by Henry, Jane
But we take care of our women. Our duty above all is to family, and the women of The Clan never want for anything.
I will learn who my wife is. I will teach her who I am. I will take care of her and do my duty by her. No matter what it takes.
Our caravan of sleek, black cars waits in the drive for us. When we arrive home after the ceremony, Keenan arranged for us to occupy the west wing, on the opposite side of the house to him and Caitlin. All week, our staff has been moving my belongings and preparing for my bride.
I bought flowers, and a few other things. Some jewelry. New throw pillows for my furniture. Seemed girly I suppose.
Lube and a riding crop, gifted by my Clan brothers. I shoved them to the back of my dresser.
The Martin estate’s a good twenty minute drive from our house overlooking the craggy cliffs of Ballyhock.
“Nervous, lad?” Nolan asks good-naturedly.
“Nah.” It’s the truth. I’ve nothing to be nervous about. “Why be nervous? I’ve a duty to fill, no more, no less.”
“You’ve got a sweet virgin cunt to fill,” he says with a wag of his eyebrows.
I can’t help but snicker. “That, too. Now skive off. You say another word about my wife’s cunt, and I’ll beat the crap out of you,” I promise good-naturedly. I mean it, though, and he knows it.
“Aye,” Nolan says with a sober nod. “Fair, brother.”
But when we pull up to the Martin estate, I can tell something’s off. By Nolan’s frown, he can, too.
“You boys see what I do?” Keenan says, sitting up straighter.
I stifle a growl. “Aye.”
Though there’s a white tent set up on the front lawn, there are no decorations, no entertainment prepared to celebrate. No food, or flowers, or people. “For fuck’s sake, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark, isn’t it?” Nolan says.
I clench my fists but don’t reply. Of the three of us, I’m the one that’s slowest to anger, but I feel it now, coiled in my gut like a snake ready to strike. A part of me hopes her brother had something to do with whatever’s fucked up. I’d love an excuse to knock his fucking teeth out.
Our car comes to a stop, and I get out first, followed by Nolan and Keenan.
No one comes to greet us.
This is crap. This isn’t how things should go. They expected us. Today was the day we were to solidify our connections and move from temporary truce to peace between the Clans.
Did the Martins fool us?
Keenan gives me a tight-lipped smile as he walks beside me on my left, and Nolan on my right. We step in sync, soldiers come to claim and conquer.
“Mack Martin had one fucking chance to keep this truce,” I say. If he doesn’t hand me my bride today, our Clans will war.
Men will die.
Keenan growls but doesn’t respond. He was the one who allowed this truce, and I wonder if he regrets that now. What have they done in the interim? Have they set us up? He turns to face the guard and Boner, signaling they wait with his hand in the air. He snaps his fingers and gives Tully a nod. He wants them ready if the Martins ambush. Tully lifts his chin to the men opposite him, and the air ripens with men ready to war.
When I walk up the stone steps, the front door opens.
“Welcome, gentleman.” Mack Martin stands at the top of the stairs. The rest of our Clan follows behind us. My father may have been older, but he was a man suitable for leading his men into battle: fit, sharp, and astute. Mack Martin’s doughy face and heavy jowls speak more to indulgence and laziness than leadership. I don’t bother to hide my disdain when I reach the top step. I scowl at him and don’t respond to his greeting.
“Martin,” Keenan says. The men shake hands, then I offer mine. Martin winces at my firm grip.
Christ.
“Come in, come in,” he says, a sheen of perspiration dotting his forehead. His eyes dart around us and behind us, quickly surveying our army of soldiers. They’re clad in formal wear, but all are armed and ready to strike at the first order from Keenan, and Martin knows it. The truce is up. He either delivers or he’s fucked.
Three large, burly men stand beside Martin and glare at us. By Clan law, they’re not allowed to strike. Martin’s in the wrong. I don’t even bother to look at them.
“Come, boys, come,” he says, gesturing for us to follow him to his office. “Have a drink, will you?”
