The sins and strife of St. Giles never left a person.
It just drove one in different ways.
Some were content to thieve and kill in rat-infested alleys for every last scrap.
Others rose up to become lords of the underbelly, kingpins in the cesspool of these streets.
Then others, like Connor Steele, resolved to rid London of all that evil: those men who’d prey, those women who’d lift their skirts with one hand and stab a client in the belly with the other.
He intended to leave St. Giles better than it was—an easy feat if it were not for the scum who inhabited this cursed corner of England.
Escorted into the offices of the head proprietor, Connor entered, coming face-to-face with one of those very blights on St. Giles—Broderick Killoran.
The same burly guard who’d escorted Connor in now quietly closed the door behind him.
For a long moment, Connor and the proprietor of the Devil’s Den studied each other, sizing each other up in the primitive way of when men had warred with their hands and there was only room for one to emerge triumphant.
Connor’s gaze was unflinching.
So this was the man Diggory had made his heir. He wore his arrogance and conceit boldly, with a loud, embroidered waistcoat revealed by his slightly gaping jacket. From the tailored sapphire frock coat to the diamond stud neatly positioned at the center of an immaculately tied cravat, Broderick Killoran fairly oozed the wealth he’d built from vice and corruption. Of all the ruthless, coldhearted bastards, Diggory had selected the one before him.
Under Connor’s intense scrutiny, Killoran thinned his eyes. “Mr. Steele,” he said with a street-hardened grin. “You are nothing if not persistent.”
No, Connor had never been one to falter. “And you are remiss with your correspondences,” he returned, dusting those words in ice. Without awaiting permission, he claimed a chair.
Killoran’s expression toughened, but then that fleeting annoyance faded, his false grin in place once more. “May I offer you a brandy?” He motioned to his fully stocked sideboard.
“This is not a social call.”
The casualness of Killoran’s steepled fingers and the smooth grin on his face belied the hard glint in his eyes. “It is an honor to have one of London’s finest investigators inside my club.” He laughed as though he’d delivered the most hilarious jest. “I’m lying,” he whispered. “Your being here is bad for my business.”
There was a warning in the words that Connor would have to be deaf to fail to detect.
He inclined his head. “Then it would be wise to take my meetings rather than ignore my missives.”
A vein bulged in the corner of Killoran’s brow. “Are you threatening me?” he whispered.
“I’m explaining to you how I conduct business.” Connor withdrew the small leather notepad and pencil from inside his jacket.
Killoran flicked a dismissive stare over the book. “Your business,” he sneered, “does not affect me. You are neither Bow Street nor a constable. I am under no obligation to answer to you. So if you would? I have—”
“Patrons?” Connor put forth menacingly. “Men, as you pointed out, who are even now asking questions about my appearance here.” That vein pulsed all the more. “You see,” Connor went on, pressing his advantage, exploiting the other man’s weakness, “appearances . . . they matter here. You know that. Your patrons, powerful lords, will toe the line of danger . . . but they won’t cross it.”
The proprietor layered his palms over the arms of his chair; those long, scarred digits curled like claws. “My patrons’ safety here is assured at all times.”
“Is it, though?” Connor lifted an eyebrow.
Killoran said nothing for a long moment and then cursed blackly. “What do you want?”
“I have questions for you.”
Killoran reclined in his seat. “I cannot promise I have answers.”
“You hire children,” he said, shifting to the reason for his visit.
Killoran reached for his nearly untouched brandy. “That does not strike me in tone as a question.” He swirled the contents in a smooth, fluid circle.
“All of London is aware you . . . keep children in your employ.”
In your employ. Bringing them into this pit of vice and sin, a kingdom built by Mac Diggory. Loathing unfurled in his gut.
“Many establishments do,” the other man pointed out, sipping at his spirits. “Are you taking umbrage at my offering employment to children? Are they better off in the streets?”
“I’m questioning where you find these children, and I’d like to speak to them.”
Killoran froze, his glass pressed against his lips, and then belatedly he completed that swallow.
It was always in a person’s eyes—the extent of one’s evil. One’s guilt or innocence. One’s unease or fear. All were revealed within the glints or glimmers of one’s irises.
Killoran, however, shuttered his, revealing nothing.
