Illicit Temptation (Astoria Royals #3)

CHAPTER SIXTY

Shea

E ars ringing from a point-blank shot of a .357 Magnum, I watch Trace fall to the ground.

“No!’ I scream trying to touch him, but Malone quickly grabs my wrist and blasts off the handcuffs.

A powerful bullet disintegrates the link, but a piece of hot metal digs into my vein. The searing pain and loss of blood makes feel like I’ll lose consciousness.

Malone shows no sympathy for me and drags me by my hair into his vehicle. It’s only luck and my long hair that I stay on my feet. Tears clogging my throat and stinging my eyes, I fight to see my husband.

This is when it sinks in. He’s my husband. and he’s been shot.

“Trace! Trace! ” I scream but he doesn’t move.

This animal killed the man I love. He’s dead.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

Malone shoves me inside that jeep, and it takes off while he shouts commands in Gaelic.

“I understand you,” I sneer at him, holding my bleeding wrist.

“I should let you bleed out,” he grumbles, but grabs a first aid kit and does a quick tourniquet. “I’ll bring you to the infirmary when we reach Dunbar.”

“How about a real hospital?”

He glares at me. “Keep. Quiet.”

I breathe through my nose, calming myself. People survive gunshots. Someone has to be helping Trace. I try to think positively, or I’ll lose my shit.

My brothers are expecting Trace and me to be home by the end of the day. When we don’t show up, they’ll come looking for me. Someone in this airport will report two former soldiers dead, shot in cold blood. Malone’s only play is to get behind the walls of Dunbar.

That will take hours in a Jeep, we’re so far north.

But at the far end of the army base, a helicopter waits.

Fuck!

Once I get on that thing, I’m trapped for good. Sure, he used his military power to get on this base, but he can’t have everyone in his pocket. I can still yell and scream even if he beats me after. Someone, anyone with a heart can report it.

With me under his arm, and holding an UZI, Malone steers me to the helicopter. Four men surround it dressed all in black wearing riot helmets with tinted visors.

“Who... Who are these guys?” My brain is shot, as I fear I’ll be assaulted and passed around.

“These men work for me,” Malone sneers. “They’re wanted criminals. I can’t risk someone recognizing them.” Malone waves his gun. “Get me the hell back to Dunbar.”

Where he’s the Lord.

“Put this on, Miss,” a man with a softer Irish accent I’m used to hearing at home says above the whir of the blades overhead.

He drops a jacket on me that’s insanely heavy and bulky in the back. Once secured and zipped, he grips my aching hand and leads me into the cargo area while Malone heads to the front to pilot the helicopter himself.

Seconds later, we lift off and power away from the airport. Blades of tall green grass below bend in the wind, and I take deep breaths to consider my next move.

But I’m empty. For once, I can’t fix this problem with the usual schemes, tricks, and charm that I use on my clients. I can’t help myself. Staying quiet and curling into a small ball will get me through this.

For a brief moment, I catch something out the window. A bird, maybe? Oh my God, it will be sucked into the propellors and break a blade. No Miracle on the Hudson today. There’s nothing but rough terrain below.

The four darkly-cloaked men sitting with me give each other hand signals and next, I’m on the floor of the helicopter with them dogpiled on top of me.

“ What is happening?” I scream, but my voice is drowned out by insanely loud metal dinging on the skin of the helicopter.

Shattering glass explodes all around me.

The helicopter pulls up, twists around, and then falls into a steep nose dive while Malone screams.

I look up in horror to see his head hanging off his body and blood everywhere. Someone killed him. But he’s the fucking pilot!

One of the men on top of me pulls me toward the door and opens it. That’s when I catch it.

That wasn’t a bird. It was a drone. But it zips away like a Quidditch Snitch.

That same man yells at me, “Come on!”

“What?” I yell back. “Where?”

“We’re jumping.”

“Jumping! I can’t—” I don’t finish that because my jacket’s outer layer is ripped away exposing...

A parachute.

I refused to go skydiving when Larke invited me. Not that my brothers would let me if they found out. But now I have no choice. No training. No coaching.

“Pull this when I tell you.” The man closes my hand around the ripcord.

A tight grip around my hand tugs me and then... We’re falling. Tumbling in the air. I feel everything I’ve ever eaten jostle around my stomach.

“Now!” the man says, still holding me by the waist, the sting in my ribs from the last time I was abducted aching.

I tug hard and the chute opens, but I’m immediately propelled back, slipping from his grasp. His opens a second later, and he’s got me in his arms again.

My emotional wall collapses, and I start to weep. My bones and my skin feel disconnected. I might have even peed in my pants.

