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Or maybe the crew who took the girl was going to kill her and whoever her father sent to rescue her, only they fucked it up with their half-assed device.

Right now, I don’t know a goddamn thing.

I ache, that’s what I know. My fucking bruises have bruises, and while taking Lucie’s hot ass eased the pent-up anger, it didn’t burn it away.

On top of that, Lucie Joy’s pissed.

“Yo, Murphy, eyes on the game, mind off the shorty,” Tommy C says with a knowing smirk. He’s just a little taller than me. He looks gangly, but he’s got power, and if I thought he’d walk on the dark side with me, I’d fucking add him to my payroll.

The game continues and Declan starts giving Hector attitude. Torin rolls his eyes because Hector’s on the other team and he could pound Dec’s ass into chopped meat.

If I let it happen.

Seamus has the slightest limp that I keep an eye on.

Whoever the fuck did this will meet a bloody and painful fucking end.

The game ends and we narrowly lose. Tommy C fist-bumps me and says, gaze wandering to Lucie, “Introduce me.”

“Not on your fucking life, man. She’s mine.”

He’s about to say something that might get his teeth rearranged—I know Tommy C—but then his gaze drops to my chest and the chain around my neck with the ring hanging off it. “Oh, shit. She really is. You’re not fucking around.”

He slaps my back and laughs, shaking his head, then goes to his spot on the bench where he pulls on his shirt and throws a backpack over his shoulder.

“Lucie?” I go to her and slouch on the bench as everyone stands in groups, talking. “Stop looking like a deer in headlights and smile for Christ’s sake.”

“Women don’t like being told to smile, you Irish oaf.”

“Man,” Hector says, “she still breathing after that?”

I pull her close, feather a kiss over her lips. “For now.”

“Why is there a gun in that backpack?”

“Lucie Joy,” I murmur, kissing her ear, the shiver that runs through her feeding me. “I told you not to look. Relax and put it down with the other bags.”

“But—”

“Do it.”

She narrows her eyes but does it, and Hector makes his goodbyes. He picks up the pack she just set down.

Once it’s just me and my brothers left, I hand the one Hector left behind to her.

“I’m not your… your mule.”

Fuck, she’s prickly. “What about my whore?”

She takes a sharp breath and something in me softens. “Just a joke.” I lift her chin. “And I did ask you not to look in there, did I not?”

“That’s like telling me to do it.”

“Dec usually takes the bag if we’re doing that kind of exchange. But I thought you’d like to feel part of it.”

“You’re wrong.” She pulls free and I don’t know what the fuck crawled up her ass, but Jesus, she’s mafia. Or the child of a mafia prick. She’s sheltered, but she knows the game. And I still haven’t gotten the real story from her about what went on the night we met. How she knew that dickhead cop I shot.

I stop. No. She might’ve told me the truth as she knew it. But there’s still something gnawing at my brain… Could that have been why the bomb was there today?