And it was all the more dangerous for what it suggested . . .
Complicity.
The facade of affability now gone, Killoran set down his drink hard and leaned across the desk. “What are you suggesting?” the proprietor finally asked in steely tones.
“Suggesting? I am asking questions.” Connor grinned coldly. “Unless there are reasons you might feel guilty?”
A flush marred the other man’s cheeks. “I hire children in need of employment, Steele. Poor ones. You want to speak to them about their pasts? Allow me to save your valuable time. They are boys and girls without families, some without names, who’ve done what they can to survive. If my hiring them is a crime, that is the least of my offenses.”
Men who bragged over their treachery and evil . . . it was the mark of the streets, one Connor was still immersed in for the work he did, but he had separated himself from it in every other way.
“Where do you find them?”
“The streets,” Killoran said with a flick of his hand.
Connor scrutinized the man across from him.
When he comes, Connor . . . you hide . . . and if there is no place to hide, you run and you never look back.
He concentrated his attention on his book, pushing back that memory. They would always be with him, and yet how much stronger they were here in this place built by the man who’d destroyed Connor . . . and those he’d loved. And now he sat before the man’s former apprentice of evil and heir turned king of this dark world. Hatred singed his veins, and he lifted his head. “Who brings these boys to you?”
“One of the members of my staff is responsible for interviewing and then hiring them.” That admission came as if dragged from the other man.
“Come,” he scoffed. “You expect me to believe you don’t do the hiring of every person who has employment here?” In East London, a man had enemies all about, ready to plunge a blade in one’s back. Rising as Killoran had to kingpin of the underbelly didn’t make him immune to those dangers; it increased them. “You wouldn’t be foolish enough to turn that over to someone else,” he said bluntly.
The ghost of a smile curled the other man’s lips in his first real expression of amusement. “You don’t know the ‘someone else’ in my employ.”
“I want that someone else.”
Killoran’s humor died. “You aren’t interviewing my staff.”
“I don’t need your entire staff, just the person who brings the children into your clubs.”
“Go to hell,” the other man spat.
“Very well.” Snapping his book closed, Connor stood. “Perhaps your patrons will have answers.”
The proprietor leaned forward in his seat. “I’ll have you thrown out on your bloody arse before I allow you to interfere with my club,” he whispered, that hushed sound more menacing than had he thundered it.
Connor grinned, a rendition of the other man’s previous smile. “Killoran, I’ve conducted work on behalf of some of the most powerful noblemen in England and even for the king himself. Do you truly believe I cannot secure the necessary means of moving in here, should I wish, and carrying out my business?”
The color leached from Killoran’s cheeks. “I’m listening,” he shot back, his tone weaker, hinting at a man wise enough to know when he’d been defeated.
“I’ve been hired by a gentleman who is looking for his child.”
It did not escape his notice that Killoran spoke over the latter question. “Who is the gentleman?”
Connor leveled a searching gaze on the other man. “That is confidential.”
Several lines creased Killoran’s high brow, the only marked shift in his composure. “Is it a patron?”
“What of the ‘someone else’? The one who brings you your children,” he asked, ignoring Killoran’s question.
“They are not my children,” Killoran gritted out. “They are orphans, hired by my establishment.”
“Do you require my help with the overseeing of your club?”
The proprietor looked at him as though he’d sprung a second head. “You, help me?” he scoffed, and a rusty laugh startled from him.
Connor flattened his mouth. “Then do not presume to tell me how to complete my assignment.”
The other man’s laugh abruptly ceased.
With every moment that ticked by, however, it became increasingly clear by the proprietor’s evasiveness: he was protecting someone.
But who? And to what purpose? “I’m waiting, Killoran,” he said, tugging out his etched gold watch fob. He consulted the timepiece. “And I’ve just the one case that I am currently working on. Your move.”
“There is nothing underhanded in how my”—Connor sharpened his gaze on the other man—“staff member finds these children.”
“And yet you don’t know how?”
“I know enough,” he gritted.
“Do you know the person enough?” he needled.
Killoran glanced down at the clock, and then, in a dismissive movement, downed the remainder of his drink. “It seems we are at an impasse, Steele. I’ll not subject any of my staff to a baseless inquiry. So if you will excuse me?” The other man shoved to his feet. “I have an establishment to run.”
