Cormac (Dangerous Doms 2)

I nod. “She can go after breakfast if the guard is with you.”

The women are free to roam our grounds and often only have a guard with them if they leave. I want Aileen to get used to being watched, though. She’s too new here.

“I’m done,” Aileen says with a smile. She points to her empty plate.

Mam finishes her scone and stands. “Let’s go then. The baby’s with his nanny, then, Cait?”

Caitlin nods. I watch as the three of them walk toward the exit toward the garden.

“Good,” Keenan says, as the girls leave. “I want a word with you boys.” He gestures for Nolan, Boner, and Tully to join us as well.

We crowd the dining table, and listen to what he has to say.

“Yesterday, we made alliance with the Martins, as you men know,” Keenan says. “Aileen was delivered to Keenan, after they’d found her, and he punished her. But she bore a black eye from her brother. Damaged.” I hate how he puts it, like she’s property. I know Clan code, I know what he means, but I clench my fist to keep my temper in check just the same.

His gaze swivels to mine. “And we have your word she was untouched? A virgin?”

“Aye.” It’s important she was a virgin when I took her.

“And you proved to the clan she came from she’s no longer a virgin, your consummation’s complete.”

We won’t call the Martins “her clan,” but “the clan she came from.” She’s McCarthy clan now.

“I did.”

Nolan slaps my back. “Well done, brother. Christ but I’m jealous. Bet she was—”

“Finish that sentence, it’ll be your last,” I say. He shuts his trap.

Keenan goes on. “Now that we’ve settled with the Martins, I want as little to do with them as possible.”

“Hear, hear,” I mutter. “Thank Christ.”

“Why’s that?” Boner asks.

“Manky sons of bitches,” Keenan says. “Underhanded. Conniving. Don’t trust ‘em far as I can throw ‘em.”

We may be mafia. We may be feared in all of Ireland, and for good reason. But there’s a decided difference between mobs that bully and mobs that rule. Even as mafia, we see to the needs of Ballyhock with generous contributions to the church and a promise of protection. The residents of Ballyhock know who we are and turn a blind eye to what we do, and for good reason, while the Martins’ locals cower in fear.

“Same,” I say. “I don’t trust them either. What little my wife’s told me of her family confirms this. They’d just as soon kill their own as they would another clan.”

Nolan shakes his head. “And her brother’s a right twat.”

“Acts the maggot on the regular,” Boner says, his lips pursed. “Damn near scuttered at the weekend, took a girl against her will. Club couldn’t do nothin’ about it. Some of the boys did, but he won’t see justice.”

“Raped a lass at the club?” Keenan asks with deadly calm.

“Aye,” Boner growls.

“Glad you busted his arse,” Keenan says to me.

“We afraid of blowback?” Tully asks. “Fuckin’ hope the motherfucker comes at us. I’d like a chance to break his nose myself.”

“I say we catch him, string him up, and take turns like a piñata at a fucking birthday party,” Nolan says, and though his lips tip up his eyes promise vengeance.

The men laugh, but a moment later a woman’s high-pitched scream rents the air. We’re on our feet, weapons drawn, before the echo of her scream dies.

“Garden,” Keenan says. I’m the first though the door. I race toward the garden, but don’t see the girls or mam.

“Aileen!” I shout, looking to my brothers for help.

“Christ almighty, they’re by the greenhouse,” Keenan says.

“Where’s the fucking guard?”

“Calling them now,” Nolan says.

I’m not prepared for what we see.

Thick black smoke pours out of the greenhouse, flames licking at the sky.

“Help!” a voice screams from ahead of us.

“It’s Aileen,” I say to Keenan.

We race to the greenhouse and Nolan calls for backup. We reach them in record time.

What the bloody hell is this? The doors are locked, and it’s going up in smoke. They’re fucking barricaded.

I step back before I lunge at it, trying to knock it down, but it’s no use. They scream louder, while the flames get bigger, hotter. Someone locked them in here and set it to fire, goddamn it.

I take the butt of my gun and slam it against the glass, but it’s no use. The glass is solid. It won’t budge. I look around me for something, anything at all I can use to break the door down.

“Open it!” I scream. “Unfasten the lock!”

“I can’t!” It’s Aileen. “It’s broken. Won’t open!”

“Get the ax!” Keenan shouts. Behind the greenhouse is the woodshed our groundskeeper uses to chop wood for fires in the dead of winter. Nolan’s there before I am. He runs back with it and I take it from him.