Deadly Oath

31. Kian

31

KIAN

I see the moment that hits home. Sabrina reels briefly, then shakes her head. “I don’t know what that means,” she whispers brokenly. “But I’ll find out. I’ll?—”

“You’ll find out nothing ,” I snap at her. “You’ll stay here, in this room, for the next nine months. You’ll be a good girl, or I’ll make things progressively more unpleasant for you, until you learn to behave. Your days of being a spoiled, pampered fucking princess are over, Sabrina Petrova. It’s time to take the fate that should have come to you in the first place. It’s time to pay for the hurts your freedom caused others.”

I’ve been rehearsing those words for so long. I thought about what I wanted to say to her on the drive to the airport, on the flight here, on the ride to the estate. I felt my skin crawl every time she touched me on the way here, felt myself winding up for the moment when I would shatter her world, just as I planned, just as I’ve so carefully set up. The moment when I would pull the rug out from under her.

It was supposed to feel satisfying. Like victory. But instead, I feel hollow. Like I’m rehearsing a speech I learned but am no longer sure I believe in. Like I’ve followed a plan to the letter, only for the moment of success to fall flat.

Sabrina looks miserable. Broken. Grief-stricken and terrified. Everything I saw in my sister’s face, when she was found. Everything I wanted Sabrina to feel, everything I’ve nurtured in my cold, stony heart since the day Ailin was brought back to me. And yet?—

Spoiled, pampered princess. That was what I had expected to find, that day when I showed up at her door, beginning to put the wheels of my plan in motion. And during that first conversation in her kitchen, when she looked at me over her coffee mug with cold suspicion, I thought I had found exactly that. The woman I’d expected to find, when I set out to hunt down where Sabrina Petrova had gone, so I could make her pay for what had happened to the woman kidnapped in her stead. My younger sister. The only woman I’ve ever loved in any way, the only one I ever swore to protect.

Until I stood at an altar and made those vows to Sabrina.

They weren’t real. They’d been lies from the moment they came out of my mouth. So why is guilt flooding me now, sending sweat prickling down my spine, making my stomach twist and the hate I feel turn in on myself? Why do I feel like I’ve tormented something innocent, like I’m some kind of monster who has broken a woman for sport?

That’s what I’ve done, but she deserved it. It’s her fault Ailin suffered.

Isn’t it?

For a moment, I can’t say anything else. Sabrina is crying too hard to speak. And the moment of victory that I thought would eclipse all the others feels like I’ve stabbed myself with my own knife.

Because you know, Sabrina isn’t what you thought she was. She isn’t some cold ice queen who would gladly have handed your sister over to save herself.

I shouldn’t have taken the time to get to know her. I should have given up on the part of the plan that involved wooing her, making her fall for me, and going straight for the heart instead. I should have brought her here, gotten her pregnant, and waited to take the child from her. That would have been revenge enough.

And then how would you have been any different from the men who took Ailin? How are you any different now?

It’s as if all of that is only hitting me now, too late, when I’ve already played out my plans to completion. I’ve been able to think of nothing but blind revenge since the moment Ailin was brought back to me, since I found out what happened to her and how shattered she was by it. I went heedlessly for the only person who I knew was vulnerable to me, the person I could strike at without consequence, and now?—

Now, I feel as if I’ve been caught in my own trap. I got to know Sabrina, while I was playing small-town sheriff. While I was making her fall for me. I found out that she can be self-conscious. That she can be funny. That she cared what the other people in town thought of her. That she liked pumpkin coffee and couldn’t figure out how to use a kitchen appliance without burning herself or her house down.

I found out that she could be tender. Gentle. That she expected so much less than I thought she would and gave so much more. That she wanted things I thought she would have scoffed at. That she was willing to work for what she wanted. That she was eager for choices of her own.

I found out more than that, too. That she wanted me, genuinely—even thinking I was nothing but small-town law enforcement. That she was ready to settle down with me in a nowhere town, because it meant she got to choose her own future. That she could match my desires in bed. That she had the same lusts.

From the way her hand is splayed protectively over her stomach, I think she wants the baby that we made together, too. I don’t know why she hadn’t told me until now, but I don’t think it was because she suspected something. I think it was because she was saving it for the right moment. A romantic one, maybe, for a honeymoon that she believed I had planned.

She trusted me. I hadn’t expected to care. I hadn’t expected for that to hurt. For fuck’s sake—I made her trust me. I engineered all of this. But all I feel, looking at Sabrina’s swollen eyes and tear-stained face, the way I’ve so thoroughly broken her exactly as I planned, all I feel is guilt.

