The world spins — actually spins — around me.
“Doctors in this town are so cheap to buy off, you know. Heart attack?” Mick snorts. “Nah, your pops was healthy as a fuckin’ mule, actually. Well, until me.”
The cry wrenches from my throat, the sob shattering through my body as Mick strips the last of me away. Because now, he’s taken everything.
I break then — the last of my will and my fight shredding away as the darkness comes up to claim me.
Mick moves in close, bending down with his hands on his knees and his poisonous mouth near my ear.
“Me, Aela,” he hisses. “I took it, because it was mine to take. Your father never saw the potential for growth here, and those fucking cowards in Dublin never saw it either. It was nothing personal with Jack, just the right move I had to take. It was business, you understand.”
“Sheila,” I choke out, sobbing.
“Oh, her?” Mick chuckles darkly in my ear. “Oh, now that was all personal.”
I sob, remembering the day of the phone call — remembering watching my father’s heart break as we buried her.
“Yeah that was real personal,” he hisses wickedly. “The way she used to fight me at first, before I gave her that first hit?”
He chuckles, and something inside of me snaps.
It’s the way he brushes off the pain he put me and my father through, the way he so cavalierly laughs at the torment and addiction he brought down on Sheila.
It’s the way I’m not ready to stop fighting. Not fucking yet.
And that’s when I explode.
My legs are cramped from the trip in the van, but I make them react as I shove off from the floor, throwing the full weight of me and the chair crashing up into Mick. He roars as my forehead catches him in the face, toppling backwards with me smashing down — chair and all — on top of him.
I scream as the plastic ties dig into my wrists, blood dripping down my arms, the gag choking around my neck. Mick swears, shoving me off of him, but I lash out with my heel and catch him in the ribs as he reaches for the gun. He roars, reaching again, and I’m pulling with everything I’ve ever had inside of me at the binds. I’m straining, and screaming, my legs flailing around as the ties on my wrists cut deep, before suddenly, the back of the chair gives with a sharp snap.
Arms wrenching, I scramble to free myself of the shattered chair, gasping as I pull the choking gag from around my neck and whirl towards—
…Mick, on one knee with blood dripping down his face, a gun leveled right at me.
“Goodbye, Aela,” he hisses through clenched teeth. The hammer cocks on the gun. “Say hi to your pops and that sweet sister of yours.”
I close my eyes.
I think of the man I love.
I hear the shot in slowed-down-time — the dull roar of the explosion and the metallic ring of the bullet leaving the barrel. I’m flinching in slow motion, my hands flying out as if to stop the bullet as I cringe at the impending impact.
It never happens.
I slowly open my eyes, and sight comes rushing back to normal speed as I see Mick lying on the ground clutching a bleeding shoulder and screaming.
I whirl, gasping at the sound of more shots, and people yelling and running towards me, when suddenly, he’s there.
Suddenly, Liam’s right there, crouching down to scoop me into his arms and bury his face in my neck. I’m crying, clutching at him tightly like I’m afraid he’ll blow away as the sobs come heaving and raw.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers in my ear, his strong arms holding me tight against him. “I’ve got you, and I’m not letting you go for a damn thing.”
He rocks me there in his arms, letting my tears soak his shirt, and all the rage and sorrow explodes out of me as I scream into his chest.
That’s when I hear the whimper on the floor behind me, and that’s when something snaps inside.
I’ve yanked the gun out of Liam’s belt before he can stop me, shaking his hand off as I stride over to Mick, pull back the hammer and point the thing down at his face.
“Aela!”
Blood roars in my ears, a deafening, thundering rumble that almost drowns out the sound of Liam’s voice. He’s shaking his head slowly as I glance back at him, Connor, Damian, and Eamon standing behind him.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says, his voice muffled through the jet-engine whine of the rage and the blood coursing through my veins.
“Yes, I do.”
The words sound a million miles away from my own body — coming through a fog or something as my fingers tighten on the heavy gun in my hand.
“There’s always bringing him, and letting justice—”
“Saints do their own justice.”
I turn back to the simpering, cringing Mick lying on the ground at my feet.
His eyes go wide.
My arm flexes as I bring the gun up, and my fingers tighten around the trigger.
The thundering rushing sound goes pin-drop silent in my ears, and the whole world shrinks to just my eyes locked on Mick’s.
“This is for my family,” I whisper.
I turn away as I squeeze the trigger, feeling the gun thunder in my hand.
And then it’s over.
Liam’s there as my legs give out and the gun drops from my hand, catching me, pulling me into his arms and holding me close as I just melt into him.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers again and again into my ear as my fingers tighten on his shirt.
“Ms. Reilly.”
Eamon’s voice cuts through the silence of the room after a minute, and I freeze in Liam’s arms.
Suddenly, the reality of what I’ve just done sinks into me, and all my words about “Saints doing their own justice” suddenly sound like a flimsy excuse for having just killed the leader of the Boston chapter.
Slowly, I pull my face from Liam’s chest, and turn to face the music.
Eamon’s eyes are steely as he looks at me calmly. “It appears you’ve done my job for me.”
