Page 163 of Sinful Hearts

Neve blinks back tears as she comes over to hug me, shaking as she clings to me. When she pulls back to sink into my brother’s arms, I turn to survey the scene in the hospital waiting room around me.

The faces and clothes streaked with ash and grime. The wounds, like the gash on my head, that aren’t big enough for anyone here to give a shit about right now. Not while Dimitra is being monitored for internal bleeding and Eilish is having pieces of her pub surgically removed from her body.

The tears. The pain. The shattered spirits.

And then there’s the anger. And even though it’s simmering below the surface, it’s plain to see on everyone’s faces: Ares, Neve, Kratos, Castle, Cillian and Una.

With me, the anger’s not so much under the surface. It’s about to explode outward with a force that’ll make what just happened at The Banshee look like a cheap bottle rocket.

Not the bomb it was.

And itwasa bomb. Castle’s just gotten off the phone with the Fire Marshall, who confirmed it. Not a gas leak. Not an act of God.

A fuckingbomb.

They’re saying it was wired up under the downstairs lounge bar, purposefully put in that central location so as to do the maximum damage to both the downstairs lounge and the bar above it, where most of our family was.

They’re saying it was a relatively complex IED, too. One that took time to set up.

They’realsosaying that while the security camera hard drives have obviously been reduced to molten slag, the off-site logs show that the back door to the place was opened using a security code late last night.

Someone tried to murder our family. And they damn well almost succeeded.

I turn away, yanking my phone out to try calling Elsa again. But same as before, it goes straight to voicemail.

I’m not worried. Well, notthatworried. My building is far more secure than it looks, despite all that glass. Plus, I sent three of our men over to guard the place, without worrying Elsa, while I was on the way here to the hospital.

I text George, one of the men I sent over there, just to check in. His instant “all good over here” reply has me exhaling slowly.

Maybe she’s in the shower, or taking a nap or something.

Ares glances at Kratos and me.

“There’s no reason to keep quiet about it,” Neve chokes tightly, shaking her head at my brother. “We’re all thinking the same thing anyway.”

Ares’ expression goes grim. But he nods.

“Fine.”

The waiting room is full of nothing but Kildare and Drakos people anyway, and this obviously concerns both families. Ares exhales slowly, his eyes dragging to Cillian.

“Does Dominic know yet?”

As in Dom Farrell, Sean’s father.

Cillian nods stonily. “He does. He’s on a plane right now from Chicago.”

Ares shakes his head. “I’m so fucking sorry, Cil. Sean was a good man. And they’re saying he saved Callie and Ya-ya’s lives. I know Dom won’t give a flying fuck about that right now, and that’s fine. But I want him to know that. Eventually.”

The Irishman nods quietly. “He’ll know.”

Ares grits his teeth as his eyes slowly sweep the room.

“There’s no easy way to put this. But we’re all thinking it anyway, so fuck it.” He pauses. “Someone just declared war on us. It could very well be the Russians, but beforeanyof us, or any of the vassal families, goes out there and starts waging World War Three in the streets of Manhattan, we’re going to be goddamn sure it is. Can we please agree to that?”

Cillian’s jaw grinds. But he nods.

“I can tell our people to stand down.” His eyes harden. “For now. But my niece is insurgery, Ares. And there’s a limit to my patience when it comes to holding off on retaliation.”

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