Page 31 of Steel Rain

I looked away from Eoghan and Grimes to see Dairo standing there, his blue eyes looking at me with gentle encouragement. When we made eye contact, he nodded his head with a somber expression. He reeked of kindness and good intentions.

“Come on, Shiny,” Dairo said, stepping forward and lowering his voice. “For old time’s sake.”

I looked at Eoghan, who lifted a brow at me, as if daring me to fight. What was a dare from Eoghan, was a plea of friendship from Dairo.

“Right,” Eoghan smiled, “What kind of example are you setting for Sibby, if you can’t get along with your comrades, eh?”

Another veiled threat, given with a jovial tone.

If Eoghan had to bludgeon me to death, I bet he’d enjoy it. He was such a sick son of a bitch.

Then I looked to Grimes who just seemed like he didn’t want to be there. Like he was ready to tuck tail and scurry into the dark.

I slapped my hand on his, pumped it once, then let go, prying myself out of Eoghan’s grasp.

I didn’t wait for the Green boys to say anything. I just walked away, down the aisle, out the doors, through the darkness, and back to my room. I slammed the door shut, leaning my back on it until my legs gave out. I slid down the rough door, and I tucked my legs into me, until I was a pathetic little ball on the ground.

I’m alone. I am weak. I am nothing …

I placed my forehead on my knees, and looked into the dark space I created between my chest and thighs. The safe, small space that I could create for myself in this chaos.

I wept until my body shook. I cried like a fucking weakling, silently letting the tears fall on the back of my uniform trousers, which proudly proclaimed that I was a member of Green Fields Enterprises. One ofthem.

Chapter 15

Ajax

TheGreensinvitedmefor drinks – an invitation that was more of a command than a request. It was something Eoghan did often, trying to get me out of the gym. Hereallywanted me to feel something for him and his men. He wanted to make this a permanent arrangement, so I’d be one of his lackeys forever.

But I refused.

Staying on as a trainer until the war with the Italians was already too long. I woke up every morning hoping that this was the day Eoghan would snap and want to take a shot at Eugenio Durante. And every night, I went to bed disappointed that my servitude would continue.

I was in the bowels of the Green Mansion, watching the sick fuck do stomach-turning things to a guy hung upside down by his ankles like a stuck pig.

Like the rest of the house, this basement was creepy as fuck. It belonged in a haunted mansion from a video game. Not in real life. A small hearth blazed in the corner. The white plaster sides were open, with hooks for pots and pans. The thing was four feet tall, and five feet wide. It must have been a cooking hearth at one point, back in a much older time. A time that must have been more suited for Europe than the New World.

Eoghan held a blade in his hand – a handleless throwing knife that had his initials emblazoned on it – and pointed it to the man trussed up by his feet like a deer about to be dressed after a hunt.

The man was so bloodied and beaten, he was barely human anymore. If it wasn’t for his clothes, the one shoe on his foot, the remnants of a very blood-soaked suit, and the largely undamaged hands that dangled to the ground, trying but failing to relieve some of the pressure from the ropes at his ankles, I would have thought he was an animal.

“I’m going to ask again,” Eoghan said, his blade in his hand as he knelt in front of the man so that they were eye-level. “Where is Kira Green?”

The man whimpered. A lone bit of blood dripped from his mouth, down his cheek and into his eye.

“They haven’t found her yet,” he whimpered through snotty sniffles. “But they will. They said they’re close. And when they do …”

“And what do they plan to do when they find her?”

“Morelli wants to do to her what Vasiliev did to your mother.”

Eoghan put the blade to his face, tapping it lightly against his lower lip as if it was helping him to think.

“Funny enough, I don’t remember that going well for the Russians. What do you think, Dairo?” Eoghan turned his eyes to his second-in-command, who clasped his hands in front of him and shrugged.

Then Eoghan’s face settled into a sadistic smile as he chuckled.

“In fact, I remember the Vasiliev girl strung up by her thumbs at the pier, right after we slaughtered, beat and burned half of their fucking men.” Eoghan pointed the knife at an amused Dairo. “Am I remembering that right?”

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