We will? Bloody hell, Keenan. I don’t want them to leave. I want them to die.
O’Gregor pales.
“McCarthy clan, assemble,” Keenan shouts. Jesus. We’ve no choice but to obey.
We don’t hesitate and leave our hiding places to join our brothers. O’Gregor narrows his eyes at us.
“You fucking—”
“Hold your tongue,” Keenan snaps. “Your men are responsible for the death of Carson’s Eve.”
O’Gregor swallows but doesn’t respond. Keenan continues.
“You hijacked the opiate trade into Ireland and claimed it as your own. You planned retaliation on our clan, and furthermore, took both my mother, the clan matriarch, and the daughter of one of my men tonight.”
“Did no such thing!” O’Gregor says.
“One of your men did,” Keenan says tightly. Keenan jerks his head to Cormac. “Find them, Cormac.”
“I know where they are,” I say. O’Gregor’s eyes come to me.
Keenan nods. “Can you get them, Carson?”
“No,” O’Gregor says. “I don’t trust him. Send someone else, or negotiations are off the table.”
The son of a bitch doesn’t know how I’ve led them, how I’ve tracked their every move. He has no fucking clue at all.
“I’ll go,” Megan says. “Where are they?”
“No, you will bloody not,” I begin, but Keenan shakes his head.
“Megan can handle herself. Send her.”
I curse under my breath, but I don’t dare defy the Chief. “Church confessional,” I tell Megan. “Inside.” I jerk my head at the church.
One of the O’Gregor men squirms. Fucking bastard was probably the one who took them. O’Gregor glares at his men.
“Who was it?” he asks. The prick was the one who gave the order, and he has the nerve to throw one of his men under the bus like that?
“Me,” a tall, muscled O’Gregor says. “You told me to—”
O’Gregor pulls out his gun and without preamble, shoots the man. His target doesn’t even have a chance to retaliate or duck. Seconds after he was accused, he’s got three bullet wounds in his head, he’s slumped on the ground, and his eyes are vacant.
None of us move a muscle. I hear the sound of footsteps approaching and look toward the church. Megan’s got wee Breena in her arms, tucked up against her, and Maeve is leading the way, eyes flaming.
“You kill your own that easily, do you, O’Gregor?” she fumes. Keenan takes a step toward her to warn her to stop, but she continues.
“Mam,” Cormac begins, heading her way, but she’s fuming.
“You were the one that gave the order to take us. Saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears.” She wags a finger in his direction. “And you’ve got the nerve now to end the life of one of your men for following orders? No wonder they don’t respect you. No wonder you’ve got mutiny on your hands.”
O’Gregor growls and points his gun at her, but he’s got three grown McCarthy men on him. Nolan knocks Maeve to the ground, but I’ve already pulled the trigger. I’ve shot him straight between the eyes. Guy O’Gregor falls to the ground, dead.
I expect chaos to erupt. I expect his men to retaliate, for war to begin, because you do not kill a Chief without hell to pay, but it doesn’t. The few remaining O’Gregors shift on their feet, and one mutters, “Good fucking riddance.”
Keenan looks at me in surprise, but I’m already kneeling beside Breena, gathering her in my arms. Nolan’s got Maeve, and Megan crouches beside them both. I reach for her hand and give it a squeeze.
“Now that he’s gone, we can speak freely,” one of the men says. He’s a tall, ruddy man with a shock of strawberry blond hair.
Keenan eyes him warily.
“We followed the orders of O’Gregor under duress,” he says. He kicks the body on the ground. “Fucking sociopath.”
We all stand attention, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Aye,” one of them says. “He was under the impression one of you was related to him, thought he’d get one up on you. Didn’t have a son, hoped he could get his son back.”
I feel heat prickle along the back of my neck. None of my brothers speak up, but to my surprise, Maeve does.
“He was an idiot,” she says with a scowl. “He spoke of Carson,” she says, jerking her chin my way. “But I have proof Carson wasn’t the son of Guy O’Gregor.”
What?
Everyone stills. What the bloody hell is this? I feel sick, when Megan takes my hand and gives me a little squeeze. I draw in breath as the clouds part and hope blooms within me.
Could it be?
I realize right then that I’m surrounded by the people I love. Breena and Maeve, Megan and Lachlan, and the rest of my clan brothers. I’m not alone in this. It was a mistake to think I ever was.
“We believe you,” one of the rivals says. “And we ask your forgiveness, McCarthy. It’s time we called truce before the rest of our clans lie dead.” He scowls at the body of his former chief on the ground beneath him. “My men and I have been planning to leave this city and go to Boston. I’ve got family there, and strong connections to the Boston mob.”