The Final Hour (Dublin Nights Book 5)

by Brittney Sahin

  Maybe one last kiss, though.

  Sean snatched my arms and crushed his mouth to mine as if he’d heard my thoughts. His tongue parted my lips, offering me what felt like an intimate moment in the midst of a crowd.

  “Love you,” I said once again, softer this time, then abruptly turned and left.

  Once out of the ballroom, I went straight for the men’s room, hoping Peter was still inside alone. I casually slipped my hand down to my ankle beneath the dress and retrieved the syringe.

  I pushed open the door without hesitation and found Peter at the sink, washing his hands.

  Peter turned off the faucet and carried his eyes to meet mine in the mirror. “Emilia Calibrisi,” he whispered, his voice laced with a faint German accent. “You’re even more beautiful in person than in your photos.” He tossed a paper towel in the rubbish bin and faced me. There were no lines of distress on his forehead or around his eyes, clearly not threatened by a woman.

  Lifting a hand, he ran his fingers through his wavy black hair threaded with silver and pushed it off his forehead.

  I ignored him and ducked my head to ensure the private stalls were empty.

  “What? Looking for a good time?” he asked, his tone crass and bullish.

  “We don’t have much time, Krause.”

  “Oh, time for what?” He smirked as his eyes lazily descended my body in appreciation.

  “Soon, most likely tonight, someone will try to murder you. I’m here to keep that from happening.” I returned to the door and set my back to it in case anyone tried to come inside. Of course, Roman’s teammates would most likely run interference were that to happen.

  I only had two minutes, though.

  Peter laughed, his coal-colored eyes flitting over my body again. “I have heard you’re dangerous, and I am intrigued to see what you’re truly capable of. But savior? No, you wouldn’t save your enemy.” He pocketed his hands—an insulting gesture meant to show how little he thought of my abilities.

  “There’s a plot to unseat you from your leadership role. You need to die for that to happen.” My stomach knotted. I wanted to keep Atlas out of this as much as possible. “We have a common enemy at the moment, Luca Moreau. He and your wife are scheming together.”

  He frowned at the mention of Luca’s name. It was the first sign of worry I’d seen so far.

  “I have a plan. Work with me and stick to it, or you will die, simple as that.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He closed the space between us but remained out of arm’s reach. Maybe he did know what was good for him.

  “I’m going to fake your death, Krause.” I showed him the syringe containing a solution that would put him into a deep sleep and slow his heart rate to the point that it would be virtually undetectable. “My men will pronounce you dead, then load you into an ambulance where they’ll revive you. But the public must believe you’ve died. At least for a few days.” Faking a death, a page from Luca’s playbook.

  “Ha.” He pointed to the syringe. “You think I’ll let you stab me with that thing?”

  I never really believed he’d willingly allow it, but a woman had to try, right?

  Before he knew it, I lunged his way, brought an elbow to his face, and kneed him in the balls. A cheap shot, but I was short on time.

  Before he had a chance to comprehend what happened, I injected the solution into his neck. In a desperate attempt to stop me, he shot his hand out around my throat, but it was too late. His grip quickly weakened as the drugs worked through his system.

  He slid down the wall to the ground, legs outstretched in front of him. His head tipped down, and his arms hung uselessly at his sides.

  “Well, you look dead,” I said under my breath just as there was a knock at the door.

  “Peter, are you in there? What is taking so long?” Bridgette asked after first saying something in German.

  I buried the syringe in the rubbish bin just in time before the door flung open. My two minutes must’ve been up, and the SEALs knew they had the go-ahead to let Bridgette discover a lifeless Peter with me by his side—the part of the plan Sean knew nothing about.

  It took a moment for Bridgette to comprehend the sight of me standing in front of her husband’s lifeless body. She blinked repeatedly, the door nearly swinging back in her face. “What did you do? This wasn’t—”

  “The plan?” As soon as I cut her off, she began screaming in panic as she backed up out of the bathroom.

  I exited the bathroom, dropped to my knees, and brought my hands behind my head at the sight of two security personnel hurrying to respond to her frantic calls.

