Page 13

Tabitha

The next few days, she felt like a new woman.

A different one.

There were still moments when Grit reached for her, touched her, and her heart stalled mid-beat. She’d suffered silently through several occasions where his weight on her triggered her panic button, sending her blood running cold through her veins and seizing her muscles until the fear passed.

He remained considerate, which was a surprise. She thought once he’d taken her nicely, his carnal instincts would kick in and sex would yet again become a burden to bear. Instead, she found herself being ravished frequently, within her growing limits, and she… well, she was learning to enjoy it.

Alone in the hotel room for the first time in forever, strangely lost without Grit’s presence, Tabitha paced in front of the windows overlooking the city without seeing sky or buildings or anything beyond the glass. She felt confined, trapped by his command to stay put and behave, as though she was a puppy left unsupervised.

Her lover was acting suspicious—outside the sheets. For two days, he’d been on his phone constantly, either taking calls or making them, dealing with texts and emails he refused to talk about when she subtly inquired.

She’d been sorely tempted to hack into his phone to obtain whatever information he was hiding—a week ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice about doing just that—but what they had then and what they had now… risking it through duplicity wasn’t on the cards.

Instead, chained by her word to this godforsaken room, she’d made a few phone calls of her own and done some digging, although she was ninety-nine percent sure she knew exactly what Grit’s cloak and dagger routine was all about; the one thing he didn’t want her to pursue.

The Irish moron who’d put a lowball hit out on her.

When her cell rang, she let it peal three times before answering. “Aisling.”

A low, husky voice responded in a rich Irish accent. “Well, lass, you know how to drop yourself in shit, don’t ya?”

“I wallow in it,” Tabby said flatly.

“Aye, well, you’ve waded in too far this time. The man you’re after has his sights locked on ya good an’ proper. You’ll know the name Brendan O’Shea?”

Elias’s father, Tabby thought with a lip curl. The current boss of the Irish mafia who’d lost all three of his legitimate sons over the past two years during the ongoing street war between the mafia and a growing rebel faction. “It’s familiar.”

“The fucker’s an asshole, but he knows how to keep order. Trouble is, he’s an old man now and the last of his bloodline was shot down in the gutter. Turns out he’s got an existing son from before he married his whore wife; a son he now wants to bring back to the fold. I found a retrieval order for one Elias Mitchell.”

“I know about it.”

“I’d think you’d lost your touch if you didn’t. O’Shea reshuffled his upper pecking order after the death of his third son, executing two long-serving soldiers who’d been utterly loyal to him for decades after he was told they’d set up his heirs to die.” Aisling snorted. “Daft bastard’s losing his marbles in his old age. Trusting the wrong men, listening to whispers instead of his gut. Promoting bad elements to the higher ranks.”

“He’s been infiltrated.”

“Aye, looks that way. A guy named Donaghue seems to have O’Shea’s ear right now. Phalen Donaghue. Stepped up as his right-hand guy about two months ago and is slowly inching the reins out of the boss’s hands.” Fingernails tapped rapidly on a keyboard. “Donaghue is trouble. Big, fucking trouble. He joined with O’Shea forty-odd years ago when he was just a lad, but got himself stuck well up shit creek without a fecking paddle when he was sixteen.”

“How far up shit creek?” Tabitha asked.

“Far enough he was forced to leave the country to stay alive. Young Phalen picked up a nasty habit of skimming off the top—drugs, cash, weapons. Whatever he was assigned to handle, he’d take a little something here and there to pad out his own nest. He started taking that liberty with the women, which is when things got really serious.” That lilting accent took on a dark, hard edge. “Stupid idiot started flirting with soldiers’ girlfriends and wives, instigated affairs with half a dozen.”

Tabitha almost winced, thinking of the consequences those women must have faced, then shrugged it off. They’d been in relationships with some very dangerous men—men no one in their right mind would cheat on—and made asinine choices. “Popular guy then, by the time he was done.”

“He raped one of the lieutenant’s daughters. She was thirteen.”

Hissing between her teeth, Tabitha stopped pacing and stared blindly out the window. “That’s an instant death sentence. Maybe he fled the country, but he obviously went back. How is he not dead?”

“Sneaky fucking weasel hightailed it over to New York City, made himself indispensable to the US faction of the mafia. At that time, the stateside boss—a right knob by the name of Browne—didn’t hold the mob to the same standards as O’Shea’s father. Browne liked Donaghue’s spunk, nurtured several natural talents, and treated him like his son and heir.”

“Until his own came along?”

“Aye, that’s usually the way of it. Browne got married about a decade after Donaghue landed in the US and didn’t waste any time knocking the lass up. Continually. Five kids in six years according to the records I dug up. No sooner did she pop one out, he was sticking his dick back in and planting another one in her.” The disgust in Aisling’s voice mirrored the sickness in Tabitha’s belly. “Browne ended up with three sons, two daughters. His wife died shortly after the birth of the fifth and final child—supposedly due to complications from a difficult labor.”

Tabby grunted. It happened—women lost their lives in all stages of pregnancy for one reason or another. Some of those reasons were occasionally used to conceal murder.