Connor masked his surprise. As one of the most ruthless men in St. Giles, it was no secret that Broderick Killoran had devoted himself to growing the late Diggory’s already successful venture and turning it into one of the greatest clubs in England. He remained seated and, in a deliberate challenge, folded his palms and rested them on his flat belly. “I trust you’ve dealt with all manner of men in these streets. However, I understand you don’t know me, so let me be abundantly clear. I’ll have my interview . . .” He paused, letting that silence stretch on until tension pulsed in the room. “Or I’ll not only secure the king’s permission to do so”—a favor he’d surely grant because of his client’s lineage and Connor’s connection to the nobility—“but also make myself a fixture here until every last dandy, lord, or fop in London finds their pleasures elsewhere.” He forced his lips into a jeering grin.
Standing outside her brother’s office with her ear pressed to the door, Ophelia’s stomach sank.
He knows.
There was no other accounting for the muffled words she’d managed to make sense of through the heavy slab of oak.
Dread spiraled in her breast, threatening to consume her.
And yet . . . which had he discovered? That Stephen, her brother the arsonist, had burned down the Hell and Sin Club twice now and, through those blazes, had also destroyed four other establishments in St. Giles?
Or does he know of your crimes a short while ago?
A man known as the Hunter. He was as ruthless as her brother and sister had whispered of a short while ago. Here only a handful of hours and he’d threaten their very security . . . just to have his interview.
Her palms moistened, and she dusted trembling fingers along the sides of her skirts.
Nay, she’d rather it be neither of them . . . her nor Stephen.
But her young brother, jaded by his years with Diggory, still afraid to believe there could be safety and security in life, would be crushed under the evil of Newgate. There would be no recovering for him.
“So what is it to be, Killoran . . . ?”
That low, faintly lilting baritone slashed across her panicky musings.
“Who does the hiring of the children inside your club?”
Worry brought her eyes closed. Oh, God. It is me the investigator seeks. Coward that she was, her feet twitched with the need to take flight. Indubitably, it was an inherent part of survival existent to all in these parts. And yet Ophelia would never be one to sacrifice the possible safety and security of her kin . . . or the people dependent upon the club because of that elemental need.
Still, she briefly considered the path of escape down the opposite end of the hall, and with her gaze found Gertrude waiting, her head ducked around the corner.
Her eldest sister jammed her fingertip toward the floor. “Get over here,” she mouthed.
Only . . . Ophelia had been the one to go out into the streets and find the children to employ. It was a responsibility she’d all but entreated her brother to turn over to her and he had given, despite the reservations he’d always shown toward her. Nay, reservations he’d always shown toward her and anyone who was not their capable sister Cleopatra.
And now I’ve gone and brought the law down upon the club.
If he hadn’t been wholly determined to see her off and married before, this would assuredly seal his aspirations for Ophelia’s future.
She reached for the door handle; Gertrude’s gasp ricocheted around the empty halls.
Ophelia glanced over, an apology in her eyes.
“No,” Gertrude silently mouthed, giving her head a firm shake. “Do not—”
Even as her sister took a flying step forward, Ophelia let herself in.
The tense discourse instantly ceased as both men were on their feet with weapons trained on the door—on her, to be specific.
The moment Broderick’s gaze registered his recognition, fury that would have withered most men roared to life in his eyes.
Deliberately turning her shoulder in a disdainful rebuff of the man who threatened her and her family just by his presence here, Ophelia trained her gaze squarely on Broderick’s face.
“You summoned me.” She offered that as a statement.
Her brother’s face turned a mottled red, and had he been any other man, the murderous rage seeping from his eyes would have sent terror through her. Broderick, however, had never lifted a hand to her or any of her siblings in violence, and she trusted him as she did her blood sisters. “No,” he said slowly, a warning in his hard stare. “No. You were mistaken.”
“Yes, you did.”
They locked in a silent battle. She tipped up her chin.
Her brother was the first to look away.
Feeling the eyes of the investigator on her, she glanced over. “I understand . . . y-you . . .” Distinct, slate-grey eyes met hers squarely.
All coherent, logical thought fled.