“No.” He startles at my response, turning to look at me sharply.
“I didn’t come for a drink, Martin,” I warn him. “I came for a fucking bride. What are you playing at here?”
He clears his throat and mops a hand across his brow, when one of his men opens his office door and welcomes us in. I sweep his office quickly, noting the large plate-glass windows behind the L-shaped desk, and the ample supply of whiskey and tumblers on a side table. The stale, acrid smell of cigars lingers in the air.
I wait until he turns to face us.
None of us sit. We stand as one to face our rival.
“Answer me, Martin.”
“Well, you see,” Martin begins, twisting his hands in front of him. “A few nights ago, the girl, well she—” he pauses, as if searching for the right word, then with a sigh, he states the truth. “She left. Escaped, as it were. And we haven’t been able to find her.”
Nolan curses, his hands fisting by his side. I take a step toward Martin myself, but Keenan’s voice makes me stop. He’s the one that will orchestrate what we do next. We need answers.
“A few nights ago?” Keenan asks in a dangerous, cold voice. “And you haven’t sent word to us until now?”
Martin shakes his head. “I—well I—you know, she—I was certain we’d find her by now.”
“Certain,” Keenan repeats.
I take a step forward. “Where is she?”
Martin flinches, but his eyes flash at me like a cornered rodent’s. “If I knew, she’d be here, lad, wouldn’t she? Hmm?”
I want to grab that tie around his neck and twist it until his face reddens and his eyes bulge.
“You know what this means, Martin,” I say in a low voice. Warning.
His lips thin. He winces while he answers, “I do.”
“We’ve our strike force with us,” I tell him. But hell, I don’t want to war. Both his men and ours will die in battle, and I love my men like brothers.
“I could… I’m going to… well, I can offer another tribute,” he says.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Does he have a fucking breeding ground?
“Just listen, boys,” he pleads.
He has the fucking gall to call us boys as if he’s a smarmy headmaster and he’s called us into his office to pat our heads?
“Yes?” Keenan asks. I turn to face him. Martin knew about my bride’s absence for four fucking days. How are we to trust him?
She left. The girl left. Does she know what she did by leaving? How she’s brought death and destruction to both her family and mine? Does she know what’s at stake if we don’t solidify our truce?
“Yes,” Martin repeats, his eyes widening. “A bit younger, though.”
A knock at his door interrupts us, and before he can answer, the door swings open. My stomach tightens when I recognize the man who walks through, with his puffy face and beady, cruel eyes. The very same one who pulled a knife on my brother, the fucking bastard. He doesn’t look at us, his gaze steady on Martin. I note his reddened nose when he swipes his hand across it. His hand shakes. Fucking coke.
“I found her. I brought her back.”
I tighten, holding myself back with effort. I saw how he touched that woman at the club. I witnessed his cruelty. If he touched one goddamn hair on my future wife’s head, fuck the goddamn truce. I’ll break every finger in his hands.
Martin sighs in relief. I watch as he takes a step forward and his eyes narrow, flashing with a maniacal glee, as if he can’t wait to get his hands on her himself . “Good work, good work, Blaine. Where is she now?”
“She�
�s in holding. But I’m warning you, if you let her go through with this wedding—”
My body tightens. The fucking audacity of him.
“Enough.” Martin’s eyes are wide with fury, his nostrils flaring. “Not another word of warning from you. I told you why I’ve made this choice and I didn’t ask your opinion.”
Keenan and I share a curious look but say nothing.
Blaine fumes. “Fine. You’ll bring wrath upon our entire clan.” He twitches, his face contorting. He’s high as a fucking kite.
What the hell’s he going on about? Not marrying will bring wrath upon his clan.
He drags his eyes to me, his gaze boring into mine with raw hatred. “Yer the feckin’ groom, aren’t you? Let’s make this clear. I won’t have her bringing war to the fucking clans. She’ll be punished for this before she’s presented to you.” He spits out you like it’s distasteful. “Could be the only way to stop what will happen.”
