I roared and attempted to attack him again, but the arms around me kept me still. All the focus was on me, so everyone was surprised when Bronagh suddenly charged at Trent. She jumped on him and punched, slapped, and dug her nails into his face, making him scream. Satisfaction filled me as she hurt him. When he knocked her off his body and kicked her in the stomach, I roared for him to stop, but he didn’t listen to me.
“I’m going to make you scream, bitch. You will see how much of a vile creature I can fucking be.”
Trent attempted to hit Bronagh again, but Marco moved next to him and grabbed his raised arm.
“Enough! I need her alive. How many times do I have to fucking say that?”
Trent slowly lowered his arm. “But Uncle—”
“No buts. You can have the other one. This one belongs to Nico, and I need him, and he needs her, so she is off-limits. Do you understand that, boy?” Marco asked Trent, his gaze now a glare.
Trent swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
The men who were holding me suddenly released me, and I dropped to my knees, agony flowing through my veins.
“If you keep it together for the rest of this meeting, then you can have this one to play with.”
Someone was dragged into the room, and I had no idea who it was until Bronagh screamed, “Alannah!” She crawled over to her body and felt her neck for a pulse.
“Is she alive?” I asked, panicked.
“Yes,” she called back as she gathered Alannah into her arms and glared at Marco as if daring him to touch her.
He laughed. “I like you, kiddo. You have heart, but I’m not sure if that makes you brave or stupid.”
“Probably both,” Bronagh replied.
He winked. “I definitely like you.”
“Yeah, well I fuckin’ hate you!”
Marco snorted. “You wouldn’t be the first or the last to hate me, kiddo.”
I crawled over to the girls and put my body in front of theirs. Trent was laughing at our little huddle but stopped when he heard the noise of gunshots come from the stairway entrance to Darkness. The doors were slightly open, allowing us to hear them. Bronagh reached for my arm and gave it a squeeze.
Marco grinned. “The Slater brothers are here.”
Trent moved into the shadows to my left while Marco’s men drew guns from inside their coats. Marco, too, took out a handgun. Twenty seconds passed before the doors to the entrance of the stairway were fully kicked open. I was relieved when Dominic, Ryder, Alec, and Kane all walked in with guns in their hands. They didn’t raise and point them at anyone, though, because Marco and his men had their guns pointed at us.
Dominic locked eyes on Bronagh, and I could tell from one look that he was willing to move mountains to make her safe.
“Let my brother, my girl, and her friend go, and I won’t make you suffer when I kill you.”
Marco laughed as he sat down in the booth. “You haven’t seen me in months, and that is the greeting you give your uncle?”
“You’re nothing to us!” Kane growled.
I looked at Bronagh when her body began to droop.
“She’s going to go any minute,” Matt said to Marco.
“Put her up here then.”
I took hold of Alannah’s unconscious body as Matt lifted Bronagh to her feet and held onto her as he moved her over to the booth where Marco was sitting. She instantly slumped forward onto the table, and Dominic’s roar made me jump.
“Give it a rest, bro.” Trent’s voice sang merrily. “She took a knock to the head, but she is okay.”
“Trent?” my brothers said in unison.
“Happy to see me?”
“What the fuck is going on?” Alec demanded.
“I’ll tell you,” I growled. “Marco lied when he said I killed Trent. He just wanted an easy way to pull you four deep into the business, and when you guys offered to work for him to protect me, it was the perfect opportunity.”
“We buried the little prick, though,” Ryder’s voice snapped.
“No,” I said, my voice hollow. “We buried Nala. Trent killed her when she found out he wasn’t really dead.”
The room filled with silence until Trent said, “And the slut was pregnant with his kid as well. Talk about shit luck for her.”
“Pregnant?”
I nodded when my brothers looked my way.
“She told me the day Mom and Dad were killed.”
“That was why you’ve been distant?” Dominic asked. “Not because of Mom and Dad but because of Nala?”
“I thought she fucking left on purpose with my kid, so yeah, I’d been messed up about that, but now I know she is dead and so is my kid. Having this prick haunting me every night because I thought I had killed him wasn’t fun either.”
“Does that make me the man of your dreams, D?” Trent taunted.
All focus was on Trent, and again, Bronagh blindsided everyone when she snatched Marco’s gun from under his nose and pointed it at him.
“Damn, Irish, you sure know how to play a man.”
Bronagh looked close to collapsing.
“Tell your men to back off or I swear to God, I will pull this trigger and kill ye’,” she warned. “I’m not afraid to do it.”
“Stay where you are!” one of Marco’s men growled.
“Unless you want your boss’s brains all over the place, I’d advise you to let me go to my girl or she will kill him,” Dominic said, lowly. “Trust me on that.”
Trent moved closer to the booth. “She’s bluffing. She doesn’t have it in her to pull that trigger.”
“I wouldn’t put money on that,” Kane said.
“Hey, pretty girl,” Dominic said as he slid into the booth next to Bronagh whose hands were shaking.
“I could kill ‘im and make all this go away. I could do it.”
She kept her eyes on Marco as she spoke.
“I know you can, baby, but this piece of shit isn’t worth it.”
He reached for her, but she leaned away from him.
“He wants to take ye’ away from me, and I won’t let ‘im.” She hissed. “You’re mine, not his!”
Dominic got close enough to kiss her shoulder, and whatever he whispered made Bronagh cry.
“Give me the gun,” he urged. “That’s it, good girl.”
Bronagh had slowly started to lower her arm when a bang suddenly sounded. She screamed and instinctively pulled the trigger on the gun, causing an even louder bang. I flinched, then rolled Alannah’s body under mine when more gunshots went off around the room. Minutes passed, but when everything went silent, I sat up and darted my eyes around the room. When I saw Marco’s men were down, and all of my brothers were standing, I nearly collapsed with relief.
“I didn’t mean to,” Bronagh said gaining my attention. “I got a fright and—”
“Bronagh!” Dominic snapped. “It’s okay, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
“We’re going to go to prison. Those men—”
“Will be disposed of, as will Marco and Trent when we’re finished with them.”
She looked at Kane when he spoke to her.
“We won’t get in trouble then?”
“I did a lot more for this scumbag than just hurt people, Bronagh,” he assured her. “He is about to get the experience of me fully displaying my ‘services’.”
Bronagh whimpered.
“Nico, Kane ... we can talk about this,” Marco said, then cried out in pain when Alec rounded on the booth and pressed a finger into Marco’s wound, making me almost vomit.
“Out of all the things on the to-do list, Marco,” my brother growled. “Talking to you won’t be one of them.”
I checked on Alannah, making sure she was breathing as I pushed myself to my feet.
“Bring Alannah to the room I’m putting Bronagh in,” Dominic said to Kane who approached me. “They’re soundproof, so they won’t hear a thing if they wake up.”
Kane carried Alannah, and Dominic carried Bronagh into an empty room with a large bed.
“What’d they do to you?” Kane asked, anger in his tone.