Page 15 of Sapphire

I kissed her back just as fiercely, just as frantically, pouring every ounce of love and devotion and sheer fucking adoration I felt for her into the press of my lips and the swipe of my tongue. Just as I was about to lift her up and carry her to the bed, we were interrupted.

A knock sounded at the door. An urgent, insistent pounding.

"This better be important, or I swear to god I'll gut whoever's on the other side of that door." Kamilla grumbled, as she crossed the room and yanked open the door with a scowl that would have sent lesser men running for cover. But the man on the other side wasn't a lesser man. It was Liam.

The look on his face was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and take notice.

"We have a problem," he said, his voice tight with tension. "A big fucking problem."

Kamilla stiffened, her eyes narrowing. "What kind of problem? And why the fuck are you coming to me with it instead of Aria or Finn?"

Liam glanced over his shoulder, like he was checking for eavesdroppers, before stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. As he looked at me. "It's about Piotr," he said, his lips thinning into a hard, unhappy line. "And the Irish. We think. Fuck, we think there's a traitor in your ranks, Seamus. Someone who's been feeding information to the Russians, helping them stay one step ahead of us this whole fucking time."

I felt like I'd been sucker punched. A traitor? In the Irish mob, in the family I had sworn my loyalty and my life to? It was unthinkable.

"How do you know?" I demanded. "What proof do you have of this?"

Liam shook his head. “Not enough. Not yet. But there have been too many coincidences, too many times when the Russians seemed to know our every move before we made it. And then there's this."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper, handing it to Kamilla with a heavy, significant look. She took it, her brow furrowing as she scanned the words scrawled across the page. A look of dawning horror spread across her face.

"What is it?" I asked. "What does it say, Kamilla?"

She swallowed hard, her eyes meeting mine. "It's a message. From Piotr to his contact in the Irish mob. Thanking them for their help, for their loyalty to the true ruler of the Bratva. And promising them a place of honor in his new regime, once he takes back what's his."

This was beyond bad, beyond anything I could have ever imagined or prepared for. If there was a traitor in the Irish mob, if there was someone working against us from the inside, then everything we had fought for, everything we had sacrificed and bled and nearly fucking died for was all at risk.

"We need to tell Cara," I said. "We need to tell her everything, and then we need to find this traitor and put a fucking bullet between their eyes."

Kamilla nodded. "Agreed. But we have to be careful, Seamus. We don't know who we can trust, who might be working against us. We need to keep this quiet, keep it between us and Cara until we know more."

I clenched my jaw, my hands curling into fists at my sides. The thought of keeping secrets from my brothers went against every instinct I had. I knew Kamilla was right. We couldn't take any chances, couldn't risk tipping our hand before we were ready to strike. If that meant keeping this between us, between the three people I trusted most in this world, then I would do whatever it took to protect them.

But once I found them. Then they would pay by own justice.

Chapter 14: Seamus

There was a traitor in the room.

Beside me, Kamilla was stone cold. On my other side, Aria lounged in her chair like a lazy cat, her eyes half-lidded and her lips curved in a sardonic smile. I could see the tension in the line of her shoulders, the way her fingers twitched towards the knives hidden in her sleeves. Liam stood behind her, and I wondered to what lengths he would go to protect her. Cara and Finn sat at the head of the table, Cara already giving me permission to take lead on this. This was personal for me.

I cleared my throat, and the low, murmured conversations of the Irish died away, every eye in the room meeting mine. I let the silence stretch before I spoke.

"We have a problem," I said. “Someone has been feeding information to our enemies, letting them know our every move before we make it. And I want to know who."

The tension in the room ratcheted up another notch, the air crackling with the electric hum of suspicion. I saw hands inch towards weapons, saw eyes dart and narrow, searching for any sign of guilt or deceit.

"I don't believe it," Connor, one of the oldest and most loyal soldiers, said gruffly. "We're family, all of us. We would never betray each other."

"And yet, someone has. Someone in this room, someone who swore an oath of loyalty to Cara, the to Irish, has been spilling our secrets to Piotr fucking Sokolov."

"Impossible.” Someone called out. “None of us would ever stoop so low as to work with that piece of shit. Anyone who allies with him is dead to us."

Murmurs of agreement, low and angry, rumbled through the room. I held up a hand, my eyes still scanning their faces, searching for any flicker of guilt, any tell-tale sign of deceit.

"And yet, the proof is irrefutable," I said softly. "Piotr has been one step ahead of us at every turn.”

"We start with the money," Aria said suddenly, her voice like silk and honey, deceptively sweet. "That's the key to any traitor's heart, in the end.”

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