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“If we get out of this, I’m going to kill you,” Max hisses back. “This is your fault. If you would’ve not done the nasty with him, we never would’ve been in this situation to begin with!” It’s odd to have him yelling at me while he whispers, a jarring experience no matter how you look at it.
My mouth drops open. “My fault? I never would’ve met Silus if it wasn’t for you and your stupid plan to try to ransom him off!” I can’t whisper-yell anymore, so I end up getting the attention of Cormac and his men near the bar.
“Stupid?” Max’s voice raises, too. “You said the idea was brilliant!” As he shouts that at me, Cormac inches closer, watching the argument with amusement.
“Brilliant?” I echo. “I never said that. Come on! You blow smoke up your own ass way too much, Max. The plan was stupid and I told you that the moment I found out who you wanted to kidnap! I mean, come on! We’re not hardened criminals. We don’t kidnap people. Your plan blew up in our faces—it’s still blowing up, as we speak.”
“I can tell you one thing: it didn’t blow up because of me.” Max’s eyes twinkle. He’s surprisingly okay with everything that’s happening, and it dawns on me this might actually be the true plan. Distract Cormac with our shouting match while Silus gets ready to raid the place.
I bark out a laugh. “That’s rich. Guess what? Your plans are always stupid. I’ve always thought so. I just keep it to myself because I don’t want to make you feel bad for coming up with such stupid ideas!”
Max inhales dramatically. “Take that back. Take it back!”
“No,” I say, jutting out my chin in defiance. “If I’m going to die here, I have every right to tell you how stupid your ideas are. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you. If I die, it’s totally your fault.”
As Max and I go back and forth, trading insults, Cormac smirks and says, “I can see the family resemblance. Makes me jealous I don’t have any siblings to fight with—”
What happens next happens fast. Someone busts through the front door of the bar the same moment I hear shots ring out behind me. Cormac darts closer to me and presses his cold gun against my temple, his finger on the trigger. The silly argument Max and I were having dies the moment everything turns serious.
Even though there’s a gun against my head, the second I see it’s Silus who came through the front door, I heave a sigh. Never have I been happier to see him, believe it or not. A group of men funnel in behind him, guns drawn.
Silus raises his gun toward Cormac, but doesn’t pull the trigger because the man is kneeling behind me, threatening me with a bullet to the brain. Behind us, someone busts through the back entrance; I can’t see who it is, but it’s either Silus’s men or his brother with a few of his guys. Near the bar, Cormac’s men don’t know who to point their weapons at, but at least no one pulls the trigger.
It’s a standoff. There’s a whole lot of guns in the room, all pointed in various directions. Even if by some miracle Cormac’s gun doesn’t kill me, a stray bullet from any of the others might. I don’t see a good way out of this.
“Put the gun down,” Silus growls out, sounding so vicious goosebumps rise on my arms. “Did you really think I would come alone? You took the one thing that matters to me, Cormac, so of course I’m going to bring the whole fucking crew. Tell your men to lower their weapons and you do the same, and I promise I’ll make it quick.”
“No,” Cormac hisses from behind me. “You see, I’ve waited my whole damn life to get you where I want you. I’ve done everything I can short of putting a bullet in your head.”
“Trust me, I’m well aware of the thorn in my side,” Silus says as he bares his teeth. “If only you were a better rival, I might’ve paid more attention to your pathetic attempts at sabotage. Put the gun down.”
Cormac presses the gun against my temple harder, and my heart skips a beat. “No. I think I’ll take my chances after watching you lose the only thing that matters to you.” I swear I hear his finger tighten on the trigger.
“Wait!” The word leaves me before I can stop it, and it takes me a moment to figure out where I want to go with this. “Wait,” I say again. “Obviously, I can’t stop whatever’s going to happen here, but if I’m going to die here, there’s something I want to know.” Beside me, I hear Max gulp. “Why do you hate each other? Why the rivalry? What happened that made you guys enemies for life?”
Nothing but silence answers me, and I start to wonder if I’ll never know the reason I’m getting a bullet to the brain. Honestly, it’s the least these assholes can do. If I’m going to die here, I might as well know the truth.
The way Silus and his brother hate Cormac, how Cormac hates them, it’s a Romeo and Juliet kind of rivalry, minus the star-crossed love.
“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” Cormac growls out behind me.
Silus narrows his dark gaze, but in the end he doesn’t say a word. His gun is trained on Cormac, and if he wasn’t directly behind me, I don’t doubt he would’ve pulled the trigger a long time ago. Same goes for whoever’s behind us. A bullet might go right through Cormac and end up lodged inside me.
A moment passes, and Cormac says, “Fine, I’ll tell her. The cold, hard truth, lass, is that the McLeans are a family of liars. No good, dirty, rotten liars. Fucking cheats.”
“Cheats?” That sounds like Roark’s voice behind us. “The O’Connors are the cheats—”
Cormac talks over him, “Forty years ago is when everything changed. Our fathers were like brothers. Best friends. They had a plan to rule this city, and they’d take it over street by street. One night, during their weekly poker game, their blasted father cheated and refused to own up to it.”
“Our father didn’t cheat,” Silus states with a growl from his wide chest. “He won that game fair and square. Your father is the cheat. He refused to pay our father what he lost!”
The bar erupts in an argument, both Silus and Roark believing their father to be the one in the right while Cormac defends his bloodline and shoots missiles right back. It’s frankly hard to have a sane thought while listening to such a silly argument. Even Max is speechless.
I am, too, but only a minute.
What do I do when I finally gather my thoughts? What anyone would do, if they were in my position with a gun to their head, their hands tied helplessly behind their back, surrounded by almost a dozen other guns, and they just found out they’re in that position because of a stupid game of cards.
I laugh. I laugh my fucking ass off.