“Tragedy struck Browne several times after that. One son drowned when he was three, another fell down the stairs during a game of tag with his siblings. The third shot himself accidentally while cleaning the gun his father gave him for his thirteenth birthday. The daughters were kidnapped from their rooms, both aged eleven. Their bodies were recovered a week later; they’d been raped, strangled, and dumped with a red and gold ribbon in what was left of their hair.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Tabitha raised her hand to halt the conversation, even though Aisling couldn’t see it. “That’s a huge red flag there. Red and gold ribbon is the calling card of one of the Chinese mafia offshoots. They don’t kidnap little girls from their rooms—I’ve heard of them taking wives, contacts, even their enemy’s favorite fucking hooker, but they tend to leave children alone.”

“Exactly.” Smug satisfaction leeched through the line. “At this point, Browne is starting to put pieces together. Donaghue submits a request to return to his homeland, asking his mentor for help, claiming he’s homesick and needs to make amends for what he did in the past. Browne, distracted by the chaos erupting under his nose, agreed and made a deal with O’Shea. Vouched for Donaghue, stating he’s a changed man and an asset to any faction of the mob.”

“O’Shea fell for it.”

“O’Shea was in the middle of his own crisis. He was already mourning the loss of one son, about to lose the second. At that time, he needed men and he needed loyalty; he thought he’d get both with Donaghue returning to the fold.” More rapid tapping, a slow inhale of breath. “His return to Ireland didn’t go unnoticed by many. O’Shea assigned him to the lower ranks of the organization, same as he would any new recruit.”

“Donaghue needed to earn his place.”

“Aye. No one steps into the mother chapter at a senior level. No one. He’s spent the last few years making himself indispensable, and now he’s one step away from an immense amount of power. Once he found out about Mitchell, he amended the retrieval order to a hit.”

Tabitha groaned and walked over to the couch, sinking into the soft cushions. “That’s where I come in.”

“Indeed it is.” Cheerfully, Aisling sang the words. “Our intrepid heroine snatches up the contract, willing to risk her entire career to save the hapless victim—”

“Christ, Aisling, you’re reading too many romance novels.”

“Spend all day cooped up in here on my own now, don’t I? Some of these searches take hours to run. Long, lonely hours. The kind you’re used to, aye?”

Not anymore, Tabby thought. Now her long, lonely hours were drastically shorter, filled to the brim with a man who rarely let her go more than a few minutes without some sort of touch to connect them. “Hmmm.”

“I’ll get back to the point. Donaghue knows the value Elias Mitchell holds as heir to O’Shea. He wants the threat eliminated, and you failed to do so. The lowball hit he put out on you was designed to draw in some of his old New York associates; minimal financial cost to him, one huge obstacle out of his way. Luckily, his former running buddies are shit scared of you.”

A smile curved her lips. It was nice to hear her efforts were paying off. “They got my calling card three, maybe four years ago. I picked eight of them off, one at a time, and…” She paused, remembered it was a secure line, and finished with, “left their bodies in various states of dismemberment around their precious compound.”

“That brutal streak of yours is legendary,” Aisling commented absently. The soft snap of a gum bubble popping echoed in Tabby’s ear, followed by a low chuckle. “Some of the crime scene photos the cops believe are your work… beautiful, lass, just beautiful. Precise, artistic, fucking bloody as hell. Perfection.”

It certainly made a change to hear adulation in someone’s voice instead of stark disgust, she thought, taking a moment to bask in professional pride. However, indulging in said pride wasn’t rooting out the data she needed to make her next move. “Thanks. Coming from you, that means a lot.”

Aisling’s laugh rang clearer than the bells on Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. “My tastes are bloodthirsty, but my kink is voyeurism. It works well for me.”

“I’ll send you photos of Donaghue when I’m done with him.”

“Oh God, yes.” The ensuing moan was completely, depravedly sexual. “Fuck, that’ll be like owning a Picasso or a first edition Shakespeare. An original Fairfax, gore and all.”

Aisling was not a friend; Tabitha lacked the social drive required to maintain friendships in the traditional sense. No, the Irish hacker was one of Tabby’s personal assets, one she’d nurtured in case she ever needed a source of information that wasn’t her asshole brother.

“Donaghue, Aisling; where the fuck is he?”

“Oh, aye. Gotta find the weasel before ya can pop him, right? Obviously, he took down the hit on Elias, then you. His pride’s gonna be wounded—your reputation outshines his tenfold, which is reflected in the lack of response to his contract.” Tap, tap, tap. “The slippery bastard landed in New York four days ago. Hopped over to Chicago a day later with a companion in tow. Commercial flights, false passport. He’s traveling under an alias, Trevor Abbott.”

At least he was saving her some travel time, Tabitha thought. Slowly but surely, he was heading her way. Trying to sneak up on her? Catch her unaware?

No, not her, she realized with a nasty jolt of trepidation. Not primarily, anyway. She was the obstacle standing in Donaghue’s path to Elias—a strong, formidable, intimidating obstacle. He had no choice but to take her out if he wanted Elias dead.

“I’m forwarding photos of both him and his friend. Whatever pertinent data I can scrounge up, I’ll send along. Tabitha…” Aisling blew out a gusty breath. “You’re top bitch in your field; no one else compares. Donaghue doesn’t know the meaning of finesse, but he’s become adept at striking when you least expect it.”

“The fucker’s a coward.”

