Page 25 of Killian

“Killian.” He grabs me by the tops of my arms stopping us both from falling to the floor.

“Where the fuck is she? What happened?”

“We do not know. My men arrived to find the team dead and Bella missing. They came inside and found the blood and her purse. Boris called me while the others checked her apartment.”

I can feel my blood boiling and I’m struggling to control my demon. I want to rip everyone here apart into a million pieces. And the fact that two of them are my brothers doesn’t change that feeling. “Someone needs to tell me what the fuck is going on. I need to know where…”

“Brother.” Connor steps in my line of sight, sensing where my head is at, he places his hand in the centre of my chest to try and ground me. That’s not what grounds me. Fuck it’s so rare I lose it that I’m not even sure what grounds me. The last time I completely lost my shit was years ago when I was a teenager. Da was there and he pulled me out of my haze by him and Uncle Darragh belting me. I take a deep breath to try and steady my raging insides. I watch Connor but I can see Ronan taking a stand beside me out of the corner of my eye.

I see Connor's mouth moving but I can’t hear him. I shake my head trying to clear the mist. But it doesn’t help. Closing my eyes I drop my head and take in several deep breaths when I feel a hand on the back of my neck. I don’t move. I know it’s Ronan. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

He gives me a few seconds then places a hand on my shoulder. “Brother.” He turns me to face him, then places a hand on my cheek. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, when I reopen them I focus on him giving him a nod to let him know that I’m with him.

“Let’s go out to the car, Finn sent over the footage and there’s nothing else we can do in here.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond, just pushes me back toward the door. I catch a glimpse of Connor bending down and gathering her shit from the floor. I stop when I see her keys near the back wall of the stairs. Walking over I pick them up, turning over the keyring I gave her with my front door key eight years ago. A yellow heart with ‘Mo Chroí engraved into, it and the tracker built into it. I feel Ronan tug on my arm, and I let him drag me out to my car helping me into the passenger seat. Connor climbs into the back seat of my car. I can feel him watching me as my eyes follow Ronan around the front of my car and into the driver’s side.

Ronan pulls out his phone holding it out so we can all see the screen. He presses play on the video and I watch my woman walk up the stairs but stop halfway and take a look around. She senses something is off. Then I see the shadows above her and watch as they grab her on the stairs. I’m torn between rage and fear as watch her try and fight them off, then I see one of them push her down the stairs. My hands grip the keyring as tears roll down my face. My stomach somersaults as two figures walk through the door to the building. My blood burns as I watch my cousin walk up to her flipping her onto her back and smirking down at my beautiful unconscious woman.

Chapter 28

I’ve never seen him like this. He hasn’t spoken since he watched that video. Not even one single word. I sip my coffee as I look around Ma’s front room. Every one of us is here. We all came yesterday after my brothers, and I left Bella’s. I picked up Liv and Maddie on the way while Ronan said he would drive Killian back here. Alex and Cara were already here. And Finn arrived a few minutes after I did. It was another two hours after that before Ronan and Killian walked through the door. They’d been sat outside the house in the car. Ronan couldn’t get anything out of Killian, so he just sat outside with him for two hours.

None of us got much sleep last night. My brothers and I have been taking it in turns to watch Killian. We don’t want to leave him alone. Not when he’s like this. Just as I’m about to head up for a shower RJ gets up off the floor next to his sister and walks over to Killian. Not knowing how Kill will react I make a move to stop him, but Nora stops me. “Connor. No.” I look over at her and she shakes her head at me. I watch the kid move and stop in front of my brother. He places a hand on his knees and then pulls himself up into his lap. Kill gives him a half smile before RJ snuggles into him, resting his head under his chin. Nora gives me a small nod letting me know all is good as Killian wraps his arms around RJ and I watch as my older brother takes the strength given to him from our fourteen-month-old nephew.

* * *

I walk into the office we use at Ma’s a few hours later, just as Finn is hanging up the phone. Taking a seat in the chair opposite him, we sit in silence for ten minutes waiting for Ronan. We hear the click of the door as Ronan closes it and then sits on the edge of the desk. I think he’s going to say something, but Finn speaks first. “Seamus is on his way back. He’s bringing some of his men with him to help us look for Bella.”

