Firefly

by Molly McAdams

  Her words and her worry for me now made sense, and my chest ached for a girl I didn’t know.

  I couldn’t imagine Einstein’s grief because what happened to her sister was so different than my brothers, but in a way, I felt like I knew her better than any of the people I’d met last night.

  But what I was going through . . . it was nothing like what her sister had.

  Kieran would rather kill himself than hurt me. Beck and Conor would die for me. Aric had.

  I was Mickey’s only source of ensuring the O’Sullivan blood in Holloway. He’d do anything to keep me safe—keep me hidden.

  I needed to get home.

  I needed to let them know I was okay.

  I snatched my bag from the foot of bed as I climbed off it, and hurried out of the bedroom into an unfamiliar hall.

  I rubbed a hand over my arm as electricity spread across my skin. I tensed, my breath catching just before he spoke.

  “You planned on never speaking to me again, huh?”

  I spun around, my heart rate taking off in a violent rhythm seeing him standing there, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. But the smile that had haunted my thoughts for years was nowhere to be seen now.

  “It’s for the best,” I whispered, my words shaking from the chaos whirling inside me.

  As always, every cell in my body was responding to his presence. How can the need to feel his touch . . . his lips . . . just to hear him speak again be nearly overwhelming?

  He pushed away from the wall, his steps slow and calculated as he closed the distance between us. “Why is that, Firefly?”

  Because you evoke feelings I’ve never experienced—never expected—and it doesn’t make sense.

  “Because I can’t do this.” My admission was nothing more than a breath, but it felt heavy falling from my tongue.

  I bit back a whimper when he reached me, the tips of his fingers finding my lower stomach to guide me back until I was pressed to the wall.

  His forearms framed my head, leaving his lips and body close enough to tease me with the memory of his touch, but far enough to torment me with the space still between us.

  Space I knew I needed so I wouldn’t lose my mind in his presence. Again.

  “Can’t do what, exactly?”

  I searched his hypnotic eyes, trying to remember what it was he was asking—what I’d said.

  I sucked in a ragged breath and had to force my eyes not to shut when the movement pressed my breasts against his muscled chest.

  This wasn’t sane.

  Nothing could be this addictive. Nothing could be this consuming.

  And yet, Dare was.

  “I can’t be near you like this,” I finally managed to say, “for so many reasons . . .”

  He dipped his head, his nose trailing down the side of mine until his lips were hovering just a breath above my own. “Funny,” he murmured, the word somewhere between a growl and a bite. “Because I don’t want you anywhere near me or my family.”

  The air in my lungs rushed out when he suddenly shoved away from the wall, a scowl on his beautiful face.

  “Get out,” he demanded between gritted teeth.

  I blinked quickly, trying to gain my bearings. “What?”

  He jerked his head toward the right. “Get out. Don’t come near my family again.”

  I’d had every intention of leaving before Dare had stopped me. If I’d found my way out of the house before I’d seen him, I would’ve done exactly that.

  I’d just said I couldn’t be near him like this . . . and I’d meant it. I had a life that was complicated enough without mixing in this man who left me feeling intoxicated and aching to be closer to him. But I’d also felt lost not knowing how I was supposed to be apart from him.

  But I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Couldn’t register what he meant or the anger radiating from him and directed at me. Couldn’t look at him and see the same man who saved me with his words.

  “You were supposed to be an easy fuck. You were supposed to be someone I ignored after last night—but I couldn’t even get you back to my place,” he said with an aggravated laugh. “All those people you met last night? They’re like family. And you somehow inserted yourself in the middle of them like you had a right to fucking be there, and created chaos.”

  His words stole my already shallow breaths. They pierced at my chest . . . at the shattered parts of me he’d pieced back together.

  “I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry for hurting Johnny,” I whispered, honesty dripping from my hollow words. “I’m so—”

  “Walk away before I drag you out of the house.”

  I jerked back, stunned by the hate in his tone. It was like listening to Johnny’s words coming from Dare’s mouth. It sounded wrong . . . felt wrong.

  But then again, I didn’t know him.

  Like he said, I wasn’t supposed to be here—I was never supposed to see him outside of Brooks Street. For all I knew, the Dare who’d lit my world on fire could’ve been an act . . . and the man in front of me was who he truly was.

  I turned, but I wasn’t sure if I was hurrying away from him or barely moving. I was too stunned to know. Too stunned to hold my emotionless façade as I followed the hall into a larger room.

  It took a few seconds to realize there were other people in there, and that I recognized most of the faces. I caught glimpses of an older woman glaring at something—or someone—behind me, Einstein’s worried expression, and Libby attempting to cover her shock with her hands, but I didn’t stop to acknowledge them.

  I was too embarrassed knowing they’d most likely overheard everything. I was too humiliated. I was horrified that Dare’s words had hurt so much. And I was frustratingly aware he was somewhere close behind me because my body was begging to turn around, to acknowledge the current running along my skin and the reason behind it.

  But he’d made himself clear, and I couldn’t handle being rejected so harshly again.

