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“In breaking news,” Mia Patel, a BBC newscaster, announced, “a report released by the Irish Directorate of Military Intelligence indicates that a Russian invasion of Ireland might be imminent.”
“What?” Sheila sat up with a jolt.
“Bah.” Oliver waved a dismissive hand at the TV. “Don’t be an eejit. Nobody’s invadin’ shite.”
“According to the minister of defense, Ireland’s recent conflict with the United Kingdom and hostile annexation of Northern Ireland—spearheaded by Ireland’s Taoiseach Séamus Rooney and members of his radical nationalist party, the United Irish Brotherhood—has left the small island nation alienated from the rest of the world. By making an enemy of the United Kingdom and its vast network of powerful allies, the Republic of Ireland is now relatively defenseless against the iron fist of Russian President Alexi Abramov, who has declared a personal vendetta against the UIB.”
“Listen to this gobshite, will ya?” Oliver gestured toward the newscast with his half-empty can. “We finally take back what’s rightfully ours, and we’re the fuckin’ bad guys.”
“Anyone living within twenty kilometers of Dublin, an international airport, or a major harbor are advised to evacuate until—”
“Da, we live near all of those—”
“Clo!” Oliver’s sudden shout brought a fresh wave of startled tears to my eyes. Turning around in his chair, he glared at me as I widened my eyes to hold in the moisture. “For Christ’s sake, go check the fuckin’ traps already. Didn’t ya hear?” He grinned like a madman through his wild blond beard as he thrust a hand in the direction of the TV. “The Russians are comin’ for dinner!”
CHAPTER 3
DAMIEN
“Smer-nah!”
The deafening rabble of Russian voices, screaming drills, and clanging socket wrenches fell silent as a hundred crewmen darted out from behind the tanks they had been servicing and stood at perfect attention.
Facing me.
It was a show of respect that I hadn’t earned and damn sure didn’t deserve. And they all knew it.
“Topside. Now,” I barked in Russian, reigniting the noise and activity in the belly of Russia’s most prized warship.
The sound of tools crashing into bins and boots marching across the floor echoed off the metal bulkheads until the last man disappeared into the stairwell and the hatch slammed shut behind him.
And then the hold was silent again.
I was supposed to be in that stairwell with them, but I couldn’t make myself move. There were no windows in the hold. No sights or sounds that might remind me of where I was. Down there, I could pretend like we were anchored somewhere else.
Literally anywhere else.
It had been five years since I’d stepped foot on Irish soil, but it felt like five lifetimes. Every day that I’d spent sparring with Bratva soldiers in the Siberian snow instead of playing football in Phoenix Park, every day that I heard the guttural grunts of Russian instead of the songlike cadence of Irish, every day that I ate shchi and kasha instead of soda bread and shepherd’s pie, I felt another piece of the boy that I’d once been burn away. Now, all that remained was a single charred cinder—a brittle, unwanted reminder of who I used to be.
Of who I would never be again.
Remembering that they had cameras on every inch of that ship, I clasped my hands behind my back and began walking between the rows of tanks. My eyes swept over the machines as if I were inspecting them for fuck knew what, but all I could really see was a merciless onslaught of memories from my childhood in Dublin.
For five years, coming home to Ireland had been my only goal—my singular obsession, my sole reason for living—but now that I was finally back, I couldn’t even bring myself to look at it.
“Lieutenant,” a man shouted in Russian over the intercom, causing me to stand at attention and face the security camera on the bulkhead beside me.
“This is Senior Lieutenant Petrov.”
Petrov. My superior. I pictured the brass buttons on his overly decorated jacket straining to contain his swollen beer gut.
“What the fuck are you doing down there? The captain wants you topside for his speech. Now.”
I answered with nothing more than a salute. I knew he would see it—he was obviously watching me—but I also tried to limit all conversation as much as possible. I’d been taught to speak Russian without a detectable accent as part of my father’s rigorous training, but I didn’t want to press my luck. I’d been warned that no Russian—Bratva or military—would ever trust me if they found out where I was from.
And honestly, they probably shouldn’t.
I wasn’t one of them, and I never would be. I’d been taken against my will at the age of fifteen—the second my father found out he had a bastard son in Dublin—and thrown into an underground Bratva development program called the Kletka. It meant cage, and that was exactly what the fuck it was. A prison-like boot camp in the frozen tundra of Siberia, where the organization trained their potential new soldiers to fight, kill, and most importantly, obey. I was fed a steady diet of steroids and beatings until I was big enough to fight back. And then … the real training began.
