by Elle Kennedy
The screen flickered for a beat before the video began to play. Immediately, loud footsteps and angry shouts filled Paige’s living room. The two women watched in silence as jerky images flashed on the screen, accompanied by gruff orders from the robbers and muffled whimpers from the hostages. It was difficult to zero in on any one image—everything was moving too fast, and the men in charge wore all black, from the ski masks on their faces right down to the boots on their feet.
An uneasy feeling washed over Bailey as she focused on one of the men. Tall and broad, eye color indiscernible and voice low and deep as he issued a soft command to someone out of the camera’s line of sight.
“Look at these idiots,” Paige remarked with a sigh. “Do they honestly expect to get away with this?”
Bailey didn’t answer. Something niggled at the back of her mind, an intangible flicker of familiarity, a sense of bone-deep dread. But she wasn’t sure what was bugging her. People robbed banks all the time. People took hostages. People killed other people and did seriously stupid, dangerous shit every second of every day.
So why was this particular armed robbery making the hairs on the back of her neck tingle?
Another anguished sob echoed in the bank, followed by a male response.
“’S’okay, luv, it’ll all be over soon.”
The husky timbre of that voice, combined with the faint brogue, turned the blood in Bailey’s veins to ice. A gasp flew out, her heart rate kicking up a notch as she stared at the screen in shock.
“Oh shit,” she whispered.
Paige glanced over, big blue eyes swimming with concern when she saw Bailey’s expression. “What is it?”
“That’s Sean.” Her finger trembled as she jabbed it in the direction of the television.
“What?” The other woman sounded bewildered. “That’s nuts.”
Maybe, but Bailey would recognize that voice anywhere. It haunted her dreams every goddamn night.
“It’s him, Paige. One of the robbers—it’s Sean fucking Reilly.” Horror, shock, and confusion clawed up her throat like icy fingers. “It’s Sean.”
* * *
Dublin, Ireland
Well. This was his life now. Robbing a bloody bank in bloody Dublin. His ma was probably rolling over in her grave.
Sean Reilly hadn’t given much thought to how he would die, but considering the dangerous path he walked on a daily basis, the assumption was he’d eventually meet a violent end. Tonight, that fate looked pretty fucking promising. Maybe the Emergency Response Unit hunkered down outside the bank’s doors would swarm in with shoot-to-kill orders. Or maybe one of the snipers positioned on the perimeter would put a strategically placed bullet in his brain.
Relax, mate. They won’t risk the hostages.
Bullshit. Sean had worked enough military ops to know there was always at least one crazy asshole on an assault team. One hotshot who thought he could take down the bad guys and save the innocents.
Truth be told, usually he was that man. His brother lectured him daily about his act-first-and-think-much-much-later approach, but Sean had inherited the reckless gene from their father, while Oliver had gotten their mother’s more practical approach to problem solving. In his defense, Sean was more than capable of getting the job done, even when acting on impulse. The child’s-play exercises the Garda officers underwent were nothing compared to his extensive training.
On the upside, the Irish weren’t as aggressive as other folks—ahem, the bloody Americans—which meant there was a chance he could avoid a bullet in the head today. The ERU rarely acted with lethal force unless the threat to innocent life was imminent, and at the moment, all the hostages were safe and sound.
Sean figured he had another hour. Two, tops. After that, the negotiator would realize the gunmen were stalling and the response unit would make their move.
If the ERU had even the slightest inkling about the dead body currently taking up space in the bank, they would’ve acted an hour ago.
Sean swallowed his anger as he shifted his gaze toward the long teller counter spanning the back wall. A cop. A bloody cop—literally, because the garda’s head was surrounded by a sticky crimson puddle. Paddy Lynch had blown the man’s forehead clean off with a sawed-off shotgun, the crazy maniac. If by some miracle they managed to claw out of this clusterfuck alive, first thing Sean planned on doing was knocking Paddy’s crooked teeth out.