“A coward with the power of the mob at his back and a tendency to lose his very volatile temper when things don’t go his way.”

Chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip, enjoying the sting of pain from where Grit’s teeth tenderized it before he left, she tilted her head back against the couch. “My guess is, he doesn’t have the backing of the mob. If he did, if he had half the control he thinks he does, he’d have mobilized the New York faction first, regardless of whether they’re terrified of me or not. Soldiers follow orders; they refused.”

“True. Browne’s still boss there.”

“Maybe his former mentor knows more than Donaghue would like. Losing his family one by one keeps him in a cycle of grief, but if the root cause up and leaves, that cycle ends and logical thinking returns. Have any of the Irish members flown over on separate flights?”

“No record of them doing so.”

“That tells me the men are still loyal to O’Shea. Men like that know when a snake is in their midst, and if he’s risen so quickly through the ranks, he’s stepped on a lot of toes to get to O’Shea’s side. Coming here is unsanctioned. If he murders Elias, all he has to do is knock off O’Shea and he’s got everything he’s ever wanted.”

“Dublin will fall,” Aisling said with horror underlying the words.

A man like Donaghue in charge of a network of criminals would tear through a city in no time. No morals, no rules, no one to moderate his decisions. He could flood the streets with drugs, monopolize the prostitute trade, arm his men to the teeth and lay siege to anyone he considered his enemy.

The police were easily bought; the ones who didn’t conform would suffer.

That chaos wouldn’t necessarily remain in Ireland. Browne’s position in New York would fall prey to Donaghue’s greed, and from there… fuck, if he got a foothold in the US, there’d be gang wars stretching from coast to coast.

Poor Elias had no idea how pivotal his existence was in a world he wanted no part of—more than just his life hung in the balance now.

“I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Tabitha clicked her teeth together, trying to come up with a plan. “I have to go. Send me anything you think might help.”

“Aye, of course. You should know…”

“I should know what?”

Aisling paused. “I think your brothers might be planning something. I’m not the only one accessing this data, Tabitha; Ashford’s been trolling the same sites, gathering the same intel. One hacker recognizes another.”

Her mouth twisted into a snarl at the mention of her fuckwit brother’s name. She still hadn’t forgiven him. “He can gather what he likes. This is personal—Donaghue came after me, he’s going after a man I consider a… friend.” How weird was that? “Ashford doesn’t concern me.”

“All right then. Good luck, lass. I think you might need it.”

Luck was always appreciated, Tabitha thought as she tossed the phone aside and ran a hand through her hair, but she didn’t depend on it. It was too fickle, too unpredictable to rely on.

Her instincts, her skills, her experience were the only things she needed.

Anger began to bubble inside her as it dawned on her that this was probably what Grit was keeping from her. Maybe he and the Phoenix team had identified Donaghue, maybe they hadn’t, but they had the resources to do so, and to track the Irish asshole the same way Aisling had.

Which meant he was working on actively distracting her from her goal.

She thought of his hands on her, stroking and rousing those disconcerting feelings of arousal under her skin. The skim of his beard as his mouth mapped every inch of her body, the stretch and burn of his thick cock prying her open and laying her bare.

While she’d been stupidly wrapped up in him, he’d known all along that the man who’d put a hit on her was in the country.

Well, no more.

Donaghue was in her territory now. She could track him from coast to coast, trail his ass through every state, without him being aware of the threat. Now he was here, it was doubtful he’d leave until he accomplished a double murder—hers and Elias’s—but she’d be damned if she allowed that to happen.

Shoving off the couch, she cursed the twinge of muscles overexerted with sex. Ignoring the discomfort, she stomped to the bedroom and began the exquisitely intricate process of rebuilding Tabitha Fairfax, legendary bitch.

The walls were going back up.

*

Grit

An hour later than he intended, Grit slipped his key into the hotel room door and unlocked it. Stepping into the room, he was distracted by the highlights of the interminably long meeting he’d just come from, so it took him a little longer than it should have to realize how still the room felt.

Four hours of deliberation, planning, assignments, and arguments.

Elias and Evander had joined him on his side of the video conference, while Atticus, Jasper, and Anarchy pitched in from Phoenix. Ashford and Darius had tossed in their two cents from wherever the hell they were holed up.

Lots of cooks stirring the fucking pot with differing opinions.

Grit shut and locked the door behind him. “Sorry I’m late, little tiger. How about we order room service and I’ll make it up to you?”

Silence.

“Tabitha?” Concern laced the word as he searched the living room with his eyes, a frown creasing his brow as he found nothing out of place but an older model iPhone on the coffee table. “Tabby?”

He crossed over and picked up the phone, turning it over in his hand before activating it. No security required, the screen lit up on a video ready to play. Perching on the edge of the couch, he reached for his own phone, knowing he was going to be making a call that made a lot of people very unhappy, including himself.

Tabitha wasn’t here. The quiet emptiness spoke fucking volumes.

He pressed the play button and held his breath.

The love of his life appeared on the screen, sitting right about where he was now. A bevy of knives were laid out on the coffee table, along with the Beretta 80X Cheetah she’d bought in Phoenix and a box of ammunition. A coil of wire, brass knuckledusters, and a Taser were among her stash of weapons.

