Page 13 of Steel Rain

With Harrison gone, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. But I was ready for a fight. Two on one? The odds weren’t great, especially with LeBlanc on Eoghan’s side. But I’ve survived worse.

Come at me, bro.

Chapter 8

Ajax

Iwasworkingwithoutall the necessary intel. There was an entire conversation going on that I wasn’t privy to. A whole level of subtext that I didn’t understand. Who the fuck was this Harrison Guile guy to her? And who the fuck was Keith Bournes? Where did she land in the middle of this intrigue? And if she had a fiancé, and a boyfriend, then why the fuck was she doing me in the back alley?

The Irish Mob - or, as Eoghan liked to say, “Green Fields Enterprises” - was full of secrets and lies. There were things beneath the placid surface that made my skin crawl.

But therewassomething familiar inhereyes when she said the name of the man Eoghan called her “fiancé”. It was a look I had seen a hundred times over. Women in the service, surrounded by hot-blooded men, were almost universally familiar with sexual harassment. An embarrassing number had experienced far worse. It wasn’t embarrassing for them. It was an utter embarrassment and shame for the service. For all of us. At least it should be. For decades, or even longer, commanders had created climates that betrayed an entire group of our servicemembers. We were still barely peeling back the wool from our eyes when it came to the hell some women in the ranks underwent every single day.

You could see it in their eyes. It was a combination of betrayal, hurt, and shame. A mixed bag of strength that wanted vengeance, but also wanted closure and peace.

I saw all those things cross in front of her eyes.

But the ways a man could betray a woman - the way a person could betray a lover - was vast and varied. So, what had happened to The She-Wolf? What had her opponent whispered into her ear before she dismissed him from the room? And what did Eoghan know about her that I didn’t?

I felt the metal loop at the handle of the karambit’s hilt. The loop was made for an index finger to go through in a fight, giving the user a little more control over the weapon. It also meant that with the extra leverage of a finger, the knife-wielder was less likely to be disarmed in a melee.

Her mouth clamped shut, while Eoghantsked.

“I’m surprised you came back without sending word, Sinead Flanagan,” Eoghan paced, his leather shoes squeaking on the floor. “You weren’t planning to come by for a visit?”

Her chin jutted up, and her heels clicked together. If she had trousers on, the thumbs on her fist would have been aligned with the seam of her legs. She was standing at attention. Rigid, and straight. She was military.

Another piece of information I could file away for later, along with the name Sinead Flanagan.

The Underground wasn’t a theater. We didn’t get playbills with biographies of the players in the octagon. Other than her name, and the fact that she was Irish and connected to Green Fields Enterprises, I knew nothing about her.

“Who would I have sent word to?” she raised that perfectly arched brow. “My father?”

Eoghan stopped in his pacing. “Aye, so is that why you’re back?”

He lunged for her, and I almost jumped, ready to step between them. But he stopped within an inch of her face. They were practically nose-to-nose, but she didn’t back down. He snarled, and she returned his expression with the same ferocious malice. A She-Wolf indeed.

“Have you come for revenge?” Eoghan’s smile was menacing and terrible all at the same time.

She laughed. It was a fake, cruel, and villainous laugh that caught me off-guard.

“You think I’d seek revenge forthatson of a bitch?” She laughed again, throwing her head back before she froze, her face turning stone cold at the drop of a hat. The switch was so fast that it was off-putting. Even frightening. “I would thank you for killing him if …”

With her mouth still open, she let that last word linger in the air. She let it hang with a powerful, dreadful weight that made my skin prickle with anticipation. Like a prisoner, waiting for the axe to fall.

“‘Ifwhat,Shiny?” Eoghan asked, growing impatient.

“If Sibby wasn’t in foster care.”

That took Eoghan by surprise. He straightened, throwing distance between them, and dampening his aggressive stance.

“That’s right,” she said, pressing her luck. “Did you forget I had a sister?”

Eoghan’s silence was damning. I guess hehadforgotten.

Certain things were starting to click into place, my fingers idly ran over the hilt of my knife as the puzzle of my little Snow White started to show a picture I could recognize.

Eoghan had gone on a violent round-up last month after discovering that certain members of his guards hadthreatenedhis wife. It caused her to run away. So he found every single one of them and executed, or had them killed, in their own brutal and gruesome ways.

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