by Josie Kerr
She turned and came face-to-face with Charles Knox. The bland look on his face and his flat, expressionless eyes sent a chill down her spine.
“Oh, Chuck! Um, didn’t you get my text? It’s a bit crazy right now; I’m expecting—”
Chuck walked toward her, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. “Whatever it is you’re expecting can wait, Meghan.”
“Oh, no. Really, I don’t think—”
“Nothing good comes from a girl like you thinking.” Knox shook his head. “I thought the Irish were supposed to be superstitious. I spent the last two years giving your old man signs that he should just pack it up, but he never fucking took the hint.” He came closer to her, and Meghan took a few steps back. She didn’t want Chuck Knox anywhere near her person.
He chuckled quietly. “What’s wrong, Meghan? I’m just here to talk to you. You’re much more pragmatic than your father. You have a business degree. You’ve seen the books. You know there’s no way this little shithole can survive, so why delay the inevitable. Sell the place as is and just . . . walk away.”
Meghan shook her head in wonder. “Why on earth would I sell this pub? What could possibly make it worth getting rid of a place that Da loved, that he worked on building for twenty years?”
“Trust me, Meghan.”
“No, I don’t trust you further than I can throw you.” She set her jaw. “You need to leave. Now.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Meghan.” He took a few more steps. “I can’t leave here without you understanding what needs to be done.”
Meghan continued to back away from Knox, and before she knew it, he had her blocked in, her back against the bar.
“You are going to back out of the Cabbagetown Eats event, and you sure as hell aren’t going to sponsor that damn contest.” He rolled his eyes. “Like pouring beer is so tough. Jesus. Stupid.” He stepped into her space, putting his hands on either side of her, braced on the bar. “There’s no way insurance will pay enough for you to repair the damage to the pub, so you have no choice except to close.”
Meghan stood still for a moment, then she drew her knee up sharply, making contact with his crotch before she bolted away. Unfortunately, Knox was a lot faster than she anticipated. Before she was out of reach, he grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her backward. Meghan felt a hard object press into her side.
He clicked his tongue. “Oh, Miss Sullivan, I really thought you were smarter.”
“Meghan!”
“Jason! I think he’s—”
What happened next seemed to transpire in slow motion. Jason came around the corner, his eyes wild, just as Knox raised his arm. The sound of the gunfire was deafening inside the empty bar, and Meghan watched in horror as Jason collapsed.
“Jason!” she screamed.
“Shut up, you stupid bitch!” Knox turned and clocked Meghan on the side of the face, and everything went black.
☆☆☆
Meghan kept her eyes closed, partially because she didn’t want Knox to know she was awake, but mostly because she was afraid she’d vomit. Even with her eyes shut, she could feel her stomach roiling from the pain in her head.
“I swear to God, if she’s hurt, I’ll kill you myself, you son of a bitch.”
The anger in Jason’s voice reassured her that he was okay, and she allowed herself to relax just a bit. Jason didn’t sound like he was in pain. Maybe Knox didn’t actually shoot him?
Then Jason’s guttural groan made her open her eyes. When she did, she found Knox standing over Jason, his hand gripping Jason’s shoulder hard.
“God, don’t you ever shut up?” Knox seethed through his clenched jaw. “I need to think!”
“That’s something you should have done before, buddy,” Jason scoffed, resulting in Knox gripping Jason’s shoulder even tighter. “Fuck!” Jason panted, his pain evident.
Knox let go, and then Meghan saw the blood spreading along Jason’s shoulder. She snapped her eyes to his, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. Meanwhile, Knox was pacing around the space in front of the bar, muttering to himself, the gun still gripped in his fist. She couldn’t just let Jason lie there and bleed.
As she watched Knox walk back and forth, she formulated a plan. When he got to the far end of the bar, she’d bolt out the front door. Judging by the heavy brass clock on the wall, it was almost noon, which meant foot traffic. She could get someone’s attention.