I frown, watching the smile creep at the corners of his mouth.
“The Kings have never really been on board with Mick’s custodianship of the Boston operations. Your father did a world of good over here, but his one shortcoming was keeping that inglorious piece of garbage around.” Eamon spits at Mick’s body.
“If I may speak for the Kings — and it is my job to do so — I believe you’ve done us quite a favor removing Mr. Flaherty here from the equation.”
I shake my head, the shiver rippling down my spine. “But I thought—”
“You thought I was actually here to watch you marry Tommy Flaherty?” Eamon’s lips turn up in a smile. “I told you before, the Kings see everything, Aela. I was never here to watch you sink to Mick and Tommy’s level, Aela.” His eyes narrow. “I was here to watch if you’d rise above it.”
He glances at Damian and Connor, then at Liam, still standing behind me. I feel his hands move to my arms, steadying me.
“It would appear that Boston is without leadership at the moment.” Eamon smiles curiously. “Luckily, Dublin has already voted on its choice of succession.”
His eyes move to me, and he smiles as the gravity of what he’s implying slowly spreads over my face.
“What?”
“Your father was a very good man, and a very good leader. And it’s my opinion that the apple has fallen quite close to the tree.”
“Me?”
He grins. “Unless of course you’d like to go back to counting cards and avoiding Italian restaurants?”
Liam chuckles behind me.
“You can think on it, of course, but know that you’ve got the full support of Dublin behind you on this.”
I shake my head. “You want me to run a crime organization?”
“I want you to run this crime organization. And so do the Kings.”
On instinct, I turn back to look at Liam. His eyes flash as that cocky smile spreads over his face. “I assu
me the position entails living in Boston, as opposed to say, California?” He’s addressing Eamon, though his eyes are locked right on mine.
“You assume correct.”
Liam’s brows perk up. “Well, you’ve got my support then.”
I smile curiously at him. “You’re serious?”
“I’m a serious kinda guy.”
“You know I’d be your boss if I did this.”
“I think we’d see about that.”
That grin spreads, his eyes flashing dark fire at me, and I bite my lip as I let him pull me against him.
Eamon clears his throat, startling us out of staring at each other. “Well, I assume I can take this little public display of affection as a ’strong maybe leaning towards yes’?”
I hesitate, swallowing thickly, when I feel Liam’s lips brush my ear.
“Say yes.”
I turn in his arms, chewing at my lip. “Look, there’s a lot we—”
“Aela, shut up.”
My brow goes up with the smile teasing my lips
“All you need to know is that I fucking love you, I’ve never stopped loving you, and come to think of it, I’m probably going to go ahead and keep on loving you forever.”
My heart pounds in my chest as my eyes lock with his.
“Probably going to, huh?” I sigh dramatically. “You want to give me the over-under odds on tha—”
“It’s a sure bet.”
“Well in that case,” I whisper as he pulls me close. “I guess it’s fair to say I love you too.”
He kisses me, and everything else just floats away. I sink into those lips, feel his arms pull me tight, and the sins and baggage of the past just go.
Epilogue
Liam
“You ready?”
She looks ready.
Fuck, she looks like she was born for this role. And in a funny sense of it, she was.
See, here’s the thing about being the head of the Boston chapter of the Dark Saints, and this is the thing that Mick never got — it’s not about being a gangster. It’s not about being the “top thug” or the baddest motherfucker around. Actually, it’s about being the best.
It’s about being a leader. And that, Aela Reilly has in spades.
“I’m ready.”
We’re in the back storeroom at the still-being-patched-up Burren, with Connor, Damian, and the rest of the captains awaiting the first meeting of the Saints with Aela at the head of the table.
No more bullshit. No more secret agendas. No more “inner circle.”
I think we’re all on board with that.
So Aela’s the boss now. Well, the boss on the job, and with the Saints. There are other places — more private places — where I’m the bossy one. Like our bedroom, where I tell her exactly when to come.
So far, it’s a pretty good balance.
Things aren’t perfect, or totally back to normal yet after the way things went down. In fact, Tommy and about half of Mick’s inner circle disappeared from Southie the night Aela shot Mick, and haven’t been seen since.
The other half? Well, they’re being sorted out, but most of the guys who stayed just thought they were being loyal to the Saints when they were carrying out Mick’s bullshit orders. And when they heard they’d been played and heard that the bombing and the kidnapping and all of that had been Mick?
Well shit, most of them wanted to go personally hunt down Tommy and the rest of them on the spot.
Aela jumped right into her role, both feet forward. Two days after her would-be-wedding night, she personally sat down with both Vadim and Bujar, and got things on the level. Neither of them had any real interest in going to war with the Saints, and they were both pretty open to keeping lines of communication open.
Oh, and those guys I beat the fuck out of at Rose’s? Turns out they were just random scummy dudes. And they were Ukrainian, not Russian.
My bad.
“You look ready.”
Aela grins, blushing as I reach out and tuck an errant lock of her hair behind one ear.
“Can you tell?”
She means “can you tell that I just got fucked hard up against the door with my legs around one of my captain’s waist while he made me come no less than three times.”
