Redeem Me (Beckett Brothers #2)

1. Caelon

Chapter One

CAELON

June

It’s been seven hundred and eighty-four days since my wife died. Two years, one month, and twenty-four days of unescapable wrath, rage, and an unquenchable thirst for revenge. No amount of whiskey, wine, or nameless, faceless women have been able to provide an escape – believe me, I’ve tried.

Though truly, I don’t deserve an escape.

I deserve to spend the rest of my life consumed by Isabella’s death. If she hadn’t married me, she wouldn’t have been caught up in the violent feud between my family and the O’Connors, a feud that’s spanned generations. She’d still be living, breathing, laughing, loving.

‘Perhaps it’s time you went home.’ James, my older brother, pushes a crystal tumbler towards the redhead manning the black marble bar, but I snatch it, clutching it like a lifeline.

We’re in the darkest corner of Elixir, Dublin’s trendiest new bar. At thirty-four, I feel too old for trendy, but Dermot, my best friend, convinced me to meet here. The place is wedged, the music’s too loud, and the drink is overpriced, but it beats bumbling around a house that, no matter how many people visit, will always feel empty.

‘I’m not going anywhere.’ I raise my voice over the music. ‘Dermot’s on his way. I haven’t seen him in weeks.’

Other than my four brothers, Dermot is my only friend. We met five years ago at an exclusive gentlemen’s club, but he’s the friend I’d phone if I needed help hiding a body. The friend who would swear on the Bible I was with him any time and every time. The friend who consoled me through the guilt and shame the first time I fucked a woman after Isabella died. The only person, other than my brothers, who has a key to my house. He’s my ride or die. And tonight, I’m in desperate need of a ride.

A short-lived lust-fuelled high. A hot body to press against my cold heart.

I lean in towards the barmaid. She’s pretty. Curvy in all the right places. Big green eyes. She’s no Isabella. No one is. But I could sink into the softness of her skin, shut my eyes, and pretend for a while.

A love like I shared with Isabella only comes around once in a lifetime. I’m not stupid enough to look for it again. The only thing I’m looking for is to kill the bastard responsible for her death. Not just the pitiful excuse of the drunk, drugged-up human, Danny Bourke – the man lying in a coma after ploughing headfirst into Isabella’s Range Rover so hard and fast that we had to have a closed coffin funeral. I want to kill Jack O’Connor, the man who put him up to it.

But first, I want to see him rolling on the ground, writhing in agony, pleading for his miserable life.

I want to torture him for days, weeks, maybe even years before I even contemplate ending his suffering, because my suffering will never end. And the prospect of violent vengeance is the only thing keeping my frozen heart beating. That, and our two children, Owen and Orla. I do my best for them. It’s nowhere near good enough, but I’m nowhere near the man I used to be.

Since Isabella died, we’ve been through eight nannies, nine goldfish, and approximately five hundred takeaways. I’m not proud, but we’re alive to tell the tale.

James exhales heavily. He nods to the barmaid to fill up my glass with Beckett’s Gold, our family’s whiskey, and the original source of our family wealth. We’ve branched out since my grandfather’s time, but the whiskey empire continues to generate the majority of the family fortune.

‘I’ll have one more, but that’s it. Scarlett will string me up by the balls if I’m not home in time for the dream feed.’

‘You have enough staff to start your own army,’ I remind him.

‘She insists on doing everything herself.’ James rolls his eyes, but his lips curl upwards at the mere mention of his fiancée’s name.

‘Who the fuck even are you?’ I turn to my brother, formerly the country’s hottest billionaire, and the playboy starring at the centre of multiple sex scandals, which involved several company employees. Now he’s with Scarlett, he’s like a fucking teddy that Barbie put together in a Build-A-Bear factory –big wide smile, starry eyes, and a laugh that’s almost infectious. Almost, unless you’re the most miserable, grumpy, hateful bastard on the planet, which, in case you haven’t gathered, I am.

James and Scarlett have had two babies in two years. The minute the first child vacated her vagina, he banged the next one in. The entire world knows my big brother can’t leave his fiancée alone.

I remember what that was like. How, no matter how many times I had Isabella, it was never enough. Envy blooms in my chest, mingling with the wrath and rage, intensifying my need for revenge.

‘I’m your older brother, and the man who promised our mother I’d get you home in one piece tonight. But if Dermot’s on his way, I’ll pass that responsibility onto him.’ James tosses a hundred euro note on the counter and tells the barmaid to keep the change. ‘Any luck finding a new nanny yet?’

‘The agency’s sending someone on Monday.’ I snatch my drink up to my lips and down the contents in one mouthful before handing it back for a refill. The redhead hesitates, glancing between James and me.

