Page 83 of Then We Shatter

Malachy.

As I sink back into the gurney, I know where I’m headed, and that’s straight to hell for what I’m about to do to my family.

“Ash,” I say, my words lethally clear. “If I survive this, let me stay dead.”

“Jesus, fucking Christ,” I curse, pulling my trapped finger from between two slabs of stone, and adding to my collection of blackened fingernails.

Fortunately, the bracing wind howling off the North Sea has a numbing effect on my bare hands and the pain reduces to a dull throb. It’s early November and Rory’s little Scottish Isle has skipped autumn and gone straight to bleak winter. It suits my mood.

I reposition the stone, shifting it this way and that until it settles into place. I’ve lost plenty of things in my life, but my knack for repairing dry stonewalls isn’t one of them. It’s a skill my uncle taught me back in Ireland on the rare occasions he wasn’t banged up.

I’m searching amongst the heather and grass for the next stone when a figure appears, coming from the direction of the crofters cottage that’s been my home for the last few weeks.

I eye the man suspiciously even though I recognize the tall, broad frame immediately.

“Jesus, Killian, you must be freezing,” Ash says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his fur-lined parka. He frowns as he inspects the holes in my Aran sweater and jeans as damp as the weather.

“The name’s Rick,” I correct him. This isolated spot still has the occasional visitors and they know me as Rick Freeman. I’ve left behind my Irish roots. Killian McConkey is dead. “And the hat’s keeping me warm.”

Ash cocks his eyebrow at my beanie. I wear it indoors and out, whatever the weather because some good-for-nothing nurse took it upon himself to shave off my hair. Apparently, it was necessary so they could dig out the bullet lodged in the side of my skull.

I don’t know if Danyl’s aim was off because of the knife I planted in his shoulder or the gunshot wound to his arse, but I’m told I avoided death by a fraction of an inch. Not that I escaped unscathed. I had a small bleed on the brain that’s weakened my left side. Naturally, my power of speech returned first and I’m working on the rest.

“Are you here to critique my outfit or is there a reason you’ve turned up on another continent unannounced?” I ask. “I didn’t hear a chopper.”

“I came by boat. Less conspicuous.” He hunches his shoulders. “Any chance of a hot drink?”

I flex my left hand, encouraging the circulation to my throbbing finger. I hate that I’m still clumsy, but building walls is just as good as the rehabilitation regime I’m supposed to be following. “I’ll make us some tea.”

The crofters cottage was the first of Rory’s renovation projects, becoming his base while an army of construction workers repaired the castle on the east side of his Hebridean isle. There’s been a temporary halt to the works since I arrived, officially due to the inclement weather, and unofficially so no one asks too many questions about some guy called Rick who’s keeping an eye on the place, and whose accent might be American with just a twang of Scottish. Definitely not Irish, I keep telling them.

The traditional, single-story cottage has thick stone walls, small windows and a thatched roof. Its two rooms would have housed a family of eight at one time, but even with the extension for the kitchen and bathroom, it’s only comfortable for one person, or two at a push.

“You’re not staying, are you?” I ask as I switch on the kettle in the ultra-modern kitchen.

Ash scratches at his beard, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth. “You don’t want me sleeping in your bed?”

“There’s only one person who’ll be slipping between my sheets, Ash, and it isn’t you.” I throw a couple of teabags into the mugs I set down on the counter and take a breath. There can only be one reason my friend has appeared out of the blue. “You have news.”

“I have a potential contact,” he says, then raises a hand before I can launch into my cross-examination. “Potential being the operative word. We could be dealing with a spy, or a chancer looking for information she can sell to the Russians.”

My heart stutters. “She?”

Ash nods. “She made contact with Mace,” he explains. “He’d tried breaking through the Bratva’s firewall to get information on Katarina’s whereabouts, but it didn’t work. It never does. But the next thing we know, he gets contacted by someone who seems to be an insider as far as we can tell. She wants to trade information. So far, we don’t know what she has or what she’ll want in return.”

It has to be Katarina’s sestra. “I need to speak to her.”

“Absolutely not. Like the rest of the world, she thinks you’re dead,” Ash reminds me, shrugging off his coat. “Your father and brothers buried what little of your remains they think they recovered from the car wreck.”

The comment brings me back to earth with a thump. The staged accident for Katarina’s disappearance had been hastily adapted to fit me and my road trip back to Vegas. I’d allegedly driven off the side of a mountain in Colorado. Only Shelley knows it was a cover up, but she’s under the illusion it was so the Griffins could relocate my body and avoid my family finding out I was ready to turn my back on them. I can’t shield them from all the pain but I can give them that.

“How are they doing? Did you go to the funeral?”

“Your dad wanted a quiet affair. Just family.”

I curse as I splash myself with the boiling water I’m pouring into the mugs. “They didn’t give me a proper send off?” I ask. “Why the fuck not? Just wait ‘til I–” I clamp my big gob shut.

Ash heaves out a sigh. “Starting to regret becoming an avenging angel?”