Page 53 of Bargain with the Irish Devil
His phone is ringing. Frowning, he checks the display. He answers."Yeah.”
My stomach sinks as whatever is said turns his face dark.
“I’ll be right there.” He’s up, pulling on his clothes. “I might be late. Don’t wait up.”
I want to ask him questions. Where is he going? What’s wrong? Something feels very wrong. Only I can’t. It’s nothing I’m supposed to know. He promised he would be honest when he could because there were going to be questions I would ask that he couldn’t answer—this is one of those times.
This is what I agreed to. What I’m accepting by staying with him.
Declan
Fucking Tommy is at the building hassling the working girls to tell him where Sara is.
The building is in Dominic Sabatini’s territory. The idea came from his father, Tony. Tony had a woman come to him with the request to operate what amounts to a brothel with an apartment building filled with working girls who paid monthly for their protection and screening of clients. Once the woman retired, Tony took over the running.
I liked the idea of keeping it simple. The women could live in the building, or not. But they paid a rent roughly seventy percent over what they would pay if our men didn’t provide security and be the threat of violence if an idiot decided to break a woman’s rules—or the rules of the building. The no drugs thing applied to the men, as well as the women.
Supposedly, good Catholics, the old men at the top in Ireland, weren’t happy about the building—at first. But once the old men saw how profitable it was, they didn’t say another word about it.
When I get to the building, the foyer is locked down as usual, but even my card scan won’t unlock it. Patrick sees me, eyes wide, and he hits the button to unlock the door.
“What the fuck?”
He’s white as a ghost and looks like shit. “Tommy killed Liam.”
Fucking hell.
“Liam went to protect Rhonda when he started beating her. Liam pulled his gun as a threat, and Tommy shot him. He’s beating the fuck out of Rhonda. The girl is dead—she has to be. She stopped screaming a few minutes ago, and he won’t fucking stop. He’s out of his fucking mind.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you stop him? Once he shot Liam, he was a dead man.” I push the button for the elevator. “What floor is she on?”
“Sixth floor. He’s beating her with a fucking gun. We tried, and every time, he pointed the fucking thing at us. You didn’t say if we could kill him.”
“If he comes down before me, you have permission to kill him. He does not walk away from this.” I order him as I pull my own gun.
In the elevator, I flick off the safety and rack the slide, pulling a bullet into the chamber. Closing my eyes, I give a prayer that my da forgives me for what I’m about to do. I don’t pray to god. I know he stopped listening long ago—it seems fair since I did, too.
I return the gun to the small of my back beneath the jacket. Out of the elevator, I can hear Tommy yelling, followed by thuds. Two men are guiding women off the floor. They give me looks that plead for me to understand why they didn’t stop Tommy.
Women are pushing into the elevator, and others are going down the stairs. I push past them to an open door.
The door opens into a small hallway, and the kitchen is open on one side. I round the corner into a living room that sends my stomach up to my throat. His back is to me. I pull my gun, aim at his fucking head, and pull the trigger.
He goes down with a thump. The girl is covered in blood, and my stomach heaves. Jesus.
Ryan is at the door, breathing in gulps of air. “I couldn’t get past the girls. I’m sorry, Declan.”
I shake my head. “Clean this mess up.”
Going down on a knee for Liam, I turn him over. His da—fucking hell. “He’s alive. Call the doctor.”
Liam coughs up blood, his hand pressed against the bullet wound in his chest. I run to the bathroom to grab a towel and push it into the wound.
“The doctor is on his way. Barely five minutes. Patrick called him already in case he could have helped Rhonda.” Ryan pulls up Liam’s eyelids as they slide closed. “Hold on, you crazy sonofabitch.”
It feels like fucking forever until the doctor enters with his bag. I’ve seen bullets dug out and sewn up before. Only it’s never felt like every second it could go either way the way it does with Liam. I help where I can, holding things down, getting bloody, and wondering if this is all for nothing because Liam is white as snow.
Patrick is the same blood type as Liam and willingly does a direct blood transfusion. By the time the doctor is satisfied I worry Patrick is going to need more blood himself.
