“Dec, this is crazy,” Kieran mutters to my left. His head’s in the footwell, so his words are muffled; but to his credit he’s not letting his reservations get in the way.

“She’s mine, brother,” I reply, changing down a gear as we spin round the corner of a red brick building. The same corner I nearly plowed against last night driving Casey back to my place.

“Yeah, you’ve known her what, a day?” Kieran spits back. “There’s plenty more fish in the sea. Hell, pick your own metaphor, I don’t care. This isn’t about her, is it? This is about Vince –”

I shoot him a dark, threatening look, holding his gaze until he starts to sweat. The engine roars underneath me; I feel a wave of adrenaline flooding my body and starting to affect my decisions. I hear what Kieran’s saying, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen. Vince Amari and I go way back, but this isn’t about him. This is about Casey: MY Casey.

“Eyes on the road, Dec: Yer tryin’ to kill us both?”

“Are ya with me or not,” I bark, stamping on the brake. “If y’aren’t, then ya can get the fuck out of my truck. I’m doing this with yǝ – or without.”

The truck’s huge tires kick gravel up on either side as it screeches to a halt, and I hear them pinging off the chassis. This truck’s my baby, and the sound of the stones scratching my paintwork would normally have been a dagger through my heart.

Not tonight.

“Yǝ know I am,” Kieran protests. “I’m yer brother, Dec: yer goddamn twin! I’ve been with you longer than anyone! Yǝ think I’m abandoning you now? But –”

“But. What?” I growl back. Our eyes are locked in an epic battle of wills. I’ve fought Kieran a hundred times. It’s what brothers do. He’s won fifty, and I took the other. We’re twins. We’ve been evenly matched in every way except one: desire.

I want this. I want her. So nothing is going to stand in my way; not even my brother.

But he doesn’t fight me on it, not tonight. He can see the need that’s burning in my eyes.

Kieran tries to stop me one last time, but we both know it’s a Hail Mary, and that it hasn’t a hope in hell of succeeding. I’m set on this, no matter what the outcome.

He reaches over the center console and grasps my arm. “Deartháir.” Brother. “You know I’m with you in this, through whatever. Just think about this, about what you’re doing. Dad wants you to set up a meeting with Micky Morello, not start a war with him. I just need to know why you’re doing this. Why are you moving so fast over some broad?”

He’s right, of course. He’s right.

Inside, I know this is the last thing I should ever be doing. I’m risking almost a century of the Byrne family’s control over this city at a time when we’re weaker than we’ve ever been: of course ; but …

There’s more to life than power and control and authority. Other words count as well. Words like: desire, longing, and…

Hope.

Hope that there’s more to my life than drinking and fucking and fighting. Oh, I’m drunk all right. Except this time it’s on Casey, not liquor. She’s doing something to me that I can’t explain. I barely know her, but she’s already affecting me: changing me.

“I …” I say, struggling to put the battle raging inside my head into words. “I don’t deserve you, brother. I can’t explain this, either. Not yet. But I need you by my side.” I stretch out my palm.

Kieran clasps it without hesitation. I know he doesn’t want to be here. However, that’s what family does: stands by your brother’s side while he does something stupid.

He grins ruefully. “Then I guess we better not get caught.”

* * *

You can hear the dogs howling from out here. It’s a sound that sends a chill shivering down my spine. We haven’t allowed dog fighting in Byrne territory since the sixties. Irishmen have standards. We have traditions, rules, and obligations.

Rules like:

If you kill a man, look him in the eye.

If you screw a girl, you are responsible for her care and needs.

And you don’t fuck with animals.

“Bastards,” Kieran spits. He’s not a man who lets himself get worked up by much – but he loves dogs, my brother.

“They’re Italians,” I growl back. “What the fuck do you expect?”

“You say they’re Italians?” He laughs silently, without a hint of mirth on his face. “Fucking animals is what they are. Hell, even animals wouldn’t do that to each other unless they’re forced into it.”

I glance down, only to see Kieran’s fingers clutching reflexively an inch from the weapon strapped to his hip. I grimace. I wish I’d known it was a dog fight the Morellos were holding here tonight. I might have chosen to bring another one of my brothers. When someone drops dogs into the mix, my twin loses all sense of reason.

Hell, who am I kidding? There’s no one I’d rather have by my side on a night like this.

“No guns, kid brother,” I say, patting his arm. “We go in and out without anyone being the wiser. Got it?”

“Got it,” he grunts. I’m not convinced, but I know better than to argue. I won’t change his mind, and besides, it’s him that’s doing me the favor.

“Faces on.”

“Faces on,” Kieran agrees, pulling a black balaclava over his head. We’ve got duct tape holding our sleeves down to hide our tats, and for all intents and purposes, tonight – we’re ghosts. Kieran’s leg jiggles nervously. “Come on, let’s go.”

I follow him, cursing myself for not scouting the outside of the building better during my previous visit. On the opposite side of the warehouse to the car park, I vaguely remember seeing a small office. Maybe the foreman’s office, back when this was still a factory. A paint factory, judging from the faded signage that still adorns the outside walls.