But at least Lynch had possessed the good sense not to shoot the undercover officer in the lobby. The garda had made his move closer to the doorway at the edge of the counter. The bullet had sent him tumbling backward, and Lynch had hastily dragged the lifeless body under one of the desks, where it remained hidden from view.
In the commotion, however, one of the tellers had dashed behind the counter and triggered the panic alarm—which was why Sean and his cohorts now had the equivalent of an American SWAT team bearing down on them.
He was definitely gonna die today.
A loud sob broke through his pessimistic thoughts, drawing his attention to a slim, ginger-haired girl crouched on the floor five feet from his scuffed boots. Another thorn in his side—the little bird had nearly been killed too, thanks to the stunt she’d pulled with her phone. Her life had been spared only because Sean had stepped in and talked Gallagher out of shooting her.
Stifling a sigh, he headed for the girl and squatted beside her. “I promise you, it’ll be all right, luv.”
Her head lifted slightly, big blue eyes peering up at him. She was young, no older than twenty or twenty-one. Tears stained her pale cheeks and she’d bitten her bottom lip so hard it had started to bleed.
“He’s going to kill me,” she whispered.
Her gaze darted toward Gallagher, who stood in the doorway separating the lobby from the rear offices. The tall man frowned when he caught sight of his accomplice chatting with a hostage, but Sean gave a brief nod to signal that everything was fine.
“He won’t kill you,” Sean murmured. “I won’t let that happen.”
A panicked breath blew out of her mouth. “He will. He knows I uploaded the video. He said he’s going to kill me.”
“You shouldn’t have done what you did,” Sean agreed.
Alarm filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t hurt me.”
Bloody hell.
She truly believed he would hurt her.
How had it come to this? He was no saint, but he sure as hell wasn’t a bad guy. A man who instilled fear in a young woman’s eyes.
Anger bubbled in his gut as he wrenched his gaze off the redhead’s tearstained face. The hot, suffocating emotion wasn’t directed at the girl, but at his former employer. Why the fuck had Rabbit put him in this position? He’d given that bastard nothing but loyalty for more than half his life. He might have left Rabbit’s employ, but they’d parted on good terms—the old man had helped Sean and his twin get their network off the ground, for Christ’s sake.
Well, fuck him. Sean was officially done with that fanatic motherfucker. Rabbit had all but stomped his foot on their former relationship and ground it into dust, making it painfully clear what the Reilly brothers meant to him.
Absolutely nothing.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sean said through clenched teeth. “I’m just pointing out that if you’d simply handed over your phone when we asked, you wouldn’t have drawn any unwanted attention to yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered again.
“What’s your name, luv?”
She hiccuped softly. “Maggie.”
“Listen to me, Maggie. Nobody else is going to get hurt, not as long as you do what we say. It’ll all be over soon.”
He hoped that was true. The in-and-out heist he’d signed up for had turned into a deadly hostage situation, and it would turn into something much worse if the ERU decided to launch a full-scale assault.
They’d been trapped inside the bank for an hour, and the hairs on the back of Sean’s neck hadn�
��t stopped tingling since the response unit had arrived. He knew bloody well there was a rifle trained on his head. Probably an outdated Steyr SSG 69, the ERU’s weapon of choice.
Come to think of it, Bailey occasionally used a Steyr too. Or at least she had that time he’d tracked her to Germany. He doubted she ever used the same weapon twice, though. That would mean giving law enforcement a routine, a calling card, and the woman was too damn smart to leave a trail.
But now was not the time to be thinking about Bailey, goddamn it.
“Delta.”
The sharp address came from Gallagher, whose expression had gone dark, deadly.
Sean stared at the man’s masked face and cocked his head in question.
“Leave the bitch alone and do your job,” was the brusque response.
