Page 7 of Yours

“Don’t lie to me.” My voice dropped lower, colder. The kind of voice that stopped people from talking midsentence.

He swallowed hard, his chest heaving. “I—Ronan, please. I was gonna tell you, I swear. I just needed more time?—”

I stood abruptly, letting the chair he was tied to wobble under him just to fuck with him.

“Time,” I repeated, pacing a slow circle around him. “Time to do what? To sell out more of our operations? To keep feeding them information?” I stopped behind him, my hands resting on the back of his chair. “You know what your problem is, Mickey?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t even try. Really, there was nothing he could say, so I said it for him.

“You always thought you were smarter than everyone else,” I continued, my voice calm again. “Thought you could play both sides, keep everyone happy. But that’s not how this works, Mick. There are rules. Loyalty. And when you break those rules…” I leaned down so my lips were close to his ear. “There’s no coming back.”

He whimpered, his body sagging against the ropes.

The guy standing in the corner—one of my men, a younger guy named Eamon—shifted nervously. He was new to this. Still learning how to stomach the dirty work.

“Eamon,” I said without turning around, “give me your knife.”

I heard the hesitation in his step as he moved toward me, heard the faint metallic scrape as he pulled the blade from its sheath and handed it over. I took it without a word, the weight of it familiar in the palm of my hand. Mickey was trembling now, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Ronan, please,” he choked out. “Please, I’ll make it right. I’ll?—”

“Stop,” I said, cutting him off. “You made your choice, Mick. You live with it, or you don’t. Simple as that.”

I stepped back in front of him, flipping the knife casually in my hand. I didn’t need to use it—not tonight, at least. I just wanted him to know I could and that someday soon, I probably would.

He flinched every time the blade caught the light, his eyes darting between it and my face. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but no words came. Just shallow breaths and that pathetic, pleading look I’d seen a hundred times before.

I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t need to.

Instead, I nodded to Eamon, signaling for him to take Mickey back to wherever we were keeping him. He stepped forward, grabbing the back of the chair and dragging it across the concrete, the legs scraping against the floor with an awful screech.

I watched them disappear down the hallway, the knife still in my hand. My heart rate hadn’t even spiked.

I turned the blade over once more, then slid it into my pocket.

Business was business. And I had bigger things to worry about now.

The buzzing of my phone against my hip cut through the silence. I pulled it out, frowning slightly at the name glowing on the screen.

Kiera Delaney.

My little sister’s best friend.

For a moment, I just stared at it, my thumb hovering over the answer button. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in months, not since the barbecue last summer. Not since she’d spent the whole night avoiding me, her face turning beet red every time our eyes met.

What the hell could she possibly want?

With a sigh, I swiped to answer and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Kiera,” I said, my voice calm, but edged with curiosity.

There was a long pause on the other end, the faint sound of her breathing coming through the line.

“Ronan,” she said finally, her voice softer than I expected. “I… wouldn’t have called but I don’t know what else to do. I need your help.”

I leaned back against the wall, the knife still heavy in my pocket. I cocked my head, her words hanging heavy in the air.

“Do you now?” I murmured, my lips curving into a small, humorless smile. “Well then, love. This should be interesting.”

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