Queen of Quarantine

by Caroline Peckham

  My boys ran on either side of me and all of them were smiling as we raced for the end of the corridor where a window would let us out. A savage grin pulled at my lips as I felt like I was running with a pack of wolves, the five of us joined by spirit and promises and love.

  We made it to the window and Monroe wrenched the shutters wide before sliding it up. He grabbed my waist and helped me up onto the sill. I dropped outside onto the grass and turned back as they all dove after me, loving them so fiercely in that second it burned a mark on my heart. Kyan slammed the window shut and we ran into the night towards our car.

  We’d call the police, they’d come for the people we’d freed, and in time they’d discover the truth lying in the ruins of this place, especially when we released every scrap of information we had on Royaume D’élite and their entire organisation. Then the world would know a den of monsters had been destroyed.

  I leaned back in my chair and kicked my feet up onto the table as we sat around the dining table in my grandpa's house, the roaring fire warming my skin as I linked my fingers together and cupped them behind my head.

  Saint sat across from me, typing away furiously, scowling at his laptop and muttering the occasional curse as he worked to crack into the encrypted files he'd downloaded from the computer at Royaume D’élite.

  He'd pretty much been doing that since we'd gotten back here that night and though he'd managed to break into a few of them, he hadn't found what he was searching for. We still didn’t know where his father was hiding out which meant we hadn’t been able to use any of this evidence yet or pass it on to the FBI either. I personally held out hope that Troy had been burned alive in that horror show of a club, but Saint refused to believe that and I eventually had to agree. It would have been rather poetic, but that bastard just wouldn’t die that easily. Saint was clearly both relishing the challenge presented to him and frustrated as hell by the idea of not being able to outwit his father more easily.

  We had the room to ourselves, Liam preferring to eat breakfast alone while he smoked and read a freaking newspaper in his parlour which he still got delivered daily somehow despite the lockdown. He was nothing if not old school, the ultimate sophisticated mob boss, destined to keep to his rituals until his dying day.

  Luckily for me, he had some business to attend to this morning with the Russians and didn't want me in attendance, so I was escaping at least a few hours of his lecturing and so called 'preparations for my future role.' The thing was, he was definitely training me up to take over from my dad after graduation, wanting me to spend time learning the ropes of his job so that I would be ready to front the legal side of the family business, but he was teaching me a lot of shit that had nothing to do with that too.

  Like last night, when he'd sat me down with a goddamn family tree and talked me through the way each and every one of his brothers, kids, cousins and the rest of the family were strong and how they were weak too. I now knew my uncle Dougal was both lethal, hard-nosed and a perfect enforcer, but that he also had a taste for coke and hookers after celebrating a job, which made him loose lipped from time to time. He'd never given up anything incriminating enough to warrant his death, but I could tell that he was treading a fine line. Betray the family and you weren't family anymore. Every single O'Brien knew that. And if you weren't family, then you were dead. No two ways about it. Once you were in through blood or marriage, you were in.

  It made me more than a little uncomfortable to know that Tatum was enveloped under that mantra now too. But I also knew she'd never betray the O'Briens because she'd never get caught up with them beyond her link to me. I wouldn't allow it. No matter the cost to myself.

  Most of the secrets I’d learned about my family weren’t all that hard to have figured out myself, though my grandpa’s clear disdain for most of them was a little surprising. For someone who was so caught up on the ideals of this family shit he spouted all the damn time, he certainly didn’t think much of his relatives. The only one he’d spoken about with pride so far as I could tell was Niall. Though he didn’t fail to list all of his weaknesses too. He’d said, “Niall is a good soldier. Ruthless, merciless and thorough. If I give him a job he gets it done no matter what. But losing his wife cracked something loose inside his skull that was already a little fractured to begin with. He’s callous, reckless and fearless which are all skills to be admired. But he doesn’t plan for anything and he takes unacceptable risks. He’s no threat to the family because he lives and breathes this life. But he’s a threat to himself every damn day. He has a reputation for being the most terrifying O’Brien and I’d say that’s well earned. But it’s also well-known he’s unhinged. Something broke in him the day those bastards killed Ava and without it he’ll never be a good candidate for leadership. He just isn’t capable of owning that much responsibility. He doesn’t care about his life or anyone else’s enough to own it.”

  Liam had sighed like that disappointed him but mostly it just made me feel sad for my uncle. He deserved more than that from life. He deserved better than to live each day just waiting to die. But I wasn’t capable of changing his fate. I just hoped one day he met someone who was.

  So over all I was spending the days 'preparing for my role' while getting the impression that that role might be a little different than the job description and the more the idea niggled at me, the more I began to believe it was the truth. But that left me with one rather uncomfortable notion which I needed to discuss with the others sooner or later. Because I was getting the impression that Liam was considering me for leadership. For his role after he died. And if that was the case then in the years between now and his death, I was certain that I’d be tangled up in the web of this family so tightly that there wouldn’t even be a way out for me by the time the old bastard croaked. And I had no desire to head up a family of Irish gangsters.

