Kyra: The Irishman’s Wife (For The Love Of The Irish Book 2)

by V Vee

  Yeah, that’s right bitches, I know about that shit.

  I tried to shield her from what was in the box, not because I thought she couldn’t handle it, hell, sometimes I wondered if Kyra was more bloodthirsty and brutal than I was, but because I didn’t know if she would be as affected as I was by the sight of someone she knew treated in such a manner.

  I mean, don’t get me wrong, me and the rest of Clan McCarthy get down in the torture game. We actually kind of enjoy that shit—nobody more than Manus, “The Monster”, though. I’ve seen that crazy idiot smearing the blood of a traitor on his arms like the bitch was putting on goddamn lotion. But this was different. None of us had ever tortured a woman before. If we had to kill one, well… we just killed her. Quick and painless. Although now we let Kyra and her crew do it… or rather Kyra says she lets us kill the men.

  But the young lady in the box hadn’t simply been tortured. She’d endured hell from the signs of the ligature marks around her wrists, ankles and neck, she’d been burned, stabbed, cut, had acid thrown on her, sodomized… there was not an inch of her that wasn’t marred in some way, and with her body being dismembered, it was even worse. Every single inch of her had been violently touched… every inch except her face.

  “Why didn’t they mess with her face?” I wondered as I released Kyra and turned back to the box. I heard her harsh gasp and I swung my head in her direction. I’d expected the tears in her eyes, and even the anger, but the darkness that turned those brown eyes I loved so much, black? I took a small step back—along with Manus—before I’d even realized it.

  “There is a mother fucker out there who’s going to pay for this shit right here,” Kyra promised, her tone low and menacing. “Jenafer took this job to help her family. She’s got three younger sisters and a sick mother.” She turned to look at me. “They’re our responsibility now, Drew.”

  I nodded. “Anything you want, K-Love.”

  She didn’t smile or even offer a response to my words, simply spun on her heel and walked out of the room screaming for Michele, Nia, and Harper. Those four women were about to go fuck shit up.

  And I one hundred percent encouraged it.

  Nodding my head at Manus, I knew he understood what I wanted. He was to go with the women. Not to do the job for them, not because they were weak, but just in case they needed a hand, and because all four of those women meant the world to me and three of my men. They had to be protected at all costs. And they had to make it home.

  Or else the whole of Baltimore would be set ablaze.

  Kyra and I made the most beautiful and intelligent babies in the world. Hands down, they were the greatest and would one day rule the world. That wasn’t me their father speaking, this was a rational man who’d seen much of the world, had given false smiles to parents proud of mediocre children, or ugly children, who was staring at two practically perfect “almost” toddlers, who were accomplishing things way beyond their age group.

  AJ, my namesake, was not only a big, strapping young boy of eight months, but at a little bit shy of being a year old, he was already a fierce protector of his deaf sister. Though Andrea didn’t exactly need a lot of protection, really. Not with the parents, aunts, and uncles that she had. My little girl was constantly surrounded by guards, guardians, and everyone who knew how to best help my princess succeed in the world.

  Of course, my love, K-Love, told me that when Andrea got older—when she became a teenager—that she would resent all of my interference and overprotectiveness. I'd simply kissed her forehead and promised to reign it in before Andrea could resent me.

  It was the first time I’d lied to my wife.

  Kyra didn’t need to know that what was actually happening was that I had hired a team of scientists and doctors to figure out how to keep my little princess from growing up altogether. And yeah, I know that shit sounds like something that should be labeled as science fiction and should be airing on like Netflix™ or the Syfy Channel™, but fucking hell, that shit wasn’t going to stop me. I could protect my twins now as babies, but what the fuck was I supposed to do when they got older? When they started going to high school? When they wanted to fucking drive and shit?

  Or what about when AJ wanted to date some fucking skank that Kyra would want to shoot on sight? Or when Andrea—God forbid—wanted to date?

