Inked Destiny

Twenty-four

Home sweet home, Cathal thought. It’d been that when he was growing up, despite where the money came from, despite the presence of his father’s mobbed-up soldiers and his mother’s fixation with society and her place in it.

He couldn’t shake the family loyalty, couldn’t shake the lessons learned here. Scratch the surface and he could be what his father and uncle were, a stone-cold killer. He’d almost become that very thing in the presence of the Harlequin Rapist.

He parked across from his parents’ house rather than having the gate opened so he could pull around back. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually seen his mother or father enter or exit through the front door, though given his father’s security, the chance of being attacked here was slim. He doubted the neighbors had as much of a handle on their own schedules and routines as the Dunne personnel did.

Paranoia? Deterrent? Or necessity? Because he didn’t know the details of his father’s business, he couldn’t be certain which it was.

“Hold,” Heath said, getting out as down the street a car door opened and a woman emerged, long, curling black hair shielding her face.

A glint of sunlight drew Cathal’s attention to the ring she wore, the red flare of it as unnatural today as it had been at Saoirse. She twisted it on her thumb, hiding it in a fist as she turned toward him, steps faltering at seeing Heath approaching with rapid, smoothly menacing strides.

Her chin lifted in defiant courage and surprise hit Cathal at how much she resembled Brianna from a distance. Remaining in the car became impossible.

He got out and jogged forward, unsure what Heath was capable of if he determined the woman was a threat. He was there seconds after Heath intercepted her.

Jesus. Up close and personal it was more than something as tame as a resemblance. With her blue eyes and thick, black lashes, she could pass for a female version of Brian, the cousin who’d died less than a year ago in a car wreck, not a twin, but a sister one of his uncle’s affairs had resulted in.

Christ. What was she doing here?

There was only one possible reason. She’d come to find out where her father was.

Did Denis even know she existed?

Heath grabbed her wrist. She tensed, shooting a look at Cathal, fear and defiance combined in blue eyes that were far too familiar.

“Let her go,” he ordered.

“It would be best if I see the ring first.”

Magic. It didn’t even surprise him.

“Do you mind?” he asked this stranger who was probably his cousin.

She remained stiff but turned her wrist in Heath’s grip, opening her fingers to reveal the ring.

Heath’s eyebrows went up. He released her. “An interesting artifact,” he said and walked away after having apparently decided there was nothing to worry about.

Fuck, if only that were true. “I’m Cathal.”

“I know. My name is Mirela.”

“Denis is out of the country.”

“I’d still like to meet your father.”

That answered Cathal’s question about whether or not Denis knew about her. If his uncle did, then his father would.

Shit. This was bad timing given everything Brianna had gone through in the last year. Then again, when would the time ever be good?

Brianna could do the math. She’d know her father cheated on her mother.

Cathal glanced toward the house. His arrival had been noted. One of his father’s bodyguards now stood in front of the door to usher him in.

“Your mother left about an hour ago.” Meaning there’d be no witnesses.

Did Mirela know his mother preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of anything that might dirty her world or impinge on her enjoyment of it?

It was probably safe to take Mirela inside. Probably. No guarantee.

“You sure you want to do this?”

“I know what he is. I know what they are. My mother told me.”

There was a slight accent, Eastern European maybe. The careful way she spoke nearly masked it.

A nod said he believed her. It was far too easy to imagine his father and uncle away from the United States, where there were plenty of beautiful women willing to consort with men seen in the company of powerful, dangerous, known criminals.

“Let’s go then,” he said.

They wouldn’t take his father by surprise. Mirela’s car would have been noted. Whoever was monitoring the security feed had probably written her off as a cop stationed outside the house. But the minute they got a good look at her, they’d have summoned the boss.

“You vouching for her?” the guard asked when they reached him.

Fuck.

“That is unnecessary,” she said, holding her arms out in an invitation to be patted down for weapons.

Not a thing to bluff about here despite their being in plain sight.

The bodyguard was thorough and totally professional. A search outside, then just inside the front door a wand looking for listening devices, and still a misunderstood move or too quick gesture would land anyone, even him, on the floor in a heartbeat.

“He’s in the sitting area attached to the formal living room,” the guard said, motioning for Cathal to lead while he covered the rear.

The position meant Cathal couldn’t witness Mirela’s expression as they traveled through his mother’s domain, a testament to taste and what could be done when a top-of-the-line interior decorator was not limited by budget. Then again, maybe she’d look around her and compare this house with its limited history to places in Europe.