I sit lean forward resting my arms on the desk, “hold up. I thought he was trying to find that girl that Carrera took?”

He nods, getting up to grab a bottle of whiskey and three glasses. Pouring each of us three fingers, he passes the glasses around then takes a seat, placing the bottle in the middle of the table. “He did. They have her back. She’s alive. Hurt, I have no idea how badly but they have her. Her brother is taking care of her.”

“And Carrera?” Ronan asks his voice cold.

“Caitriona wasn’t the only girl Carrera had taken. Turns out he’d taken another girl from a rival Cartel at the same time. All I know is, Seamus worked with this other Cartel to get the girls back. They wiped out the Carrera Cartel in the process, including José Carrera.” I see a small smile show on Finn’s face but then he drops it pretty quickly.

“Hey. You’re allowed to be happy Finn. That man was a threat to Cara. You’re allowed to be happy about the fact that he’s gone.”

He shakes his head, and his eyes fill. “I can’t Con. I’m fucking relieved, but how can I be happy when we don’t know where Bell’s is. How can I be happy even for a single second when Kill is hurting so much?”

“I’m not even sure he’s hurting right now.” We both turn to Ronan, watching him as he downs the contents of his glass and pours another.

“What do you mean?”

He sighs then turns to us both, “I mean I saw him change last night. We each have our own demon inside of us. We all know that. We’ve all let ours out more than once. But Killian’s… it doesn’t show itself very often. None of us have ever seen him lose it, not really. I know better than any of us what it’s like to lose yourself to that demon. I saw that change last night. I saw him changing in the stairwell of Bella’s block. But I saw the full switch in the car when he watched the footage. The second he saw Liam step through that door toward his woman, his demon took over. Killian is gone, he’s no longer in charge. The darkness is.”

Chapter 29

I land another punch to his ribs. He huffs out a small breath but that’s about all he can manage. This kid has no information for us I knew this before I started but I needed to hit something. Since she disappeared the only thing that helps me focus, the only thing that gives me a moment of relief is hitting something.

She’s been gone for seven days and eight nights. I didn’t even know she was missing that first night. I just thought that she’d turned off her phone, so she didn’t have to ignore my calls. I’m so angry at myself for letting her leave, for being the reason she left. I shouldn’t have said what I did, I shouldn’t have gone off at her. If I hadn’t of, she would still be here. And I wouldn’t be flying all over the world chasing any small slip of information I can get. Maxim and I arrived in Ireland two days ago. All because we had heard she might be here; it was a long shot. I knew it was, even he knew it was but he came with me anyway. My brothers don’t get it. They want me to think clearly, want me to take my time, be sensible about the moves I make. But I can’t. I’m not in control I let my demon rise to the surface, I let him take over the morning I found out she was gone. Holding him at bay wasn’t an option. I needed to lose myself. I crave the fear from those that I capture, I crave their pain, their screams. I crave the blood. I need to feed those cravings to stay in control.

We haven’t just been chasing slivers of information on my woman. I need to feed the darkness inside me, so we’ve also been running down Maxim’s enemies. Despite them being enemies of the Bratva I’ve been allowed to take the lead. Maxim simply stands by my side as I deal the blows. Pulling me from my thoughts Maxim places a hand on my shoulder and gives me a small single nod. He places the blade in my hands and then moves aside.

I take a small step forward, place my hand around the back of the kid's neck and then plunge my blade straight through his heart. His eyes widen the moment he feels the blade enter his body and a couple of tears run down his face before his head falls forward as the life drains out of him.

“Come. Let’s go grab some food. I have intel that someone in one of the Irish clans knows where they are holding Bella.” My head flips around to face him. I can’t get any words out. He just nods and then pushes me towards the showers.

I’m not hungry. I don’t feel hungry or thirsty, I know I need to eat and drink so I do when someone puts something in front of me. Taking a bite of the burger Maxim ordered for me I look around the diner. It’s busy but it’s mostly Maxim’s men. There are a few locals in here tucked quietly in the corner. They are used to the likes of us coming in here, they barely even took notice of us when we walked in.

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