Knox turned his back, and Meghan saw her chance. She scrambled to her feet, stumbling toward the door as she did so. She careened across the space, her focus lasered on the door in front of her to keep her head from swimming. She’d made it halfway to freedom when a hand caught the back of her hair and wrenched her around. Meghan tried to stomp on Knox’s foot, but unfortunately, her sneakers didn’t inflict much through Knox’s boots.
“Let her go!” Jason roared as he attempted to stand. “Let her go right fucking now!”
Knox turned, dragging Meghan behind him, and pointed his gun at Jason. “I told you to shut the hell up!” He fired the weapon, the bullet striking the wall directly above Jason’s head. Meghan shrieked, and Knox jerked her so hard her teeth rattled.
“You shut up, too! Jesus!” He dragged her around to face him, still holding tight to her hair. “Do you get how badly your old man royally screwed me? Do you?” Knox gave her another shake. “You can thank your blessed fucking father for putting you in this position.”
Then Foley’s phone rang. Meghan dared to glance in Jason’s direction. His expression was one of cold fury, though the light sheen of sweat coating his skin betrayed the amount of pain he was in.
“Answer the fucking phone, asshole,” Jason ground out.
“I’ll answer it when I’m good and ready, asshole,” Knox retorted.
“You don’t answer that phone, Knox, and APD SWAT won’t hesitate to bust through that door and ask questions later, and that’s not going to be good for anyone.”
The phone rang again, and Knox hit the speaker-phone button with his elbow but didn’t say anything. A male voice, which Meghan recognized as Jason’s brother Johnny’s, asked a series of questions, and Knox replied in monosyllables while still maintaining a fast grip on Meghan’s hair. When Johnny asked about the shots fired, Knox slammed his hand against the phone, effectively hanging up on the detective.
While Jason seethed, Meghan decided to try a different tack.
“Charles, let Jason go, and you and I can talk about what you and Da discussed. You know he kept me in the dark, and I’m not sure exactly what you’re wanting,” she said, her voice smooth and pleasant. At least, she hoped it was.
Unfortunately, Knox didn’t seem to be able to have a coherent conversation. He spent the next long moments blustering about how Eamon Sullivan had gone back on his word, leaving Meghan more confused about the original situation than she was in the first place.
“What’s your favorite part of this pub?” Knox asked.
Meghan blinked at the unexpected question.
“Well? Gimme an answer.” He waved the gun, gesturing around the dining room.
“Th-the bar,” Meghan stammered. “I love the bar.”
Knox pursed his lips, thinking. “Why?” he asked.
She answered without having to think. “It reminds me of Da, and of Mam, of when I was growing up.”
Knox cocked his head, studying her. “So Jarhead over there isn’t your favorite part of the bar?”
Sensing a trap, Meghan stayed silent, although she couldn’t, wouldn’t take her eyes off Jason. The bar was strangely quiet since all the outer doors were shut, Jason’s ragged breathing the only sound. He gave her a weak smile and a thumbs-up.
“I’m good,” he rasped.
Suddenly Knox extended his arm and began to fire his gun, spraying bullets around the dining room, shattering the bottles and mirrored wall behind the bar shelves as well as the gleaming mahogany wood of the bar itself. Meghan screamed and clawed at his arm, trying to get the
gun away from him. Knox pushed her away, and she crashed against a wall, her head impacting with a loud crack. Still, Meghan dove at the man again, determined to wrest the gun from him before he could do more damage, especially considering he turned toward Jason and aimed deliberately at where he sat on the floor.
Jason’s eyes got wide. “Meghan! Step back toward the wall—get on the wall! Now! Meghan!”
Knox pulled the trigger. Meghan watched in horror, her scream silent, as the side of his head exploded.
“Meghan, baby, look at me.” Jason’s voice was firm and low. “Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Baby, look right here.” Her eyes locked with his. “We’re okay, Meghan. We’re both okay, darlin’. It’s all good. It’s all good, baby.”
Then the pub erupted in chaos, with black-clad policemen in riot gear swarming into the dining room. Meghan tried to maintain eye contact with Jason, like he’d told her to, but a group of EMTs surrounded him, blocking her view, and when she tried to approach, hands held her back. She clawed at the men, shoving them to get to Jason, raising her voice and insisting she needed to get to him.
