Survival & Revenge (Boston Latte Book 3)

by Fiona Keane

  I tightened my hold around her, moving us both so I stood over her. The pant of her breath, the raspy moan of Aideen’s release as I lowered her onto the desk of a stranger, destroyed every muscle in my body. Blood rushed through my swollen veins, invigorated by the angel whose head dangled behind her with an arched back that pressed her heaving chest into mine, both of us glistening with the dew of longing. I felt her wings spread around us, the strength she fed my skin with the demand of her body against me, healing wounds my soul hadn’t yet fathomed. I was so overwhelmingly addicted to and in love with Aideen.

  She clung to my biceps, the pain of her fingernails seducing my arousal as Aideen called out for me once more before her body went limp in my arms. Leaning forward, I tightened my hold around her, lifting my left hand to clear the wisps of hair that covered her flushed cheeks.

  “I love you,” I whispered into her hair, inhaling the scent of her as though it truly would be the last memory to which I would cling. Aideen nuzzled against my chest, her fingers crawling to grasp my tie before she pulled my mouth to hers, our lips swollen and hungry.

  “I loved you then,” she whispered into my mouth, her tongue licking my bottom lip, “and I love you now.”

  The door rattled behind us, and I felt her heart skip a beat against mine. Objects scattered around us in the darkness as two potent explosions blasted through the theatre walls. It was a sound familiar to me, familiar to us.

  “Is—” Aideen stammered while she clutched the buttons of my shirt, her fingers rising with my panting breaths. I guided her from the desk, not caring about the shit left scattered around us.

  “Yes,” I told her, zipping my pants and fixing the knot of my tie. She watched me in the darkness, reaching out for me with trembling arms. Aideen’s muffled sobs hid beneath her hands as she fell into me.

  “I want to take you away from here, babby.” I held her as if it were my last chance to breathe. “That wasn’t how I…this isn’t…I need to get you out of here. You need to find Liam, and I can’t…”

  “You can’t come with me,” she acknowledged, slinking from my hold despite its tightness. “At least you gave me a parting gift, Julian.”

  There was chaos outside of that dark room, lit by the dull pulse of intermission lights calling terrified patrons back for the second act. In the soft glow, I watched Aideen slip once more from my grasp as she cracked open the door.

  “The second act,” she uttered, revealing more of her emaciated, bruised figure in the light. “We know how this story ends…don’t we?”

  “It’s our second act, babby,” I pressed, willing her to have the strength to continue, wishing only that I could carry her out of there in my own arms.

  “Goodbye, Julian.”

  My lungs felt ragged as I fought tears, powerless to contain and protect my love as she left the room, slipping into the crowd of people morbidly eager to see what exploded. I pierced my top lip between my trembling jaw, frozen as she blended into the mob. Curious thought, Julian. That was precisely what happened; my girl was bright as a flame, rising like a glorious phoenix, blending in with the…mob. She knew what she was doing, and I stood like a bastard salivating at the thought of how all I wanted was to submit to her on that stranger’s desk once more.

  I crept into the hall, my head high, as I followed a path down a winding staircase and out of the theatre. People circled crackling flames halfway down the block, remnants of white paint and car parts speckling the street. As I approached, jaw tight with realization, I listened to the pop and hiss of the fire. There are no sirens.

  “Julian!” Someone called for me, but my ears rang with the piercing sound of the small, white car’s engine erupting once more with a flame engulfing whoever stood within striking distance.

  “Julian!” she repeated, this time clutching my forearm. I knew in my periphery the sparkling wrist and fur wasn’t Aideen; it wasn’t even Noelle. Too conveniently, it was my own sister. When sirens still refused to accompany the sound of the exploding car and my sister appeared from the shadows, I understood it was an inside job. The police were paid off to coincidentally be elsewhere in Boston, and my sister just happened to…

  “Oh my God!” Maureen screeched, lunging forward. Instinct called me to restrain her, my gaze following her direction.

  “Maureen,” I demanded, finally finding my voice, the air of my words flavored with Aideen. “What the hell are you doing here?” She squirmed from my hold, running toward the flames but stopping shy of the figure stumbling from the opposite side. He was unscathed, but his palms hung open before him as though a precious gift fell from his grasp.