‘Try not to terrify this one,’ James sighs, nodding at the barmaid to pour.

A gaggle of giggling women flock towards our dark corner, nudging closer. James glowers in their direction and they simultaneously step back.

Cock block. Even a miserable man has needs.

I tear my eyes from the women and meet my brother’s stare instead. ‘I wouldn’t have had to bite her head off if she was any good at her job.’ Truthfully, none of the nannies were the right fit for our family. I doubt anyone ever will be.

‘Look, I don’t need to tell you that kids need stability. Especially after everything they’ve been through.’ James’s eyes fall to the floor. ‘I’m so sorry for you, Caelon. For what happened to Isabella. I can’t even imagine your pain, but your kids need the fun-loving father who chased them round the garden with the watering hose. The father who used to make forts under the dining room table and hide with them. The one who made them laugh so hard their stomachs hurt.’

His words pierce my chest like a knife. He’s right. But that version of Caelon Beckett died with my wife. I’m not him anymore. And as much as I know I need to be more, to give more, I have nothing left to give. Nothing but wrath and rage and my relentless obsession with revenge.

‘I’m trying.’ I swallow the hard, suffocating lump forming at the back of my throat. ‘It’s just fucking hard, man. It’s hard waking up knowing I’ll never see her again. Never touch her. Never hear her breathing beside me at night. And it’s fucking unbearable knowing that the man who ordered the hit on her is still breathing, even if it is behind the bars of Ravenhill maximum-security prison.’

A thunderous expression clouds James’s face. ‘We still don’t know it was him.’

‘We do. You know it as well as I do. Jack O’Connor ordered the hit on Issy. And one day we’ll prove it. And when we do, God fucking help him.’ My molars clank together so hard they’re in danger of crumbling. ‘There isn’t a man or beast capable of stopping me carving out his heart, the way he carved out mine. Even if I have to commit murder to become his cellmate to do it.’

James flinches. ‘If there’s a connection, Killian will find it.’

Our brother, Killian, owns the most sought-after security company in the country. He provides everything from state-of-the-art CCTV to lethally trained bodyguards. ‘It’s been two years and nothing.’ I thrum my fingers on the marble counter.

James places his palm on the back of my hand, stilling the movement. ‘Give him more time. We can’t start another war with the O’Connors until we have proof.’

The O’Connors and the Becketts have been bitter rivals long before James and I were born. I don’t need proof they were behind the ‘accident’ that killed my wife. Even if the timing didn’t coincide with our last altercation, I feel it with every fibre of my body.

‘Sit tight, brother. The truth always emerges in the end,’ James assures me. He signals to the barmaid for another round.

So much for ‘just one more,’ but conversations as morbid as this would send anyone searching for oblivion, either in the form of alcohol or sex.

Seeing as the alcohol isn’t cutting it tonight, I need sex. Hot, meaningless, filthy sex.

I glance towards the door, watching as a short, striking blonde struts in. She’s wearing a low cut, sequinned blush-coloured mini dress which stops several inches above her knees and shimmers with every step she takes.

Her glossy hair is tousled in casual-looking beach waves that cascade over the bare skin of her tanned, toned shoulders. Bright blue eyes glitter. She exudes sass and sexuality as she scans the busy bar. Cherry-red lips lift into a grin as her hips subtly shimmy in time to a sped-up remix of Taylor Swift’s You Need To Calm Down .

I’ll try not to judge her for that.

Sunshine emanates from her every pore. She’s so young. So fresh. So flawless – basically everything that I’m not.

But her sharp eyes scan the room like she’s on the prowl for something. Or someone.

So, perhaps we have something in common after all.

I take another sip of my drink without taking my eyes off her.

She shimmies towards us, well, towards the bar anyway, effortlessly graceful in silver, six-inch stilettos.

She’s a knockout. No doubt about it. My dick stirs in my trousers.

Those huge sparkling eyes finally land on mine. Without a hint of hesitation, she strides towards us with more confidence than Beyonce. She bulldozes past the gaggle of women James scared away and squeezes into the space beside us. Dainty fingers pluck up a cocktail menu as her head flicks round. Her tongue dips out to wet her lower lip. Another cat-like grin reveals the perfect Hollywood smile.

I don’t return the gesture. I’m incapable. I’m looking for a fuck, not a BFF.

Her pupils dart between James and me, then rove thoughtfully from my face to my torso, then back up again to lock eyes with mine again.

‘Cheer up, for fuck’s sake.’ Her honeyed voice is just as sunny as the rest of her. ‘Christ, you two look like someone fucking died.’