Tabitha herself looked prepared for war. Dressed in black from the neck down, the softness in her face and eyes he’d gotten used to seeing had returned to the stone cold hardness of her killer fa?ade. The blue of her eyes were glacial as they stared balefully into the camera. “Bad, bad boy, Rory. Bad fucking boy.”

Oh shit. The entirety of her had reverted back to the Tabitha who’d confronted him at the construction site so many weeks ago. The rhythm of her speech, the insanity shimmering around her like an aura.

He watched as she absently sharpened one of her blades with slow, loverlike glides of metal along a whetting stone.

Where the hell had she kept all those weapons hidden? He’d locked several away as and when he found them, but there were considerably more than what he’d discovered.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” she asked in a sing-song voice. “Did you and my brothers actually believe I would let the matter drop?” Fury began to gather around her eyes. “Did your little boys’ club really fucking think they could stop me doing my motherfucking job?”

The pass of the blade on the stone grew slightly faster, more irritated.

“I have sources of my own, you know. Perhaps I was stupid enough to let you cloud my mind with sex, but lesson learned. I know who engaged the contracts on Elias, and me. I know he’s here and why he’s come.” Murder flashed in her smile. “He’s going to meet with a big surprise. If you or anyone else gets in my way, you’ll meet the same end. That fucker’s mine.”

“Jesus Christ, Tabitha,” he muttered, swiping his hand over his face.

“Elias needs protecting at all costs. The ramifications of him dying are greater than anything you can imagine. I’m going to be busy hunting, so that falls to you and your little clique of macho buddies.” Deliberately, she drew the freshly sharpened blade across the pad of her thumb. Blood immediately welled and spilled until she stuck it in her mouth and sucked.

When she grinned, her teeth were bloodied, giving her a monstrous look. “Don’t get in my way, Rory. Donaghue deserves everything he gets, and I intend to give him my full attention. A message needs to be sent, and he’s the only one I want to be the messenger. A few extra bodies won’t go amiss, though, so consider this a warning.”

Yeah, he understood that, even as he cursed her seven ways to Sunday.

For a moment, she seemed to struggle with what to say next. “I don’t like secrets, I don’t like people who keep them from me.” Was that sadness in her eyes, lurking beneath the madness? “If I had a heart to break, I think this would do it. Goodbye, Rory.”

She set the knife down and reached over to switch the camera off, but not before he heard the familiar rhyming mutters she couldn’t stop herself from using when she was overwhelmed. “Goodbye, goodbye, said the rabbit as she died. Never once had she lied, but the betrayal gutted her all the same. Now all that’s left is her name—”

The rest of it cut off as her hand filled the screen and pressed the stop button.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” There were so many ways to interpret the rhyme, he didn’t know where to start. Was she indicating she would die trying to stop the Irish mobster, or that Grit was killing her through the perceived betrayal?

Regardless, she’d just thrown a massive goddamn wrench into hours’ worth of carefully laid plans designed to protect both her and Elias, and time was not running in their favor; Donaghue was reported to already be in Denver, keeping his head down while he and the few henchmen he’d picked up in New York and Chicago scoped out the situation and their targets’ locations.

Anarchy and Ashford were working their asses off trying to track the fuckers down, and Atticus was deploying one of his best merc teams to assist in a physical hunt and detain mission.

Evander was even now moving Elias and Callie to their new home at Serenity, where they had access to a fully functional saferoom should anything kick off. There was only the basic security system in place, but it was enough to alert them in an emergency.

Dreading what he needed to do next, he refused to watch the video a second time and called Jasper instead. His friend answered, but before he could say hello, a bloodcurdlingly shrill scream dominated the call.

Wincing, Grit yanked the phone away from his ear until the noise stopped. “Jasper?”

“Kaylyn, how many times have I told you not to answer my phone? Specifically not to answer it while screaming like some demented banshee?” Frustration laced the sadist’s tone. “It’s no good tearing up, tiny demon. Making choices means taking the consequences. This is a choice you made, so now you don’t get any TV time when we get home.”

Kaylyn was, in many ways, her mother’s double. Sweet as freaking sugar at the heart of her, but she knew damn well how to be the biggest, most annoying brat possible when required. It was probably an inherited trait because, as far as Grit knew, Anarchy tried her utmost to be on her best behavior when the kids were around.

The second scream was less banshee and more pissed off child. Higher pitch, angrier, with an edge of defiance.

Shaking his head, Grit let the drama play out; he imagined Jasper’s attention wasn’t even remotely on who was calling him. He was definitely the stricter parent of the two, which balanced nicely with Anarchy’s more merciful approach.

“Would you like me to extend your punishment to a week, Kaylyn? If so, by all means, continue with that godawful racket.” The almost gleeful pause before he spoke again was pure sadist. “And if you think we’re getting ice cream on the way back, think again, tiny demon.”

The screaming died off into a pathetic whimper.

“That’s better. Go find your mom and a quiet corner, then park your butt until I come to get you. Go,” he added darkly, obviously meeting resistance. After a long ten seconds, he finally said, “Grit?”

“Trouble in Daddyland?”

“No more than usual.”

“That’s good, because I’m in a whole heap of shit here. We all are.”