I feel like I’ve become nothing more than the same monsters I shot dead, when they were brought back to me along with Ailin. Not all the men responsible, not the one who hurt her directly, not the man I wish I could kill over and over again. Not the one whose face I imagine every time I beat a man bloody in the fighting ring. But two of the men guarding her. The ones my men were able to get ahold of. And I took them apart bit by bit, making them pay in blood and flesh for everything their employer did to my sister. It still wasn’t enough.

Shouldn’t it have been enough?

My world feels more unbalanced than it did the day after I married Sabrina. I’d been so sure of everything, and now I feel as if my foundation is crumbling, as if I’m questioning everything I was so certain was right.

I back up towards the door. I can’t question myself here, in front of her. If I do, I’ll lose the power over her that I’ve worked so hard for, that I’ve done all of this to get.

“You’ll stay here,” I bark out again, and as she lets out another shaky sob, I yank open the door, striding out into the hall and closing it firmly behind me. My guards have instructions not to let her out of the house, and I have plenty of security, cameras, and otherwise. If Sabrina tries to roam the house, someone will see her soon enough, and send her back up to her room.

I consider going down to the second floor to see Ailin, to let her know that I’m finally home. But I don’t know that I want to see her in this state. I need to calm myself down before I see my sister.

She has no idea that Sabrina is here, of course. She hasn’t left her room since she was brought home, so I’m not concerned about them running into each other. And Sabrina won’t happen upon her room, either—I feel confident that if she tries to leave her room, she’ll be intercepted quickly.

I never told Ailin what I was going to do, about my plans for revenge. It’s not the kind of thing I would talk to my sister about, and besides—I think I knew, deep down, that she’d think worse of me for it. That she wouldn’t want me to hurt someone else because they should have been the one in her place. Ailin was always sweet and gentle, which is part of why I think what happened to her broke her so thoroughly.

She wouldn’t be happy about what I did to Sabrina. I know that. And that guilt worms through me again, making me wonder if I was wrong. If I made a terrible, unforgivable mistake.

No, I tell myself firmly, striding through the house to the front door, clenching and unclenching my fists. I need space, that’s all. Time away from Sabrina and her insistence that none of this is her fault. I need blood. I need the release of violence, the feeling of my fists sinking into another man’s flesh and bones, and I know exactly where I can get that.

I tell Evan, the man in charge of the household, to call around for my car. Mine , a ‘72 Charger that I like to drive when I want to be out on my own, without a driver or bodyguards. It pisses my security off, sometimes, that I give them the slip, but right now, I don’t want company.

I want to be alone with my own seething thoughts.

I know at this hour, my closest friend, Sean, will be at the club where we host fights. It’s a brick building nestled back off of a few turning roads, about forty minutes away, well past the manicured estates that my family mansion sits among. There will be someone there who will be eager to trade blows with me, and right now, like a man who needs a cigarette or a drink, that’s what I’m desperately craving.

I drive well over the speed limit getting there, but it doesn’t matter. If I’m pulled over, no cop who sees my identification will give me a ticket. I was shielded from the law when I played at being a sheriff for a little while, and I’m shielded from it now, by virtue of being the most powerful member of the Irish mafia from here to Boston.

Ironic, if I think about it long enough .

I wonder, as I drive, what Sabrina is doing. If she’s still crying. If she’s tried to test the bounds of her imprisonment. If she’s given up and gone to sleep, despite it being the late afternoon. As much as I wanted to get away from her, she fills my thoughts anyway. The guilt comes with her, nagging at me until I start to feel frayed and raw at the edges.

Sean can see how temperamental I am, I think, as soon as I walk in the front door of the old brick building. We bought the place and fixed it up together, turning it into a spot for the fights that we and others we knew enjoyed. Good, rough fun, the kind that had nothing to do with power or enemies or business and everything to do with gambling, making a bit of money, having a drink, and taking the edge off. The interior is clean and cool, one side roped off for fights, with thick mats covering the fighting area. Around it is a second roped-off area, for the crowds watching, and a door on the far wall leads to an actual locker room, nothing like the makeshift shed that was used at the warehouse outside Rivershade. To the left is a bar, industrial style, with a long metal counter, Edison bulbs above it, and stools surrounding it with red leather tops studded with nails. A pretty red-haired woman with freckles spattered over her face is tending it today—Casey, I think her name is.

“Brother! I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.” Sean is off his stool in an instant, heading for me to clasp me in a rough hug, clapping me hard on the shoulder. He has no idea what, exactly, I went off to do either—only that I was gone for a while on business. “Got everything squared away then?”

