Brush of Despair (Dublin Devils Book 2)

by Selena Laurence

  He flashed a smile. “That’s what you’re going to tell me, right?”

  Sighing, Lila crossed her legs under her on the sofa. She knew Cian would grasp the overall effort, he was a bright guy, an exceptional businessman. But he didn’t know tech, and she wasn’t sure there was any way to fully explain to him the vulnerabilities you risked if you went to war.

  “It means I’ll be hacking into their systems—repeatedly. I’ll access anything I can, destroy anything I find, steal cash from banks, lock them out of their own accounts, discover personal information, and give that to you to use as you see fit.”

  “And?” he prompted when she paused.

  “And it will put Rogue at risk, put me at risk, and put your family at risk.”

  She settled a little farther into the plush leather cushions.

  “The more active I am, the bigger the odds I’ll be tracked by the feds as well as the Russians. When you focus a lot of attention on a group of systems with a common link, like say this Sergei who’s heading up the Russians, it makes it more likely you’ll get caught. It shows a pattern, provides a trail for the feds and others to follow.”

  “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, the feds knew what you were doing ahead of time and agreed not to go after you. Would you feel better about it, then?”

  Lila snorted. “Considering the feds don’t know I exist, I’d have to say no.”

  “They know you exist, Lila. You’ve got to be on their most wanted list. You’re one of the best in the world.”

  “I’m also completely anonymous. The handle I used to hack under has been dead and buried for years, and no one’s ever investigated me as my real self. The feds have never been able to get anything on Rogue, but if they were alerted to me messing with the Russians, they’d start watching me, and eventually, they’re bound to follow that to Rogue.”

  Cian’s jaw flexed in what looked like frustration.

  “Look, I can’t just allow the Russians to come into town and do what they please. I haven’t even told my father they’re here, but he’ll find out sooner than later, and then what? It’s either go to their whorehouse with semiautos and blow the place to hell, or go after them another way. The guns will only ensure they send more soldiers from New York, and I don’t have an army big enough for that.”

  He leaned toward her, his voice dropping. “I’ve told my friends the Russians are in town. I’ll give them anything I can to help them take the Russians out.”

  He glanced around as if, even in his living room, someone might hear him. Luckily for him, Lila had secured his laptop and his Wi-Fi networks, and had the place swept every forty-eight hours since she’d discovered Xavier was spying on Cian.

  “But,” he continued, “you know my friends don’t work fast. All their damn rules mean they might not be able to do anything to stop the Bratva from gaining a stronghold. And I can’t be seen as though I’m not taking action. I have to make war this time, Lila. And I can’t do it without you.”

  And there it was. Lila’s heart hurt with it. With the patterns her life persisted in following. She thought when she finally did her last bad deed for her father, she’d unloaded that particular baggage, but lately, she’d come to realize she’d only traded him in for other bad men who asked her to do bad things. Other hackers, clients at Rogue, Xavier. And now, Cian.

  Except everything in Lila said Cian wasn’t like the rest. He was different—a criminal, yes, but a complicated one—a strange combination of considerate and cold, conscientious and cryptic. Some days, she was convinced she needed to get away from him forever. Others, she thought she might never recover from him.

  “Okay,” she answered simply, when it was anything but. “But I need help with Rogue. And I’ll need some expensive hardware. It’s going to cost you.”

  “You know money’s never an issue. Anything you want.”

  She sighed, moving to stand from the sofa.

  “Hey.” He put a hand on her arm, his fingertips warming her wrist like tiny sparks of hope. “Can you stay for dinner? I’ll order something in.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And after dinner?”

  He leaned over, running his lips across the arch of her jaw before inhaling her hair. Shivers ran up and down her spine as other parts of her tingled and warmed.

  “After dinner, I’m going to ask you to have a sleepover.” He kissed her tenderly on the corner of her mouth.

  “What are we doing here, Cian?” She asked softly, her head bowed.

