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I could feel the broken heart pounding beneath his fiery, hot flesh and realized that mine was keeping time with his. “What happened?”
“He sent his men to kill her and kidnap me. He has no other sons, so molding me into his successor became his number one priority. I spent the next five years in a Bratva training camp in Siberia before being shipped off to the Navy a few months ago.”
My hand flew to my gasping mouth, but Damien’s steely gaze stayed focused on the smoking city in the distance.
“How old were you?”
His hard gaze cut to me over his shoulder. “Fifteen.”
He might have looked cold on the outside—a chiseled killing machine, honed by hate and numbed by the ice in his veins—but on the inside, he was burning alive.
Damien tore his eyes away as another series of booms echoed through the bay. I sat next to him and gripped the bench with both hands as my pulse began to climb, but there were no missiles in the sky. No screaming projectiles arching toward us. I was safe … with him. Only with him.
“Why the Navy?” I asked, my voice trembling with the fear I was trying so hard to rationalize away.
Damien’s hands formed two fists where they rested between his knees. “My father hates nothing more than the fact that his only son was raised Irish, so when Russia decided to invade Ireland, he pulled some strings and got me assigned to that particular ship as a fuck you. Even made me a lieutenant so I’d have to lead the attack against my own country.”
His gaze turned to me again, and I could almost see the iciness of his exterior cracking from the simmering rage within.
I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him on that ship—surrounded by enemies who’d come to destroy his homeland, forced to keep his mouth shut and kill his own people. Kill his own dream.
“Damien, I … God, I’m so sorry.” I shook my head, at a loss for words.
Sorry wasn’t enough for everything this man had been through. He’d bared his soul to me, shown me his pain. The least I could do was reciprocate.
“My ma died too.” Between the wind and the waves, I could barely hear my own voice, but Damien’s crestfallen face told me he’d heard me loud and clear. “She got in a car accident when I was young, after a … really bad fight with my da. He didn’t kill her, but … he did. Ya know?” My gaze drifted over to a green fishing net, hanging out of a partially closed storage bin. “I hated him so much, and I loved him so much, and now … now, he’s gone too. They all are.”
Despite his anger, his tensed muscles and clenched jaw, Damien stood and pulled me against his hard, heaving chest. The action wasn’t gentle, and the landing wasn’t soft, but his arms encircling my body felt like two bandages closing a wound I hadn’t realized was bleeding. I melted into his rigid embrace, accepted what little comfort he had to give, but as the two of us stood in silence, watching our childhood homes crumble into the past, I couldn’t help but widen my eyes so that the breeze would dry my tears.
CHAPTER 21
CLOVER
I’d once read that there were only two real emotions—love and fear. In my years of research, trying to understand my father’s behavior, the consensus was that anger was a manifestation of fear, and that when a parent lashed out at their child, it was because they were afraid that someone they loved was going to get hurt.
Well, I didn’t give a shite what those articles had said. I knew that the only two emotions Oliver Doyle had ever felt were love and hate. He’d lashed out at me because he hated himself for what he’d done to my ma, and he’d hated me for reminding him of her. And I could tell that the same two emotions were what fueled Damien Hughes. He loved Ireland. He loved his ma. And he hated his father and the Bratva and the Russian government so much for destroying them that it literally burned inside of him, making his skin hot to the touch.
Damien had said very little after that crushing embrace. Once Dublin was out of view, he’d simply taken to the helm and driven in silence, scanning the cliffs and sea for any sign of danger.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fueled by hate. I was fueled by hope and food—two things that were in short supply on the Pride of Howth.
Honestly, my growling stomach was but a tickle compared to the stabbing pain in my ribs and throbbing bruises that ached every time I moved, but sitting still hurt more. I thought too much when I sat still, so I busied myself trying to figure out how to trawl for fish. There was an entire system of pulleys and ropes and hooks dangling from the tall poles on either side of my father’s boat, but he’d never explained to me how they worked, and none of the switches or nets were labeled.
After countless failed attempts, my energy, my pain tolerance, and the daylight all ran out at the same time. Using the last rays of light to tie the largest net I could find to the back of the boat, I watched it drag behind us—immediately becoming a tangled, twisted mess in our wake—as I drowned my sorrows in another bottle of rainwater.
When the boat suddenly slowed and the engine began to sputter and lurch, I turned to see what was going on. The cliffs of Howth were hours behind us, replaced by flat, sandy beaches that gave way to a large harbor full of boats and glowing streetlamps up ahead.
“We’re running out of petrol,” Damien announced, turning the wheel and easing the lever back like a seasoned seaman. The visual reminder of who he’d been was unwelcome, as was the sight of a massive gray battleship docked in the center of the harbor.
As soon as he saw it, Damien switched off the lights and killed the engine.
Causing my breathing to stop as well.
We’d just escaped from a harbor full of Russian sailors by the skin of our teeth. Damien was wanted for murdering more of them than I could count. And now, we were headed right back into the same situation?
“Damien?” I whispered, hoping for some kind of reassurance, but he had none to give.
He simply ignored me as we drifted closer to the ship in slow, agonizing silence. He was a silhouette in the glow of the harbor, but I could tell from his rigid posture and swiveling head that he was on high alert. He steered toward a row of fishing boats that were docked along the left seawall. Then, he glanced at me over his shoulder, his face obscured in the dark of the cabin, and extended a hand in my direction.