“Don’t tell me the goddamn Irish have invaded already?” Jasper’s words might have been joking, but the tone was not. “A-team is on route but they’re a few hours out yet. If you need backup, you’re going to have hold down the fort.”

“Donaghue hasn’t made his move. Your sister’s about to make hers.”

A single moment, vibrating with growing anger. “What the fuck did she do now?”

What the hell could he answer with? She left me? She’s threatened to kill any of us if we get in her way? She’s back to being the same crazy assassin we all know and fear? She’s on a fucking suicide mission? “Our friendly neighborhood hitwoman is armed to the teeth and on the hunt. Knives, gun, garrote, knuckledusters. At a guess, she has all of, if not more, of the information we do.”

“You told her?”

“No. I just got back to the room; she was already gone. She left me a phone with a video set up. Tabitha’s on the fucking warpath, J. She wants this kill and she’ll go through all of us to get it.”

Jasper’s sigh resembled a snarl. “My sister is the biggest pain in the ass; I don’t know what you see in her when she gets like this. I’ll notify the incoming team, advise them to neutralize her if she crosses their path.”

Panic struck Grit in the heart. “She’ll retaliate, J. You know she will.”

“The guys have Tasers. Grafton carries a tranq gun alongside his official weapon. If she decides to interfere and tangles with them, she’ll be drugged to high hell, hog-tied, and put somewhere out of their way until the mission is over.”

“We’re gonna be at odds over this, Jasper.”

“Are we?”

“Yeah, we are.” Hardening his own voice to match the sadist’s, Grit steeled himself for an inevitable battle. “Tabitha’s mine. There’s no fucking way I’m letting anyone shoot her up with goddamn sedatives and ship her back to Phoenix to be locked up for the rest of her life. She belongs here with me, and this is where she’s staying.”

“We’ve had this argument before.”

“We have, and my stance hasn’t changed. Punishing her for being exactly what she was bred, beaten, and brutalized to be is more backwards than a redneck trying to ride a dead gator across the river.”

Jasper snorted. “So what would you have me do, Grit? Let her run riot with guns and knives and a fucking garrote wire through Denver? Do you really want her to stain her hands with more blood than they already are?”

“She’s focused on the hunt; she won’t harm anyone else but Donaghue and his cronies. I believe that.” Grit ground his teeth together. “Blood is the driving force behind everything she does. We both know it, even if we don’t fully understand it. It’s all about the blood in her veins, how it came to be, how it’s been spilled over the years. It comes down to the blood of others, the way it fires a sick thirst in predators. When she sheds blood, Jasper, she’s not the fucking bad guy in the scenario. She’s the guardian.”

“This is the last thing we need, Grit. Ashford, Darius, and the other brothers want her brought under control. I don’t care if she’s smart and runs rings around the general population; the intel proves Donaghue is just as smart and twice as ruthless. One mistake and she’ll end up being tortured, raped, and murdered. Is that what you want for her?”

Goddamn him. Of course, it wasn’t. Tabitha was a fighter down to the bones. Even captured, she’d be a handful. It wasn’t in her nature to be calm and placid unless she was triggered. But she’d rather be dead than imprisoned at the whim of her brothers, and nothing anyone said would dissuade her from pursuing the path she’d taken.

“No,” Grit snapped.

“Did she give any indication of where she was going? That she knows where Donaghue might be holed up?”

“There’s nothing.” Just a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should be.

“Clusterfuck. I can smell the clusterfuck coming from a mile off,” Jasper muttered. “Evander and Elias are on the move?”

“As we speak. Evander switched leases on their current vehicle, upgraded it to an SUV with higher safety specs. Both he and Elias are packing heat. They’re keeping an open line with Anarchy for the duration of the journey, as agreed.”

“At least some people fall in line when their goddamn lives are hanging in the balance. Find my kamikaze sister, Grit, and tail her stupid ass. With any luck, Archie or Ashford will find Donaghue before Tabitha does, but she’s always had a knack for tracking prey.” Clucking his tongue thoughtfully, Jasper deliberated their next course of action. “If, when, she finds him, get her out. Tackle her, chloroform her, do whatever is necessary to get her out of harm’s way. Atticus’s team will do the rest.”

It was a reprieve—a small one, but a blessing nonetheless. Not that it mattered; Grit would’ve disobeyed one direct order or ten to keep his little tiger safe, and seeing as Jasper had his own woman, he was aware of what a man in love would do to defend the love of his life.

“On the video,” Grit said suddenly, remembering Tabby’s stark warning, “she was adamant that Elias is to be protected at all costs. Something about the ramifications of him dying being catastrophic. Do we have any data on what that’s all about?”

“You have the same information I do. I’ll get the research team to dig deeper into him, see if they missed anything pertinent. Donaghue wants him dead for a reason; I figure that reason comes down to usurping the Dublin throne.”

“Christ, it’s a mess.”

“Hmm. He can’t help who his family is or where he comes from, anymore than I could. The devastation Dominic wreaked on my family, my friends, my home was the result of me walking away from him and refusing to comply.” Pain radiated in his words. “Wyatt’s death, the blood and terror that followed… it’s not my responsibility because it was Dominic’s actions that caused the sordid mess, but that doesn’t stop the guilt. If we don’t stop Donaghue, Elias will end up carrying that same weight.”

“We won’t let that happen.”