Four inches taller and with more muscle to his powerful frame, the man before her bore little trace of the “boy who’d gotten away.” Those thick, loose curls hung unfashionably about his shoulders, falling over his brow. She peered at him, willing to shove those locks back so she could find that mark, a hated one worn by too many, so she might confirm that she didn’t, even now, imagine him. Even as his harsh, heavy jaw and crooked nose served as all the proof she needed. That he was real before her.
The one Diggory had been obsessed with finding and who she’d both resented and cheered for the freedom he’d found . . . until Diggory had reminded her that he always triumphed in the end.
Ya let ’im go, ya fucking fool . . . ya’ll pay for it . . . Now, to make you pay.
Her fingers curled reflexively. All these years she’d believed he’d been hanged, saving her. Ultimately, that last exchange with him had brought down Diggory’s fury and seen Gertrude beaten and then blinded. And for the weight of guilt that had followed her, there was a peace in knowing that Connor had survived. “You are alive,” she whispered.
The ghost of a smile graced his lips. “And should I not be . . . Miss . . . ?” He spared a questioning look for her brother.
“Ophelia?” At her brother’s perplexity, she blinked slowly.
Then a wild rush of color blazed across her cheeks. “Forgive me. I . . . You had a familiar look,” she finished lamely. It was a lie. With his swarthy features and gypsy looks, he was unlike any she’d ever known. All the while she peered at the towering figure beside her brother, searching through that tangle of black curls over his brow for the mark that would give the most definitive confirmation.
“Allow me to present,” Broderick gritted out, “my sister Ophelia Killoran.”
“Your . . . sister?” He curled a dry edge around those two words that called her brother a liar . . . because, of course, having lived on the streets, he very well knew the Diggory-gang girls had never had a protective older brother about.
“Yes,” she snapped, taking a step forward. Just like that, the insolence of Connor O’Roarke, who’d always thought himself their better, raged to life. “I am his sister.” She might not have Broderick’s blood in her veins, but he’d been like a father when her own had no use of her other than the coins she could earn and as a convenient figure to whip about when angry or frustrated.
Once more, her perceptive brother did not miss the palpable tension between Ophelia and Connor. Frowning, he moved his stare back and forth between them. He finally spoke. “Mr. Steele is an investigator who has questions about the children we’ve employed in the club.”
“Is he?” she snorted, and the ghost of a dangerous frown hovered on the hard flesh of Connor’s lips. Ignoring that latter part, she focused on the lie her brother had unwittingly uttered. “Mr. Steele,” she greeted, placing a heavy emphasis on that name she knew to be false.
His gaze narrowed all the more. “I had questions for the man who does the hiring of the children here.”
Her insides twisted into vicious, painful knots, and just like that, she was recalled to the purpose of his being here. “The man who does the hiring?” she asked coolly.
Broderick regained his footing as they connected with a shared mockery for the interloper endangering all they’d built. He tossed his arms wide. “Allow me to present her.”
Connor narrowed his eyes. “You would be the first proprietor I’ve dealt with who’s ever given such responsibility to a woman.”
Her brother smiled, and unlike the practiced gestures of before, this contained a whisper of mirth. “I am the only proprietor to have sisters like I do.”
In a bid to hide the tremble to her fingers, Ophelia dropped her hands on her hips. “What do you want?”
Connor honed his piercing gaze on her face, and for an uncharacteristic moment of cowardice, she wished she’d remained silent. Wished she hadn’t taunted this older, harder, more unforgiving version of the boy she’d kept safe. Then he spoke. “I would like a meeting.”
That was all? Brother and sister exchanged a look. It could never be that simple. Not with any man on his side of the law.
Broderick’s mouth went taut, and he reached reluctantly for his chair.
“With your sister,” Connor said coolly. “Alone.”
“Absolutely not,” Broderick barked. The muscles bunched under his sleeves; he was a man prepared to fight.
Were it any other man before them, she would have not doubted Broderick’s ultimate triumph. But two inches taller, and with a solid wall of muscle, in this man Broderick had met his match. As if in silent testament to that supposition, Connor flicked a restrained, bored glance at the other man.
She gnashed her teeth. He’d always been a blight upon her existence. “You have twenty minutes,” she announced. “Leave us, Broderick.”