  “The man in the restroom . . . he’s dead,” I told the men on approach, my eyes never leaving Bridgette’s. “And I killed him.”

  “What have you done?” she cried, eyes going to me as one of the guards grabbed hold of my arms and twisted them behind my back. “You-you . . .” Speechless wasn’t a good look on her, and as much as I wanted to clue her in on the fact she was now the one being played, I bit my tongue.

  The guard yanked me to my feet as his partner propped open the restroom door and rushed over to Peter. Bridgette took that as her cue to begin crying, giving everyone an award-worthy performance as the other man announced he was struggling to find a pulse.

  I had to give her credit for keeping up the act. She’d wanted her husband dead. And she got what she’d wanted. Not the way she’d intended, but it’d still work for her plan. By the time she found out my true intentions, it would be too late.

  I glimpsed at The League members dressed in medic uniforms advancing quickly toward us as the two guards escorted me in the opposite direction, past the entrance to the ballroom where dozens of shocked guests began pouring out.

  My gaze cut to Roman, who appeared with Harper, and I gave him a tight nod, letting him know everything went according to plan.

  “Wait.” Sean’s voice carried through the crowd, and I instinctively turned my head his way.

  As soon as our gazes connected, I saw awareness in his eyes. His nostrils flared, and his blue eyes grew darker. He realized I’d done this behind his back, that I hadn’t let him in on the change in plans.

  Pain and sadness cut through my heart like knives, overwhelming me as I witnessed his disappointment and the fear swirling in his irises.

  The guard first yelled in French, but when Sean didn’t budge, he yelled in English to back off.

  “Emilia,” Sean mouthed, agony written across his beautiful face.

  I closed my eyes as we sidestepped him, unable to meet his tortured gaze. The pain I knew I’d caused him tonight was far too much for me to handle, and I was worried Sean wouldn’t be able to look past it.

  I didn’t glance back as the guards hustled me forward, but I dared to hope Sean loved me enough to forgive one more lie. And that I survived to see it happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sean

  My fist slammed into Sebastian’s jaw with a jarring thud, drawing startled looks from the few guests still lingering in front of the hotel as if they were waiting for more excitement. Well, I supposed I just gave it to them.

  “Back off,” I hollered in their direction before reeling my hand back, itching to strike Sebastian again. Based on my throbbing knuckles and the red mark blooming on Sebastian’s cheek, I was certain I hit him harder than I’d meant to.

  Anger burned my lungs as I hissed, “You son of a—”

  But I dropped my words, along with my fist, at the look of sadness and hurt in his eyes. This man was my friend as well as part of our family and hitting him again wouldn’t undo the fact Emilia had just been hauled away by the police. Nor would it magically bring her back.

  I stumbled away from him and reached up to claw my fingers through my hair.

  Sebastian placed a hand on my shoulder and moved me farther away from the hotel entrance. There were still a few uniformed officers on-site speaking to two plainclothes men who I assumed were detectives. I knew as so
on as the front desk informed them Emilia and I were sharing a room, they’d be bringing me in for questioning.

  Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it meant I’d get a chance to confirm her location and that she was okay.

  But what the actual feck happened tonight?

  “The plan was for Emilia to drug Peter, then for Roman to stumble upon him in the restroom afterward and alert hotel security.” I heaved out a deep, worried breath. “Why was she taken away in cuffs? Why did you two change the plan, and why wasn’t I included?”

  Sebastian remained quiet. Calm. Allowing me to come to my senses, but I was out of bloody sorts with Emilia gone.

  Now I understood her passionate goodbye kiss and the I love you before leaving to confront Peter in the restroom. She’d known exactly what was going to happen. How she’d break my heart with worry. And that she might not survive.

  I pulled at my hair and paced the footpath near where Sebastian stood, and then it came to me. The truth hit me so damn hard I nearly struck Sebastian again.

  “She thinks Luca will come for her,” I rasped, the idea sending chills every which way beneath my tux jacket. “She wants Luca to think he has the upper hand.”

