Page 37 of SINS & Riley (Dante & Riley #2)

ZVER

S ometimes people surprise you.

Not today.

Declan shows up exactly how I pictured him—pathetic, sloppy, reeking of whiskey and so many bad decisions, I'm surprised his own family doesn't take him out.

Not that they haven't tried.

And what the hell is with the revolver? Who the fuck would use one? What is this, the Wild West?

He tosses a pair of cuffs at my boots. Metal clatters loud against the tar. “Put ’em on.”

I bark out a laugh. “I don’t think so.”

He staggers off the ledge as one of his men rushes to steady him like a drunk uncle at a wedding.

It’s not hard to do the math.

His second guy is dead.

The third—the one I clocked in the throat—is on the ground, playing possum like a pussy.

A smart pussy.

But my focus stays on Declan and his boy wonder. Declan raises the revolver, barrel lined up with my chest. “I said put them on.”

I lift a hand in mock surrender, slow and easy. “Okay, okay. Relax, big guy. I’ll put them on.”

Instead, I boot the cuffs clean over the ledge. The metal clangs against a fire escape, then rattles its way down story after story until it disappears into the night.

The look on his face—the rage, desperation, and flat-out disbelief—is fucking priceless.

“Whoops,” I say, deadpan.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” Declan snarls, waving that stupid revolver like a drunk conductor.

The two of them start circling me. I ease back a step. Then another.

His eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”

“Having a seat. I walked three blocks to get here, then up fourteen flights of steps. I’m fucking exhausted.”

Another step, then I’m where I want to be—at the corner. I drop onto the ledge. “Look, we both know you’re not gonna shoot me.”

“Give me one reason not to.”

“Because your payday dies with me. Andre won’t give you a dime if you don’t produce a body. Between you and me, he's kind of an asshole that way. And if you drop me now, you and dipshit here have to haul two hundred and twenty-five pounds of dead weight down fourteen flights of stairs.”

He glares angrily.

I motion toward the building with a lazy hand. “You’re the genius who picked an abandoned high-rise in the middle of nowhere.”

Declan glances at his guy, then back at me. Brute strength’s not in their favor, and he knows it.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. Then louder: “Start walking.”

I smirk. “Make me.”

Another look passes between them, fluently spoken in the only language idiots know: what the fuck do we do now?

Then Declan jerks the revolver toward his lackey. “Get him.”

“Yes, boss.”

The guy looks at me like he’s staring down a tank.

I yawn.

He lunges, reaching for my arm. I sidestep, duck low, and shove.

“Ahhh!” His scream tears through the night, trailing fourteen stories down until it cuts off in a wet splatter.

I turn back to Declan, calm as a grave. His grave. “Good news.” I crack my knuckles. “Now it’s just you and me.”

Remember when I said sometimes people surprise me?

Yeah. He’s doing it right now.

Declan staggers to the ledge beside me, revolver still pointed my way, then whips out a vial and proceeds to do a line of coke off the brick ledge.

“It helps me think,” he explains, like my face gave away the judgment.

Un-fucking-believable.

I let out a slow, meditative breath. “Let me make this simple. If you know anything about Antonio D’Angelo, now’s the time to talk. Do that, and maybe— maybe —I let you live.”

He studies me like he’s actually weighing his options.

“Or?” he asks.

“Or the only way you’re leaving this roof is headfirst, Swan Lake–style. Just like your buddy.”

Declan breaks into hysterics—the manic laughter of the truly insane. He gasps for air between wheezes, face red, eyes wild. “You think you can fuck with me? I’m a Keenan. Lynchpin to the Irish mob.”

He’s not wrong.

Killing him outright would light a fuse no one could control.

Retaliation would be more than brutal.

I don’t mean a couple of pissed-off thugs cornering me in an alley and pounding me into the pavement until every rib snaps and I black out.

I mean nuclear.

An outright war.

And there’s no chance Junior here came without telling someone where he was headed. Or, who he was meeting.

Which means, sadly, snapping the little pissant in two is off the table.

But he doesn’t have to know that.

“Fuck you, you Russian prick. I’m untouchable!”

In one fluid motion, I flick the revolver from his grip, clamp a hand around his throat, and haul him toward the ledge.

“I’m touching you,” I growl, shoving him far enough over that his feet scrabble against the night air.