The man clips me to the front of his body, putting us in a tandem position, and then cuts my chute away. We dip briefly, my stomach ready to revolt. He maneuvers his chords and barks instructions in my ear as we come close to the ground.

But I tumble anyway, tangling limbs with this stranger who saved my life.

We’re on the ground, but seconds later, he’s pulling me up. “We’re over here!” he yells to the others who’ve also landed.

“Who are you? Where are you taking me?”

“Home, lass.” The man pulls off his riot helmet and a tumble of shaggy auburn hair shakes out, falling rakishly over a handsome-as-hell face.

“Griffin!” I yell at him, pounding my fists against his chest.

“It’s me, lass.” He hugs me.

I can’t stop the tears, even if I feel so completely safe right now. “Who’s...” I start thinking maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe I’m dead. “Who’s that with you?”

The other men lift off their helmets.

Connor, Shane, and Rhys Quinlan smile. Why are they smiling? Trace is dead. Maybe we’re all dead!

“You okay, lass?” Shane asks me.

“No!” I bellow. “I’m not okay. Trace is back there. Shot. Bleeding out. He may be dead, we have to go back and get him.”

They stare at me and for a second, I worry, they’ve come to bring me straight to Las Vegas.

No, no, no .

I turn around and run, but I don’t get very far. I’m tackled in the tall dry grass.

Kicking and screaming, I twist around throwing punches. “Get the fuck off me!”

“It’s me! Shea, stop!” The guy who tackles me screams and crushes me against his chest.

His smell overpowers me. I know that smell, the feel of those arms. It’s Trace. But how?

“You bastard!” I stare in amazement like I’m seeing a ghost.

Trace grips my shoulders. “Miss me?”

“No. I hate you, remember.” I grab his jacket anyway and bury myself in his chest.

“Argh.” He winces.

“What? How?” I don’t see blood. “How are you even alive? You were shot in the chest!”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he opens his coat. “Bulletproof vest.”

I smack the indentation from Malone’s bullet. “What about me?”

“I knew he wouldn’t kill you.” He strokes my cheek. “He tried to kill me once and wouldn’t hesitate again. I told you, he wanted you. You were no use to him dead.”

Everything spins, and I remember the damn Quinlans are standing there. We all just jumped out of a helicopter that crashed a few miles back.

“How did you get here, Griffin?” I ask him, Trace still holding me.

“Lachlan called us last night. We got in the air immediately.”

“Balor and I hacked Malone’s phone,” Shane says, all serious. “I found out he got tipped off about your cargo plane arrangement.”

“We found his shite team waiting by the bird,” Connor adds. “We tied them up and put them in a hangar. Stole their jackets and masks.”

The Quinlans show loyalty to my brothers right to the very end, risking their lives for me.

Lachlan is in the hospital with his wife.

Darragh and Cormac are dealing with my mother.

The rest of my brothers are probably holding down Kieran, who would have given his left nut to fly here and rescue me himself.

In the end, they sent the Quinlans.

I’m... I’m one of them.

“I’m texting Balor right now that we got you,” Shane says.

“Drones. I saw a drone?” I ask Trace. “Whose was it?”

“Ours. They were in that duffle bag I had,” he says. “Malone didn’t bother to check it or grab it. Denton had a courier drop them off in town when I went for supplies.”

“Who steered the drone?” I ask, letting myself be pulled toward another vehicle.

“I did,” Trace says. “I knew these brats wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“How did you get here?”

“Someone from the base gave me a car.” He looks down and chokes up. “Fucking Rowan.”

“You avenged him and his brother.” I grip his jacket. “We’ll deal with it when we get home. I’m here for you. You got me .”

“We need to get out of here.” Shane points to the black smoke billowing in the air from Malone’s downed chopper a few miles away. “First responders will show up any minute. I’m not the only person who can pull images from satellites.”

“Car’s this way.” Trace grips my hand, as we get into the SUV in a parking lot behind a warehouse.

Inside, Trace kisses me, letting his cousins do the rest of the work to get us out of here. “I love you, princess. ”

“I love you, enforcer.”

“Call me your husband.” He pushes our foreheads together. “ Claim me.”

“I love you, my husband.”

“Forever. I told you I wouldn’t let you go.”

“Where are we going now?” I say, feeling ready to pass out as all of this catches up to me. “How do we get home?”

“We got you,” Griffin says, looking very proud, driving the car we all crammed into.

We reach an airport outside Waterford and from a private hangar, a sleek silver jet rolls out that reads: Quinlan Empire.