  Oh this was going to be bad. I was going to have to pull a fucking Herod from the Bible and kill every little boy around my daughter’s age…

  Okay, that was too fucking sadistic and evil even for me.

  But still, I had to do something. I wonder how early I could put Andrea into a convent…

  Or hell, how much were chastity belts? I bet I could buy that shit on Amazon™.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Kyra’s voice came from behind me as I scrolled through the Amazon website on my phone.

  I looked up and saw her standing in the doorway of my office, the one which had been redecorated. There was now a door right off the room which led downstairs to another, more “private”, space where I could adequately interrogate certain people. This way my office space was kept “family friendly” and I could have AJ and Andrea there without worrying that they would see something they were too young to.

  I mean, fuck, they’d find out about what their Mamaí and their Dadaí did eventually, right? No sense in giving them a goddamn complex when they couldn’t even walk yet.

  “Don’t think about what?” I asked my wife, trying to feign innocence. I don’t think that shit worked though because Kyra simply rolled her eyes and stepped into the room completely, her hand resting on her small baby bulge. I’d noticed that she was always rubbing or touching it, and when I asked her about it, she’d given me a very considering look before snorting and saying:

  “Well, fuck, Andrew, you rub your belly when your ass is full, imagine how I feel? I’m pretty much full and fucking starving all the time, there’s a real-life person inside of me, growing, stretching, moving my insides, making me have heartburn, gas, making me nauseous, making me have mood swings, stealing my ability to focus, and making me sleep all the time. I can’t bitch at the baby, but fuck if I’m not going to rub the area where they are to remind myself that it’s not that I’m dying or going crazy, it’s that I’m creating and growing life…

  Dumbass.”

  K-Love has put me in my place numerous times since we’ve been together, and usually I laugh that shit off, but that was the first time I ever felt… ashamed? Guilty? Like a big moron.

  It was also the first time I admitted to my wife that men really were dumbasses.

  She hadn’t let me forget that ever since.

  Kyra pointed to the phone in my hand and shook her head before sitting on the floor next to me and tickling Andrea’s belly.

  “You’re looking up fucking convents again, aren’t you?” She guessed.

  I was already shaking my head, feeling pretty smug that she’d gotten it wrong.

  “I am not. I told you I wouldn’t.” Didn’t mean I couldn’t get Galvin or Brock or Ronan to do it for me.

  She gave me an assessing look before she started laughing. “So what are you looking for? How to keep your daughter locked up in her room when she becomes a teenager?”

  I shrugged, not feeling an ounce of shame. “Sorta.”

  I held my iPhone™ out of Kyra’s grasp as she stretched and tried to get it. She laughed and it wasn’t long before AJ and Andrea had joined, crawling and toddling over to climb all over me. I laughed boisterously, tickling my babies, and placing gentle, loving kisses all over my wife’s face, neck, forehead, shoulders and the tops of her breasts, as we all wrestled and rolled around on the floor.

  It was one of the most peaceful, amazingly blissful times of my life.

  So, of course, fucking reality had to intrude.

  A knock on the door before it opened had me looking up, as Kyra and the twins all froze.

  Without a word or even a signal, the twins went back to playing with the
ir blocks and Kyra moved from the floor over to the couch I’d had installed in my office long ago. Just for her.

  I sighed in disappointment, before I schooled my face. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to spend more time with my wife and kids, I knew who the fuck I was. So did Kyra. We had a goddamn city to run. Enemies to put to ground. Fucking blood to spill and money to make.

  In that order.

  I nodded my head at my younger brother, Galvin, who’d shown up to inspect the contents of the box where Jenafer had been discovered, before helping us to clean up the scene and the delivery. I frowned at the scowl on his face, knowing that his annoyance and anger had something to do with Harper and his daughter, Galil. I had to admit it was still a little weird to realize that not only was I an uncle to a little girl who was a preteen at eleven, but that she wasn’t the mouthy, rebellious sort like Nia had been.