“He’s been shot! Knox shot him in the shoulder!” Meghan tried to bolt, but then gentle yet firm hands pushed her back to a gurney.
“Jason’s in good hands, Meghan. Now let’s get you taken care of,” Ryan said, his voice soothing and familiar, so much like his brother’s.
“But he’s been shot,” she sobbed. “He’s been shot . . .”
“I know, honey. I know, but right now, you’re bleeding, too, and I need to check you out.” He peered closely at her. “Did you hit your head?”
“What?” Meghan reached up before Ryan could stop her and was shocked when her fingers came away red after she touched her head. “Oh! Um, wow, I don’t—”
Her vision went black for the second time that day.
Chapter 31
Jason’s eyes snapped open, but instead of the dark wood of Foley’s, he found himself surrounded by the supposedly soothing beige walls of a hospital room. He looked around wildly, and the first thing he saw was Cash’s ugly mug.
“Meghan?”
“She’s good, brother. She’s got a jammed shoulder and a good knock on the head, so they’re keeping her here overnight, but otherwise, your woman’s good.” Cash grinned momentarily, but then his smile faded. “You are one lucky son of a bitch, I tell you what.”
“I wanna see Meghan.” Jason struggled to sit up, but his body didn’t seem to want to cooperate.
Cash held him back, shaking his head. He glanced toward the door. “You need to slow your roll, Thumper, or else they’re gonna come in and sedate you, which, honestly, is probably not a bad idea.”
“Fuck you, Cashton. I wanna see Meghan. I need my eyes on her.”
“Ryan did her intake. She’s good. I’m telling you everything we know.”
Jason grabbed Cash’s collar and pulled him down. “I need my fucking eyes on Meghan. Now.”
“And I’m saying, no can do, brother.”
The two stared at each other until Jason looked away. “Gunny?”
“He’s solid.” Cash cracked his neck. “He . . . took off for a bit. Said his feet needed to wander.”
“It’s probably good that he got out of town for a while.” Jason patted the bed with his free hand. “Where’s the clicker? I wanna find out if there are any updates—”
Cash barked a laugh. “Man, you have got it bad, but if you don’t cool it, I’ll knock you out myself.”
The door squeaked open, and Ryan buzzed in with Meghan in a wheelchair. “You two have seven minutes,” he said, offering Meghan his arm to use as leverage to help her stand before scooping her up and depositing her next to Jason in the bed. “You’re both welcome. Seven minutes. No funny business. Come on, Cash. Let’s give these two some privacy.”
Meghan touched Jason’s face. “Does it hurt?”
Jason dipped his head since he couldn’t shrug. “A little. It’ll hurt a lot more later. How are you?”
“I have a concussion. They’re keeping me overnight.” She searched his eyes. “I was so scared,” she whispered. “So, so scared.”
Jason caught her hand in his good one. “I was, too. When he hit you that first time and you didn’t get up, I thought I was going lose my mind.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I have seriously never wanted to hurt an individual as badly as I wanted to hurt that fucker.”
“Well, he, uh . . . he . . .” She sucked in a wavery breath. “He’s—”
“Meghan, baby, look at me.” He kissed her again. “Charles Knox can’t bother anyone ever again.”
“I know, but—”
“Yeah.” He rested his head against hers. “We’ll talk more about this later.”
“Okay.” Jason saw her throat bob as she swallowed hard. “I was so scared.”
“I was, too, baby. I was, too.”
The door creaked open. “Everyone decent?” Without waiting for an answer, Ryan poked his head in the door. “I gotta get Meghan back to her room.”
Meghan pressed a kiss to Jason’s cheek. “I love you, Jason.”
“I love you, too, baby.” Jason inhaled. Even though her scent was buried under antiseptic and hospital soap, she still smelled like Meghan, and he couldn’t get enough of it.
“Okay, weirdo. Quit yer sniffin’,” Ryan said as he helped Meghan out of the bed and back into the wheelchair. “I’ll bring her back tomorrow. Deal?”
“Deal, Bubba. Oh, fuck, I’m sore.”
