“Motherfucker!” I bellow, turning my gun on Rory.
He stands his ground. But at least the traitorous son of a bitch has the decency not to look me in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs just loud enough to be heard over the clacking of my guns coming to aim at him.
Rhys runs towards Collin and helps him stand. At least he’s got one good leg to rely on.
“Sorry?” I growl at him. “You’ve been with the clan since you were practically a teenager. We’re friends.”
“You haven’t been around, Cillian,” he says. “I had hard choices to make.”
“And you made the wrong ones.”
“An alarm call went up when you first stormed the gates,” he tells me. “If you’re not out of here in three minutes, this place will be surrounded. Not just Kinahans. The entire force, too. Murtagh has all the cards now, Cillian.”
I shake my head with disgust, but I don’t doubt the sincerity of this particular warning. The sense of betrayal washing over me will soon need an outlet. But there’s no time for it now.
“You know something?” I say quietly—almost as much to myself as to Rory. “My father always says life isn’t a game. Hell, everyone says that to me. But they’re wrong. Life is a game. And you chose the wrong fucking team.”
I take a deep breath.
Behind me, I hear Rhys yell my name to alert me of the approaching jeep.
It’s time to go. For me and for Rory alike.
He looks up at me finally. Eyes baleful and full of something. Maybe regret, maybe not. I’ll never know for certain. I know only one thing—it’s time to do what a don must do in a situation like this.
I squeeze the trigger and cut down the traitor where he stands.
The jeep comes to a squealing stop behind me and a door is thrown open. I jump in and someone tugs it closed again.
No one waits for a command. The engine whines and then we’re driving out of the same gates we broke down mere minutes before.
I gaze out the window as we go until I lose sight of Rory’s ravaged body cooling in the dirt of the Cavern.
That’s another thing ordinary people don’t realize about a fight: it can happens in minutes. Seconds, even.
But time slows down when you’re sparring with death.
I feel like I’m a decade older than I was when we arrived.
* * *
“Fuck,” Rhys’s muted curse catapults through the relative silence of the jeep. “Rory. Fucking Rory!”
“I suspected a mole,” I admit. “But I never even thought of Rory. Collin, mate, you hanging in there?”
“It’s not so bad,” he grunts, but there’s a thick layer of perspiration on his brow that suggests otherwise. His leg is a mess of blood and every bump in the road brings a fresh moan to his lips.
I’m about to order someone to call in the doctor when the screech of tires draws my attention down the road.
“Fuck.”
I glance behind and realize that we haven’t even cleared the gates of The Cavern.
Apparently, back-up has shown up earlier than expected.
I look out ahead at the windshield. “How many?” I ask.