“Start praying,” Jasper advised.

They needed more than prayers, Grit thought dourly as he ended the call. Right now, he was wishing he’d gone against his moral objections to injecting Tabitha with a tracking chip; it would’ve come in handy about now. Instead, utilizing his brain was the only available option, and he needed to start thinking like Tabitha.

Not the easiest thing to do when she operated on a wholly different level to anyone he’d ever met. She became a predator in every aspect of the word, setting aside her humanity to narrow her focus on the primary objective.

Donaghue was the objective, which meant he was the key.

Ashford was the fount of knowledge on this mission.

Wondering if the next couple of days were going to give him ulcers, Grit called him next, bracing himself for a second round of lectures from yet another Fairfax brother.

“Little tiger, your ass is gonna be so sore by the time I get through with it…” Hell, there wasn’t a threat strong enough to finish the sentence.

As Ashford picked up the call, Grit gave a silent prayer to whomever was listening up above, asking that she be kept safe so she could come home where she belonged.

It felt like the only avenue he had left.

*

Tabitha

The monster was elusive.

Using her own tech skills and the tidbits of data Aisling kept sending through, it didn’t take long to realize Donaghue was no longer in Chicago, but right under her nose here in Denver. It was a concern, especially with Elias sitting in the crosshairs beside her, and she was eager to get this job over and done, so she could haul her grief into a safe place and mourn.

By now, Grit would’ve found the phone and the video she’d left for him. Their fledgling relationship was no more, and she hated that it hurt more than his loyal allegiance to his friends taking precedence.

It didn’t stop her mind swinging back to the big bed, recalling what his touch felt like on her skin, or prevent her body from responding to the memories like a dirty little slut. She was wet and achy, unable to do anything to alleviate the cravings without letting him back through the blockades she’d erected to keep him out of her head.

Obviously, those blockades weren’t sufficient.

So, she was resorting to keeping her corrupted brain too busy to start rolling the repetitive slideshow of Grit’s face by studying every scrap of intel she had on Donaghue, finding his patterns and routines, training her mind to think like an Irish mobster on the prowl.

When Aisling managed to identify his traveling companion from New York and confirmed that he’d picked up another three from Chicago, Tabitha memorized their photos until she’d be able to identify them from fifty feet away.

Her heart leaped as her cell rang; she almost answered automatically, hoping Aisling had an update. Hope dwindled into disgust at the sight of Ashford’s name on the screen; she ended the call swiftly, tempted to throw the phone out of the vehicle.

He tried twice more before passing the baton to Jasper, who ruthlessly called again and again. The stupid ring tone bleated, getting under her skin and into her head, riling her already overstretched emotions until she felt her temper audibly snap.

“What?” she snapped, finally losing her patience and jabbing the green button.

“Where are you?” No preamble, just straight to the point.

Her hands flexed on the wheel, her tender thumb throbbing. “Wherever I want to be. How long have you known Donaghue was in the country?”

“You’re in a mood,” he muttered, then sighed. “A week or so. We dispatched a team to intercept him as soon as we realized he was on the move.”

The bark of laughter was bitter. “They failed, obviously, which left Elias’s ass swinging in the wind. How am I supposed to protect him when you keep shit like this from me?”

“Protecting him isn’t your job, Tabitha.”

No? Then why the fuck was she sitting in a leased SUV, sweating in the hot Denver sun despite the A/C unit pumping cool air around her, searching for breadcrumbs to lead her to a murderer without a conscience?

She cut him off without another word.

Maybe she should just pack up what few belongings she owned, hop on a plane to the Bahamas, and let the boys fluff their egos while she downed an ocean’s worth of alcohol and worked on her tan.

A muscle in her cheek twitched at the sound of the ring tone. She stabbed the green button, gearing up to let her temper cut her brother off at the knees. She was done being seen as a nuisance, as the family lunatic.

No one respected her. Not her as a person or her skills in her chosen field. They saw her as a loose cannon, a wild card, a pain in the ass whose messes they had to clean up—not that she’d ever left anything behind she didn’t intend.

God, she was tired.

Tired of fighting to be seen as a person.

Tired of busting her ass to keep society safe from people much worse than she could ever be.

Tired of being in pain, being afraid, being alone.

She wished she was strong enough, brave enough, to take the incredibly sharp knife strapped to her thigh and just end the constant exhaustion permanently. Regardless of what anyone else thought, she believed it took an immense amount of courage for someone to commit suicide; how else did one take that step into the abyss, not knowing what waited?

Murder was different. Reaping the lives of others was therapeutic, at least it was when the victims were as rotten to the core as those she selected.

She wondered if she’d find that same peace by selecting herself.

“I miss you, little tiger.”

The traitorous organ beating in her chest, the one that didn’t know how to love, melted into a puddle at the sound of his voice. Tears welled up, poised on the rim of her eyelids.

“Come home, Tabitha. We can finish this together.”

She leaned into the phone as though it was his chest pressing against her ear. The last few nights had been long without the rumble of his voice to keep her company; she hadn’t slept much since she walked out of the hotel.

It was foolish to believe him. As far as she was concerned, the trust they’d built was gone, carelessly scattered to the wind when he chose to withhold important information from her—information he knew was vital to the completion of this job.