  “We’re controlling the narrative,” Sebastian said, confirming I was on the right track. “We couldn’t anticipate when or how Luca would try and lure us to him, but we knew he wanted us in Monaco based on all of his recent antics. Emilia sitting in a jail cell was not what he planned for, however.”

  “So instead of waiting for him to come to us, she set the trap.” Damn it. That very idea had lurked in the back of my mind, but I hadn’t dared suggest it when we devised our plan of attack for Monte Carlo. “You think Luca will take her to the location of The Final Hour?” I went on when he remained silent.

  Part of our original plan was to keep tabs on Atlas to discover the location, but we’d only had theories as to how Luca would draw us out.

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  Sebastian’s lips flattened into a firm line as he extended his arm and held out his hand, gesturing to me as the obvious reason.

  Because I’d say no. I’d refuse to put her in harm’s way. “Where is Luca now? I assume our people have him in their sights?”

  “Luca left the hotel the second he heard about Peter’s ‘death’ and Emilia’s arrest. We’re following him,” Roman announced over comms. Shite, my head was such a mess I’d forgotten I was wearing the damn thing. “It’ll take him time to scramble together a plan to get Emilia out of jail. I’m going to guess he has someone on the inside at the local precinct, though, in the event something went wrong with his original plan to have Peter killed.”

  Luca always had a plan, as well as multiple backup plans, so Roman was most likely right. And it was why Emilia had decided to beat him at his own game and throw Luca a curveball. She was brave, but I was still mad at her for keeping me in the dark.

  “Tell me you planted one of those undetectable trackers under Emilia’s skin.” I set my hands to my hips and bowed my head.

  “The same kind we used on Luca, yes,” Sebastian answered, but there was a break in his voice, which had me lifting my eyes to his face. He was worried, wasn’t he? And that had me on edge even more.

  “And Luca will be expecting that,” I said with a shake of my head. “You want him to find it, don’t you? He’ll think he outsmarted us.” Images of that cocksucker cutting into Emilia to remove the tracker had my palms twitching with the need to hit someone or something. I was my twin brother right now, ready to lose myself in a fight to alleviate my anger.

  But this was the greatest fight of my life—bringing Emilia back home safely.

  “We have Roman and his teammates with us, and Luca will never anticipate their assistance. We’re not the type of people to have drones in the sky, but they are, and they’ve got Emilia’s every move covered. Wherever Luca goes—we’ll be going, too.” Sebastian turned to the side, his gaze moving to the hotel entrance just as Atlas exited. “But there’s one more piece of the plan that I’m a bit more uncertain about.”

  Sebastian looked back at me, then tipped his head toward where Atlas was talking to the valet.

  “You can’t be serious.” I dropped my head in shock when I realized what Sebastian was implying. “Atlas won’t—”

  “He’s her brother,” Sebastian cut me off.

  “Atlas only just learned Emilia is his sister. They’ve been on opposing sides their entire lives. Atlas is one of the bad guys, and he can’t be trusted.”

  “Bad guy is a relative term. Depends on who you’re talking to.” Sebastian was already on the move, heading for the enemy.

  I ignored whatever the hell that was supposed to mean and caught up with him.

  We were about to find out if Atlas would choose his sister over his lover.

  And feck if I felt the odds weren’t in our favor.

  We were still in Monte Carlo, and it’d been almost seventy-two hours since Emilia’s arrest.

  I was thoroughly exhausted. Mostly from fear and worry for Emilia, but also because I hadn’t slept since she’d been arrested, and it was taking its toll. The eyes staring back at me in the mirror of my ensuite were bloodshot. I hadn’t bothered to shave, and my clothes were a wrinkled mess.

  As I’d assumed, I was brought in for questioning by the detectives, and I’d nearly broken down and blurted out that Emilia couldn’t be a murderer because our people were holding a very much alive Peter Krause in an American safe house fifteen kilometers away. I would’ve done almost anything to see her while I was at the police station. To save her.

  But this was what Emilia wanted, and I forced myself to cooperate, to try and accept her decision to risk herself as a means to end Luca and The Alliance.

