The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2) (35 page)

She was the one who’d thrown a bitchfit and demanded someone—anyone—help James. All she’d been thinking of was that life would never be the same if he wasn’t somewhere, breathing and going about his life and
alive
. She could submit to any number of fucked-up things as long as she knew he was okay. She’d willingly put her family in danger. Worse, she wasn’t sure she’d do anything differently if given a second go-round.
I am a terrible person. So incredibly selfish
.

They slammed to a stop in the ER entranceway. Someone must have called ahead, because there was a pair of nurses and a stretcher waiting. The men took Cillian from the backseat and strapped him into the stretcher, and then they were gone, rushing through the door and spitting medical jargon back and forth.

“It will be okay.”

She glanced at Callie, taking in how pale the other woman was. “I hope so.”

This hospital had to hold terrified memories for her sister-in-law, too. She’d been the one to save Teague before. Carrigan followed her though the corridors to the appropriate waiting room. It looked like a thousand other waiting rooms across the US. And probably the world, too. She sank into the faded chair. “This is all my fault.”

“Cillian made his own decisions. He knew the risks.” Callie sat next to her. “He’s going to live.”

As much as she craved the words, she couldn’t trust them. “He got shot because of me.”

“No, he got shot because Dmitri Romanov called for James’s death.” Callie’s smile barely twitched her lips. “I seem to remember having a similar conversation a few months ago.”

The one where Carrigan had told Callie that the war escalating would have happened one way or another, even if she hadn’t killed Brendan Halloran. She scrubbed her hand over her face. “Guilt is such a sticky emotion.”

“Tell me about it.” Callie’s phone rang again. “Yes? You’re sure? Thanks, Micah.” She hung up. “Romanov is gone. I’m not sure when, but his hotel room is empty, and he’s nowhere to be found.”

It was tempting to think he was gone for good, but Carrigan knew better. “He’ll be back.” Dmitri wasn’t the kind of man to take defeat lying down, and he’d lost twice now. Carrigan wasn’t marrying him, and James was still alive. She slumped down into her chair. “This isn’t over.”

“Probably not.” Callie’s blue eyes were harder than she’d ever seen them. “But now we know he’s an enemy. He can’t play at being an ally while stabbing us in the back. That’s something.” Maybe. But it wouldn’t be enough. It had taken her all of ten seconds to realize how dangerous Dmitri was, and Carrigan had the feeling that the knowledge was just a drop in an ocean.

He’d be back, and he’d be back for blood.

Chapter Twenty-Five

J
ames sat on the snow-covered pavement next to his little brother for a long time. Ricky wouldn’t be getting up again. The blow to his head from Michael had killed him. Maybe if they’d been more focused on getting him to a hospital…There were a lot of maybes circling his head right now, and they weren’t doing him any favors.

Both brothers, gone
.

He was well and truly alone now.

“Mr. Halloran.”

He looked up. The Sheridan men stood around him in a staggered formation, half of them turned to face any potential outside threat. The black man speaking looked barely in his mid-twenties, but he seemed more than capable of taking care of business. James just wanted him to go away. He shook his head. That wasn’t right. He had to get the fuck out of here. It was a fucking miracle they hadn’t brought any cops down upon themselves until now. He reached out and stopped just short of touching Ricky’s face. “How long have I been sitting here?”

The man looked away. “We can transport your brother for you. What do you want to do with your man?”

His gaze fell to Michael, trussed up and gagged. He’d tried to make a run for it in the middle of the confusion, but Callista’s men had found and retrieved him. “He’s not my man anymore. Bring him. He has a lot to answer for.” Though he doubted Michael had much in the way of information, he couldn’t finish the man off until he knew for sure.

James climbed to his feet, feeling decades older. “Carrigan?”

“She’s at the hospital with her brother—it looks like he might be okay.”

She was safe—or as safe as anyone could be. He nodded. “Good.” He wanted to go to her, to hear her tell him she loved him again, to hold her in his arms and never let go. But there was shit he had to deal with before he could. First order of business was getting these women cared for. He went around to the van and found his phone on the floorboard. A few minutes later, Lisa Marie came on the line. “What do you need, honey?”

“A place for twenty girls. They aren’t going to be able to answer questions until they’re sure they’re safe.”

“Are they safe?”

He listened to soft sobbing coming from the back of the van. “As safe as I can make them. They’ll have their freedom, one way or another.”

“Bring them here. Me and the girls will get it taken care of. I’ll let you know the arrangements once I have them in place.”

And send me the bill.
“Good. I’ll be there in twenty.” He hung up and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. The Sheridan man was still waiting. “Get that piece of shit”—he jerked his chin at Michael—“and meet me at my place. I have one stop to make first and then I’ll be there.”

The man nodded. “Got it.” Then he was gone, melting into the darkness with the rest of his people.

James took a harsh breath and got into the van. The constant crying couldn’t be escaped and grated on his nerves something fierce, but he didn’t try to make them stop. These women had already seen enough trauma to last them a lifetime—he wasn’t going to add to that if he could help it. He met Lisa Marie at the back of Tit for Tat, and she surveyed him with a critical eye. “Trouble tonight.”

“You could say that.” Betrayal everywhere he turned. Ricky he’d expected, though the loss was still there, waiting for him to drop his guard so it could sucker punch him. But Michael? Michael he’d trusted. He hadn’t seen that coming.
No wonder my old man was nuttier than a squirrel.
He motioned to the van. “What’s the best way to play this?”