  Although Niamh and her unnatural marriage and relationship with Carrick was still a matter that none of my brothers and I wanted to even think about.

  “On my way,” I told Galvin—whom we all called “God”, behind his back usually. Not because of his good looks, because c’mon, all of us McCarthy men were goddamn gorgeous, but because of his attitude and the way he dealt with traitors and criminals. He was a mixture of loving, judgmental, harsh, all-knowing, and powerful. But Harper, the woman he’d been in love with since high school, was all that and more. The woman had the ability to affect my little brother’s entire world with barely a glance. Galvin may be “God”, but Harper was definitely “The Goddess” and everyone knew goddesses were more powerful than gods.

  Putting my younger brother and his drama to the side, I turned back to my woman and opened my mouth to explain… or apologize… when she held up her hand.

  “Just go, Drew. I know what you have to do. For what it’s worth? Me and the girls couldn’t find anything about who sent it or when they’d got Jenafer. We just found Sharon’s body laying on the doorstep of my old place, with a bullet in between her eyes.” She shook her head sadly, then looked up at me with rage flashing in her gaze. “But we’ll get them. Now go, take care of that, and be respectful.”

  I nodded, knowing that of course I would be. Jenafer had been one of my wife’s girls, which made her family. I turned around to leave, but stopped when Kyra called my name. I glanced back over my shoulder, then caught my phone that she tossed my way.

  “And we can talk about why you’re looking up chastity belts for our daughter but not one for our son later,” she teased with a quirk of an eyebrow.

  I simply laughed and followed my brother out the room.

  Chapter Three

  Kyra- K-Love

  I waited until Andrew had left the room before I let my eyes slide close and gave into the emotion which had been riding me hard since we found Jenafer’s body earlier that day. I didn’t cry. Okay, I did, but it was rare that I did. I had never been one to give into the emotion of vulnerability. I could count the number of times I’d cried and most of them had occurred after giving birth to my twins. But at that moment, I knew that no one would begrudge me for the wetness rolling down my cheeks.

  When I felt a pair of small, soft hands touching my shins, I opened my eyes and looked down, not surprised to find Andrea looking up at me with concern. While my baby girl couldn’t hear the world around her, it almost made her more in tune with the atmosphere and the environment, made her more sensitive to others. More than once she would know if someone was upset or if they needed a hug or even if they simply needed to laugh. She was especially in tune with her father, which was probably another reason why my husband was determined to try and buy a chastity belt for his little girl.

  Plus the fact that he’s an overprotective bastard, my subconscious pointed out.

  There was that too.

  I gave Andrea a small smile and bent over to pick her up from the floor, sitting her on my thigh. I cuddled her close, nosing and sniffing her neck, getting high off the sweet, fresh, baby scent. I chuckled when she giggled, the sound causing her twin brother to look up from the blocks he’d been slamming together to check in on his little sister. Realizing she was with me, AJ went back to playing, and my heart once again clenched at the way my son protected and cared for his twin sister.

  There were times when I was so happy that my kids had each other, times when I looked at my husband and his siblings and it made me smile. But each time I did, it reminded me that while I’d had Michele growing up, I’d basically been an only child. Grown up with only myself to play with those times when Michele couldn’t stay over. Being an only child, then an only child whose parents had both died, had truly sucked.

  Though you’re not an only child, are you?

  I frowned at that thought. After we’d dealt with the betrayal of Seamus, I’d taken Charlene’s letter with me, determined to find out if the woman who’d claimed she was my sister actually was. I’d put every single member of my crew, and most of Andrew’s, on that shit. Telling them to bring me every single scrap of information they could find on this mysterious sibling that I had…

  They hadn’t found anything.

  I would have shrugged off her words and chalked it up to the bitch just being fucking crazy—I mean she had to be if she was working with Seamus, right?—but there was just… something that made me want to keep digging.