Both hands claw at mine, desperate, like he thinks he can stop me from crushing his windpipe. “I don’t know anything!” he gasps. “I’d tell you if I did. What do you want? Money? Krugerrands? Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you?—”

“I know you will.”

Controlling him at this angle should be easy. For a big shot in the Irish Mob, he’s barely got any muscles at all.

But he wiggles like a worm over a catfish. And frankly, it's a little hard to keep holding on.

Declan gasps to speak. “He knows about— Riley …”

It takes ten times more self-control to loosen my grip than it would to crush his throat. “ Who knows what about Riley?”

“Andre. He knows… about… the… baby…”

A puzzle piece locks into place with the force of a wrecking ball. That’s the reason Andre wants Riley so badly.

My pulse slams, deafening. The truth— our baby —threads razor wire through my chest, every throb carving deeper. Not rage. Not fear. Something far more savage.

The instinct to protect.

Fuck.

He knows she’s pregnant.

How he knows is anyone’s guess. But I’ll find out—along with whatever else I can wring out of Declan’s skull.

I yank him closer, snarling in his face. “How the fuck does he know that?”

He clamps his jaw shut. Silence.

My teeth grind so hard I swear I crack a molar. “Always has to be the hard way with you, doesn’t it?”

I slip the knife from my pocket and drag it once across his cheek.

“Ahhh!” He howls, high-pitched, pathetic, wailing like a bitch. “Help! Somebody help me!”

I let him scream until the echo dies against the empty streets. Then I lean in, voice low, calm, lethal.

“I don’t know why you’re screaming so loud for help. Seriously, help me help you. How does Andre know about the baby?”

Declan dangles half over the ledge, my hand locked around his throat. He’s gasping, spitting out pleas when?—

Whack!

Without warning, pain explodes through my ribs.

The bastard who’d been playing possum is back for round two and hitting me with all he has. He swings again and again. Tire iron slamming across my arms, my back.

He swings it into my side with everything he’s got. And it's all I can do to protect my skull.

I stagger on hands and knees, breath torn out of me, vision flashing white. For a split second, the thought slams in— this is how it ends.

“Ahhh!” Declan breaks into hysterical laughter, the wheezing, choking kind that makes him sound even more deranged. “Yes! Hit him again!”

The iron cracks into me once more, hot pain lancing up my spine. My grip falters, Declan writhing, trying to twist free, still cackling like this is the best joke he’s ever heard.

But instincts don’t die. They take over.

I shoot out a foot and kick him in the leg. The telltale, crack of a broken kneecap has him splintering to the ground.

I slam Declan back against the ledge, pinning him with my forearm, and whip my gun toward possum-boy.

One shot.

His body jerks and crumples, finally down for good.

Declan’s laughter dies mid-breath as he does the one thing—the only thing—that signs his death certificate.

Like the suicidal idiot he is, he rips away my mask.

His drunken grin vanishes, terror flooding in its place. “Dante.”

He freezes. The world does too.

Because there is no way he won't go shouting this from the rooftops. And no way I can let him.

It isn’t me I’m worried about.

It’s Riley. And the child growing inside her.

Goddamn it, I didn’t want it to end like this. But fate’s a sadistic bitch who fucks with me how she wants, when she wants.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he babbles, voice cracking, words spilling fast. “I swear, I won’t?—”

“I know you won’t.”

I suck in a breath and drive a knife into his gut, hard enough to launch him to his feet.

Declan’s scream rips through the night, raw and jagged—then cuts off as his body collapses. I lay him down beside the others.

And just like that, I light the fuse.

And ignite a war.

For a long while, I stare, detached. What have I done?

Now, I know my days are numbered. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The Irish will hunt me, and they won’t stop until they burn me alive and bury what’s left.

I did all of this to find out what happened to my father. To uncover the truth.

And I’ve failed.

But at least I’ve failed alone.

A sinner’s debt is never his to pay. It’s carried by his family. His blood.

It was the risk I was always willing to take. The reason I did the only thing I could—abandon everyone I loved before they were dragged down with me.

I breathe deep as my eyes drift up to the stars. There’s no comfort here. No escape. Just one thread left to cling to—a single, fraying thought.

Riley.

And the child growing inside her.

At least they’re a world away. Safe.

And shielded from the blowback to come.