If she was stupid enough to fall for his come home line, she’d no doubt be scooped up with a black hood over her head and shipped back to Arizona before she had chance to regret her decision. In all likelihood, Atticus’s team of mercenaries were tracking her cell signal right now, poising to strike and remove her from harm’s way before they marched off to apprehend Donaghue like the good little soldiers they were.

Atticus was gonna be so mad if she killed all his best toys.

“There is no together anymore, Grit. You and my brothers decided to exclude me; now I’m on my own, I’m going to stay that way.” Tabitha squeezed her eyes shut, willing her voice not to crack and give her away. “I’m done. I’m not physically or emotionally equipped to be anything but alone.”

“Don’t start lying now, little tiger,” he admonished.

The truth was, she wasn’t. What he’d done might seem like a small, insignificant blip hardly worth kicking up a fuss over, but for her, there were giant claw marks raking through her heart. She couldn’t handle the depth of feeling he’d awoken in her; years of being dead inside left her unprepared for the harsh reality of this.

Opening her eyes, she blinked away the sheen of tears and the horrible burning. Indulging in a weak moment left her vulnerable to attack, and there were too many enemies sticking targets on her back for her to lose focus.

“Don’t forget what I am,” she whispered, fighting the battle to keep her voice even. “This is exactly what I was born to be. Alone. Live alone, kill alone, die alone. When this is over and I’ve taken down Donaghue, don’t come looking for me. I won’t be here.”

Denial throbbed through the line; Tabitha ended the call before it drowned her.

Hitting the wheel did nothing but bruise her fists. The bite of pain was cathartic, helping to ground her. Maybe leaving was a good thing, the smart thing to do when a man gained too much control over her. She didn’t know where she’d go, how many miles she needed to put between them before she could go to ground and heal, but it was necessary.

Because she’d spent far too long talking to him, Tabitha started the SUV and pulled out onto the street. She honestly didn’t trust him not to sic a retrieval team on her, and she’d compromised her position.

For two hours, she cruised around the city with one eye on her mirrors, checking for a tail, while the other side of her brain scanned vehicles and sidewalks for anyone resembling her targets.

A futile endeavor in a place where the population came in at just under a million people.

Still, it beat twiddling her thumbs while she wished fervently for a sign.

When she got bored, she opted to change tactics. After a brief visit to a gas station, she headed for the highway, something in her gut directing her to what should have been her new home. Her stomach tightened, knotting as the miles fell by the wayside and Serenity grew closer.

Feeling sick, Tabitha brought up Elias’s number and called it.

No answer.

Reaching his voicemail, she ended the call and tried Evander instead.

No answer.

It didn’t mean anything, she told herself. She checked the time; it was early evening and there were a few hours of daylight left. They could be out on the site with no cell service, they might be fucking the hell out of their adorable wife; there were several possible scenarios where both men were unable to be reached at the same time.

The knots swelled and constricted in her belly as she turned off the highway onto the road leading to the resort. No one followed her, but her skin was crawling with anticipation. Her fingers twitched on the wheel, eager to reach for her gun, but everything was quiet.

Too quiet, even for the peace of such a rural area.

Going with instinct, she dumped her SUV into a small clearing off the road which, judging by the tire treads, was an informal break area for the truck drivers responsible for hauling deliveries to the construction site.

She sat for a second, envisioning the road ahead and estimating she had a good mile hike to reach the new house Evander had built for his family, set in the slight valley beneath the club. Some of that hike offered cover through trees and the occasional boulder, but a large percentage left her unprotected.

Sliding out of the SUV, she snicked the door quietly shut. Out here, noises echoed in the weirdest ways. Checking and adjusting her blades, she tucked the Beretta at the small of her back, using her waistband as a holster; she preferred the knives for a quick, clean kill, but a gun came in handy for backup.

As a precaution, she switched her phone to silent.

Tabitha hoped all of this was just an overreaction. Maybe her emotions were strung too tight thanks to Grit; maybe she was just fucking hormonal and too damn sensitive to her surroundings. Regardless, she wasn’t so screwed up she couldn’t approach and assess the situation like a professional.

A roll of her head on her neck, a quick stretch to loosen muscles and get her adrenaline pumping, and she was ready.

Boots scrunching on the rough surface of the road, she darted over it and picked a path already carved through the underbrush by some kind of animal. Keeping her head down—she was aware of how her hair stood out like a beacon—she followed a combination of the wildlife paths and her own sense of direction, veering off here and there when her gut warned her she was off track.

It certainly would’ve been faster to approach using the road; it also would’ve been a clean death if the enemy was in place and watching for anyone coming to the rescue. A sniper with any pride in his job could hit his target from the half-mile marker, and she’d never see the bullet coming.

She reminded herself of that as she waded through knee-high grass and ducked behind boulders twice her size to gauge her bearings. Her skin crawled with heat and sweat, and a small army of bugs that obviously viewed her as an all-they-could-eat buffet.

By the time she reached the small pond situated beneath Evander’s home, there weren’t enough curse words left to describe how stupid she was going to feel if this turned out to be a false alarm. She suppose brushing up on her survival skills never hurt, but so help her, if she found a single goddamn tick on her body, she’d shoot the bloodsucker off whatever part of her it was attached to without hesitation.