I take an involuntary step toward him, but stop when Keenan grabs my arm.
“She will,” Martin says, his nostrils flaring. “Severely. She can’t put everything at risk without consequence. We have to make an example of her.”
His placating demeanor vanishes, and for the first time since we came here, I see the mask of the ruthless leader, the man who’d kill you as soon as he’d look at you. “I’ll see to it.”
The fuck they will.
They’re well within their rights, by Clan law, to punish her before she marries me, to show both their allegiance to us and their adherence to Clan law. But the very thought of this man, or any of them, touching my future wife, sends savage, wild fury ripping through me.
I make my decision, and as soon as I do, I know it’s the right one. Keenan will back me up.
“Aye,” I say. I don’t even recognize my own voice, as if someone else has taken over my body and held back the demon that wants to spill the blood of the Martins.
Keenan and Nolan look at me. It’s my call now. I’m the one who’s to wed her. “She ought to be punished,” I agree. And I mean it. Keenan nods in agreement.
“She brought us to the brink of war.” I shake my head. Silence hangs in the room while they listen. “But I’ll forgive your transgression against us on one condition, Martin.”
He raises an eyebrow. Unblinking. Nolan and Keenan tense.
“I’m the one who’ll punish her.”
Martin sputters, but he seems at a loss for words. Nolan’s lips quirk up, likely seeing the promise in this plan, and Keenan nods approvingly. “It’s fair, Martin,” he says.
I don’t want their filthy hands on her. She belongs to me now, and soon she’ll bear my name and ring.
If she’s mine to take, she’s mine to punish.
Martin looks relieved, not even hesitating when he issues his command.
“Show him where she is.”
Chapter 4
Aileen
“Let me go, you arsehole!” I kick my legs and manage to wriggle myself out of the grasp of the fucking henchman holding me. He curses when my heel kicks him in the crotch, but as soon as I’m free, another one grabs me.
“You bitch,” he says through clenched teeth. “If you were any other fucking wench I’d split your lip open.”
“Come at me, then,” I say. “Fucking do it. Make me as ugly as you can before you drag me before my future husband. I’m sure he’ll be grateful.”
His eyes narrow from his crouched position, but he doesn’t respond. The man holding me does, though. His grip slackens. They know I’ve struck a chord. If they deliver me to my future husband as spoiled goods, they’ll regret it. I think I’ve finally gained some traction, when a cold, hard voice sounds behind me.
“Selfish and arrogant, just like the rest of them. Don’t even know the fucking trouble you’ve caused.”
I close my eyes as cold fear sweeps through me. I’d know Blaine’s voice anywhere.
The rest of them. My other sisters.
Granted privileges from birth, Blaine was taught that women are substandard, that men are the ones in power. He mimics the disrespect shown my mother and sisters by my father, and when he came of age, he pleased my father by leaving a long line of abused women in his wake.
I turn to face him. When he smiles, the black spaces where he’s missing teeth give him an appearance of a ghoul, something macabre and terrifying. He inherited my father’s thick, heavy eyebrows and tiny eyes, deeply embedded in his heavy face. I try to be brave, but this is the man who once kicked a puppy to death for stealing his dinner. That’s all I am to him. Another animal who’s threatened his belly.
He stalks toward me, and I glance quickly behind him. Will my father come, too? Will they punish me together? For the first time, real fear claws at my insides, and I feel as if I’m going to be sick.
“You haven’t won, you spoiled brat,” my brother says with a sickening grin. “We’ve brought you here for your punishment, and when we’re finished with you, you’re marrying the bastard McCarthy.”
I look quickly about me for a means to escape, the need to flee an instinct I can’t quench. But there’s nowhere to go. We’re in a windowless room, the walls thick and impenetrable. The floor’s cold, charcoal-gray concrete. There’s a small, plain wooden table in the center of the room and two chairs. They’re both sturdy and thick, but the one closest to me sends a shudder through me when I see the metal handcuffs attached to it. In the opposite corner of the room stands a pole with sturdy rings above it. I shake, my mind easily conjuring up a prisoner strung up to be punished.