  So I left.

  I spent the better part of two hours wandering around, trying to find my way out of the strange neighborhoods and back to the main streets of our tiny town, Dare’s words playing in my mind the entire time.

  “You were supposed to be an easy fuck.”

  “Walk away before I drag you out . . .”

  With each tormenting echo, the ache in my chest spread—grew heavy.

  By the time I found a drugstore, tears filled my eyes, begging to fall. But I forced them away, refusing to show the pain from a man I should’ve never allowed into my heart.

  After buying sunglasses and a hat, I went into the bathroom to say goodbye to Elle, then hid myself from the world as I went in search of a phone.

  I dug my fingers against the unforgiving wooden doors once she was gone, and hung my head as I forced myself to stay there. All I wanted was for her to be in front of me again so I could beg her to forgive me.

  My chest’s movements grew more exaggerated as my breaths came rougher, faster. With a roar, I slammed my fists against the door and turned to face what was waiting for me just in time to dodge the first flying object from Libby.

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  The object thunked against the door just as she launched the second. I caught her shoe before letting it fall to the floor, then met her glare as I turned to leave the room.

  “Demitri—”

  “Not now,” I ground out, not willing to get into it with my mom when she couldn’t begin to understand.

  I sank heavily into my old bed and let my head fall into my hands as I fought the urge to stay there long enough to give her time to leave—give her time to get so far away I wouldn’t be able to find her.

  But it became nearly painful when all I could see was how she’d collapsed in Libby’s bathroom.

  Her unconscious on this bed.

  The hurt in her eyes when I told her to get out.

  God, she’d even apologized. A man as savage as John
ny had attacked her—and she’d apologized for defending herself.

  “I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry for hurting Johnny.” She licked her lips, her eyes begging me to hear the sincerity in her words. “I’m so—”

  I gripped at my hair, my body vibrating with the need to move. To find her.

  “You may be Boss, but I’m still your mother.”

  I lifted my head, my eyes narrowed at where my mom stood, leaning against the doorway. “Not Boss,” I corrected her. “Never.”

  She lifted a shoulder then glanced around the room. “Doesn’t matter if you want to be . . . you are. We could’ve easily been pushed out when your dad died. There were other men who had the experience and the drive to take his place. But everyone looked to you.”

  “I was thirteen.”

  “Says a lot about you, if you ask me. So do the words I just heard you say to that girl. Tell me,” she began as she pushed from the doorframe to come sit beside me, “what guy beats up his best friend—who’s already been stabbed—over a girl, and then talks to the girl the way you did.”

  I ground my teeth, my jaw aching under the pressure. “I’m not doing this with you.”

  “I’ve seen you look at her at the café.”

  My knee started bouncing, the movement becoming faster as I fought to keep myself on the bed and in that house.

  “Demitri . . .”

  “She’s safer away from me,” I finally said, the words bursting from me like a confession. “I’ve kept myself from her for two years. I’ve never—” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from saying the words I’d thought so many times before.

  They felt like a sin.

  Like a middle finger to her memory.

  “I knew if I let myself have her, I’d never let her go. And if they found out about her . . . I can’t let them find out about her.”

  And they would. I had no doubt about it. Because like I’d thought last night, she glowed so damn bright . . . and when we were together, it was like setting a dry forest on fire in the dead of night. Finding her, letting myself care for her, would be like a beacon to the Holloways.

  “It’s better this way.”

  “Demitri.” Pain bled from her. After a moment, she stood with a sigh and turned to face me. Grabbing my shoulders, she pled, “Don’t let what happened before stop you from loving again.”

  “Love isn’t something people like us have the luxury of. It’s used against you. It’s used to slowly destroy you over years. I was ignorant enough to think I could have it, and it ruined me. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  They’d come.

  The Borellos had come, and they’d left Holloway untouched except for the guesthouse.

  Not one person had a suspicion it might’ve been someone else. Not one person was under the delusion they’d come looking for anything or anyone but me. Not one person planned to retaliate, in fear it would provoke them to come again and again until they had what they wanted.

  While the men continued to argue over what to do with me, I’d sat silently between them in the conference room, determined to force all memories of Dare from my mind.

  Something I’d naively believed would’ve been easy.

  Turns out determination is just a word if your heart isn’t in it . . . and my heart was back in an alleyway, being asked “truth or dare.”

  My heart was in Brooks Street Café, begging a stranger to cross that invisible line.

  “She can’t stay in the guesthouse,” Kieran said decisively, pulling my thoughts from demanding eyes and soul-freeing kisses.

  “’Course not. Not anymore,” Beck added. “They went right to it.”

  “How they knew . . .” Mickey began, then sighed. “I’m not putting her in Soldier’s Row. It’s empty too often when the guys are at work. She’s moving back in the house. All of you—”

  “No,” I said suddenly, sounding too horrified to try to explain myself.

  Every man in the room stopped talking to look at me, waiting for a reason for my outburst.

  I started blankly ahead, trying to think of something to say, and finally stuttered out, “I’m not staying in this house again.”