  He pulled back and looked her in the eyes, his face serious and so beautiful. “We’re trying to remember we’re alive,” he answered before he pulled her to him and pressed his mouth to hers.

  “Play it again,” Sergei demanded as he leaned over the younger man’s laptop. On screen, the big man, dressed like any gangbanger off the street with a dark baseball cap, white T-shirt, and dark wash jeans, pulled the woman down the hallway, turning at the stairwell. The man had known those stairs were there and had gone out a window on the second floor. He’d been in the building before. At last, Sergei had the answer to who had broken down the door to the room where he’d been keeping his most rebellious girl.

  There was always that one woman. The one who simply wouldn’t comply and accept her new reality. Sergei looked forward to those women, actually. They provided him with hours of entertainment. But this one had ended up being more than just a handful of trouble.

  “Sukin syn,” Sergei snarled before slamming a hand down on the desk. He’d watched the tape of the man over and over, and he couldn’t see enough of the man’s face to know who it had been. He’d combed through the footage thoroughly, but still nothing. And his fucking worthless employees had nothing either. It was most likely someone sent by the MacFarlanes, but he couldn’t afford to assume anything. He needed evidence.

  “Sir,” one of his useless employees said as he leaned his head in the door. “Alexei is here, and he thinks he might have found something new.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there!” Sergei shouted. “Get him in here.”

  Alexei took the other man’s place in a flash, stepping into the suite and closing the door behind himself.

  “What did you find?” Sergei asked immediately.

  “We talk to contacts in the city. We took this photo”—he held up a still shot from the video Sergei had been watching—“and showed it around. No one wanted to say a name, but with a little persuasion”—he grinned—“we were able to get one. Liam MacFarlane.”

  Sergei felt a burning rage simmer in his belly. “The enforcer, yes?”

  “Da.” Alexei nodded. “They are afraid of him. He is known to be…formidable.”

  Turning to the man at the computer, Sergei leaned down, looking at the video where it was frozen on screen. “I want everything on Liam MacFarlane. Where he lives, where he drinks, where he takes a shit and when. I will hunt him until he is left with nowhere to hide, and then I will make him pay for this. The MacFarlanes will submit, and Liam will be how I make them do it.”

  Cian sat in the dark of his office at Banshee, watching the glow of the computer screen in front of him. It had been three days since Liam had taken the woman out of the whorehouse, and still no response from the Russians.

  But he knew it was coming, and he knew they’d hit Liam first. He needed to find a way to make his obstinate brother go to a safe house before the Russians found him. Liam was sitting around at his apartment with a couple of guys outside the door, like a sitting duck. And the fact there was a pretty blonde there distracting him didn’t help.

  He leaned his head back against his chair. For sixteen years, he’d watched Liam mold himself into the man he was today. And Cian wasn’t dumb. He knew how it had happened and why. After Cian’s eighteenth birthday, the night he and Liam had discovered who their father truly was, Liam had begun a campaign to be the brute their old man seemed to want. He’d done everything he could to bulk up, dumb down, and adopt the outlook on life Robbie MacFarlane had
so wanted Cian to have.

  At first, Cian had thought Liam was doing it to win Robbie’s approval, but it didn’t take long to realize Liam was doing it to buffer Cian. His younger brother, still just a kid when Robbie’s cruelty became unbearable, had taken on the role of family enforcer not to please Robbie or because he loved violence, but to protect Cian. To ensure Cian never again had to face a choice like he’d made that night when their father had pointed the gun at Liam’s head.

  Cian’s chest tightened at the memory. He hadn’t folded when Robbie had threatened him, but when Robbie threatened Liam, he’d made the only choice he could—someone else’s life instead of his brother’s. And in return, Liam had given up everything to stand by Cian’s side, to have Cian’s back, and to guard Cian’s front.

  As if conjured by his thoughts, his phone chimed with a message about Liam.

  This is Ricky. There’s been an explosion at Liam’s place. Whole building is being evacuated. I was doing the coffee run. Can’t get back in.