  It probably has something to do with that letter.

  Mother fucker.

  Was it still considered murder if you killed your fucking subconscious? How did a person do that anyway? Mine had always been an intrusive bitch, but ever since giving birth to the twins, hell, before that, ever since I’d met Andrew she’d been sniping and making snide remarks to me. Making me reconsider things I wouldn’t have given two shits about before, making me question myself and my motives. Trying to make me a better person.

  Intrusive, judgmental ass bitch.

  But she was right, there was just a feeling I’d gotten about that letter that Charlene had left for Seamus that gnawed at me. That got under my skin.

  I pulled the letter out of the pocket of my jeans and opened it. I placed Andrea back on the floor so she could go back to playing with her brother, and placing a hand on my stomach to soothe the unborn child within me that was trying to make me nauseous, I opened the sheet of paper and read the words inside for the fifty-seventh time.

  Hello Seamus,

  You don’t know me and for now perhaps that is best. But one day, you and I will meet.

  You see, my mother and your mother knew each other very well. They were sisters. But my father? My father was unwelcomed by your family because he was black. And he was married. But I am not here to talk about my parents or even yours. Or the sex slave trade you, your father, and your brothers are involved in. Naughty, naughty. No. I’m here to talk about something else. My sister. Kyra Bahmer. Your cousin Andrew has taken an interest in her. And if the two of them get together too many secrets will be revealed. Your secrets. My secrets. And many others. Not to mention they will be too powerful.

  So we must help each other, Seamus.

  You kill your cousin.

  And I’ll take care of my little sister. Besides, I think it’s time she and I met, don’t you? She’s quite beautiful. A little slow to figure things out. But she could be such a problem if we don’t take care of her now.

  Hope to meet soon.

  Yours,

  Charlene O’Sullivan

  I narrowed my eyes as I focused in on the part about secrets.

  Charlene had already pointed out that Seamus and his family were involved in the sex slave trade—something Andrew was still livid about and was going around, or sending his Enforcers out, to handle and put an end to—so what other secrets could he possibly have that would interest Andrew and I? But it was the “many others” part that stuck right in my side, like an errant, stubborn popcorn kernel stuck in my teeth.

  And like a flash of blinding light my nightmare from the night before came back to mind a
nd illuminated a part of my memory that I’d no doubt been suppressing.

  It was the day my grandmother had received word that my mother’s body had been found after the accident…

  “And you’re sure it’s her?” My grandmother asked, wiping her eyes.

  “Yes ma’am, we’re so sorry for your loss,” the young officer said. I couldn’t remember seeing his name, but from where I stood in the hallway listening, I could hear the concern and care in his tone. It comforted me just a bit.

  “And my son-in-law?” My grandmother questioned him, dabbing at her tears with her handkerchief.

  The officer frowned. “Your son-in-law?”

  My grandmother nodded. “Yes, my daughter was on a trip with her husband, Alvin Bahmer. He was with her.”

  The officer shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Thompson, but all of the bodies have been identified, and your son-in-law wasn’t among them.”

  I frowned and clenched my fists tightly, rage unlike anything I’d ever felt before surging through me. I knew one thing in that moment, my “sister” Charlene wasn’t working alone. She’d gotten information about my habits, where I lived and everything else from one source only. From someone who was a ghost. Someone who could move among the community, the city, the state without anyone the wiser.

  Someone who was supposed to be dead.

  Which meant…

  My father was still alive.

  Chapter Four

  Nia- The Baby

  I made sure no one was following me as I stepped out of the nondescript vehicle. I’d left CJ, “Carrick Junior”, with his father and lied to my husband of a little over a year about going to get my nails done. I looked down at my hands and winced. I’d have to make sure that I stopped at a nail salon to make sure my nails had a new look to them before I returned back to the suite of rooms that I shared with the man I loved and the son we’d created together.