced over my skin with a cool breeze filtering into the backroom, kissing my neck, distracting me with an intoxicating familiarity. Emma shrieked, folding into a vulnerable ball at Liam’s feet while he lifted a gun from his waistband and pressed it into Edward’s forehead.
“You have nothing to say?” Liam scoffed, his tone acidic. I grimaced, overcome with the foreboding sense of impending vomit.
“Keep your enemies in your bedroom,” Edward arrogantly grunted. I couldn’t hear more of his response, or the words leaving Liam’s gaping mouth. The only sound slipping into my mind was the destructively loud pop of a bullet leaving its barrel from behind me as it lodged into Edward’s abdomen. It happened too fast for my mind and shaking body to connect, but part of me was thankful I wasn’t given time to consider. I watched another life taken, callous and cold, just the way it deserved, but Emma’s scream cracked the shell around me, and it shattered to the floor with my sagging body.
Why didn’t I hit the ground? I should be aching, holding my broken cheek, or rubbing coffee beans from my face. Despite my locked throat, I could breathe, and it was the first air ever to meet my lungs so ravenously. Long, strapping arms wound around me from behind, catching my fall and, as my head dropped back against a hard chest, my whimper melted to a sob. A silent sob, a bittersweet sob, tears cascading with shock that mirrored my heart.
With his left forearm constricting my ribcage, Julian’s right arm moved to nestle his gun back into the waistband of his suit pants.
“Well, well…” Liam teased, nodding with appreciation for Julian’s swift, deliberate attack. Neither brother spoke to me or addressed the naked girl at Liam’s feet, with the exception of his gun pointed toward her cowering figure. Julian released me, stepping around to kneel above Edward. One more tally. I watched anxiously as he lifted Edward’s limp arm, only able to see Julian from behind. The tail of his coat swept the floor while he moved, his head hanging as he lifted to a squat. I saw the flash of his watch caught by the ceiling light while he examined our evidence. I was desperate to see his face, to hold him, but I was rigid in the limbo of uncertainty. What world are we in? Malcolm, Noelle, Regan, Jack, and Elliott were all dead, but I didn’t know if we were even alive, if any of that moment was a farce for Emma, whoever was watching, or a farce for us.
I was Julian’s, without a doubt, but we wouldn’t be each other’s until every single one was gone. I didn’t know if I belonged in Liam’s arms as the pet he freed me to be, or Julian’s, where I belonged. It didn’t matter. Julian and Liam drifted into their guarded exchange while studying the man’s arm. I stole a glance at Emma once, the weight of her dishonesty something I should have expected. She knew about the ring, and we knew she knew, but I never thought she would desire betrayal so deeply that she would sleep with the enemy.
“Take her home,” Julian directed Liam, turning on his heel and towering over me. “Right now.” I stared at him, hearing words I craved while finding myself glancing at Liam for permission, reassurance.
“And this one?” Liam grunted, nodding to the girl still staring down the barrel of his gun. I followed the length of his arm, the lethal tool in his skilled fingers, directly at Emma’s quivering body. I held my hands in the air, receiving the deep grunt of my name from both men as a deterrent.
I reached for the pile of Emma’s clothes strewn along the floor and grabbed her green cardigan. I knew what they planned for her. I wasn’t a fool, nor was I ignorant enough to question their next steps. This war was about survival, and I knew the cost of casualties. It was the guilt I had of not being able to grieve a past or to bid a soul, no matter how sinful, farewell that controlled my next steps.
Scattered coffee beans bit the skin of my knees as I knelt in front of Emma, pulling her shaking arms through the sleeves of her sweater. Her words were sounds, just syllables unable to meld, but I hoped it was remorse, or even a prayer to her god because she would meet him soon, at the hand of my man. I couldn’t find her knickers anywhere, and it was a struggle to slip her bent legs into her leather skirt. My men were silent, not even a breath or clink of their watches sounded behind us.
I lowered to her ear, whispering softly against her matted hair. “I killed Malcolm. Tell him and Elliott we send our best.” She whimpered, fear washing over her guilty soul. I stood and turned, my heart skipping two beats against the stoic men staring with ice in their eyes and fire in their souls, rigid and dominant as they waited for me. What a beautiful way to go. Julian’s expression destroyed me, his eyes as dark and wide as they were in the theatre, his lips twisting with pride as his lethal tongue glided between his pout.
“Let’s go,” Liam gruffly demanded, his palm against my back. I couldn’t take my eyes from Julian, his nostrils flaring to contain the need burning within him. His stare burned into mine, even with the gurgling cough coming from the man at his feet.
“Go with Liam, babby,” Julian ordered, slowly reaching to remove his gun once more. “I don’t want you to watch this.” I ignored him, approaching Julian and grabbing onto his muscular calves for balance as I squatted next to Edward. His body went into a slow spasm, blood dribbling from his mouth.
“He’s not dead…yet.” Liam’s laugh was disturbingly sinister in the background. I felt Julian’s palm against my back as he joined me. I shouldn’t have in that moment, the death and betrayal in our company, but my soul burned with need for him. His fingers moved in circles between my shoulder blades as I lifted the dying man’s arm toward me, not seeking permission from either Molloy.
