Page 20 of Bloody Knuckles

CHAPTER7

CORMAC

BETRAYAL & BROTHERHOOD

Her taste lingers on my tongue hours after I leave the penthouse. The memory of Aoife on her knees, copper hair spilling over my thighs, lips wrapped around my cock—it haunts me through meetings and strategy sessions. My body is on a knife edge, unsatisfied, taunted by her deliberate denial.

A dangerous game she's playing. One that will end with her beneath me, begging.

But first, business requires my attention.

The surveillance on Liam Gallagher has been very insightful. Connor drops a manila folder on my desk, he’s uncharacteristically silent as I flip it open.

Photographs spill across polished mahogany. Liam Gallagher meeting someone at a pub in Temple Bar. The second figure sits with his back to the camera in the first shots. Then, in the final image, he turns.

My blood freezes.

Finn. My youngest brother.

"There must be a mistake," I say, voice deadly calm despite the rage building beneath my skin.

Connor shifts uncomfortably. "Three separate meetings documented. Audio recordings from the last one."

He slides a flash drive across the desk. "You'll want your privacy for this."

After he leaves, I plug the drive into my laptop. The audio quality isn't perfect—pub noise creating background static—but the voices come through clear enough.

"Patrick's losing patience,"Liam's distinctive voice says."The shipment locations worked out, but he wants something bigger."

"I've given you three major scores."Finn's voice, unmistakable."That wasn't our arrangement."

"Arrangements change. Especially when you're dealing with a man whose daughter's been kidnapped."

A pause, then Finn again:"Cormac's move, not mine. I strongly advised him against it."

"Yet here we are. And now Patrick wants the Donovan distribution network. All access points, security details. Everything."

"That wasn't the deal. I agreed to help balance power in exchange for territory when this is over. Not hand over the family business."

Liam laughs, the sound cold through the static."You handed over the family business the moment you betrayed your brother. Don't act all moral and mighty now."

The recording continues, detailing drop points, payoffs, schedules. With each word, the betrayal cuts deeper. Finn—raised under my protection after our father's brutality nearly destroyed him. Finn—whom I shielded, educated, positioned as my right hand.

Finn—who has sold our family to the Gallaghers.

I send a text to Declan:Bring him. Now. The warehouse.

Then another to Connor:Secure transport for our guest at the penthouse. Deliver her to location Alpha at 9PM. No explanations.

The drive to our Docklands warehouse passes in a blur of cold calculating rage. Betrayal in our ranks explains everything—the ambushed shipments, the precise intelligence, the targeted strikes against our operations. Not Murphy feeding information to the Donovan’s, but my own brother driving a knife into my back.

Declan waits outside the warehouse, cigarette burning between his fingers. "He's inside. Confused, not afraid. He clearly doesn't know what we know."

"Anyone else know?"

"Just Connor and me, boss. As ordered."

"Good." I adjust my cufflinks, a ritual before violence. "Family business stays private."

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