I say just that out loud to her, and her face goes crimson as she punches my arm. “I’m serious!”
I grin as I pull her hard into me and kiss her fiercely, tasting that moan on her lips as she melts against me. “No, you can’t. But if we don’t get out there soon, I promise you, I’ll do that to you all over again, and this time, they will be able to tell.”
Her eyes flash as that flush creeps across her freckled cheeks.
“Oh you promise, huh?”
“You might want to stop tempting me if you ever want to get out there for that meeting.”
“I could order you to do whatever I want, you know.” Her lip catches in her cheek as she arches a mischievous brow at me.
“You could,” I growl as I suddenly push her back against the wall, making her gasp and seeing that spark glint in her eyes. “Or I could order you to turn around, pull those panties down to your knees, and put your hands on the wall.
The spark catches, and the fire roars in those big brown eyes.
My cock throbs.
Yeah, we’re going to be late for this meeting.
We’re definitely going to be late.
Somehow, I get the feeling the boss won’t be too upset with the situation.
The End.
Well, except this isn’t really the end! If you’re not quite done with Liam and Aela and want to get a glimpse of where they go from here, I have a very special extended bonus epilogue available for my mailing list members only!
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Hard Rock Promise
by Athena Wright
Chapter 1
Deafening music boomed from every speaker. The pulsing rhythm vibrated in my chest. Uproarious laughter and sensual murmurs combined into an indistinct buzz of voices. Smashed glass crunched underfoot, sharp edges threatening to poke through the soles of my ballet flats.
A buff, shirtless guy danced on the table, rippling ads on display for grabby hands. Girls in bikinis with hair twisted into knots on the top of their heads gave wet hugs to whoever was within reach. Graffiti adorned the no-longer-pristine off-white walls with so-and-so was here, and couples' names drawn inside lopsided hearts. A drink can went flying across the room, spraying the party guests with fizzy liquid, causing squeals and cheers.
I took in the spectacle, wide-eyed. I hadn't thought much could faze me anymore. I was wrong.
"Who's going to clean up this mess?" I asked aloud.
"Is that really going to be your first question?" asked my friend Natalie. "Not, where's the alcohol? Or who's that sexy guy doing a Magic Mike performance?"
"I hope someone's paying for a cleaning service to come in tomorrow."
"The answer to those questions, by the way, is on every available surface and I have no idea but I want to find out."
"Who's house is this?"
Natalie shrugged casually, avoiding my eyes. "I dunno. I just followed the gang when they told me we were going to a party."
I side-eyed her, suspicious now. "Is this a frat house or something?"
Natalie laughed and gestured with her arm. "You think a frat could afford to live in a multi-million dollar mansion with sixteen rooms and an Olympic sized swimming pool?" She shook her head. "It's probably some rich, bored guy's place."
I took in the front foyer, ignoring the mess and concentrating on the decor with marbled floors and ceramic busts on pedestals. "Is that a Fabergé egg?"
A trio of young guys choose that moment to burst through the doors, in the middle of what I assumed what an impromptu game of football. The ball went sailing through one guy's fingers and smacked into the egg, sending it crashing to the floor.
<
br /> "It was a Fabergé egg," Natalie said.
"I'm leaving."
Natalie grabbed my arm. "You can't leave. You haven't even had a drink yet. Or scribbled your name on the wall. Or gotten laid."
"Since when are you so cool with this kind of excess? I thought you were normal. Like me."
"Since I started dating Morris," Natalie said simply. "It's part of the rock star lifestyle."
"Rock star?" I stopped in my tracks. "I thought you said this was some bored rich guy's place."
"Morris might have said something about the house belonging to one of his friends," she said, faking nonchalance.
Natalie's boyfriend Morris Edwards, drummer for hit rock band Feral Silence, had been my friend even before he'd become famous. I hadn't thought this kind of party was his thing, either.
"I thought Morris was normal, too."
"Gotta keep up appearances. I'm sure he's in a corner somewhere keeping an eye on the band to make sure they don't crack their heads open or pass out in the pool. Besides, I thought you worked part-time at Walt's. This can't be much worse than a dingy biker bar."
"Walt keeps the guys in line. Broken beer bottles and sticky tables are the worst I have to deal with."
Which reminded me, I'd been meaning to ask Walt for a raise, or see if I could take on some more shifts. My rent was going up next month, and my car was on its last legs. I needed a quick infusion of cash or I'd be out on the street soon.
"Just one drink, Jessie," Natalie urged. "It'll be fun."
I gave up. Maybe she was right. A night of debauchery would get my mind off things. "One drink."
"And you have to say hi to the gang," she added quickly.
"Fine, I'll say hi."
"And take a dip in the pool."
"I didn't bring a swimsuit."
"Not a problem." Natalie pointed over my shoulder to a group of girls wearing soaked, see-through bras and panties. "Everyone else is living it up. Why not let loose for just one night? You can't be the responsible adult all the time."
Despite my misgivings, I couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Everyone else looked like they were having a lot of fun. I'd been stuck worrying about making rent and paying the bills for weeks. "Okay, fine. I'll drink and party and be merry."
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