Page 19 of The Irish Reaper

Miss O’Clery smiles from my peripheral but Aiden…he only takes a sip of his whiskey and eyeballs me over the rim.

He’s not stupid.

He picked on to my subtleness of ensuring I entered this marriage fully prepared for anything.

“Ye any good?” he presses casually.

“I’m better than half my brother’s men.”

Cillian chuckles, almost nervously, before pinching my thigh from underneath the table and causing me to flinch in response. “My sister was always trying to follow in my footsteps.”

“She better than you, Cillian?” Kohen asks, and he seems like the brother that always likes to push the bar and patience on an individual because he thinks it’s fun and entertaining.

I like him already.

“I’d hardly say she was better than me,” my brother replies.

“But you’ve never seen her?”

Better yet, he didn’t even know.

My family’s soldiers might be assholes of the highest order, but a few have been with us since I was a child, so I can get away with some things—especially Collins, one of my father’s highest esteemed men.

“How good could she be if she just started?” Cillian replies placidly, his nerves already ticked, and I know when he’s irritated. It doesn’t take much.

“Well, this gatherin’ is somethin’ that’s gonna go in the books forever,” Papa beams from the other side of Cillian. “I’d like to make a toast.”

Everyone raises their glasses, and I’m the last one to make a go at mine. This is going to go down, alright. With one of us in the grave, I’m afraid.

“To the most powerful Irish clan in thee country,” Pa announces, rising from his chair and hovering over the table. “May they always have thee upper hand and cut down their enemy with an iron fist. Long live the Kincaids.”

It’s as though everything moves in slow motion then. Papa’s words repeat once in my head that he didn’t toast to both families, but one.

Ours.

Within seconds, the loud roar of gunshots begin to pop off like fireworks in the room and I’m sliding off my chair to get to the floor. Cillian’s chair is knocked back as he suddenly stands to his feet, and more eruptions of gunfire go off.

The whole table is flipped over, almost landing on top of me but cutting me off from my father and brother and onto the side of the O’Clerys.

The whole room is madness.

The only things I can make out are men shouting and weapons being discharged in rapid succession right after the other. All I can think of is getting the heck out of here and quickly.

Staying on all fours, I quickly crawl to the edge of the room, almost getting stepped on by men whose side I have no clue they are on. I don’t feel my heart beating it’s moving so fast as I try to focus on getting to safety.

Everything is the sound of an action movie but louder and more dangerous. I could be hit by a stray bullet at any time, and Taylen is at home and needs me.

I’m dragged by my bicep with long fingers, which are strong and thick, as I glance up to find Collins on the other side of the hard grip.

“Stand down, lass,” he shouts out over the havoc going on in the room. “Get ye ass outta here. This is the only opportunity ye gonna get.” He releases me before raising his AK-47 and begins peppering off bullets with ease. “Go.”

Glancing over at the exit, it’s only a few yards away. Getting up and sprinting toward it is going to be a hail mary at this point, so I hide behind the emerald green curtains that are soft beneath my fingertips and watch the disorder unfold in front of me. In hopes that something will happen to create a safe passage for me there.

Movement from my left grips my attention, falling to Cillian who is currently crouched down behind the table we were all sitting at, when he aims and shoots. My attention follows the direction of his gun, locating a man who suddenly falls flat on his face and causing a scream to rip through my throat.

A pool of blood immediately begins to form along the dark hardwood floor at his head and my gut twists, threatening bile to rise from my throat.

This is too much.

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