  “You don’t have much of a choice,” my dad reminded me, that razor-sharp bite present in his words.

  “I can’t. Not after what happened with Aric.”

  Not when I won’t be able to get away . . .

  Although I couldn’t see him, I could feel the tension radiating off Kieran from where he stood behind me.

  It’d been that way ever since he’d come screeching to a halt where I’d waited outside a coffee shop downtown. He hadn’t grabbed me and kissed me. He hadn’t thanked God I was alive. He’d thrown open the passenger door in a silent demand to get in and had sped off as soon as I’d shut it.

  But as soon as we’d crossed onto Holloway lines, he’d skidded to a stop and thrown the car into park. I’d barely settled back into my seat before he was tearing off my seatbelt and pulling me onto his lap, his arms wrapping around me like steel bands.

  Minutes passed with no words spoken. They would’ve felt wrong in that moment as my normally calm assassin held me in his arms, tremors rolling through his body so forcefully that they felt like my own.

  “You’re dead, Lily,” Mickey’s advisor said with a frustrated laugh. “You don’t have many places you can go other than this house.”

  “I have the guesthouse.”

  “No,” he and Mickey said at the same time, but I noticed Conor, Beck, and Kieran were silent.

  They knew how difficult it had been for me to go back into the house after Aric died—knew how rarely I’d set foot in here since—but they didn’t understand my need to be able to leave the property.

  They didn’t know about Teagan and Brooks Street. They didn’t know what missing a week with her would mean to her or to me.

  And I needed those few stolen moments with—well . . . I had needed them before this afternoon happened.

  “If the Borellos came looking, then they already know I’m alive. If they know I’m alive, they’ll come back. It doesn’t matter where you put me on this property, they’ll find me.” I stood from the chair and turned to leave, catching Mickey’s glare as I did. “They won’t find me in this house.”

  I’d only made it to the end of the table when Kieran spoke. His voice was low and even, but still rang with authority. “You’re staying here—in my old room. It’s the best way to protect you.”

  I turned to look at him, that familiar resentment building slowly inside me as I did.

  The first time he’d spoken directly to me since before our lives had been turned upside down—again—and it was to give me orders.

  Save Lily. Protect Lily. Hide Lily. Cage Lily.

  It hit me so suddenly it nearly knocked me back a step.

  Last night. That first kiss. Feeling like Dare had freed me but not knowing what from . . .

  It was this.

  All of this. Holloway and Kieran and his constant need to protect me in a way that suffocated me.

  I’d grown up on these grounds . . . I’d spent nearly every day of my life on them. Even throughout the years I’d wanted to escape the mob, there’d been no doubt I was protected within the confines of Holloway.

  But this was no longer a fortress. It was no longer a safe place. It was a prison.

  Mickey was my warden and Kieran was the man who had betrayed my heart and trust to keep me there.

  They’d stolen the little freedom I had. And they’d left me with nothing more than a window and some guards.

  “I know how to best protect me,” I said tightly, my voice wavering as everything from the last week began to overwhelm me. “That’s something you should’ve considered a long time ago.”

  I left the conference room and house without looking back as I headed to the guesthouse—my refuge and cell the last four years—and came to an abrupt stop when I opened the front door.

  Lamps wer
e shattered. Chairs and couches were overturned. Curtains had been torn from the wall and were heaped on the floor. The cabinets were open in the kitchen.

  And that was only what I could see of the front room.

  I took a hesitant step inside, then another just as a heavy hand landed on my shoulder.

  “You shouldn’t go in there, Lil.”

  I looked back at Conor, and wished I could take away the agony that so openly played out on his face. As massive and terrifying as Beck and Conor were, they were polar opposites.

  Beck had been born for this life. Conor should’ve never seen it. He was too sensitive to survive this cruel world, but they were all each other had. And once Mickey had gotten a look at the brothers, he’d wanted them in Holloway.

  If it weren’t for Kieran taking Conor under his wing, I don’t think he would’ve made it, knowing and seeing the things he did on a daily basis.

  “This is my house, Conor.”

  “Kieran doesn’t want—”

  “It isn’t his decision.” I twisted so I could squeeze his too-muscular forearm when I whispered, “It was his decision for you not to be here. Stop beating yourself up.”

  Conor’s expression went blank as he studied me.

  Kieran would’ve never told me he’d called Conor off, and Conor knew it. I could see him trying to figure out how I knew, but he was loyal to Kieran.

  “How’d you get out, Lil?” he finally asked.

  “I ran.”

  “But how?”

  I searched his eyes, but found no suspicion. Worry and guilt were slowly replacing the blank look he’d been holding on to, and I knew he wanted to know what had happened last night. Wanted to know how it had all gone so wrong when he wasn’t guarding the house.

  But I didn’t know either.

  All I could give him was the truth. “Out my bathroom window. I heard them breaking things, knew none of you would do that, and I ran.”

  He nodded, the movement slow under his grief. “I’m so sorry, Lil.”

  “It would’ve happened one day. This couldn’t last forever.”