Page 67 of Dublin Charmer

Yeah, well, fuck him.

The door to the private room is open and when I round the corner and step inside, a tall man with a pockmarked face and crooked nose stands. The legs of his chair scrape the vinyl flooring as he shrugs on his leather jacket.

I recognize him immediately—Donal Reese, Billy’s second-in-command.

“Don’t bother sitting,” he says, rounding the table. “There’s been a change in plans.” Donal’s Dublin accent is thicker thanBilly’s, his voice gravelly from years of smoking. “Boss wants to meet elsewhere.”

My stomach tightens. “He told me to come here.”

“Well, he told me to pick you up, so now yer being told to come with me.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Problem?”

Every instinct screams danger. But protesting too much would only raise suspicion. If Billy’s testing my loyalty, I need to pass.

“No problem. I just wasn’t expecting a field trip.”

Donal stands, gesturing toward the kitchen. “The car’s out back. Closer to the door.”

I follow him through the kitchen, past the staff working the grills and fryers, and out the rear exit into the staff lot. A black SUV idles there, engine running, windows tinted almost black.

“Hackers first.” Donal opens the back door and sweeps his hand through the air to gesture me inside.

I climb in, clutching my backpack.

Donal slides in beside me. The doors lock with an ominous click as the driver pulls away from the building.

“So, where are we meeting him?” I force as much casual nonchalance into my voice as possible while my fingers drum nervously against my thigh. The leather seat beneath me feels cold and unwelcoming, and a chill races up my spine.

Silence fills the SUV like a physical presence. Donal’s profile is granite-hard in the dim light filtering through the tinted windows.

“The weather is supposed to keep getting worse. Hope we’re not going far.” Sleet pelts the windshield in increasingly frantic patterns. The wipers sweep across the glass in hypnotic arcs, doing little to improve visibility as Dublin dissolves into a gray, watery haze outside.

But still, I get nothing from either of these goons.

Not even a grunt of acknowledgment.

Is this about the McGuires? About Gravely taking over their territory? An attack on the Quinns? My betrayal? Did Billy figure out that I helped Brody and Rory? There are just too many things going wrong to venture a guess.

The tension in the back seat grows suffocating, and I cast a sideways glance at my escort. My blue hair falls across my face as I sneak a look toward him.

Donal is staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched so tight I can see a muscle twitching beneath his pockmarked skin. His hands rest on his knees, large and scarred, capable of unspeakable violence if what I’ve heard whispered about in Billy’s inner circle is true.

“Give me yer phone.”

“Why?”

“Because I fucking said so, bitch.”

Before I get a hairy-knuckled backhand to the face, I pull out my phone and hand it to him.

I sit back against the cold leather, fidgeting with my backpack strap, adjusting the anarchy pin to focus on Donal sitting beside me. Does Billy know that I’ve been with the Quinns or is this him flexing his muscles to keep me off balance?

Goodness knows he’s done that often enough.

I lift my fingers, easing my choker away from my neck so that I can breathe.

If me falling for Finn gets Gio killed, I’ll never forgive myself.

Through the window, Dublin’s streets blur past in streaks of neon and shadow, the sleet turning to snow that swirls in the headlights of passing cars. The city I’ve grown to love looks alien and threatening now.