“It’s not real.” Julian’s words answered the silent inquiry in my mind as my thumbs wiped over the marking on Edward’s arm. “Go home with Liam. I need to handle some business with these two and then I’m yours again.”
“For how long this time?” I uttered, a sob cracking my words. “Your grandfather still wants me dead.”
“He’s not the only one with a vendetta, Aideen. We know how to play his game, but in our version we get our revenge, and we do more than simply survive…” His touch left my back to cup my cheeks, just as he always had, and my heart pooled at my feet when his warm lips pressed against mine. “We thrive.”
Chapter Twenty
Home. Liam was directed, and he came through. I thought I understood the word home, but I didn’t truly comprehend its definition until I knew what home felt like, and that was Julian.
I thought I couldn’t be there, that the memory of Elliott, of everything, would torment me. Yet the fragrance of Julian’s foyer alone was a bandage against my soul, promoting the healing I desperately craved. Liam entered behind me, pressing a code to stop the incessant alarm. I wasted no time, slipping into the bedroom and slamming the door shut behind me.
It was just as we left it. The bed was unmade, flipped where I last unfolded the covers to use the bathroom and find him that fateful night. The shirt I borrowed from him before changing back into my funeral attire were tossed on the foot of the bed. He hasn’t been in here. I took the shirt I borrowed weeks ago, lifting the fabric to my face and inhaling him, as though my nose held the power to absorb him through scent. I sorted through Julian’s clothes for sweatpants, knowing Liam and I had to finish our plans…and wait for Julian, together.
He was waiting for me in
the hall outside of the living room when I opened the bedroom door, wearing his undershirt and slacks, eyes heavy with exhaustion.
“I just…” I shook my head, unable to finish the thought of our evening. Liam slowly nodded in agreement, biting his top lip.
“Did you know it was him, Liam? Did Julian know?”
Liam held my shoulders, leaning forward to kiss the top of my head before turning from me and entering Julian’s living room. “We knew he was part of it, responsible for some things, but not trying to personally kill you, bird. He had everyone working for him. Emma—”
“Why would she do that?” I settled into the couch opposite Julian’s fireplace, feeling as though the memory of my first night with his damn fairytale movie and cell phone flirting was a lifetime ago. And it was, ancient history from which our future would be planned.
“Emma Daly is, and I reserve this word for people like her, a jezebel. Quite simply stated, bird.” Liam sat on the edge of a club chair near the bookcase while he spoke, and I reached for my blanket, left dangling over the arm of Julian’s couch as a reminder of my presence.
“I don’t understand.” I shook my head, wrapping the blanket tightly around my body. “How did I miss this?”
“Ah.” He laughed, rolling his head along his shoulders. “Love. The hearing is scheduled for nine in the morning. Julian doesn’t know.”
“Good.” I nodded, looking to the peaks of my knuckles beneath the blanket. I heard Liam chuckle beneath his breath in my periphery, catching my attention. His eyes widened above a gloating grin.
“Bird got her worm.” His humored words were an assault on my subconscious. “That’s what’s changed you. I can see it in your eyes, feel it in your breath. Your heart is beating differently too.” I ignored Liam, letting his remarks linger in the air and not in my thoughts. I didn’t want to consider if they were condescending, jealous, or playful. But a small part of me listened, judging myself for the desperation and greed that drove our first time to be as it was.
“Only the devil knows the dark shade of blue Julian’s balls were,” Liam continued, amusing only himself. “Oh, bird, lighten up. We’re getting our revenge. We should be celebrating.”
I lifted my gaze to him, waiting for his tirade to end before speaking. I wouldn’t share that moment between Julian and me with anyone else. It was sacred, beautiful, and unbelievably powerful. He was as I imagined, lethal and dangerous, but to me it was in the most pleasurable way possible. I was destroyed, and entirely renewed. Liam was right, I did change, but it wasn’t me becoming a different person. It was Julian’s tireless effort to bring me right back to where I was when we met: devoted, hopeless, and starving. Famished for Julian with a thirst only he could satiate, and hungry with a need for revenge.
“If they followed us to the theatre, and Regan was with Emma at the shop, who is responsible?”
“They all are in some way, just as we are equally full of sin.” Liam inhaled deeply, looking around the room. “Before Julian found you tonight, he told me something that you should know as we move forward. Noelle told Julian about her daddy’s jeweler, his specialty with a stone of particular significance to you.”
“The ring,” I gasped. “Emma knew about it.”
“And,” Liam shifted in the chair, heels slamming to the floor as he leaned forward with the weight of his elbows on his knees, “Maureen gave it to you. She was at the theatre tonight, bird. She saw the explosion. Fuck, she probably planned it.”
“How are you so certain she would turn against you?”
“She didn’t just fucking turn, Aideen. She’s been spun in the opposite direction for a long time. Julian saw something when we were all at our grandfather’s house, just a quick thing, but with the pieces of this fuckery falling together, it is more like the damn adhesive than anything else. There’s something going on between Regan and Maureen.”
