My stomach heaves, I whirl-
And I catch those eyes.
His eyes.
My stranger.
The man I kissed.
The man whose lips I lost myself in.
The one who’s holding a gun - the same gun he’s just used to shoot the man running from the room.
My voice catches, and suddenly, he’s striding towards me, and this time, it’s not sexy dangerous, it’s just fucking terrifying.
“No! Please! I-”
Those powerful arms go around me again, but I’m not falling into him this time. I’m not losing myself in those eyes and opening my lips for his tongue this time.
This time, my scream is catching like ice in my throat as he spins me around and yanks me hard against his chest, his arms wrapping tightly around my throat.
I try and scream, but the sound won’t come. I try and fight, but it’s like I’m drowning in ice water as the fear comes up to wrap its fingers around my heart.
The gun goes to my head.
“Not a fucking sound,” he growls.
His arm tightens around my throat, and he kicks the door shut.
“You just walked into the wrong fucking room, princess.”
Chapter Three
Connor
I frown as I step into the bar, eyes scanning the packed room of hipsters and college kids. It’s been a slow build over the years, but it still throws me off to see a place like the Rusty Duck actually having customers. Let alone ones that are willing to pay five bucks for a shitty beer poured by a salty bartender who hates them, because of irony.
Jesus Christ, kids today.
Back when I was a kid, this place - and really the rest of Southie - was a fuckin’ dump. And I don’t mean a cool dump, I mean a legitimately terrible bar that even scummed out the scumbags.
I have absolutely no idea how the fuck they stayed open all these years, but the recent slow creep of gentrification in this neighborhood has suddenly brought business to their front door.
Fuckin’ hipsters.
I tighten my jaw as I shoulder my way through the crowd, pushing guys with ironic facial hair and girls showing more skin than they should in this neighborhood out of the way.
I hate that the meet is set for this place, tonight of all fucking nights. It’s been damn near eight years, and I’d still just as soon erase this date from the calendar year.
Tonight is supposed to be a peace talk, but still, there are entirely too many people in this place for this to be happening here. A glance at a neon piece of paper taped to a grungy wall tells me there’s a band playing here tonight - a bunch of young guys who look like they’re trying entirely too hard to look tough.
And it’s not even this place that’s got me annoyed at this fucking sit-down, it’s that I hate meetings in general. I don’t do meetings, and that’s usually more than understood by people who know me.
Fucking Ukrainians.
I keep politics out of my job. The only times I give a shit who’s got a beef with who is if it affects me, or the Dark Saints, or my ability to do a job. Under any normal circumstances, I couldn’t give less of a shit about Anton Boiko - the head of the Ukrainian presence in Boston - having a bone to pick with the nephew of Vadim Petrov, the head of the Russian syndicate. I mean, I understand at a base level that Ukrainians and Russians get along about as famously as my Irish roots and the English, but that’s where my giving a shit about geopolitics ends.
Until it affects my neighborhood, that is. Until Vadim, who the Dark Saints have a truce with, and Anton, who we don’t, start tracking their bullshit blood feud through Southie.
Then it becomes my business real fast.
And seeing as I’m a captain these days, it falls on me to be the one to sit these assholes down and get this shit sorted out.
It’s also on me because of the three head captains, I’m the only one who both parties involved will actually meet with. Liam’s still on the shit-list with Anton after getting in a bar brawl with a couple drunk Ukrainians a few months back, and Damien - well, Damien has a way of putting his dick where it doesn’t belong, and Vadim’s nineteen-year-old niece is pretty much the definition of “where it doesn’t belong.”
So that leaves me. Tonight. Dealing with fucking politics.
I’m no diplomat or smooth talker. Hell, I’m not even much of a talker at all, because not being a talker goes a long way with what I do for the Saints.
I’m the fix-it man. No, I don’t mean leaky sinks or squeaky doors. I’m the guy you call when you need a mess taken care of. I’m the guy that gets rid of the evidence, who cleans up the bodies, who makes the problem go away.
And somehow, it’s on me to negotiate this peace agreement.
Wonderful.
Of course, we couldn’t have this meeting at a quiet, out of the way place. No, we’re at a goddamn rock show. Yes, this place was picked for it being neutral ground - the fact that it’s on the edge of Saints’ territory and not actually affiliated with us. But still. Someplace that wasn’t full of people might be a better setting.