The sitting room was done in whites and browns and beiges, the furniture a luxurious cluster positioned in the center of a room whose sole purpose, other than to impress, was to take in the view of the bay through windows that stretched the twelve feet from floor to ceiling, the strips of wall necessary to support them always making him think of an ancient Roman coliseum. Like the rest of this part of the house, the smell of flowers dominated, drifting upward from an arrangement delivered fresh earlier in the day.

His father rose from the sofa as they neared. Cathal said, “This is Mirela.”

“My mother was Jaelle Dvorak,” Mirela said, causing a flash of surprise in his father’s eyes, and then the shock was his when she added, “On her deathbed she finally gave me the name of my father. You.”

She thrust her hand out, the ring appearing ordinary against the backdrop of the San Francisco Bay. “In case you doubt me, here is your proof. You gave this to her in Prague.”

Fuck. Not Brianna’s sister. His.

Niall motioned to the furniture in a gesture to sit. When they had, he looked at Mirela and said, “Why did you come here? What do you want?” His voice was cool, his eyes assessing, in that moment, the mafia don Cathal knew him to be.

Mirela’s chin lifted, and if her hands tightened marginally on the material of her pants, he still gave her props for bravery, and he admired her for it. “I came to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Not always a smart move.”

“Dad—”

A glance in his direction said this was between his father and, Jesus, his sister.

She sent him a glance too. “I wanted to meet Cathal. I have no other family now that my mother is dead.”

Bad timing, Cathal thought for the second time since getting a look at Mirela. “We need to take this into your office, Dad.” Code for I have something to tell you and it’s not something for the authorities to overhear.

“It have anything to do with why you’re traveling with a bodyguard now? From the look of him, one of Eamon’s?” Proof his father had been called to watch what was going on outside.

“Yes.”

Niall’s focus shifted to Mirela. “Coincidences make me itchy. Now more than ever since I have a son who’s hooked up with a policeman’s daughter.” Meaning he wasn’t convinced she wasn’t working for the authorities.

Cathal’s own paranoia allowed for the possibility, ratcheted up a notch because she’d been at the club. Icy sensation swept over him. What if last night was some kind of a setup? What if the authorities had caught him walking away from a body, even if the death would be ruled self-defense in any court. What if—

He shook it off. For once magic and the existence of the supernatural actually provided some relief. Cage wasn’t human. The blade wasn’t simply a knife. And the ring Mirela wore as a keepsake was something more than that, he’d known last night and Heath’s reaction confirmed it.

Careful subtext, he’d spent a lifetime communicating with his father that way, but in that moment he was tired of it. He took out his phone, typed in a text message he’d never send. Someone came after me. Warn Denis in case Brianna is also a target.

The cold in his father’s expression deepened at reading it. “Your woman has some dangerous friends and acquaintances. You nearly got killed yesterday because of her.”

Cathal laughed at the rich irony of that, coming from his father. “She’s the one who would have been collateral damage. Fallout from seeing that justice is done.” Your brand of justice. Her father’s and her brother’s.

The slightest tilt of Niall’s head acknowledged the point and message. “I’ll tell Denis that because of your association with her, you now feel the need for a bodyguard.”

“Good enough.” Which left Mirela, unprotected, a complication.

Another irony there. He could hear Eamon’s voice in his head, calling him the same thing.

He wasn’t sure whether his father would offer her protection. He couldn’t be positive she’d be smart to accept the offer if made.

Mirela wasn’t to blame for the circumstances of her birth. Acknowledging her existence wasn’t a moral dilemma for him though his mind shied away from thinking about the impact of this on his mother.

“You interested in following me home and meeting my fiancé, Etaín?” he asked her, making his position clear to his father and also creating the possibility that Eamon would assign an Elf to guard her.

She seemed surprised by the offer, genuinely pleased. “I’d love to.”

“Your mother’s due home in a few minutes,” Niall said, not that he couldn’t easily have her delayed.

Cathal took the hint. “I need to get going anyway.”

Niall escorted them as far as the front door. When it was closed behind them, he turned to Orin. “You get a tracker on her car?”

“Yes.”

“Follow them. Then follow her after she leaves my son’s house.”

I expected you to hate me,” Mirela said as they reached her car.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t make sense to. I’ve always known what my father and uncle are. You want the address?”

Her smile reminded him of Etaín’s, without the sexual jolt of awareness. “I already have it.”

Of course she did. “You were at Saoirse last night. Why didn’t you approach me then?”

She started to answer. Hesitated. Finally said, “You’ll think me crazy.”

He laughed at that. “Trust me, there’s plenty I could say that would make me sound it.”

“I felt it wasn’t safe. A premonition. I’ve learned to listen to them.”

He stepped back to allow her to get in the car. It was a rental.

Heath waited for him in his. “A sister? A cousin?” It was the first curiosity the Elf had revealed since accompanying him.