  Nash and Blake were bickering over the merits of training for long distance runs, debating the use of weights and sprints and getting all macho bullshit competitive over it. I mean sure, I was all for some macho bullshit, but give me a fight to win and an ass to kick if you wanted to get me riled up about something. Running though? Naw, I wasn't gonna get my panties in a twist about that.

  Tatum was sitting opposite me, finishing up her food while I watched her, wondering if I'd ever get bored of just looking at her like that. She caught me of course, arching a brow which was a challenge in itself and I jerked my chin at her, telling her to get her ass over here.

  She smiled seductively, lifting a spoonful of yogurt to her lips and licking it slowly before swallowing it down. She held my eyes while she did it, knowing exactly what she was doing to me and my dick got hard for her with no trouble at all.

  I held my ground, watching the show and waiting her out as she made a meal of that freaking yogurt, making me wish that I was it.

  "I’ll prove it to you then," Blake challenged, jumping up with an excited grin.

  "You're on. But don't start crying when I beat your ass and you realise that your techniques are inferior," Monroe replied cockily as he got up too. "Does anyone else wanna join us for a race?" he added, glancing around while Blake practically bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.

  "What distance are you running?" Saint enquired casually without looking away from his laptop.

  "Ten K," Monroe replied.

  "Fifteen," Blake countered. "Unless you can't hack it?"

  "Make it twenty then," Nash upped and I chuckled at their bullshit.

  "Perhaps you'd better get going then," Saint suggested before Blake could raise the stakes again. "Winner gets this." He pointed at a folded napkin before him as he finished writing #1 on it and Blake beamed.

  "That winner's napkin is mine, old man."

  "When I win it, I'm gonna use it to wipe my ass then flush it away," Nash replied as the two of them offered Tatum brief kisses then hurried out of the room, shoving each other and bickering.

  The sounds of their voices carried away from us and
Tatum finally set her spoon down.

  I took my hands from behind my head and patted my knee as I met her gaze, summoning her to me again and she smiled as she slowly rose to her feet.

  "I'm so hot," she purred in a voice that drew Saint's attention from his laptop as she slid her cardigan off of her shoulders.

  "I can help you out with that, baby," I promised her, and she gave me a lingering look before shrugging.

  "Thanks for the offer, baby, but I think I'm just gonna go for a swim instead. I'll catch you later." She winked at me then turned and strode out of the room as I battled with the desire to chase after her like a whipped bitch or keep my composure and suffer the blue balls.

  "Dammit," I muttered, taking my boots from the table and letting the legs of my chair slam back down onto the hardwood floor.

  "If you think you're frustrated, you should try sifting through all of this," Saint said, pointing at his laptop and looking like he was tempted to smash the damn thing.

  "Why don't you just go public with what you've got?" I suggested. "Let the world know exactly what kind of a scumbag Governor Memphis really is."

  "Because," Saint hissed through clenched teeth. "Then he really will run. I may be having trouble determining his exact location at the moment, but I do know that he won't be far away. He won't leave his precious state and the power he has accrued here that easily. If we give the FBI or the press the information we have on his involvement in Royaume D’élite and the deals they were making in that place, then he will be on a private jet and out of the country before the first news report is even over. And then we will never find him again. Even the financial ruin I have primed for him won't be enough to stop that. There are accounts that I won't be able to shut down quickly enough, friends I haven't quite got enough dirt on or even just low lives willing to take a bribe to help him."

  "Can I do something to help?" I asked, because it looked like my ideal plans for the morning had just gone swimming in the indoor pool. Though I wasn't totally sure I cared enough about my ego to stop myself from following her. I would give it a beat though - no need for her to know I was utterly whipped. She probably already did though so did I even have a point to prove here?

  “No,” he sighed. “It’s something I have to figure out myself. Why don’t you tell me what Liam is saying to you in those little meetings of yours that has you so out of sorts?” he suggested.

  I ran a palm over my jaw and across the stubble lining it as I sighed. “I’m not entirely sure. But I’m getting the feeling he’s trying to prime me to take over from him when he dies.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Saint asked dismissively and I frowned at him.

  “You don’t think that’s a big deal?” I asked. “Because it seems to me like if he’s got that in mind for me, I’m never going to be allowed to leave this fucking house. I’m going to be forced into a role as his second and given more and more work for the family and I won’t have a choice about carrying it out. I’ll be an O’Brien from head to toe – exactly like they always planned for me to be and exactly like I never wanted to be.”

  “Do you trust me?” Saint asked frankly and I knew it wasn’t a bullshit question.

  “With my life,” I agreed fiercely.

  “Then trust me when I tell you that your time as an O’Brien is running short. I will have you out of this organisation before long and the only family you will ever have to concern yourself with again will be ours. Of course, I cannot promise you that we’ll be law abiding citizens, but I get the feeling we might just be happy. So let’s aim for that.”

  A thousand protests danced on my tongue, but I swallowed them back and nodded. If there was a man on this planet who could wrestle me from the clutches of Liam O’Brien, then it was Saint Memphis.

  “Okay,” I agreed and he smiled.

