Page 3 of Iron Crown (Will of Iron #3)

Chapter one

Color My Canvas

Eoghan

I wanted Aoibheann, bless her heart, and Jericho out of my fucking home. Sooner , rather than later.

I had never liked Vasiliev, and throwing my step mum at him when I was still in the midst of my own sorrows had not been my most honorable move. Then again, their story had ended quite happily, as the waifish, sullen Aoibheann bloomed in her marriage.

He’d fought for her, and been a good husband to her.

He’d won my begrudging respect, and I owed her my loyalty after I had wronged her.

But I still hated his face on a visceral level.

His smarmy smile was full of that secrecy—a kind of duping delight.

The man had something up his sleeve, always, and it was written in the way he moved and the way his eyes darted about.

Like he was an alien reptile, in a human skin suit.

My hatred of him was only confirmed as he looked at my wife, his eyes full of unsaid meaning. “The war is coming.”

I wanted to get my wife alone, so that I could interrogate her about what transpired between them. Even if I had to employ some coercive techniques to get the answers, maybe in the form of ropes, and the excruciation of pleasure withheld, that was a sacrifice I’d be willing to make.

“Thank you for your visit, Aoibheann. You are always welcome here. But that only extends to you, Rose and Dairo, and the little one that’s giving you that wonderful glow.

” It pained me to compliment her, still.

My old lingering resentments that she’d replaced my mother were still unreasonably lodged in my consciousness.

I swallowed it down. “However, your groom is best left in the car, with a window cracked.”

Aoibheann smirked, looking down before wiping the expression away, as Jericho narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Irish pup—” Jericho said with his characteristic sneer, but was cut off.

I snapped my head to the side when the distinct sound of two gunshots rang out.

I immediately sprinted for Kira, wrapping my arms around her, screaming “Bloody hell!”

They were coming from the kitchen, and I threw myself between her and the noise.

There was a scream, and the rushing of footsteps, the familiar heavy sounds of boots running on marble.

“Cillian!” My wife gasped, before she ran into the hall out of sight, towards the bedroom where our son slept.

“Straighten out your house, Irish. I will protect your wife, and mine.” Jericho took his wife’s hand. “Let’s go, Eve.”

I grabbed Aoibheann by the arm, hissing out, “The child…”

I didn’t need to finish.

Jericho yanked me away from her, his hand on my chest, his eyes dark with promised violence.

Aoibheann clutched at his elbow, pulling him back to her. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to them.”

Jericho Vasiliev might be the fighter, but Aoibheann was the crown that rested on his head. He would do nothing to disappoint her.

“Trust me, Eoghan,” her whispery voice soothed me, “I will care for Kira and Cillian as though they were my own.”

With that, she tugged Jericho to the master bedroom, where Kira had disappeared.

It was hard to remember, sometimes, that she knew this house just as well as I did. She had left it less than three years ago, but seemed to have left no mark on this haunted place. She had never belonged here.

I opened the drawer of one of the end tables that lined the black board and batten, the varnished wood a match for the painted tan wall and ceiling. Since my father’s demise, I had re-decorated, then added certain security features for the conflict I hoped would never reach these walls.

I unceremoniously dumped out the contents of the drawer, letting it crash to the floor. I tapped a corner of the false bottom, then retrieved a loaded Glock.

I heard the pounding of familiar footsteps, and without even looking, I knew who they belonged to.

“What do you know, Shiny?” I asked, as she stopped at another drawer, pulling out her own loaded weapon.

“I heard shots, but the cameras picked up nothing.” She handed me a small comms device, which I fit into my ear.

That meant that whoever was attacking us had infiltrated our security, somehow.

“We’ll get to the bottom of that later,” I said, feeling my lips pull back in a snarl, frustrated that for all my work, and all my planning, the damn security still failed.

“Right,” Shiny said, as she followed me down the stairs, the two of us moving as a unit towards the kitchen. “Kill first, investigate later.”

“Damn right,” I said.

I didn’t need to tell her to have my back. She just had it. We had trained for this.

But no amount of training would be adequate for when my child was in the bloody house.

The feel of vengeance burned through my veins like acid. Who the hell was attacking my home?