Ryan fiddled with something on the side of the bed, and a warm feeling spread through Jason’s limbs.
“Oh, man. That’s the shit.” Jason heard Meghan and Ryan chuckle as he drifted off to sleep.
☆☆☆
“This is some grade-A bullshit.”
Ryan looked at Cash. “Well, he’s feeling better.”
“Fuck you.” Jason was feeling both better and worse. He’d had to have another surgery, which necessitated a longer stay in the hospital, and that was making him cranky as hell. On the other hand, Meghan had gotten sprung and had been in his room as much as she was allowed, and even a bit when she wasn’t, and that made him deliriously happy. They’d even argued a bit about her getting some counseling. Squabbling was good, because it pointed to a return to normalcy; it was bad, though, because she was being stubborn and insisting she was fine, which she most certainly wasn’t. A person didn’t witness someone getting half their skull blown off and be “just fine.” If they were, well, then they had bigger issues.
But as of now, he’d take Meghan and her stubbornness, and he’d reserve the arguing about counseling for another day.
Jason scowled at the two men in the room with him. “Where’s Meghan?”
“She’s at Foley’s. They’re replacing the glass shelves and the mirrored wall behind the bar.” Ryan leaned against the window ledge. “Bridget says she’s having nightmares.”
“I’m sure she is. We’re having some . . . disagreements about counseling.”
Ryan snorted. “She’s being stubborn and overly independent. Imagine that.”
“Imagine,” Jason said with a wry grin. “We’re gonna talk more about it when I get sprung. How does she seem otherwise?”
“How does she seem to you?” Ryan shot back.
“She seems okay. Excited about the Perfect Pour competition. Nervous. It’s a pretty emotionally loaded day for her.” Jason chewed his lip. He hoped to hell that he’d be out of the hospital to give her some more support.
“Does she know about Gunny?”
Jason shook his head. “No, and she’s not going to.”
“You think that’s wise?” Cash asked.
“It’s the way it’s gotta be.” Jason stared at the ceiling, letting his eyes lose focus so that the tiles turned into blurs. Gunny did him a solid. It was one thing to kill during wartime; it was quite another to take someone out from a rooftop in the middle of intown Atlanta. Either way, Jason owed his and Meghan’s lives
to the quiet sniper. “You seen him?”
Cash shook his head. “But he’ll show up. He always does.”
Jason nodded.
The three chatted a bit, and then Ryan had to go in for his shift at the firehouse, so they all said their goodbyes, and Jason was left alone with his thoughts, which might not have been a superb idea.
He’d just gone through another alternate, more probable ending to their confrontation with Knox and managed to freak himself the fuck out, raise his blood pressure, and bring two nurses scurrying into his room to check on him.
Maybe he needed to get his own ass to the counselor and not worry about Meghan.
No sooner had the nurses left than Meghan arrived. Her eyes were puffy with dark circles under them, but all in all, she looked pretty good and seemed to be in good spirits.
Meghan pressed a warm, soft kiss to his mouth, slipping him a little bit of tongue. He grinned at her.
“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said with a chuckle. “Hey, baby.”
“Hi, Jase.”
“What’s wrong?” He was instantly on alert.
“Geoffrey stopped by.”
“Oh, did he now?” Jason took some deep breaths because he could feel his temper rising.
She gave him a stern look before continuing. “It turns out, Knox was on the chopping block. The rest of the board of Knoxtree wanted him gone because he wasn’t bringing in any new properties. Foley’s was his last chance and if he didn’t secure that sale, then he could kiss his partnership and position goodbye.”
“So he was under a lot of pressure.”
Meghan nodded. “Knox wasn’t lying about Da offering to sell the pub and then pulling out. I mean, not really. Da had gone so far as to have the place appraised. That first day that Knox and Ben showed up, Knox said something about the apartment upstairs. I thought it was weird at the time—intrusive—but I blew it off. Anyway, Geoffrey said Knox’s behavior was growing increasingly bizarre and erratic and he’d planned on canning him after Cabbagetown Eats, period, regardless of whether Knox brought in more business. He told Knox that morning, before. . .” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, it makes sense now, why he was so desperate.”