He rose to his full height, offering Maggie a reassuring pat on the shoulder before turning to monitor the status of the other hostages. There were fifteen of them, sitting on the floor against the counter like a group of preschoolers. More females than males, ranging from early twenties to late sixties. The bank’s security guard sat at the end of the line, clad in his crisp blue uniform. Unfortunately for him, that uniform hadn’t come with a weapon, which was something the man was no doubt cursing at the moment.
Satisfied that his charges were behaving, Sean marched across the tiled floor toward his “leader”—Rhys Gallagher, former Irish army special ops, current Irish Dagger lieutenant, and one of Rabbit’s most trusted enforcers. Sean and his brother had grown up not only with Gallagher, but also with the other four men situated throughout the bank, but while the twins had left Ireland for bigger and better things, the others had stuck around to serve Rabbit, who’d been a mentor to all the boys.
Some bloody mentor he was to them now, keeping Ollie hostage and forcing Sean to do his dirty work.
Sean approached Gallagher and addressed him in a low voice. “We need to talk.”
The man nodded at Joe Murray to take his place, then stalked into the corridor with Sean on his tail. They paused when they were out of sight and earshot of the others.
Sean promptly peeled off his black wool balaclava and rubbed his face with both hands. The mask had been itching the shit out of him. “Look. We got what we came for,” he announced. “It’s time to get the hell outta here.”
“No shit,” the other man snapped. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a real fucking jam at the moment.”
They sure were, and all so Eamon O’Hare could get his hands on the flash drive burning a hole in Gallagher’s back pocket. Rabbit had instructed Sean to be present when the men breached the vault where the safe-deposit boxes were stored. The Irish Dagger leader was paranoid that a mole had infiltrated his organization, but from what Sean could tell, the five Dagger members involved in the heist were on the up-and-up.
“Then we find a way out of the jam,” Sean said coldly.
“What the feck do you think I’ve been doing? Buggering myself? I’m thinking, you fecking fool!” The man’s Irish intonation grew deeper and less comprehensible the angrier he got. “But that fecking fasser shot a garda.”
“Nobody said Lynch was smart,” Sean muttered. “We just need to improvise.”
“Ya?” Gallagher said scornfully. “Got any bright ideas?”
Sean shrugged. “We give ourselves up.”
Gallagher gazed at him in disbelief. “Are you daft? You’re suggesting we walk out the bloody front door? We’ll get thrown in the Joy,” he snapped, referring to Mountjoy Prison, the medium-security facility where most of Rabbit’s men had been “guests” over the years.
“Five of us will,” Sean agreed.
Gallagher hissed out a breath. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we got what we came for. Rabbit has his prize. And I’m no mathematician, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need six men to deliver it. One will do the trick.”
“So five of us surrender?” Gallagher sounded skeptical. “And how exactly do you see the sixth man walking away from this?”
“By pretending to be a hostage. The Garda doesn’t have an exact head count of how many people we’re holding here. For all they know, we could’ve stashed a hostage in the back for shits and giggles.” Sean shrugged again. “One of us takes the flash drive and joins the hostages, the other five surrender.”
Gallagher went quiet as he considered it, just as Sean had known he would. The members of the Irish Dagger were good little soldiers, prepared to martyr themselves for their leader. Rabbit spoon-fed them his bullshit, and they ate it up like it was candy. They didn’t care that the world had labeled them a terrorist group. They believed in what they were doing and why they were doing it, and Rabbit made sure to remind them of it every second of the day.
“It’s a sacrifice for the cause,” Sean said meaningfully, knowing the reminder would override Gallagher’s survival instincts.
After a long beat, the other man nodded, resignation flickering in his eyes. “A sacrifice for the cause,” he echoed.
Idealistic idiot. Sean would never sacrifice himself for a losing battle. The IRA and its dozens of splinter groups were living in the past. Their sacrifices meant nothing.
People, on the other hand—Sean would give up his life for the people he cared about. Oliver. Bailey. Any of the men on Jim Morgan’s mercenary team. If Macgregor or Port or, hell, even that bastard D, were in trouble, he’d risk everything to save them.