  Liam’s wide eyes lifted to mine in the distance while I restrained our frantic sister, and my gaze followed the sparkle of an object in his left hand. With Maureen in my arms, the fur of her coat swallowing her while she flailed, I paused within feet of him. He quietly raised his empty hand toward me, forbidding my passage with a halting palm. I studied him, ensuring he was intact before I noticed the car keys dangling in his other hand, accompanied by a ruby bracelet. I followed his quick glance to the ground, understanding Maureen’s horror hadn’t been about almost losing Liam, but the woman who an hour before informed me Daddy had a personal jeweler.

  “Where is she?” I demanded, my voice low and deadly. Liam blinked. It was his car, Noelle was dead, and Aideen was nowhere to be found. He better have a fucking clue. Maureen bellowed a sob in my arms, screaming Noelle’s name before running back toward the theatre.

  “And what the fuck is Maureen doing here?”

  Liam was eerily still. His lips twitched into a smirk I wanted to slap from his arrogant face. I clenched my fists, struggling to find restraint.

  “Noelle followed me from the theatre once I left you.”

  “Her father gave Maureen the ring, Liam,” I hissed, reaching for the collar of his coat, twisting it in my tense fingers.

  “People are watching, Julian,” he whispered, slowly guiding my hands from him. “And, as far as they know, your fiancée just died in an explosion. They don’t know her father gave your sister a ring used to track your mistress.”

  “They don’t know our sister has no concern with Daddy groping her ass,” I snarled, slapped in the face with the final pieces of our puzzle. “They’re here, Liam. Maureen and Edward. They did this.” He nodded to the sidewalk as onlookers gawked and gazed, filling the space between us and the smoldering pile.

  “Why would they kill Noelle? Why a bomb in my car?” Liam pressed once we were tucked into an alley.

  “Where the fuck is Aideen?” I demanded, knocking a fist into the brick wall next to Liam’s face. He didn’t flinch when I brought my bloody hand back into my possession. Steam rushed from my ears, fogging my vision as Liam placed his hands on my shoulders to stabilize us.

  “Listen,” he whispered, shushing me with his eyes lifting upward. “Do you hear that?”

  “You’re insane! I knew I couldn’t trust you,” I roared, shoving my shoulders from his hold. Liam shook his head, ignoring my comment, and flicked my ear while repeating himself. I heard it, the familiar sound of our city, sirens blaring in the distance as they approached from afar.

  “They’re too late. They had to have been paid off, Liam.”

  “Sure,” he agreed, “at first, to give your girl a moment to fry. They knew all along, Julian. Their eyes are everywhere. Do you know what I did tonight, brother?” He stepped away, arms crossed and head hanging despondently while he paused. Nothing silenced that bastard.

  “Enough of your games, Liam. Aideen is somewhere out there, without either of us!”

  “I screamed her name, Julian. The second Noelle saw me and sauntered over to my car like a desperate cat in heat, I screamed Aideen’s name. I shouted her name so goddamned loud, knowing they’d hear it because I knew they tailed us here. They knew you two were meeting. It was foolish and risky, but you and I play dirty. We always have. I screamed your babby’s name so they’d kill her on her way to
me, knowing all along she was still with you. Inside.”

  Liam’s head fell backward, his face exposed to the moonlight, before he started laughing. “Who calls for reinforcements when their nest is rattled?”

  “A…bird.” My voice cracked. I covered my mouth with my left hand as I paced the alleyway. “You took an innocent life, Liam.”

  “Did I?” He carelessly shrugged, eyes narrowed at me. “Casualties of war.”

  “Noelle was pregnant,” I said through the fingers covering my mouth, uncomfortable with the guilt I felt.

  “That’s on their hands, Julian. I wasn’t the one placing the bomb, pulling the cord from my hiding spot behind a fucking bush! Bird called the cops when she got to our meeting place. She’s safe…for now. Christ, I need a coffee.” I looked up and he was gone, already running down the alley to another sidewalk on his journey to my girl.

