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He looks up at me through his thick lashes, biting on the inside of his cheek.
“I travel, Dahlia…” My heart sinks inside my chest like a deflated balloon. “I travel around the world killing people for a living.”
“Then I’ll come with you.”
He shakes his head. “I would never put you in that type of danger, baby.”
I clamp my molars together so hard that my jaw aches. It’s the only thing that’s stopping me from bursting into tears right now. “So that’s it?” I choke out, “You’re just going to leave?”
Confliction flashes across his features, then his face settles into an icy stare.
“No,” he says slowly. “I can’t leave.” His eyes flicker to mine, filled with longing. “Because although I thought I was saving you, it turns out that you were the one saving me all along. I love you, Dahlia.”
Joy rolls through my body, coursing through my veins like a drug.
“I love you too,” I whisper.
As he crushes his lips against mine—a vow he never thought he’d break—I’m glad I broke one of mine: No more bad decisions.
Because Cillian is the best bad decision I’ve ever made.
Cillian
“You look like shit, kid. Sure you should be up and about already?”
“You a nurse now?”
Lorcan’s eyes twinkle like the glittering sea behind him. He pulls his hands out of his suit pockets and gestures for me to sit opposite him. Before sinking into his Herman Miller, he pours out a whiskey and sets it in front of me. “Here. It’ll help take the sting off while Daisy is weaning you off the painkillers.”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Relax. I haven’t touched that shit in years.”
The warm liquor hits the back of my throat and the relief is instant. “Cheers,” I grunt, slamming it down on the table. He immediately refills it.
“I guess the first thing I should say is thank you,” I say, shifting in the chair to take the weight off my shoulder. “You saved my life.”
He smirks. “What goes around comes around, right?”
I nod. “The second thing I should say, is what the fuck happened?”
Lorcan’s gruff laugh is light. The sound of a man that has won a war with ease. “Yeah, I should probably fill you in.” He steeples his fingers under his chin and takes a deep breath. “We were waiting for your warning shot but started getting antsy when it took ages to come. We decided to storm the factory anyway, and just as we were circling the perimeters, we heard it. I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes when I saw Santiago Vargas on the floor, bullet between his brows.” He cocks his head at me. “Excellent shot, by the way.”
“I learned from the best.”
“Then it was just all guns blazing, kid. Ours, of course, not theirs. Abruzzo only brought Stefano, his right-hand man, as back-up. What an idiot.”
“But the Vargas’s, they were on his side?”
“Nah. The Vargas’s were only there because they’d had a deal with Abruzzo. They’d supply Philadelphia with their cocaine in exchange for Dahlia.” He leans back, stroking his beard, contemplating. “To be fair, that would have been an excellent fucking deal. If the Abruzzos had Vargas on their side, it’d have shit me up a little, not going to lie. Anyway, I killed Abruzzo right away and took Stefano in for questioning, while Donnacha went after Jeronimo in the SUV. Caught up with him a few miles down the road and wiped everyone out.” He raises an eyebrow. “It’s him you want to thank for saving your girl.”
“And Stefano,” I say slowly. “You said you were going to interrogate Abruzzo’s right-hand man to see if he’d be a good fit for taking over Philly.”
Lorcan’s eyes darken. “No chance. He was just as brick headed as his boss. Five minutes with him and he pissed me off so much that I tossed a hammer at his head like a frisbee.”
I run a finger over my bottom lip, nodding. Lorcan’s gaze challenges me, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Something you want to tell me, kid?”
“Yes, but I want Donnacha to be here.”