“Down there,” I call in a low whisper, and Kieran grasps my meaning instantly, heading down a tight, narrow alleyway. I glance back at the truck, parked in a well of shadows, and confirm what I already know – the grill’s pointed towards the road, and nothings blocking it in. If it comes to a chase, we might need every second.

A faint pool of light illuminates the furthest end of the alleyway, and Kieran’s drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He holds up a clenched fist as he approaches the window, like a soldier on point duty and I freeze. Every fiber of my being is urging me to shoulder him out of the way and look for myself.

But that isn’t the way dad trained us. That’s the quickest way to get yourself killed – and I know that if I die, it’s not just me who will suffer: Casey will as well.

“Tell me what you see,” I call in a low voice. At night, a whisper carries further than just talking. It’s a hard thing to remember, but we’ve worked together dozens of times, Kieran and I. I trust his eyes as well as I do mine.

“A redhead,” the low reply floats back.

It electrifies me: a cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and desire all dump into my bloodstream at once. Suddenly every nerve ending on my body is on fire. I feel every thread of the polyester balaclava scratching my face, sense Kieran’s heat on my face. I’m torpedoed hundreds of years into the past. I’m not Declan Byrne, not now. I’m every one of my forbearers. I’m a Celtic warrior, standing on some foreign battlefield, and ready to save my woman.

“And?”, I prompt. I need more from him than just Casey’s goddamn hair color. I need to know what’s happening to her. Is she –?

“She’s alive. They haven’t touched her: yet.”

Yet. YET?

The chilling word echoes in my skull. Something’s not right. Now, that’s the understatement of the year. Of course it is: if everything was all right, neither of us would be standing here, about to put our lives on the line and throw our bodies into harm’s way.

If everything was all right, Casey would have done as I told her: stayed in my apartment and waited for me to finish up my business. For some reason, she didn’t. She was too headstrong; too unwilling to let someone else fight her battles for her.

That fight is what I like about her. It’s what draws me to her like a honeybee to pollen. Yet it’s her greatest failing: her biggest weakness.

“We need to get in there,” Kieran says, “quick!”

The urgency in his voice acts like a jumpstart to my heart. I get right the fuck out of my head and ready myself to act. “What is it?”

Kieran doesn’t answer. “We need an entrance, now,” he says. “Is there a way in round the –”

Adrenaline’s flooding my system now; it’s screaming at me that I don’t have time; it’s narrowing my options, and even my vision. Maybe that’s stupid. Maybe I should know that what I’m about to do will cause way more trouble than anything I’ve ever done. Maybe I should know that I’m being selfish, that it’s not just what I want in life that matters. But I don’t have time for any of that. even if I did, I doubt it would change my decision.

“Move,” I grunt, pushing Kieran aside. He looks startled as I push him into the pool of light, and Vince Amari’s sight; but what I’m about to do will cause one hell of a splash either way.

I pull my weapon from my hip and fire a shot into every corner, praying that none of them hit the redhead who haunts my dreams. The second the first shot hammers home, the glass explodes into a patchwork spider web. I’m already moving as the fourth spurt of fire leaves my gun.

Speed is critical. I need to strike while whoever’s inside is dazed and confused by the window exploding. I know Kieran has my back, so I charge forward even as splinters of glass rain down on my shoulders.

I leap through the window, and plant a kick right in the center of some thug’s chest. He stumbles backwards, and a shotgun flies out of his arms and clatters against the floor. There are three people in the room: but only two threats. I go for the biggest one: Vince’s muscleman.

I feel like an actor as I spin through the air: an actor, in a play, without dialogue. We can’t speak, unless we want to make it obvious that we are behind this attack on the Morellos. I’m just praying that Casey is too stunned to give the game away.

“Who the fuck are –,” Vince splutters, and I hear Kieran’s fist impacting with his face. The wet thump sounds like a boot pulling loose from gloopy mud, and I allow myself a vicious smile of satisfaction behind my mask.

My whole world is a couple of feet in front of my eyes. The adrenaline pumping through my system is like a drug, an addiction, even though I’ve never had a hit like this before. I’ve never had a fight where the outcome wasn’t just money, or a skinful of liquor. This time, my heart is on the line, and I’m playing for the highest stakes possible.

Vince’s thug scrabbles for his weapon, but I kick it away and stamp on his face with my foot. It’s playing dirty, but he started it. He’s the one who had the temerity to threaten my woman. Not my lover, not my girlfriend: but my property. All that other stuff can come later. For now I’m taking back what’s rightfully mine.

He groans, and his head hits the floor: he’s out cold. I wince, but don’t waste any time in rolling his massive bulk in front of the room’s only door. The last thing I need is another dozen of Vince’s thugs interrupting my party.

I turn to see Vince Amari knocked right the feck out. Kieran’s done a number on his face, and he won’t be eating right for a week, maybe longer. But that's not the first thing I see.

No. The first thing I see is that his pants are round his ankles.

The next thing I see is red.

Vince Amari is a dead man.