  Chapter Nineteen

  AIDEEN

  I jumped over smoldering embers, too familiar with their potency, while trying to search the rubble. I couldn’t understand the urgency I felt to find Noelle. She was obsessed with Julian, part of the dynasty threatening his life, yet I mounted burning rubbish in hopes of finding her. It was like the explosion from weeks ago, in which my body trembled and ears numbed beneath the piercing buzz after the bomb.

  As I approached Liam’s car, its interior melted to a bubbling goo, I was captivated by the bright flames spraying from the engine. Time would kill me before the sparks and embers settled further into the gas tank, but I froze. I was trying to listen, hearing only the scream of our past piercing my eardrums.

  The baby. What happened to her baby?

  An ache pulsed in my thighs from Julian’s weight against me before the explosion. I backed away from the crackling fire, knowing what he needed me to do. I dropped the heels and collected the hem of my dress, lifting the fabric above my knees so I could run across town. The cloak of night provided enough cover for me to slink between oblivious pedestrians, my bare feet slamming the pavement without regard for the filth covering my skin. It was an evening of air touched between winter and spring, warm enough to survive, cold enough to die, but I had one thought coursing through my veins: Julian.

  The flavor of his passion clung to my swollen lips. Each kiss he burned into my skin left a tattoo of his yearning, warming my body as I fled. I came to a stop, clutching my chest at the intersection outside of my coffee shop. Traffic buzzed on the street while I tucked into the shadow of an awning. I was struggling to breathe, each gasp for air sending me into sensual flashbacks of a moment suspended in my soul for eternity, on the desk of a stranger. I balanced my weight with my left hand pressed against another building, watching the traffic signal change before swallowing the past and marching across the street.

  We couldn’t have told Julian where Liam and I planned to meet. He kept the distance required by his family’s law, but the coffee shop left us vulnerable, and I imagined he already planned on wringing Liam’s neck for bringing me to the theatre…even after…It was incredible.

  The shop might have exposed Liam and me, but its predictability was our leverage. Julian and Liam knew it was monitored by the Feds. The theatre wasn’t. Anyone could get away with a crime inside a space unsupervised by police, even if they weren’t the sort paid off with Molloy money.

  I jogged along the sidewalk, lining my path up with the building next to the coffee shop, hoping to arrive from the alley and remain out of sight. I memorized the building, knowing well which lights were on for decoration and which meant someone was inside. Everything was off, even the blue glow from the router with a flash normally visible from the street. How long has it sat here? It was depressing to think the dream Elliott and I shared shriveled so quickly, everything coming to a violent, tragic end. Not me. Not us. The garbage bins in the alley were empty; I could tell by the lack of odor normally wafting from their swollen barrels. The pile of newspapers wrapped in plastic tossed just outside the back door was my answer. I knelt to count the stack. Nobody had been there in days. I wondered what happened to Matt, praying he escaped unscathed, wondering if his existence was a lie like everyone else’s in my life.

  Squatting in the alley, time flashed before my eyes, exposing the scattered images of a life lost, a life promised, and all vividly full of the man who moments before rewarded our souls with the sensual suspension we had desperately craved.

  A quiet melody whistled in the alleyway, and I froze, scanning the ground for anything I could use as a weapon. Nothing. It sang around me once more, the exposed skin of my neck fanned with terrified goosebumps when fingers slowly grazed my hairline.

  “They bought it.” The heat of Liam’s breath tortured my skin with an explosive tickle that came through each syllable he produced.

  “How did you get here so fast?” I whispered, turning only my head to peek over my shoulder at him. He was lifting to stand from behind me, his distracted gaze studying the exterior of my shop.

  “They blew up my car,” he pouted. “I loved that fucking thing.” I joined his height, his eyes immediately falling to mine. Liam scanned the length of me and opened his arms with his head cocked to the side. I fell into him, letting his embrace warm the air around me while everything inside burned with Julian.

  Liam’s fingers caressed the back of my head, twirling softly in loose wisps of my hair. He inhaled deeply, pulling from me the stagnant aura of a past I never forgot, the past before I knew. “You’re different,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head.