Like me.
I’ve never been to this room before, but I can imagine it’s the setting for wicked, torturous things.
I can’t escape, but I can delay.
“Will you, then? So brave of you, half a dozen armed men against one defenseless woman. How noble.”
“Shut it,” Blaine snaps. I don’t, of course. I have no weapon, but I have my tongue.
“I bet the little sluts you fuck think you’re quite the knight in shining armor, don’t they?”
“Shut it.”
But I won’t. I don’t want him in control. I want to unnerve him, unsettle him.
“No. Fuck you. You’re a bully, that’s what you are. No more than a—”
I know I’ve struck a nerve when he flinches, he rears back, and before I can turn from him, his fist connects with my cheekbone. Pain explodes across my face, and too late I lift my hands to defend myself. He grabs my arms, knees me in the stomach, and shoves me to the ground. He leaves me wheezing, gasping for air.
“Fuck,” he growls. “He’s coming. Lift her up!”
Who’s coming? I’m in a pain-filled daze as they drag me to my feet, the sound of hefty footsteps fall just outside the door. Foreboding gathers in my belly. If it’s my father, I’m going to be sick.
The thick door swings open. I don’t want to look at him so I look to the floor. Thick heavy black boots enter the room.
This is not my father. He’s much bigger, and broader, though he’s masked and wearing all black. I try to decipher who he is, but there’s none in my father’s company so tall, with such wide shoulders.. He’s got the body of a boxer, muscled and powerful, but he doesn’t remind me of anyone I’ve met before, and I’ve met all in my father’s company. I was raised among these men. Have they brought in a stranger to punish me?
This man could lift me up with one hand. I can almost picture it, being held in the air while I dangle from his fist like a helpless kitten. I swallow hard when he stands in the doorway, his hands on his hips. I can’t see his eyes because of the mask, but I imagine he’s glaring.
“Leave us,” he thunders, in a deep, rugged voice I don’t recognize.
When no one moves at first, he grows impatient. “Now!”
As they flee like scattering ants, he points one large, masculine finger my way. “Except you. You stay right. There.”
Great. I’m to be left alone with a huge, powerful, masked stranger.
I’m not sure this option is much better than being left in the hands of my father. Then I remember what my brother said.
This is the man who’s come to punish me.
My stomach drops, my heart racing. I don’t realize I’m backing away from him until my back hits the cold, hard wall behind me. I gulp in air, panic rising in my chest when he shuts and locks the heavy door. He carries a black bag in his hand I didn’t notice when I first saw him. He drops it onto the table.
Turning to face me, he crosses his arms on his chest. The overhead light casts an eerie glow on him. Though he’s masked, I get a brief glimpse of his eyes through the holes. His eyes are green. Unblinking. Flinty.
I turn my face away from him, hidden in shadow. His eyes roam over my body. I must look a sight. My clothing is torn and ragged, my hair tangled and matted. When I escaped just a few days ago, I hid like a vagabond. I couldn’t risk them finding me. But I should’ve known better. The Irish mob has eyes in every pub, every city, every hiding place in Ireland. I never even made it to the border.
He breaks the silence with his steely, hard voice. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Other than botch up my escape? No.”
He holds my gaze another minute. “You’ve brought the clans to the brink of war. Do you know what that means?”
“War? Yes. Sheltered though I’ve been, I’ve read a bit of history.”
The green eyes narrow. His muscles flex.
“Tell me.”
I clear my throat. “It means that… people will… fight,” I say, feeling like a child before a jury, woefully inept and silly.
He nods. “That’s right. People will fight. People will kill.” His voice lowers. “People will die.”
“Right.” I swallow hard. “If you’ve come to punish me, I would appreciate it if you could just… get it over with and spare me the lecture.”
“Get it over with?” he repeats in his husky voice. “Are you that blasé about being punished?”
I wish he wasn’t masked. I’d like to read his expression right now.
