Omens (The Triad 3)

MOTSHAN

“How’re you feeling?” Niamh asked as we made our way back home.

“Exhausted,” I answered truthfully. “My side hurts, I’m exhausted, and the thought of going back to that tonight to make sure everything will be cleaned up properly makes me wish the bullet had hit its target.”

“It won’t take long. We gave them instructions on what to do, and they left before us. Once we check on everything, we can grab our shit and head to one of the other countless homes this family owns.”

“I own,” I corrected him with a smile. “All mine now that that bastard and his cronies are gone. I say we go to the one in Chelsea. We need to stay close to the city in case Scarlet and the guys need us. And I’m guessing they’re going to want to get the territory talks out of the way relatively soon.”

“What are you willing to give them?” he asked.

“Honestly? Almost anything. Not that I think they’re going to want to take me for all I’m worth, but I’m not going to fight them for a lot. I just want enough to keep the money coming in and give the Dulca name some respect back.”

“I don’t think you should go giving up a lot,” he said, his voice trailing off at the end like he was worried I would take offense. “You got everyone’s trust because you told them you would change the way the family is run, not give up half of their income.”

“I don’t want to give up half of their income, but I’m not going to sit there and argue over who gets that block and who gets another. We’ll make it as even and as fair as possible. And even if we do lose some, we’ve lost enough people in the last twelve hours that the rest of us have plenty to take care of and earn from.”

We pulled into the manor home and stopped in front of the imposing brick structure. It was so strange to be back—to call this place mine after being gone for so long. Part of me wished I could sign it over to Scarlet, leave this godforsaken family behind and go back to Romania.

Sure, I had history with this place and this country, but there was something about Romania that just felt more like home. When I had been sent back to the family, I’d gone to the countryside, not a bustling city. And I missed that quiet. I missed the snowy mountains and ancient castles.

“I don’t know how you ever called this place home,” Niamh said, breaking into my thoughts.

“I didn’t know anything different. When I was a kid, I thought it was my home, my safe place. I didn’t realize it wasn’t until I left and started hearing whispers about how horrible Dulca was and how horribly he was treating Scarlet.”

I thought back to all those times I’d heard the family talking in secret, thinking they weren’t being overheard by anyone. But Scarlet had taught me long ago how to eavesdrop; she was the fucking queen of it. So when I was in Romania, I never missed out on anything.

Even though I wished I had. She was treated like a second-class citizen in this family. She was left out of important meetings, told she didn’t need to know things because she was a woman, and was forced to the shadows. I didn’t know what it was about her that made our father hate her so much.

“When I found out that Scarlet had run away and what she had run away from, I knew it was time for me to start making my way back,” I told Niamh as we sat there in the car. Neither one of us really wanted to get out and start dealing with the mess we’d made. “I was staying with my aunt and uncle, and around the same time as Scarlet leaving, they had begun to tell me things about how they wished the family had a different person in charge. They expressed their grievances about how horribly my father had decided to treat everyone.

“At first, they had tried to pit me against her,” I told him. “But I think once they realized that maybe I could be trusted, that maybe I could be the one to change things, they started changing their tune. And once they knew that he had tried to have Scarlet killed, they wanted to seize that opportunity of the possible unrest it could cause.”

“I’m sorry they took you from her,” he said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it in a reassuring gesture.

“I was fine,” I said, smiling as I turned to look at him. “I just hate that Scarlet was alone while I had a little makeshift family that actually treated me like a human. And I eventually had you.” I winked at him, and he laughed.

“Yeah, that trip to Romania got interesting pretty quickly when I saw you step out of the house.”

I sighed, remembering the first time we met and how I knew instantly all those years ago that he was definitely meant to be mine. Three years since I met him, and he still took my breath away every single time he smiled at me.

“We need to go inside,” I finally said, leaning over to give him a kiss before opening my door and climbing out. He followed, and we made our way inside the house to assess the damage.

A couple of the guys that were cleaning up in the parlor greeted us as we went inside.

“Rest of the crew is getting the rest of the bodies scattered throughout,” David said. “We’re almost done in here. Whatever cleaning crew you have coming in to rip out the carpets and get rid of all the blood spatter will be able to come in by tomorrow.”

“It’s going to be a total rehaul,” I told him. “This place will be closed down for months while we gut the place.”

“Not a bad idea. Get rid of anything that reminds you or the family of the asshole that lived here for so long.”

“May he rest in hell,” Cristian mumbled from the corner of the room.

“I’m going to walk around, make sure no one needs anything, and then we’re heading to the house in Chelsea for the time being. We’ll be in touch, but if you need anything before that, just let me know, yeah?” I looked at them both, and they nodded.

As we made our way through the rest of the house, trying to avoid stepping in the gore, I started taking down all of the pictures that included anyone that had wronged me or Scarlet. Not so shockingly, both my and Niamh’s arms were full of them by the time we had seen everyone and made it to the kitchen.

“Just toss them here,” I said, sitting all of the ugly gold frames on the counter. “I’ll tell the guys to take them out back to the dumpster on one of their trips.”

“Everything seems to be under control here,” he said as he leaned up against the counter and looked around the room. “Why don’t we grab our shit and head to the Chelsea house and get some sleep?”

“How about,” I murmured, stepping into his arms and caging him in with my own against the counter. “How about we go to the Chelsea house, shower, fuck, and then get some sleep?”

He smiled at me, taking my mouth with his in a sweet kiss as he ran his hands up under my shirt and over my hips, careful to avoid the wound that was still very much there and throbbing.

“It’ll be the first time we’ve been alone in a very long time,” he said, breaking the kiss and pulling back to look me in my eyes. “We may not get a lot of sleeping done.”

“Thank god for that,” I growled, kissing him one last time before taking his hand and pulling him through the house.