Page 108 of Killaney Blood

I try to breathe. I try to be calm. But there's never been anything calm about hope.

34

DECLAN

Callum's pacing the hallway like he's waiting for someone to pull a trigger.

The second I shut the door on the doctor and Lyra, I nod for us to walk down the hall. "We need to talk."

He follows without question.

"She's going to be fine," he says. "I'm sure it's nothing."

We get to the end of the hall, and Callum starts pacing again.

"Could you stop?" I say, leaning against the wall. "You're making me more nervous than I already am."

I've never seen my brother like this. Agitated, unsettled. Callum's always the composed one, the one with the plan. But tonight, he looks almost as shaken as I feel.

"It's the second ambush in what, a month? Declan, you need to tell me everything you know. Now."

"I know," I say, rubbing my face.

"It started with Knox, one of my fighters."

"Your fighter?"

"Yeah. We found him dead in an alley behind Frank's Gym with a black feather in his mouth."

Callum's eyes narrow. "A feather."

"Like the one we found at the warehouse. Like the one by the driver. They're all connected," I sigh. "Then the ship fire. There was a black feather spray-painted on the hull."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Callum asks.

"I thought I could handle it." I rub the back of my neck. "Obviously, I was wrong."

Callum's jaw tightens. "What else?"

"We caught one of them. At the warehouse attack. I managed to interrogate him before he died."

"And?"

"He said he belonged to a group. They called themselves the Morrigan. I believe their leader is someone they call the Phantom King." The memory of the man's words sends a chill through me. "He said they were coming for us because of what we did to them."

"What we did?"

I nod.

"From what I've been able to gather, there's a group made up of people with vendettas against our family. Widows. Orphans. Brothers of men we've killed. People we didn't even know we hurt. And they're not just angry, they're organized."

"What the fuck," Callum says, shaking his head. "Anything else?"

"This," I say, and reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my wallet. I open it and take out the bloodstained card I took off the man who stabbed me.

"After the ambush," I say, handing the card to Callum, "I found this on the one who stabbed me."

Callum looks it over.