“Aye.” I run a hand through my hair, heading straight for the bar. “Casey. A beer, if you don’t mind. Guinness.”

“Coming right up.” She flashes me a wink, and goes about pouring my beer from the tap. Sean sits down on a stool opposite me, grinning as he always does, smiling brightly against his ruddy skin, ginger hair, and green eyes.

“You here for the fights tonight, then? You’re a good bit early, but there’s plenty on the card tonight. I’m expecting quite the turnout.”

“I’m here to be in one, if you’ve got the room.” I accept the beer from Casey, taking a long draught of it. “I need to burn off some steam. Get my knuckles a bit bloody.”

“There’s always room for you on the card.” He claps my shoulder again. “I’ll go and adjust things around a bit. The boys will be excited to see you’re back, even if it means one of them goes home with a broken nose tonight.”

He jumps up from the stool, a man with the giddy energy of a cocker spaniel, and heads for the door that leads to the back office—such as it is. It’s one of the smallest rooms off of this main one, with a metal desk, an uncomfortable chair, and a safe wedged into it. It’s not as if this is my most lucrative business—just the one I enjoy the most.

As much as I’d like to dive headlong into several Guinnesses, since I’m fighting tonight, I take it slow. I sip at the one in my hand, enjoying being back on familiar, comfortable turf, and I try not to think about Sabrina. I focus on the fight that I’m itching to get to, on the night ahead, on the fact that I won’t get to see her again until tomorrow at the earliest.

I won’t have to see her again . I repeat the sentence in my head. That was what I’d meant for it to come out as.

As the hours wear on, the building starts to fill up. Sean lets me know that I’m the fourth fight on the card, and I eat early, polishing off a burger with bourbon glaze, mushrooms and onions, and fries, giving myself plenty of time for it to settle. I watch the first two fights before I head back to the locker room to change, watching as the crowd warms up, betting intensifying as the fights go on. That itch for blood, the need for the release of violence, had faded a little once I arrived here and settled in, but it comes back as I head to the locker room, the anticipation heating my blood. The other nagging thoughts fade away, and my focus is on what comes next, on my opponent, on the expulsion of all the chewing rot inside of me right now that makes me feel as if I’m going to lose my fucking mind.

“Let me hear you all make some noise for Kian McNeill!” Sean shouts as I come out into the ring, his voice echoing over the speakers, and the crowd starts to shout, screaming and cheering and stamping their feet. “What a nice surprise, coming back to give us a real show!”

My opponent, a man about three inches shorter than me but a good bit wider with muscle, eyes me nervously all the same. He likely wasn’t expecting to fight me, and is also likely rethinking his position in all of this. But there’s no backing down now, as the bell rings and we go in on each other.

Bare-knuckle, like always. Fists against flesh, against bone, against noses and teeth and ribs, the two of us fighting the way God and nature intended. No gloves or pads or protective equipment here, just two men scrapping, looking to see which of them can best the other. And before the fight’s even barely begun, I know it will be me.

Desmond, my opponent, is bigger than I am, but he’s slower. He’s never seen me fight before, either, like he probably has seen the man he expected to go up against. I’ve never seen him fight either—I’ve never met the man before; he’s not a regular—but he has the unfortunate habit of telegraphing his moves before he makes them. A twitch of the hand before he’s about to swing, a glance of the eyes in the direction he’s going to go. And time and again, I dodge his attack, just to hit him squarely with mine.

His size means he can take the hits. But three rounds in, I have him on the ropes, bleeding from his nose and his mouth as I pummel his ribs, the violence overtaking me. He doesn’t give in, trying to get back into a fighting stance, trying to land a hit, but I never give him a chance. And when I clock him squarely with an uppercut to the jaw, I see his teeth clack together, see the blood spurt from his mouth as he bites his tongue, and he slumps down to the mats.

I pivot, raising my bloody fists to the screaming crowd, jubilant with the adrenaline of the fight and the feeling of the win. This is the sensation of victory I was missing earlier. This is the thrill I needed. This is the release that I craved, and now I can go back home, and deal with Sabrina with a clear head?—

Sabrina .

I see her, standing in the crowd. I think it must be a trick of the mind, another delicate blonde, some other woman that I’m mistaking for her because she’s on my mind. But I blink, and she’s still there, her face set in furious lines, her gorgeous blue eyes narrowed in on me. And as she pushes her way through the crowd, right up to the ropes at the edge of the ring, there’s no mistaking her.

Somehow, she’s here.

I turn on my heel, and bolt for the locker room.