Page 53 of His Dark Vendetta

“I knew an arms dealer from Dublin workin’ for the IRA.” He shrugged again. “Paddy decided I was more use to him alive than dead.”

I ground my teeth, trying to tamp down my rising fury. Guns. I knew those Irish fucks had no code, but to trade Siobhán’s honor—her worth—for fucking guns?

Heat clawed up my neck. There was no fucking way Ciarán didn’t know about this, and the need to prove his connection to the feds and end his sorry ass took on new urgency.

“That’s the difference.” I spit the words out, disgusted. “Between Cosa Nostra and a lawless mob. We live by a code. We have honor.”

The words stung as they passed my lips; the guilt over what I did to Marco was a bitter poison I could still taste even if he had left my father’s murder unavenged. It made me sick.

“We’d never sell out family for fucking guns. Especially one of our women.” The heat climbing up my neck reached my eyes, and I let them burn as surely as Ronan O’Doyle would burn in hell. “It’s time you paid for your sins. Blood for blood. And unlike your boss, the only gun I care about is the one you used to hurt her.”

He paled and swallowed hard, making his throat bob, but he knew better than to fight. He’d met his end, and at least he was facing it like a fucking man.

I lifted my gun. “This is for Siobhán Connelly.”

Crack!

He grunted, and his hands went to his stomach just to the right of where his beer gut sat above his belt.

“One.”

Crack!

His mouth hung open, and he stared down at his blood-covered hands over the new bullet hole in the center of his gut.

“Two.”

He closed his eyes.

Crack!

His body jerked with the impact of the third bullet, and he slumped in the chair.

“Three.”

He’d bleed out before anyone got to him, but I wasn’t about to take the chance that this fucker might survive to live one more day after what he did to Siobhán. He shouldn’t have lived this long.

“E questo è per me,” I said and put a bullet between his eyes.

ChapterSeventeen

Luca

The entertainment center’s cabinet doors unlocked with a rattle, and I swung them open to access the safe.

“You make a better door than a window,” Siobhán snarked from the couch.

“What’re you, twelve?” I glanced over my shoulder to glare at her and her smart mouth but was distracted by all the creamy skin.

Tiny green athletic shorts straight out of a ’70s gym class put her long, slender legs on display. Her feet were propped up on my coffee table, knees rocking from side to side, and her red-painted toes wiggled atop the wood. Her hair was pulled back, and her lips were wrapped around the tip of a bright red popsicle. She sucked it in and out of her mouth and fuck if my dick didn’t jerk at the sight.

She raised her eyebrows like I was inconveniencing her by interrupting one of the old movies she had on every time I walked into the living room. Movies she’d probably seen a million times. I shook my head and turned back to the safe.

I ejected the magazine of my 9mm Glock to make sure it was full. It was. I locked it back in place and shoved the gun beneath the waistband of my track pants. I moved to shut the safe but thought better. I grabbed my compact pistol and ankle holster. Lifting my pant leg, I fastened the holster and gun to my ankle. I closed the safe, shut and locked the cabinet doors, and dropped the keys in my pocket.

The neon display on the microwave told me I had thirty minutes before I needed to be back at The Dollhouse.

Siobhán held the half-eaten popsicle in front of her parted lips. They were swollen from the cold and cherry-red with food coloring.

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