“Sister. Will Eamon offer her protection?”

“In the interim, I’m sure he will do so.”

“What do you mean by that, in the interim?”

Auburn eyebrows lifted. “When the Lady becomes his consort, it will be in her power to assign bodyguards, and by extension, yours.”

Cathal didn’t have time to determine how he felt about that. His cellphone rang as he pulled away from the curb, the tone indicating Sean.

“You got a hit on the prints,” he said.

“Always in a rush to get to the climax. I hope sex isn’t that way for you.”

“If I respond you’ll be covering your ears and complaining about too much information.”

Sean laughed. “Doubtful. I admit to my kink. Secondhand works for me when the parties are visually attractive.”

“Ever been accused of being shallow?”

“Not recently.”

“What have you got for me?”

“The prints belong to a banger who just happens to be in the same gang Marc Ruiz, street name Sleepy, is now part of. How’s that for a coincidence?”

Cathal glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing Mirela’s car tucked behind his, his thoughts echoing his father’s. “I don’t believe in coincidences. You don’t either.”

“No, but I’ve got a working theory that’d explain it.”

“Want to share?”

“The gang Ruiz is in is Sureño. Individual gangs can be at war with each other over turf, but they all answer to the Mexican Mafia. As long as you have Sureños, some of them aspiring to be made members, carnales, of La Eme, you’ve got a steady stream of soldiers to carry out murder, extortion, whatever, you name it, including contracted hits.”

“Meaning Ruiz and associates could also be a strong possibility for what happened in Oakland?”

“If the order came from a Mexican Mafia member, yeah, though their going across the bay bothers me. I’d have assumed an Oakland Sureño gang would have been used. But that’s how assumptions go, they can leave you screwed and rushing to cover your ass for a bad call. I need more intel. I get it, I can take a stab at who ordered what.”

“Find Ruiz. That might be enough.”

“Find him and what? Make him talk? Hand him over to someone who will? And I don’t think this guy is likely to spill his guts to the police.”

Cathal tensed, shooting a glance at Heath, then thinking, what the fuck. Eamon knew Etaín intended this. He had to know by now he wasn’t going to stop her. “A few minutes with Etaín, before the police show up.”

The silence was complete, breath held in a shifting of belief, a full acceptance of what the evidence had suggested to Sean. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re willing or not? Whether they’re heavily sedated or totally aware?”

“No.”

“That explains your unnatural concern for Quinn earlier today.”

“Yeah.” He left it at that. “Call me when you have something?”

Sean sighed. “Remind me to revise my rates the next time you bring me work.”

“Not in my best interests,” Cathal said, smiling until he caught sight of a car pulling onto the street a little more than a block behind them.

His heart raced at seeing a Hispanic behind the wheel despite it being a Jag. Jesus, not every person of Mexican descent was a gangbanger or mafia member. He knew that, had friends encompassing a lot of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as employees and the musicians he’d discovered.

“Talk to you later,” he said, forcing himself not to slow down so he could get the Jag’s license plate number, though he couldn’t stop himself from hitting the garage remote at the exact spot when he got in range.

Paranoid. Call him paranoid, but he cursed himself for not having gotten Mirela’s cell number, assuming she had one. He rolled down the window, waving a message that she should follow him up the driveway and into the garage. The tightness in his chest eased when she pulled up beside him, the door already rolling downward.

Heath was out of the car in a flash. Cathal followed. Mirela emerged from the rental.

The ring flared, a blinding pulse that had Heath rushing toward them, hands gripping their arms in the instant they were hit with an incendiary concussion and fierce heat. The blast so powerful it nearly knocked him to the ground.

A wall of flame encased them, trapping Mirela’s scream and his own shout of surprise. Chaos followed in a pound of debris and the choke of black smoke visible through a shimmer of red and yellow.

Sweat coursed down his neck and face. And though he wore clothes, he felt naked, exposed, as if flame touched every inch of skin except where Etaín’s ink was. Cool ocean countered fire, like a buffer against the living flame they stood in.

Magic, Heath’s, though this felt a hell of a lot different than what Eamon had done in front of the shelter.

Where Eamon’s shield was a bubble deflecting whatever struck it, this was flame burning hot enough on the outside to melt the shrapnel the cars had become and counter the explosion and rage of gasoline.

Mirela’s ring dimmed. How he could tell in the maelstrom he didn’t know, but he did and that knowledge was confirmed when Heath said, “Through the house. Your survival can’t be explained out here,” his grip tightening in a message that they must remain connected. A message Cathal understood when minutes later they staggered out of the house through the front door.

Heath released them, urging them to keep moving, toward neighbors he’d had little contact with but who now rushed forward, shocked that somehow he’d made it out of the inferno his house had become.