  Cian’s heart nearly beat out of its cage as he stood and began moving.

  “Danny! Louis!” he shouted as he ran for the door. He sprinted down the hallway, breathless not from exertion but from panic. His lungs felt as though they were encased in concrete, each breath an excruciating effort.

  He reached the bar where his guards were playing a game of war while they drank a pitcher of beer.

  “Bomb,” Cian gasped as he hit the room running. “At Liam’s.”

  Danny and Louis both tossed their cards on the table and were up, grabbing jackets off chair backs so fast, they knocked the chairs over, the table rocking in the melee.

  “We got you.” Danny pushed past Cian, heading toward the back parking lot. “Don’t move until I’ve swept the car. It won’t do any good for you to get blown to bits trying to see if he’s been blown to bits.”

  Louis put a hand on Cian’s back as Cian bent over, palms on the table that held the remains of their card game. He gasped for breath, furious he couldn’t get control of it. He looked weak in front of his men, and there was no room for that—ever.

  “It’s okay,” Louis said quietly. “He’s tough, and he’s the best at this stuff. He’ll come walking out of there wondering why anyone was worried.”

  Cian nodded, concentrating on his breathing, trying to will his racing heart to relax.

  “Finn,” he gasped.

  “On it.” Louis pulled a phone from his pocket and shot off a text.

  A moment later, Louis’s phone chimed, and he read it off to Cian. “He’s on his way to Liam’s. His guys will sweep the car first.”

  Cian nodded, finally able to stand. His right hand shook, so he shoved it in his front pants pocket.

  Danny came back in, walking quickly, a phone in hand. “It’s all good. We can go.”

  Cian strode out of the bar and down the hall, regaining some of his typical confidence and implacable demeanor. Damn, he hated to have someone see him as weak. But if Liam was dead, he’d be a much weaker man forever.

  He was falling, everything black except for the dust that clawed at his throat, clouded his lungs, and coated his skin. In the back of his mind, he knew there was something he needed to be doing, but everything was dusty, and there was a humming in his ears that wouldn’t go away.

  But one sound began to distinguish itself from the white noise inside his head. It was a small whimper, like a kitten or a baby. It turned to moans, then one word: “Help.”

  Liam’s eyes rolled open, and he coughed, blinking at the strange light that filtered through the space. His lungs were on fire, but when he tried to sit up, his ribs answered with a shock of pain that made sparks dance in front of his eyes.

  “Fuck,” he groaned as he cautiously rolled to one side, then pushed himself up to sitting, one arm banded across his torso to hold his ribs steady.

  That was when he heard it again. The quiet plea for help. Katya. His mind finally cleared, and he looked around at what had been the apartment below his. The blast had been small, but big enough to collapse the floor and send both of them plummeting ten feet down.

  He gingerly moved his legs, pleased to find they didn’t seem to be injured, then stood, still gasping at the pain in his ribs.

  “Katya?” His voice was raspy with the dust that floated through the air. “Katya, I’m here. Where are you?”

  He heard a murmur and turned in a three-hundred-sixty-degree rotation, eyes scanning the chunks of concrete, overturned furniture and broken glass everywhere. God help them if anyone had been in the apartment when the ceiling collapsed.

  Then he saw a flash of blonde behind an armoire of some sort turned on its side near the wall. He moved his poor bruised body as fast as he could and peered over the armoire, which came up to his chin. There she was, sprawled against the wall, one ankle disturbingly swollen, her blonde hair coated in gray dust, her face scrunched in pain.

  “Hey,” he said, and she opened her eyes.

  “Tell me what hurts.” He looked at the armoire and tried to figure out how he’d move it to get her out of the little prison.

  “It’s the foot—” She paused as she shifted and grimaced. “The part above the foot.”

  “Your ankle?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She released a breath that sounded like relief. “My ankle.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Nothing that matters.”

