Page 71 of The Celtic Resolution
“Mmhmm. You need to talk to Sarah.”
“Rocky’s wife?”
“Yup.”
“But… I don’t understand.”
Saoirse rolls her eyes a little. “Listen. With everything Domenico has done and Rocky apparently missing, we had to assume the worst. Either he’s dead or he’s on board with Domenico and I know that’s highly unlikely, but lets face it, we can’t trust anyone. Sarah though? She’s still a cop and I know what went down with her and Rocky. She wouldneverabandon her morals. So you need to get to her and tell her the truth. She’s the only one shrewd enough to take a chance at believing you. I know her. She won’t immediately brush you off.”
Talk to Sarah. How the fuck am I going to get near her to do that?
“And then…” Saoirse’s hand suddenly shoots out and she grasps my wrist. “You have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I say immediately.
“Save Cian. Please. I don’t care about anything or anyone else. But I saw what they did to him and I was killing myself thinking he was dead because of me. You have to save him before anyone else.”
“But Saoirse?—”
“Promise me!” She snaps, tightening her grip. “I’ve already lost one brother, I can’t lose another. Please, promise me you will save him before me!”
It’s an impossible promise to make but her grip is so strong that it reminds me who she was before all this. “Okay,” I say, as much as I don’t want to. “I promise.”
31
BRUNO
“Another?” The blonde behind the bar taps her long, red fingernails against my glass and smirks. “On the house.”
“Well, how can I say no to that?” A free drink? Yes please. At this rate, I’ll take the whole bottle if I can. Yet no matter how much I drink, I can’t shake the prickling feeling at the back of my neck as the men stalking me all the way from the lighthouse linger deeper in the bar. My father acts like he trusts me and yet he has these assholes tail me like I’m some rat.
Iama rat but he doesn’t need to know that.
Drinking at Hazel’s would be too obvious so I’ve come into the city and chosen a rowdy sports bar to drown my feelings in. Saoirse remains imprisoned, Cian is surviving but in bad need of a real doctor, and God knows how many people have vanished across the ocean while I fuck around trying to find a moment to breathe.
Is it really meant to be like this? Is the world truly this dark and fucked up? I almost miss prison. I can’t believe it was easier than this.
My phone lights up with a shipment notification as the bartender pours me another drink, and my heart sinks. All I want is to get Saoirse out of there and return her to her family, and to see Mary happy and safe. After that, I don’t care what happens to me.
Especially since I’m now ninety percent sure my father is somehow involved with how I ended up shot, twice. Saoirse insists she only shot me once and I believe her. It would be a weird thing to lie about. The second shot had to be their way of making it like Saoirse shot with the intent to kill. That way, in the eyes of all the other families, the Irish are in the wrong and Domenico has free range to avenge the attempted murder of his son. It’sexactlythe kind of play he would twist.
And I fell for it. I believed him because the wounds were evidence enough.
There’s not enough time left in the world to truly make it up to Saoirse. I drain my glass and groan hoarsely as the alcohol burns a path of fire down my gullet, but as I’m trying to set the glass down, someone drunk bumps into my back. The glass slips from my fingers and falls over, rolling across the bar.
“Hey!” I snap, spinning on my stool. “Watch what the fuck you’re doing!”
“I ain’t doing shit!” A gust of beer breath washes over me from the man who bumped into me. He slaps his hand over my shoulder and shoves me as if trying to make me turn back around. “Was an accident. Relax,brochacho.”
“Don’t fucking touch me. Now I gotta get a new glass.”
“Relaaaax.” He leans against me and grins. “It’s just a glass, man. Get another one, it’s what they’re there for. Hell, I’ll even pay for it, huh? Since it’s such abigdeal.”
Annoyance rises like the swell of the tide and before I can even process my anger, my fist collides with the asshole's face.He stumbles backward with a cry, knocking into a waitress who loses her entire tray of drinks over the head of a burly bald man.
He yells in fury and stands abruptly, causing his elbow to catch on the waitress’ chin which earns yells of protective anger from other patrons. A brawl breaks out within seconds and I lose myself in the drunken mess of it all.
The man I punched tries to hit me back but he’s slower than me, likely due to more alcohol in his system. I punch him again and again, then get him on the ground and punch his face a third time. Glasses smash, chairs clatter, and tables splinter under the weight of bodies slamming back and forth. The fight is over almost as quickly as it started when the commotion brings in a patrol from outside and the man beneath me is saved from my fury by two cops who wrestle me to the ground and snap cold cuffs around my wrists.