  Saint looked between me and the laptop for a long moment then slammed it shut with a growl of frustration.

  "I can feel the answer to this encryption on the tip of my brain, but I can't quite coax it out. I just need to take a moment to turn my mind to something else, a different problem that needs fixing." His icy gaze fell on me like I was that problem and I frowned as I took a cigarette from a pack that had been left on the table as a part of the breakfast spread.

  "Like what?" I asked, placing the smoke between my lips for a moment before drawing it out and looking down at it like I wasn't even sure how it had gotten there. This damn house and this damn family were getting under my skin. The longer I was here, the worse it was going to get.

  I flicked the unlit cigarette into the fire with a sigh and swiped a hand down my face.

  "You haven't spoken about Deepthroat since the day she died," Saint said calmly as he slid his laptop aside.

  "What the fuck makes you think I'd want to talk about that stalking whore?" I snapped, wishing I hadn't tossed the damn smoke.

  Saint gave me an assessing look before pouring the two of us fresh coffees and passing me mine.

  "The night that Ashlynn slipped you a pill and escorted you back to her dorm-"

  "So we're just going to have this conversation then, are we?" I asked, tensing as I prepared to get to my feet, my skin going all hot and prickly. I’d been blocking out thoughts about this shit for a good goddamn reason. "Regardless of my opinion on it?"

  "I believe that you haven't dealt with what she did to you," Saint said, not reacting at all even though it must have been clear that I was damn tempted to rip his head off if he didn't shut the fuck up. Tatum had tried to have this conversation with me too and I’d tried to show her how fucking little that whore meant to me in place of discussing it. But in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t all that my wife deserved on the matter. And that killed me. It was just so fucking hard to face the issues I had surrounding Deepthroat. But I’d found ways to work around them.

  "Tried to do," I snarled. "The bitch failed to...do whatever the fuck it was that she was trying to do and-"

  "Rape," Saint said, the word cutting through the air. "Let's not dance around it, Kyan. The girl was attempting to rape you."

  "She was half my fucking size," I snapped. "And there was no fucking way I would have gotten hard for her, so I think you're getting yourself mixed up. Besides, I'm a-"

  "Man? What does that have to do with it? You think because you have a penis it is impossible for someone to force a sexual interaction upon you against your wishes?" His calm tone was getting my blood hot and my hand curled into a fist as I glanced towards the door that Tatum had closed after her. I didn't want any of my family getting wind of this shit. I didn't need the headache of that kind of rumour circulating about me.

  "Of course I don't think that," I snapped. "I was the one who had her pawing at me. Who woke up with my pants half off and her fucking hand on my dick while she tried to get her mouth on it too. Do you have any fucking idea what that feels like?"

  "No," Saint replied calmly. "I cannot begin to fathom how it must have felt for you to wake up like that, your mind clouded by the drug she'd given you and your power stolen from you. But I have had control taken from me on many occasions and I have been forced into a lot of situations I wished I could escape from. I don't understand what it would feel like to be touched like that against my will, but I do know that the effect that night had on you lingered on afterwards. And I know that since she kidnapped you for a second time and you found out that it had in fact been her stalking you rather than some pervert chasing after our girl, you haven't dealt with the knowledge at all."

  I stood up suddenly, knocking my chair over behind me in my haste as my heart thundered in my chest and the need to destroy something consumed me.

  Saint got in my face as I tried to circle the table and I shoved him hard enough to knock him back a step.

  "Get out of my fucking way about this, Saint," I warned him.

  "No," he snapped. "You have had time to process it. I've waited for you to either find your own way to deal with it or to come to one of us for hel
p, but I see now that you won't do that. You want to bury it. You want to pretend it never happened and forget she ever existed. But as much as I'm sure you're trying to convince yourself that her death was the end of it, I assure you it wasn't."

  I punched him so hard his head snapped back and the fury in me almost boiled over as I waited for him to strike me in retaliation. But he didn't. He just pushed his tongue into his cheek and moved to stand right in front of me again.

  "Tell me when you started tying girls up to fuck them?" he asked in low voice and I sneered at him.

  "Who gives a shit?"

  "I do," he replied firmly. "Not when you were doing it to the girls you were fucking casually, but now that you're doing it to our girl too. I care."

  I flinched away from that accusation, shaking my head in a denial that wouldn't pass my lips. "That's not the same," I said eventually. "Tatum likes it. I'm not doing anything with her that she doesn't want me-"

  "Of course you're not. Do you think you'd still be breathing if I thought you'd hurt her like that?"

  Silence fell between us then because I knew I wouldn't be, and I knew I wouldn't want to be either. We had a bond so unbreakable it might as well have been forged in iron. But there was one thing in this world that would make us turn on each other as quick as blinking and hurting that girl was it. Fuck knew how we'd made it to this place after the way things had started between us and her, but there was no going back for any of us now.

  "What do you want from me?" I asked him when it didn't seem like he was going to spell it out without prompting.

  "I want you to deal with it and move on. I want that stalking, rapist bitch to be buried once and for all. I don't like to see her haunting you, brother, and I think you need a push to move on from this."