  “Okay,” he coached. “I think I’ve broken a couple of ribs, so I can’t move this thing, but if you can stand, maybe we can bring you over the top of it?”

  She eyed him doubtfully.

  “We have to try. The police and firefighters will be coming through here in no time, and I don’t want to get taken in for questioning. It’s not going to end well for me once they realize who I am.”

  She blinked at him once with her pretty blue eyes, then nodded in understanding.

  “Okay. I do it.” She put her good leg underneath her with her back against the wall and pushed up. She grunted with the effort, but managed to stand using only the one leg, then she leaned forward, placing her hands on the armoire for balance, her injured leg holding no weight.

  “Are there any knobs or shelves in this thing you can use to help climb on top?” Liam asked. “Once you’re up, I can get you down this other side.”

  “Yes.” Katya looked at her side of the armoire. “Very small knobs on the drawers.”

  “Okay. Put your hands up here as far as you can.”

  She did as he asked, and he grabbed her hands across the wood surface, holding her wrists as tightly as he could, gritting his teeth as pain attacked his midsection.

  “Now, I won’t let you fall, so lean on this thing and lift your good foot onto the drawer knobs.”

  He felt when both her feet had left the floor. She pulled on his arms, and he braced himself, trying to let the armoire hold as much of the weight as possible so his poor ribs wouldn’t burst into flames.

  Then the weight lightened.

  “Okay,” she gasped, balancing with her armpits now up to the edge of the armoire.

  He looked at her, eyes on a level now. “Hi,” he said, giving her a small smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  She stared at him blankly. “You are strange man,” she answered, and he chuckled softly.

  “Probably.”

  “Now what do I do?”

  “Is there another drawer knob higher up?”

  “No.”

  Dammit. He took a breath and let it out slowly, hearing sirens and commotion outside the building. They were running out of time.

  “You’re going to have to let me drag you the rest of the way. Just push off the knob as much as you can, and I’ll pull.”

  She looked less than convinced. “You are hurt. That will be very painful.”

  “I’ll live.” He looked at where the armoire was pressing against her chest. “It’s probably not going to feel so great to you either.” His gaze dropped to her breasts, crush
ed against the wood. “You’re going to take the brunt of this right on your chest.”

  “I have felt worse,” she replied sharply, and Liam shuddered.

  “On three. One. Two. Three.” He pulled as hard as he could, and she skidded up and over the top of the armoire until she was lying on her stomach, balanced on the damn thing.

  “Der’mo!” she spat in pain while she splayed across the hard wood.

  Liam’s ribs were truly on fire now, so as soon as he knew she was stable, he dropped her wrists and stepped back, turning away from her to clutch his midsection and bite the hell out of his tongue so he wouldn’t break down in front of a sexy woman.

  Christ almighty, that hurt.

  He heard movement behind him, and when he finally caught his breath, he turned to find her sitting up on top of the armoire.

  “I jump, and you steady me when I land,” she said.

  He nodded, too far gone with pain to argue or even think of a better way to help her.

  She leaned down and put her hands on his shoulders. He caught a whiff of strawberries when she did, and his gaze shot to hers. They stayed like that for a fleeting moment. Her skin was dusty, but smooth and unblemished. He’d never seen anything like her skin—or her hair. Both were like you’d find in the pages of a magazine, not airbrushed, but real, warm, touchable.

  He cleared his throat and let his gaze drift away. “Ready when you are.”

  The next thing he knew, she was falling through the air, and when she landed, she was on her good foot, body pressed close to his, her hands on his shoulders.

  For a moment, Liam forgot about his ribs, about cops and Russians and the fact his family would be worried about him. All he could think about was that Katya was touching him, and it felt so very right.

  But then he felt her turn rigid, her eyes widening in panic, and he realized he had her pinned, between him and the armoire, and she was injured, as well as fresh out of a brothel.

  He stepped back and turned so she was forced to take one hand off his shoulder. Standing next to her, he said, “Are you ready to go?”