Page 4

4

JAMIE

T he black SUV pulls up to the curb, and I climb in.

Heat blasts from the vents, and death metal blares from speakers. That’s no surprise, but the fact that War’s shirtless, too, and has a smudge of blood on his side causes my brows to rise. Not like him to lose a fucking inch in a fight, let alone have clothes destroyed.

At six-foot-six and ripped, War’s got the body of a cyborg. If not for his wild black hair making him look like the leader of a motorcycle gang, he’d probably have been recruited by some secret military operation with a codename like Apocalypse.

“Lost mine in a fight,” I say. “You?”

“How’d you lose a shirt in a fight? Was someone trying to fuck you?”

Huffing out a mirthless laugh, I take the gun from my inside coat pocket and toss it in the glove box. “You’d have heard from me earlier if I’d shot someone in the head.”

It’s too bad that wasn’t what happened. Burying the body of an asshole would’ve been a much more satisfying way to end the night.

“So?” War asks. “What happened to your face? If there’s somewhere we need to stop before we head home, tell me now.”

War’s always ready for action. When the bosses send him out for blood, he spills the maximum amount that the situation calls for. My friendship with War has made my own vicious plans feel almost pedestrian.

If I told him about the Jude mission, I wonder if he’d offer to help. That can’t happen since we work for an organization that doesn’t allow criminal moonlighting, but I’m still curious.

No one can know , I remind myself. Not even War .

This has always been something I need to do alone.

Jude and I were alone when he was taken. We were alone when I found him bloody and abused. And we were alone when I found him dead.

Rubbing the back of my neck, I exhale a sigh. “Nowhere to stop. Head home.”

War’s silent. He’s waiting to hear the story from last night. I don’t leave him in suspense.

“The fight was with a couple of dickhead frat guys who wouldn’t leave my cousin Ash be.” I shake my head. “In a bar full of men, that girl’s always one second away from some asshole trying to kidnap her.”

War’s scowl is black and bitter. “What the fuck was she doing in a bar on her own? Bodyguard or locked down. That’s it.”

My gaze cuts to his profile. When it comes to girls, he never asks questions or renders opinions on how to handle them. He does what he does. And I do the same.

“Who said she was alone? I just said I was there,” I counter to his implied accusation that by letting my nineteen-year-old cousin meet up with me for a drink, I’m shirking my responsibilities.

“I don’t see her with you now. So, you parted ways sometime.”

Despite the American spelling of her Irish name and the fact that she was born and raised in America, Ashling has full Irish blood in her veins. Under the beauty and quicksilver wit, there’s a clever girl. Her older brother is a stone-cold killer with over a billion dollars to his name. If either of them thought she needed a twenty-four-seven bodyguard, she’d have one.

My eyes narrow as I study War’s face in profile. Ash is a stunner, but I’ve never seen War give her more than a passing glance. “What’s your interest in Ashling?”

There’s a moment of silence as War’s thumb taps the steering wheel. “We’re on campus. The bosses aren’t. If something happens to her in a Granthorpe bar, where will the blame fall?”

“If we’re there and do nothing, sure. But no one’s given us orders to keep an eye on her.”

He says nothing more on the subject, but there’s something unspoken hanging in the air.

I could choose to take War’s words at face value, but our family legacy is pretty fucking consistent. Exceptionally pretty looks were passed down the McAuliff line to Ash’s mother and my own. And when someone takes an interest in a girl with those looks, it’s rarely casual. Obsession and bloodshed show up far more regularly in the family history than is typical for most.

When we reach our street, the factory that’s been converted into a house looks like an asylum as we approach. Old brick. No windows. It’s not until War passes the street-side of the building and enters the waterfront parking lot that its true potential can be seen.

As I climb out of the truck, my attention travels to the newly built dock. Our canoe currently rests against the side of the house, but knowing I have a place to launch a boat from the property lifts my mood. I’ve always loved the water. Just more of the Irish calling to me, I guess.

War carries his coat in his right hand, and I get a first look at the tear in the thigh of his jeans and a white gauze bandage underneath. For fuck’s sake. It doesn’t seem that his shirt was torn from another guy grabbing it during a fight, as mine was. The gauze means something more sinister went down.

“Did someone knife you?”

“No, caught a stray bullet.” His tone is relaxed, but I swallow the news like it’s arsenic. While I was nursing old wounds, War was caught without backup and ended up shot.

“I should’ve been there.”

He shrugs. “Wasn’t an op.”

We work for a crime syndicate called C Crue. My cousin Trick is one of the founders, along with War’s uncle Connor who’s known as C. They sent three of us to Granthorpe University for an unspecified operation that’s still being worked out. Until then, the three of us, War, Killian Callahan, and I are sent on intermittent operations that don’t always directly involve the university town. For each operation we’ve been given, no man works alone. Two or three of us go. Always.

We enter the house through the downstairs door, which means War must be hungry.

“What happened?” I ask.

Just inside the door, War drops his wool coat on the floor. His t-shirt, which is saturated with blood, is crumpled inside. “I need to destroy those in the burn barrel tonight.” From his pocket, he pulls a slug, also blood-covered. “Was on my way to a club and stopped in an alley to take a piss. A commotion started at the far end. Couple guys—not college ones, they looked street—were dragging a woman toward a car. Big blonde. Outfitted like a model. She broke away and ran down the alley past me. I didn’t get a good look at her because I was focused on other things. Like the guns they had drawn. Russian pistols.”

“Jesus. Did you have time to put your dick away?”

“Yeah, and got my gun out. Didn’t need to use it, though. Someone on the roof fired at them. A slug ricocheted off the ground. Sliced a groove in my thigh. That’s why no shirt. I didn’t want blood all over, so I tied my shirt around my thigh.”

“You haven’t been home but you’re patched up. Did you go to a hospital?”

“No. Killian’s.”

Killian moved a few weeks ago, but I see him often. Either at rowing practice or when he comes here to our Crue headquarters on campus. As far as I know, War has only been to Killian's place once, when we helped him and his girlfriend move in.

The implication is clear. I wasn’t home or reachable, so War was forced to go to Killian’s where his girlfriend, a civilian, lives.

“You could’ve given me a heads-up things were urgent. Your text just asked where I was.”

War gives me a bland look before he goes to the fridge. Yeah, that was a stupid thing to say. For War to label something urgent, he’d have to be incapacitated. The likelihood of that happening to him during a bar crawl on campus is nearly impossible.

“At the card game the bosses sent me to, phones were off-limits during play. Next time, fuck that. From here on, if you text, I’ll answer immediately.”

A nonspecific grunt of acknowledgment rises from behind the fridge door.

Good enough.

I head upstairs. After a stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth and smear some medicated ointment on my lip, I crawl into bed.

Sleep can’t come fast enough. But it doesn’t. The anniversary of Jude’s death is still on my mind.

I close my eyes and try to let go of the thoughts that churn like whitewater. I’ve been in America over two years and all I’ve managed to do is eliminate hundreds of possible paths to my target. I’ve got no idea whether I’m even getting close. I might be weeks away from identifying the bastard. Or I might be decades.

Rubbing the space between my eyes, I concentrate on the inevitable truth, trying again to manage my frustration. This isn’t rowing in a 2000-meter heat that’s over in seconds. This is an ocean race covering thousands of kilometers. The mindset is different. As it must be.