Page 57 of Lorcan

My father would be rolling in his grave if he knew what was happening right now.

The door slammed open and we all turned to see Tomas with an army of men behind him, all holding guns.

I went to turn, my wound opening itself again. I could feel the pain rip through my body as I pulled my gun up to shoot. Shots went out everywhere as I tried to get Teeghan behind me. She hid in an alcove with her gun as I moved into the fray, to square up with Tomas.

The asshole.

His cocky grin had me wanting to land blow after blow until he had no teeth left. I lifted my gun, the pain in my side limiting how far I could lift it. He noticed immediately, and looked down at the blood pooling on my shirt. His smile widened and he looked back up at me.

“I see someone has beaten me to it,” he laughed. Before I could move, I felt his fist slam into my wound. A blinding pain swept over me as I fell back, my gun sliding away from me. He advanced until I saw Killian tackle him to the ground, landing blow after blow into him. Men were dropping to the ground, dead, mostly his until I could see it was only Tomas and one other. He had shoved Killian into the wall, and knocked him clean out.

Shit.

Looking around for my piece, I tried to crawl to it but my body didn’t want to listen. I pushed off the wall with my foot and slid closer to it, until someone fell in my path and blocked me.

Fuck.

The foyer of my house, my family’s house for centuries, was being shot to shit and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. The shooting was slowing down, bodies were slowly piling up, and I saw a couple of men on our side were down.

Tomas righted himself from the guy he’d just shot, one of the Yakuza, and he looked down at me, a cut to his lip and his eyebrow as he saw me on the ground. His gun moved up to aim at me. I was helpless, I couldn’t move.

“Long live the O’Farrell’s,” he said with a smirk. I saw movement to my left and looked to see Teeghan running out from the alcove she had been cowering in. I was trying to stop her as she pulled her gun up to stop him. He turned the gun to her and a bang erupted from the barrel.

I watched, as if it were in slow motion, Jye shoving Teeghan out of the way as he took the shot meant for her.

“No,” she screamed out in horror as Jye landed at her feet, dead on impact. My chest burned. He had been one of us, with us for as long as we had been kids. He was my brother just as much as Conor and Killian were.

And he and Teeghan had a special bond, like brother and sister too. He had been the one pushing Conor into her path, because he knew she was meant for him.

As I watched her cradle Jye’s bloodied head in her lap, tears rolling from her eyes, I saw her pick up Jye’s gun and aim it steadily at Tomas. Before he could run, she let out a shot that hit him between the eyes before she dropped the gun and went back to weeping over Jye’s body.

No one moved in the foyer, the smell of smoke and gunfire was thick in the air as I tried to pick myself up from the ground.

I knew some of us wouldn’t make it. But I never expected Jye to be the one to go.

He had so much more to live for.

He had a baby girl to look after.

Oh god, his little girl. She was upstairs, probably frightened half to death and now she was a fucking orphan.

I pulled myself up, and kicked Killian awake. I reached down with my good hand and picked him up.

“What the fuck?”

“You got knocked out and we lost someone,” I grunted, my chest feeling tight. He looked behind me where Teeghan was still crying over Jye’s body.

“Oh fuck,” Killian said, quietly but it was loud enough for me to hear. “Conor’s going to lose his shit.”

I knew that. There was a rage in Conor that he barely showed anyone but when it came to Jye, who he deemed as a brother, or Teeghan, he would absolutely lose his shit. I was scared for him.

We couldn’t lose him.

“Find Ronan.”

Killian moved off as some of my men started to filter through the door, shoving men out of the way with their feet. Ace was one of them.

“You good?” he asked me, coming to help me.

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