Page 5 of Steel Rain

Maybe that’s why I didn’t agree with his assessment.

“I think I’ve seen her somewhere before,” Eoghan said, bringing his finger to his thick lower lip and tapping it, deep in thought. “Does she seem familiar, Dairo?”He asked of his cousin, Dairo, and the current head of his guards. He was also the husband of my former fighter. In fact, he had been here when I was shot, and he got Rose out when I couldn’t.

That, on its own, made us allies of a sort.

It’s one of the great Irish mysteries that the name Alastair could turn into the nickname “Dairo”. But there it was. It must be like how William turned into Bill, or Richard into Dick. Alastair turned into Dairo.

No one but Eoghan ever called him that. Everyone else just referred to the Green cousins as “Sir” or Mr. Green.

Dairo shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll place her soon enough.”

The two cousins looked like twins except for two key differences. Dairo had a British accent and bright blue eyes that sparkled with humor. Eoghan had a deep Irish accent with black eyes that only sparkled with menace.

“She’sveryfamiliar, in fact.” Eoghan’s voice was heavy with hidden meaning.

That was him. He never said what he meant. It was always half-truths and mysterious mutterings.

They better not befamiliarwith her the same way I was. If that was the case, then my debts be damned. I might have to kill them both. Then again, if they knew her in the biblical sense, they wouldknow it. Just as I had. No one could get in that heat and forget. No one could hold a body that taut and strong and not feel the amazing power of having it submit to the primal act of animalistic lust.

She had a back as smooth as a statue, and abs made of fucking steel. It was marred only by a star cluster of scars at her stomach, jagged and in a circular pattern. The scarring probably went right through her, opening larger and rougher on her back. It was a scar similar to my own.

Hell, it was even in the same place, just on the other side. Like we were two sides of the same fucked up coin.

Who are you, Sin Grady, and what are you doing in a place like this?

Chapter 3

Sin

Iwasgoingtolose this fight. Guile and I had sparred since our Combatives class when we were officer candidates at Fort Benning seven years ago. Two out of three times, he would kick my ass. I knew it.

Now, we were in a different arena. One with rules I only partially knew and hadn’t trained for.

He did his best to help me. He tried to tell me what the rules were. In his spare time, he had even worked with me at the gym to get ready for this. But that wouldn’t be enough.

He had a full team in his corner. I was on my own.

It was ironic that the only one who had my back, emotionally speaking, was the guy who was going to pummel my face.

I would never have gotten into the underground circuit if he hadn’t let me. When I showed up at his apartment door and begged him to fight me, he had said no. Not just no, but “No way in fucking hell! Are you nuts? People die in the underground!”

I argued. He argued.

Then I promised I’d owe him a marker. An I.O.U.

“Shit, that’s serious.” His eyes bugged out of his head. A marker was for life. We both took that shit seriously. “Why do you need this so badly?”

I clamped my mouth shut. Secrets are easier than disclosure. But I stood there and pleaded. He didn’t budge. So, I had to give him something.

“Because of my sister,” I finally told him. “I need it for my sister. I can’t tell you more than that.”

What would I say? That my father was executed in the middle of a mafia wedding, leaving my sister in foster care because she had nowhere else to go? And, of course, she didn’t speak to me because she thinks I abandoned her … because I had!

I am a fuckingterriblehuman being, and a terrible sister, and I had todosomething before she suffered even more, because God knows, she had already been in foster care for months without anyone telling me anything …

Nope. That wouldenda friendship with the very wholesome, normal Harrison Guile. If he knew this about me, he would turn tail and run far, far away.

After everything that had happened, and everything I had lost, I couldn’t lose Guile. He was my only friend. The only one I could count on. The only one who cared.

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