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He does what he’s told. He always has, ever since I closed the casket lid on his father. Alive.
“I think you have some explaining to do.”
Challenging my glare with one of his own, he says acidly, “There’s not much to explain. Antoin brought me in on his plan because he knew I was the perfect ally. You buried my father alive and made me listen to his screams for three hours. You’ve held me prisoner for over four years. Made me fight battles I didn’t give a flying fuck about. I should want revenge.”
My voice drips with ice. “But you didn’t take it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I walk around the desk and sink into the armchair opposite, pinning him with a hard glare. “Why?”
A cruel smirk tugs at his lips, his eyes never leaving mine. “Because now you owe me a favor.”
“You want your freedom.”
“Antoin would have given me that. No, I want something that your cousin was too weak to give me. Your alliance.”
It’s hard to conceal the surprise on my face, but I quickly rearrange my features and put up the stone wall. “You want to go out on your own.”
He smirks. “Antoin would always say how stupid you were. I always knew better.”
I take him in. Young, fresh-faced Cillian. Skinny legs shaking in his combat boots the day I took him down to the Tunnels for the first time, aged just fourteen. It took him a week to pick up a gun, three to take his first life. But that drop of blood changed him. Made him. Yet he’s always been a fascinating contradiction. In the darkness of the Tunnels, he morphed into a stone-cold assassin with the aim of a trained sniper. In the light of the Quinn gardens, he was an artist. Trimming bushes with a gentle hand.
But he’s not that young kid in the Doc Martens anymore. He’s a fully-fledged, hardened killer with razor-sharp thinking.
He fascinates me. And suddenly I can see past Poppy just enough to envision the future of my family.
“You’d be a good right-hand man,” I say. “Stay.”
He stiffens for a moment, letting that hard facade slip, before shaking his head. “It’s time I went out on my own.”
I understand. I took his life from him, and now I owe him mine. Rising to my feet when he does, I hold out my hand. “Very well,” I say. “Then you have my word. As long as you don’t encroach on the Quinn territory, you’ll have our alliance. In whatever you choose to do. Consider yourself free, kid. I’ll arrange the jet to get you out of here.”
He glances down at my hand and pauses before taking it. When he does, his grip matches mine in strength. “Thank you,” he says with thick seriousness in his eyes. With one last lingering stare, he turns and leaves.
Four years ago, I staked my claim on two lives. I’ve let one go, now it’s time to do the same with the other.
Poppy
For the first time in a long while, I laugh. It hurts my ribs and gets stuck somewhere in my throat, but it comes out in a hard wheeze.
Orna looks up at me, puffing. “We didn’t think this through.”
We’re on the small path leading down to the chalet’s private beach. Patches of stubborn beach grass push out from the dunes and rocks on either side. As we get closer to the sea, the sand thickens, and the wheels of my wheelchair are lodged a few inches deep underneath it.
“I hate to break it to you, but you might have to carry me.”
She groans, hitching up her shorts and sinking down onto a nearby rock. “No chance. I’m not on duty, you know?”
I look out to the sparkling sea and the gray clouds rolling over it. The salty breeze whips around my face. It’s the first time since I woke up in the white room that I’ve left it.
Daisy, the nice nurse I immediately knew was a Quinn by her dark hair and yellow eyes, finally agreed that I was well enough for Orna to wheel me out into the fresh air. As long as I cover up the cut on my forehead and don’t get my leg cast wet.
“It’s okay, here will do.”
Orna breathes a dramatic sigh of relief, eyes twinkling up at me. After a few moments of listening to the waves lap against the shore, she says, “So, how are you feeling?”
“Surprisingly okay,” I admit. “Those pills your cousin prescribed me have me feeling as high as a kite.”