I would do more than paint with their blood, I vowed. If I had the wherewithal to keep them alive, I would bathe in their blood like Countess Bathory.

“Say the last thing again,” Shiny called over the radio.

“No one came through the wall, or the gate. None of our men are in the house shooting. Do you want us to flood the house with our troops?” That was Kieran O’Malley’s voice on the radio, no doubt running to the command room, where the camera feeds were displayed on multiple screens.

Cameras dominated the entire outer wall of the property, as well as in the woods,and the outside of the house. They alerted in the event of movement, even if it was just a roaming herd of deer, or the wild turkey that procreated in these parts.

“How the hell did they get in?” I snarled through my teeth, though I did not transmit that to the boys on the radio.

There’d be no point, when the threat was here, right now.

“Start clearing the place from the outside in,” Shiny ordered. She knew the protocols we had put in place. She was following them now. “We heard shots in the kitchen, and we’re moving there now.”

“Good copy,” said O’Malley in reply. “I’m starting from the garage, and moving to you.”

Shiny and I were in the hallway that ran between the dining room and the kitchen. We were barely through the open double doors when the butler door burst open and men in gray tactical gear pushed forward. I got off one shot, striking one in the chest.

Shiny shot the second man, who fell with a groaned yelp. He fired on his way down, shooting high, dislodging plaster from the ceiling that rained down on us like snow. Five other bodies pushed through, and in seconds, I was staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Knock it off,” one of them commanded, his face covered in a gray balaclava. Why? I wasn’t sure, because he had the distinct accent of a New York City Italian—Mafia. I’d bet my left nut on it.

Three pistols were aimed at my head, and two were pointed at Shiny.

Fuck.

We were outgunned.

“Put your fucking gun down, Irish.”

A thousand scenarios went through my head at once, each one calculating what move would keep my child safe. Nothing mattered but that now. Not even me. Not even Shiny.

Cillian, and the mother he needed, were the only things I cared about.

If I fired at the one at the end of my pistol, then the second gun would take me down before I could get another round off. Even if I was lucky, there was a third man. I was certain to die. So was Shiny.

Dead men can’t fight… dead men can’t defend anyone or anything. I chose to live.

“Put the gun on the floor, and kick it here,” the Italian ordered.

Fine…

With a reluctant growl of agitation, I lifted my hand in surrender, letting the gun point to the ceiling, slowly bending my knees to lower it to the ground. Shiny did the same. Smart girl.

I had guns hidden all over this bloody household, in numerous false bottom drawers, behind paintings, and even one in a balustrade on the staircase. We could re-arm ourselves. These guns didn’t matter.

“Kick the gun over here, nice and slow,” their leader commanded.

In an exaggerated, slow motion, I kicked the gun over, the metal sliding on the hardwood. I had to buy time…

Jericho was armed. I was sure of it. So there was another line of defense between these men and what was precious to me.

Shiny nudged her gun over with her foot, knowing that every borrowed second increased our chance of survival. So she was going irritatingly slow.

I could feel her anger radiating off of her in waves. I prayed that she’d have the patience to not attack them until we had the upper hand. I hoped she knew me well enough after a lifetime of our friendship, and would trust me. That she would back my play.

“Joe, you and Mark head up,” the leader of them said with a nod.

Two of them broke off, and my heart skittered at the possibility that they were here for my wife and son.

But I wasn’t going to ask. I wouldn’t bring attention to them if I didn’t have to.

If they hid, I didn’t want anyone searching for them.

Maybe they didn’t know that I’d regained my family…

because if they knew, then they were targeting them, and that was a possibility too abhorrent to consider.

The cold sweat of fear dripped down my neck as I stared into the brown eyes of the man with a gun to my head. I tried to commit every detail to memory, in case I couldn’t kill him today. From the curl of his eyelash at the corners, to the mole on the bottom of his right eye.

“Quit staring at me, you Irish prick!”

“How can I not, when your eyes are so lovely?” I said, dryly, a sadistic sneer spread across my lips.

I was a monster. I had squashed that monster down, and chained him into the recesses of my psyche, controlling him like a hunchback in a bell tower.

But I felt him stirring, howling to be set free.

Given the chance, I would make blood my medium again, and this bastard would be the first in line to color my canvas.