  Sirens whizzed by the alley, an ambulance first in the line of emergency vehicles that tore through the street. Even though we were in the dark, Liam pushed me against the brick wall, his palm covering my mouth until the final siren echoed in the distance. I didn’t realize he held his breath until it fiercely blew into the air around my left ear.

  The original plan was to get back to Liam’s, to finish sculpting the perfect end for everyone else, but without a car and our legs weak from bounding across town with the devil in our shadow I wasn’t sure what was next. Casualties. We had one night to prepare for the Senate hearing. One night to wreak havoc on the tormentors holding our lives like vile marionettes.

  I flinched at the sound of metal canisters falling opposite the door…from inside. I memorized the symphony of my second home and never had tea cans fallen from the back shelf overnight.

  I lifted my palms to Liam’s sharp jaw, catching him off guard as his brows furrowed, and I stood on my tiptoes to whisper in his left ear. “Someone’s inside.”

  “Well, bird,” he turned, kissing the pad of my thumb, “let’s kill them.”

  “Every single one.” Julian’s promise left my mouth without a second thought, his words like a sweet gloss on my lips to which I was hopelessly addicted. I glanced once more at Liam, receiving a stern expression that chilled my soul. It was the façade I fell victim to when my body and mind shattered in their imprisonment, ruthless, lethal. I fought the impending urge to expel the only scraps I could keep down during the day and entered the security code at the back door. Liam’s hand stealthily turned the doorknob as the latch unlocked, ensuring a sound wouldn’t be made as we opened the panel and entered.

  I pressed myself against him, linking my arms around his right bicep as he cracked open the door and squinted to peer into the darkness. Following his perplexed stare, I noticed the repeated reflection of light glowing from multiple tin tea canisters scattered on the floor several feet away. Liam’s arm tightened against his side, securing my hold around him and causing my gaze to shift to him. His eyes widened with a gloating grin that would have otherwise weakened my knees.

  “Liam?” His eyes shifted to mine in response, his hand leaving the doorknob as he quietly pulled us into the backroom of my coffee shop. The frantic grunting accompanied by rattling shelves overtook the sound of coffee beans falling to the floor in a waterfall. A squeal and hiss swirled into the air, its own molecules sweltering with the oppressive scent of their int
imacy. Clinging to Liam’s arm, I squinted through the dark space to identify the woman clinging to a metal rack, her legs folded against the back of her partner. His back was bare and his pants clung to his ankles in their hapless attempt. It’s not intimacy. It’s…Emma.

  Liam peeled my piercing fingernails from his arm, leaving me at the door while he approached the couple as though he was entitled to the moment of voyeurism. I stuffed the small rubber stopper beneath the panel and cautiously observed Liam’s movements: the grin he hid behind long fingers, the way his lips folded inward to prevent his disgusted laughter from bubbling forward, all before his demeanor shifted once more to the man in my cell. Emma’s gasp for breath crackled beneath a muffled scream as Liam’s left fingers secured around her throat. Her partner stumbled backward in the darkness, naked as the moment his demented soul entered the world.

  “Emma.” I gasped, watching the man scrambling for his clothes.

  “Edward,” Liam growled, his tone viciously slicing through the air. “Banging a Daly, eh?”

  “Liam, let her go,” I shouted, horrified at watching Emma’s eyes roll into her skull with only the hold of his hand, forgetting for a moment she was caught with Edward Regan throttling her against a rack of spilled coffee beans. He obeyed, leaving argument for the man who I knew only had moments to live. I flipped on the light switch near the door, capturing the bright morbidity of their character. Liam, beautifully poured into his tailored clothing, crisp and unfazed despite destruction at the theatre. Emma, cowering below Liam in only her bra. And Regan, frantically reaching for his scraps of clothing while Liam lowered to meet him kneeling on the floor.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Liam paused to laugh at his words, giving me a moment to consider Edward in detail. His hair was in disarray, the pieces once restrained by gel stuck out in a wild mess. The hue of his fading orange tan appeared to glow beneath the ceiling light. As he reached for the button down shirt on the floor, I saw black. Red. A violent flash of light rippled through my head, piercing tissue in my brain and welding the missing links.