She snubbed out her cigarette. “Stand back and don’t say anything to spook them.” Without waiting to see if he’d done what she asked, she opened the door and spoke softly to the girls. He couldn’t quite catch the words, but the tone was big on soothing—like something a person would use with a wild animal or a rabid dog. Lisa Marie stepped back and, one by one, the girls crawled into the pale light thrown off by the propped open back door. Two of the strippers—Echo and one he couldn’t place—appeared and led them away. It took all of five minutes, but James held his breath damn near the entire time.

“You did good, honey.” She shook another cigarette out of its pack and lit up. “Some of them won’t survive—it’s the nature of the beast—but most of them will.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “And if we start getting regular shipments of this kind in?” He couldn’t take for granted that Carrigan would be with him, let alone willing to put the fledgling nonprofit plan she’d talked about in place. That would solve a number of problems, but there would always be women who were more comfortable with the life he could offer them—women who didn’t want to go home.

“Regular shipments.” She shot him a sharp look. “James Halloran, I never pegged you for a white knight.” She continued before he could confirm or deny. “We can make it work. We might need another club, or at least more opportunity on the legal side of things for those who want to stay here, but it can be done. Some of them will want to go back to wherever they came from, so you’ll have to figure that shit out.”

He hadn’t realized how tense he was until her words relaxed something inside him. All the bullshit and evil and monstrous things he’d done…this wouldn’t make them right. But it’d be a start. James nodded. “Get me the relevant information from the women and I’ll figure it out.” He had a few feelers he could put out, though his connections weren’t as vast as, say, the Sheridans.
I bet Teague knows a thing or two about tracking down this type of information
. He’d have to ask the other man the first chance he got.

He got back into the van and drove home, and another
interview
that he desperately didn’t want to have to go through.

What the fuck am I going to do?

He’d never felt so goddamn alone in his life.

*  *  *

Carrigan marched through the front door of her house, and straight into her father’s office. He was there, along with Aiden, just as she’d suspected he would be. Plotting, always plotting. A freaking spider in the middle of his web with no concern for the flies caught in its strands.
It stops now
. She slammed her hands down onto the desk. “In case you’re wondering, Cillian’s come through surgery and he’ll survive.”

Seamus didn’t look up from the papers in front of him. “He shouldn’t have been down at the docks to begin with.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

That
got him to look up. “Language, Carrigan.”

“For fuck’s sake, Father, your priorities leave something to be desired.” She took two steps back, carefully not looking at Aiden. He hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t need to. He was here instead of the waiting room, with their father instead of their brother. “It’s done. Dmitri is gone, and I’m not marrying him.” She rushed on before he could say anything else. “I practically killed myself to be an obedient daughter. I put aside all my ambitions and dreams to do it.” At least part of the time. “No more.”

He didn’t move. “If you’re done with this tantrum—”

“God, will you listen to yourself? Look around you. Devlin is dead.
Dead
. And for what? Because you wanted to make a grab at power. Cillian is in the hospital because he realized that a man who’d break his word without blinking isn’t someone we want to ally with.”

“What Dmitri does with James Halloran is no concern of mine.”

It was like beating her head against a brick wall and expecting it to be reasonable. She wanted to rail and scream and throw things, but it wouldn’t get through to him. “I love James Halloran.” She turned, feeling so damn defeated.

“Carrigan.”

For a second she thought she’d gotten through to him, that something had penetrated the stubborn wall he kept around himself and opened his eyes to what he stood to lose. Then he went and dashed that tiny hope on the rocks of reality. “If you walk out that door, you’re dead to me and every person in this family.”

It was always like this with him, all or nothing, obedience or threats. She kept going. “Then consider me as dead as Devlin.” Closing the study door behind her felt like she’d sucked all the air out of the hallway. Despite everything he’d put her through, she wanted to curl into a ball and sob at the injustice of it all. Damn it, she loved her father despite all his faults. And he’d just effectively banished her.

That
got her moving. She had less than ten minutes before he sent someone to make sure she was gone, and there were things she refused to leave behind. Carrigan rushed up the stairs and to her room, ignoring Sloan when she poked her head out of her door. She tore through her dresser, breathing a tiny sigh of relief when she came up with James’s album. After dumping it into a small overnight bag, she grabbed a few sets of clothing and a picture of her with all her siblings, grinning at the camera like fools. It was a few years old, but it had always been one of her favorites.

“Carrigan? What’s going on?”

She didn’t glance at her sister. Her makeup went into the bag. “Tell Keira that I love her.” She slipped a few pieces of her favorite jewelry into her pocket. They’d all been gifts on milestone birthdays from her mother, and she didn’t want to walk out the door without them. She turned and nearly ran over Sloan. “I love you, too. I don’t want to leave you like this, but if I stay he’s going to make me marry someone else. I can’t do it.”

Sloan’s normally pale skin was ghastly white. “He’ll kill you.”

“He already did. He just pronounced me dead to the family.” She hugged her sister, holding her tight for a long moment before she released her. “Take care of yourself. No one else is going to do it.” Another quick hug. “I’ve got to go.” As much as she didn’t want to leave her little sisters in this house, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Her father might be willing to let her walk out of here with only a symbolic death, but he wouldn’t let them all go. “I’m so sorry.”

Voices sounded at the bottom of the stairs, and Sloan shoved her down the hall. “Take the back stairs. I’ll stall for you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now
go
.”

She went. The back stairs were deserted and she made it out of the town house without seeing anyone else. As soon as she hit the street, doubts assailed her. She’d been so busy trying to get out, she hadn’t stopped to consider what she’d do next. Carrigan stopped on the corner, the sheer weight of the decision she’d just made nearly sending her to her knees. Free. She was
free
. It was almost too good to be true…until she started thinking about what she’d sacrificed for the chance. Her siblings. Her parents. Her entire life. She could go anywhere, do anything, be any kind of person she wanted to, and no one would appear to drag her back into the fold.