He heard a fire engine already racing toward them. From the other direction a police car’s siren was a slashing noise that only invigorated the conversation going on around him. Discordant snippets.

Car slowing.

A Jag.

Fired something.

It sounded like an explosion.

Two of them.

Grenade launcher.

Jesus. There’d be no escaping the scene, not immediately anyway. If Heath hadn’t been there and known to act…If Mirela’s ring hadn’t reacted…

He noticed her absence then and paranoia returned, that she’d set him up. He dismissed it. The wisdom of tracking down her father aside, he didn’t believe she had a death wish.

The sweat on his skin chilled. He’d asked her back to the house thinking to protect her, but if she hadn’t been with him he would have died.

A premonition. I’ve learned to listen to them, she’d said when he asked her about leaving Saoirse instead of introducing herself there. And he’d seen the glint of her ring on screens that didn’t usually capture glittering jewelry, then again when Heath hurried to intercept her.

Firemen jumped from their rig, a second engine was close by. The police arrived, ordering everyone farther back. Beyond them Cathal saw his father’s soldier, the man who’d let them into the house, talking on the phone. Catching Cathal’s gaze, he hung up. An instant later Cathal’s cell rang.

“Dad.” More a croak than anything else.

“I’m handling this. Come home when the police cut you free. Bring Etaín. The two of you can stay here until it’s safe.”

“We’ll go to Eamon’s.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Niall hung up, only the iron will of self-discipline keeping his hand steady. Enough. Enough. He refused to lose his son.

Or his daughter?

The jury was still out on that one.

Going to the bedroom he opened the gun safe there, reaching in deep to retrieve the burn phone. There was only one number programmed in, one whose use he felt certain wasn’t being monitored by authorities or the calls recorded.

He hit speed dial. A man answered immediately, a hawk swooping on prey. Better that than a vulture on road kill.

“I’m a little surprised I didn’t hear from you yesterday,” Niall’s contact said. “You’re calling to request an intervention?”

“Yes.”

“Your son is keeping interesting company these days. How’s your niece, by the way? Well on the way to recovery?”

“Miracles happen.”

“You’re at home?”

“Yes.”

“We need to meet face-to-face to handle this. Do you have plans to visit your lady friend?”

“I could have.”

“I can be there shortly.”

“So can I.”

“Is Denis going to accompany you?”

Bastard probably knew Denis had gotten Brianna out of the country, away from news of her dead classmates and their associates. There was no way he was going to confirm it.

“I’ll be alone. My word is good with Denis.”

“Accepted.”

The call dropped. He placed the cellphone back in the safe then moved to the house phone and punched in an extension. When Brendan answered, he said, “Bring the car around.”

He slipped on his suit jacket as he stepped outside. The Mercedes slid to a halt next to him. Brendan got out, opening the back passenger door.

“Marla’s,” Niall said when Brendan returned to the driver’s seat.

He let himself in when he got to the place he’d bought for her and maintained the security on. She immediately rose from the couch and came to him, pressing her well-formed body to his.

He cupped her ass, enjoying the grind of her cunt against his cock, despite the business that’d brought him here. “I’m expecting company.” He didn’t need to say more.

“I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.”

“You do that.”

She sauntered away, hips swaying for his benefit, knowing he watched her. She was a beautiful woman, an accomplished lover who knew what the score was. It made his thoughts stray to Mirela’s mother. He couldn’t guess what’d made her have his kid, then keep quiet about it.

A dark-suited man arrived minutes later, intense, looking exactly like what he was, a Fed, of the Homeland Security variety. He wasn’t alone, though the guy who accompanied him had a whole different vibe. With the muscles and buzz cut he could pass for former military, the flat, hard eyes said Special Forces or mercenary.

Niall felt the first, sharp stab of foreboding, at just how expensive this call was going to be. “Didn’t know you were bringing a friend.”

“This is Desmond.”

Irish. The sharp blade of foreboding sliced deeper into Niall’s gut. He moved to the bar, pouring drinks before they claimed their seats.

The burn of the liquor met the cool of rage and determination. He would do what it took to protect his family. “You wanted the face-to-face.”

“You’ve got a mess that needs cleaning up. We can bring the necessary pressure to bear and you can deliver a personal warning to complement our actions. Unless you’ve left evidence around, then the best we can do is get you out of the country ahead of an arrest.”

“We’re not worried about evidence.” The guns Denis had used were long gone and he’d personally watched as Cathal burned the only evidence that proved they’d known who the guilty were. “What do you want?”

“Desmond, inside your organization, pursuing our interests, starting now.”

Niall glanced at the cold-eyed man who’d accompanied the Homeland Security handler. “Done.”