“And because she was at the theatre…”
“Too damn convenient,” he snorted. “She went to support her best friend’s first public outing with the Molloy family heir, only to watch her blow to bits…with my fucking car.”
“To watch,” I slowly rolled my eyes up from my twisting knuckles, meeting Liam’s pensive stare, “or to make it happen?” I watched as Liam’s posture returned to sitting, limply falling against the back of the chair and gnawing his knuckles. He didn’t acknowledge my existence as time ticked away…without Julian.
I sucked in my bottom lip, letting my teeth bite away the angst I felt having an idea of what kept Julian from coming home.
“When we decided to meet at the theatre,” I interrupted our silence, the touch of Julian’s skin against mine flashing through me, “we knew they’d find out because they’re watching us. Who’s to say we aren’t watched right now? That Julian’s safe? If Regan is responsible, what happens with him…gone?”
“Julian’s fine,” Liam said with an unsettling sense of calm. He reached for his phone as he replied, his thumbs rapidly typing a message. “They’re falling like raindrops on the emerald isle, bird. Just think, in twelve hours you will have successfully demolished an empire that took your husband almost a year to even discover.” My cheeks warmed with Liam’s term for Julian, and I felt a nervous tickle in my heart. I just wanted him home; I wanted our forever to begin.
“Use protection.” Liam laughed while standing. His arms raised in a stretch before he sat across from me on the coffee table, the knuckles of his left hand lightly tickling my jaw. “I’m too young to be an uncle.”
The blush disappeared, and my heart sank. Lineage. Heir. Hospital. My throat tightened with guilt I hadn’t thought of since one of the nurses confided with me in the hospital. I wanted forever with Julian, desperate at the beginning and now for time to be ours, but I selfishly hadn’t considered beyond us.
“I don’t think I can have kids, Liam,” I admitted, taking his wrist to my lap, watching him through my welling tears. His face straightened. Silence. How the hell does he respond to that? There were no riddles, no remorse or pathetic apology for circumstances he didn’t understand. Change the subject, babby.
I mindlessly twisted my fingers around Liam’s wrist, drew circles and cursive letters in his open palm, all while considering the following morning. He was right; in just a few hours, their grandfather would be dead. I just wasn’t sure of how. A bullet? A bomb? All too obvious, predictable especially after tonight.
“Tomorrow,” I blurted. “My coffee. I know what will hide poison.”
Liam pulled his arm from me, using his index finger to lift my downcast face to meet his. Blue eyes sparkled against mine, one quickly winking us back to the rapport of normal.
“You’re a naughty little bird,” he taunted. I explained to Liam the training I underwent for brewing, learning how to increase or tone down the overwhelming bitter taste of a particular roast. Its connection to being a silent killer was sprung from a memory of a case study in law school. This time, it was a vengeful generation killing the patriarch, not a wife killing her husband.
“The hearing is scheduled for nine in the morning,” Liam clarified once we reviewed the plan four times for accuracy. “Julian won’t know. You won’t be there. I’ll arrange for everything at the shop, the poison, all of it. He can’t know, bird, or he’ll take a bullet protecting you from them if it fails.” I nodded, our final secret hanging heavily against me. He typed into his phone again, towering over me while stuffing the device into his pocket.
“He’ll be home soon.” Liam kissed my head. “I’m sure of it.” I couldn’t question. I knew it was Julian messaging Liam while we lingered in his home, waiting and wanting. While Liam and I discussed murder, I was unable to speak of the torture I assumed Julian to be conducting. Julian would have killed Liam for leaving me alone before, but there was something different this time. Something sinister.
***
I shot up when the security code beeped, its master disabling it and bringing me from an unusually deep slumber
on the couch. I struggled to lift my exhausted eyes to the fireplace, its dim flutter of light helping me wake while I listened for him. The door quietly latched, and my heart pounded into my ears with tension. He was too quiet, an unusually haunting soundtrack to Julian’s existence. It had to have been over, a life ended and another tally prepared. He wouldn’t have left that loose end dangling its threat above our lives anymore. Just like Liam and I were prepared to cut our final tie in the morning.
The hum of his shower turning on pulled my attention from the blanket in which I was still cocooned. He’s not coming to find me. That was…terrifying. A lifetime ago, from the exact couch and cocoon, he carried me into his bed, but I now stood in the living room listening to the man I love take a shower. Because he killed someone, you idiot. It was different than him killing Cedric in my apartment, quick to hold me, to compose himself with my weakness. It was my turn, my chance to be the strength for both of us in a world unfamiliar. But I know Julian.
I padded through the foyer, my bare feet warm against the cool wood that once terrified me with every footstep. I’m home. The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar, swirls of steam unrolling through the gap. He wasn’t showering in his own bathroom, just like he hadn’t slept in his bed since Elliott.
I stood in the doorway, steam billowing around me in a cloud that teased my skin. The shower was running, deafening any noise in my mind, as I watched the blurred silhouette beneath the pouring water. His head hung below rigid traps, the defined muscles of his arms twitching as his fists clenched and released. Repeat. Clench, open, clench. My heart, pounding ravenously, controlled my body in that moment as I inched closer to the shower.
