Page 5 of Reckless Seduction
“Fucking bitch.” I recognize Kiernan’s rough voice. “You broke my goddamn nose.”
“It’s an improvement.” That is a bald-faced lie. “I’ll do more than that if you don’t let me go,” I snarl and dig my nails as painfully as I can into his hand that holds my hair. “Someone help!”
“Shut the hell up.” Seamus strolls up behind his brother, his neck and face red, eyes narrowed in a vicious flare. “Or you’re going to end up like Jimmy back there.”
His accent has thickened with his anger.
“Go to hell,” I scream at them as I kick out at the man in front of me.
“Fuck this shit,” Kiernan mutters, blood dripping down his face, staining his teeth red. “Just do it, Seamus.”
Fresh tears fall from my eyes, but I refuse to give up. If they are going to kill me, then I’m not going down without a fight. I scratch, kick, claw, and scream as Seamus approaches me, a devilish smirk forming on his lush, kissable lips.
What the fuck, Bailey? Now isn’t the time to be thinking about how handsome his lips are. He’s about to fucking kill you.
“Sorry about this, wildcat,” Seamus murmurs.
The last thing I see is the flash of metal straight to my head.
Then there is nothing but the hollow veil of darkness.
TWO
Fucking hell.
“How did it go, son?” my father asks from behind the counter of our family bar, McDonoughs. He bought the building and named it after my godfather, Seamus McDonough, the man he’s looked up to since he was a child. But I think that is just a front for who he really named it after. His first love. The woman who disappeared. The one he keeps wrapped up in his heart where no one else can reach.
He has a bar towel thrown over one shoulder, his matching green eyes finding mine while he stacks clean glasses on the shelf below the counter. It is well past two in the morning, and none of us have gotten any sleep. I left Kiernan and the fiery reporter to their own devices. Last I checked, she is still knocked out cold in Kiernan’s trunk while he waits for the cleaners to pick up Jimmy’s body.
We have ample employees to do cleanup at the bar, but my father always makes sure to be part of the grunt work. He once told me that if a leader cannot do what he asks of those who follow him, then he is no leader. He’s a dictator.
Hard work, he’s always said, builds character. A genuine leader is never afraid to get his hands dirty. It’s what his father taught him, and what I know I will one day teach my children.
If only my mother held the same values.
I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she twiddles away on her cell phone, completely ignoring the surrounding workers, who are cleaning up after the late night.
She rarely works unless my dad threatens to cut off her credit card. I love my mother, there is no doubt about that, but she has never been the mother my grandmother was to my father.
“The cleaners are taking care of the mess at the club,” I murmur so we aren’t overheard. Most of the workers in the bar are part of our operation, or we are family to them, but it still pays to be cautious. Hopping behind the bar, I grab a clean dish rag and proceed to wipe down the sticky bar top.
“Oh, honey,” my mother chastens lightly, her eyes flitting up from the screen of her phone. “You don’t need to do that. That’s why we have employees.”
Employees who are already hard at work and chomping at the bit to go home to their families.
“I like the work, Ma,” I tell her. She huffs a bit before waving her hand dismissively at me, her attention back on her phone. “Seriously?” I mutter beneath my breath.
“You mother will be your mother.” My father sighs, the muscles of his jaw visibly tightening. Unlike mine and Kiernan’s, my father’s Irish accent isn’t as rough. We spent years studying and training in our homeland, learning the family business, before coming back to America. My father never had the opportunity because of the clan wars that drove his father off the island. “How is your sister?”
“Dashkov says she’s tucked back safely in his penthouse.” I keep cleaning. “From what I heard, the two had some pretty strong words on the dance floor before she stormed off.”
My father chuckles. “She’s got her mother’s temper for sure.” His smile falls, his eyes becoming haunted, like looking into a fractured mirror. It doesn’t take a genius to know he is thinking of Katherine McDonough, Ava’s mother.
It is still hard to believe that I have an older sister. She isn’t much older than Kiernan and me—just a few months, which means I can still pull out the “nearly your older brother” card when I need to.
It isn’t a secret that my mother isn’t my father’s first love. Kiernan is dead set on the fact that my father only married our mother out of duty, and I can’t find a reason to disagree with him. The pair are polar opposites. After Saoirse was born, they even stopped sharing a bed. Hell, they barely share a house any longer now that we are all nearly grown.
Nearly three weeks ago, we rescued Ava from the hands of Christian Ward, the man she believed to be her biological brother for years. She is terrified of him. I don’t blame her. The man has a sick, perverted obsession with her that borders on psychotic.