But Gallagher and his men didn’t matter to him. He had no intention of dying for them, even if it meant risking an arrest. If anything, he was banking on getting pinched. Once the Garda took him into custody, he wouldn’t stay there long. He had contacts in this city, allies with enough clout to ensure that he’d be back on the street in less than twenty-four hours.
Except Gallagher surprised him with his next remark. “You’ll play the hostage.”
Sean’s eyebrows rose. Well, fuck him sideways. He hadn’t thought he’d make the short list for hostage, let alone be tasked with the role.
His reappearance in his former group had been met with hostility and suspicion, particularly from Gallagher and Kelly, Rabbit’s second-in-command. The crew didn’t trust him, he was well aware of that, and they didn’t like him anymore either, not since he and Oliver had abandoned Rabbit to deal in intelligence.
“Why me?” he asked slowly.
“Because you’re the least recognizable.” Gallagher lifted the bottom of his mask and rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. “We’ve all gotten pinched before. I don’t know if the Garda is using some sort of face-recognition bullshit, but if they see me or Lynch or one of the others walk out with the hostages, someone might recognize us. You’ve been off the grid long enough that none of those Garda rookies would know who you are.”
Jesus Christ.
He’d just been handed a winning lotto ticket.
Sean kept his face expressionless, careful not to reveal his eagerness. “Whatever you think is best,” he said with a nod.
“But . . .” Gallagher frowned. “They’ll be expecting six men. With you in the hostage pool, there’ll only be five left to surrender.”
“Because the sixth is dead.” Sean arched a brow.
Gallagher instantly understood, a wry smile playing on his lips. “The cop.”
“Our leader,” Sean corrected. “You’ve been dealing with the negotiator, but when he calls back, get someone else to talk to him. Murphy, I’d say—lad’s a pathological liar. Murphy tells the negotiator that our merry band had a disagreement and our leader was taken out of the equation, and the other men are ready to give themselves up now that the head of the snake has been cut off.”
Gallagher narrowed his eyes. “You’re a clever little bugger, aren’t you, Reilly? Always have been.”
He didn’t answer.
“All right. We do this, then.” After a moment of hesitation, Gallagher reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive. “Go to the staff room and fi
nd something else to wear. I’ll grab you after Murphy talks to the Garda. Then I’ll bring you to the lobby at gunpoint and throw you in with the other hostages.”
Every nerve ending in Sean’s body crackled with triumph as Gallagher handed him the flash drive.
Well, goddamn. Maybe he wasn’t going to die today.
Chapter 2
Bailey spent the majority of the flight making phone calls and cashing in favors. She had no idea what to expect when she got to Dublin, but she would damn well be prepared for anything. She would’ve felt better if Paige had come with her, but the woman had adamantly refused. Paige shied away from any mission that might place her in the public eye, and since the bank was crawling with police and reporters, Bailey wasn’t surprised that her request for assistance had been categorically denied.
Of all the women who worked for Noelle, Bailey was closest to Paige—yet she didn’t have a shred of insight about the woman’s past. She suspected Paige harbored secrets that rivaled her own, but she had never pushed her friend for answers. Paige would tell her eventually. Or she wouldn’t. Either way, Bailey still adored the woman.
And it wasn’t like she didn’t have any backup—she’d already contacted a former colleague and he was hard at work on his end, gathering as much intel as he could about the bank robbery.
Bailey checked her phone again, but Rafe hadn’t checked in, so she dialed Paige’s number instead. The helicopter’s cabin was noisy as hell, but despite the whir of the rotors and the wind hissing past her window, she clearly heard the frustration in her friend’s voice.
“I can’t find a bloody thing,” Paige grumbled. “The bank’s system doesn’t have any floor plans or schematics. I’m trying to hack into the city records to get my hands on some blueprints, but their security is surprisingly intense. Every time I knock down a firewall another one pops up.”