The hike took longer than she’d anticipated; the sun was tipping slowly toward the horizon, casting long shadows. The darker it got, the more she’d stand out, with her head being the primary target.

Staying low to the ground, she crept to the edge of the pond where the water had receded with the heat. Plunging her fingers in, she scooped up handfuls of thick, cloying mud and liberally plastered her hair with it, concealing every inch of white blond. When she was sure her hair wouldn’t give her away, she lathered her face and neck too, completing her transition into a mud monster.

The house was three hundred feet away, give or take. What would be the garden was still a tapestry in chaos with leftover construction materials scattered in piles, and debris waiting to be gathered. A few pieces of equipment hadn’t been collected yet, so there were a couple of cement mixers, a small dump truck, and a forklift still to go.

Everything was still. She saw no movement around the outside of the house, but she didn’t have a view of the front or the driveway. She was too far away to catch any activity inside the house, which meant she had to get a hell of a lot closer.

There were floodlights on each corner of the house, she noted, and lots of smaller ones set along the freshly laid paving slabs in the drab yard. If they were working and attached to motion sensors, they might cause her an issue once night fell.

One of the lights was not like the rest. Tucked underneath the guttering, it flashed subtly in a steady one-two, one-two-three rhythm. Small, circular, white. Was it some variation of a floodlight? A new brand of alarm system she wasn’t familiar with? Was it even functioning correctly?

Retreating back into the undergrowth, Tabitha made her way cautiously around the pond, bringing herself into a better position nearer the house. She heard no voices, saw no movement, and the lack of both set the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

From where she crouched behind a bush, she had an almost full view of the driveway. Empty, although there were what appeared to be fresh tire tracks in the gravel. Gravel, she thought with a roll of her eyes. Just what she needed when her life depended on being silent.

Were the trio even here? If she was Evander, she’d have driven her vehicle into the garage attached to the house, keeping her presence hidden. Both he and Elias were smart enough to do everything possible to keep Callie safe, so either they weren’t here or they were locked down.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she whispered, “said the rabbit to the stars.” Carefully, she eased forward, mentally plotting her route from bushes to house. She estimated she’d be exposed for around twenty seconds; not ideal, but it was worth the risk. “When you hear the crack of the gun, you gotta run, run, run.”

A soft rustle, little more than leaves brushing together, stopped her in her tracks. Slowly, she scanned the area thoroughly, seeing absolutely nothing out of place, yet her skin was beginning to twitch.

Bending, she picked up a small stone and, with just a short movement of her wrist, winged it toward the house.

It smacked sharply against one of the gleaming windows with a hard clack.

“There you are,” she murmured, feeling her body come alive as her enemies revealed themselves for an instant. She counted six at first glance, with four of them stationed around the front of the house.

Another was in the bushes to her left, twenty feet away and heading in her direction.

The sixth slid around the side of the dump truck, barely in her peripheral sight.

None of them were Donaghue.

Six on one. They’d provide a nice little warm-up exercise for her, especially spaced out the way they were. With any luck, Donaghue was being accompanied by another dozen bad men, and these were just some toys he’d left for her to play with.

Stilling the joyful hum brimming in her throat, Tabitha reached slowly for her waist, sliding her fingers around the hilt of two knives. Her favorite blade fit into her right hand, a hunting knife in her left; she heard the metal hiss as she drew them from their sheaths and grinned when her heart jumped in response.

This was her calling.

This was where she performed best.

This was how she would die one day—weapons in hand, blood pumping with adrenaline, and her mind so focused on the kill, she didn’t realize she was dead.

Easing back into the overgrown jungle, she locked her sights on the idiot trying to sneak up on her. He was too heavy-footed, bulling his way through the bushes, cursing in a blatant New York accent when he—at a guess—tripped over his own feet.

She saw the gun muzzle first, swinging from side to side as he clambered through the long grass. Lowering to her haunches, she held her right hand out to the side for balance, keeping her left down by her side.

He’d see her—the question was, how quickly.

It turned out the answer was not quickly enough.

The gun swung to her left as he stepped forward, and she met a pair of blue eyes as she surged upright. His weapon came back around to train on her, but she brought her left hand up, blade extended to the side, and slashed across his broad wrist without hesitation.

Blood splattered and, with the tendons severed, the gun slipped from his limp fingers. Even as he opened his mouth to shout, she thrust her other hand up, driving the ridiculously sharp blade into the soft flesh between his lower jaw bones.

Blood erupted from his mouth along with pained cries.

Blood, blood, blood.

The thing she’d been taught to spill in so many ways.

Losing herself in the scent of it, she forced the blade back until it sliced down through his throat to the divot between his collarbones. Air whistled through the huge open wound with every panicked breath; he was so shocked, he hadn’t even tried to fight her off.

“Bad man,” she told him in a dark voice. “Bad, bad man.”

A quick flick of her hand finished him off, the knife biting deep enough to open his jugular. The resulting spray of red ignited the full force of her bloodlust, switching her brain into hunter mode.

Stepping over the big brute’s body when it crumpled to the ground, she felt her humanity drift away, leaving behind the calm, cold monster in its place. Identifying the guy near the dump truck as her next biggest threat, she left the dead man’s blood on her face and went to take on the second with a spring in her step.