  I’d repeated the story Sebastian rehearsed with me, and the detective seemed to buy it. Of course, I had to believe there were unmarked units outside the hotel watching me now that Emilia had “escaped” custody. She was a fugitive. Most likely, not something on her bucket list. And did she have a list?

  God, the things you thought about when you were worried.

  Like the fact I understood why she hadn’t worn the necklace I bought her to the New Year’s Eve party, and yet it still kind of hurt my feelings.

  I splashed cold water on my face and tried to conjure up some sort of switch inside my head to turn off the code red signal that had been blaring for three days.

  Last night, the police station had received orders to transfer Emilia—most likely Luca had pulled some Alliance strings—and not even ten minutes into the drive, the unit had been ambushed. Roman watched the scene unfold via drone, so we now knew her location. A heavily guarded estate ten minutes from the hotel, owned by The Alliance leader of Monaco. The man looked like a young Christian Bale, the American Psycho movie version, from what Roman’s teammate, Finn, had said. I had no clue what that meant, but the idea Emilia was in the presence of Luca, and now another psycho, made me want to puke.

  “If he touches her . . .” I began as I caught sight of Alessia through the open ensuite door as she strode my way.

  “I don’t think Luca will harm her in the way you may be fearing. He never did any of those things to me. Yes, he forced me to fight for my life. And even kill.” Alessia’s voice was soft, not as bitter as I expected considering what the bastard had put her through.

  Of all the things that’d gone through my mind since Emilia was abducted by Luca’s men last night, torture hadn’t been one of them. That thought I refused to accept as a possibility.

  “The intel Roman picked up suggests we’ll be getting her back tonight.” Alessia squeezed my bicep. “The Final Hour is sure to be happening soon since Atlas announced his desire to be with Bridgette now that they believe Peter is dead.”

  And if whatever “chatter” Roman heard is wrong, what then?

  “Atlas said none of that, and he blew us the feck off when we tried talking to him.” The conversation with him had l
asted less than a minute.

  We’d explained Luca’s true intentions with Bridgette. Begged him to save his sister and choose the right side in this fight, and then he turned and left us without a word.

  “If he tells Luca we approached him—”

  “Luca will assume we’re desperate. That we know he kidnapped her, and he’ll think he won since he was smart enough to remove the tracker.” She let go of my arm, her big brown eyes, similar to Emilia’s, tightening on me in the mirror. “Blood will prove stronger than you think. Sebastian wasn’t exactly jumping with excitement to let me into his life when he discovered I existed.”

  “Yeah, but you weren’t facing an upside-down hourglass with the sands of time running out,” I grumbled and faced her, crossing my arms.

  “Well, we have a backup plan if Atlas doesn’t reach out before The Final Hour.”

  I hated relying on hopes and maybes.

  “You really love her, don’t you?” She gave me an uneasy smile. “I’m glad she found someone. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to open her heart, but I’m so happy it was to you.”

  “I’m going to marry her. Have kids. A life.” Screw The League and anyone who tried to stop me. And the promise to her father was blown to hell now that we knew she was Penelope’s daughter. So, what was left to stand in our way but Luca and The Alliance? And they were on the verge of going down. I had to remain strong. Believe everything would work out.

  Alessia’s expression softened, but before she could speak again, Roman appeared in the doorway.

  “Got a second?” he asked.

  Alessia gave my shoulder a quick squeeze, and then we left the ensuite.

  Roman was tall, broad-shouldered with dark hair and eyes. His father was from Spain, and his mother from Brazil. Emilia told me his parents had fallen in love and chose to leave behind a life of wealth to raise him and his sisters in the U.S.

  Roman’s attention veered to the open doorway through which I saw his colleague, Harper Brooks, sitting at the kitchen counter and typing away at the laptop in front of her. I’d worked with Harper and Roman before, back in October, and there was an obvious connection between them now as well as then. But from what I could tell, they were exes who still had feelings for each other, or they were afraid to take the plunge and be together. Why am I even thinking about this?