Connor strode to the back door of the nightclub and pounded on the heavy metal door. It was opened by a large bouncer, gun drawn.

“Oh, sorry, Mr. MacFarlane,” the man said, lowering the weapon immediately.

“Full house tonight?” Connor asked as he moved past the man, his three henchmen following in his wake.

“Yes, sir.”

“You know Alejandro Vasquez?” Connor asked.

The bouncer rubbed a hand across his short, rough hair. “Yes, sir.”

“He tries to leave this way, you stop him, got it?”

The man looked profoundly uncomfortable, and Connor stifled the urge to toss him against the wall of the dark hallway they were crammed in.

“I really need to talk to the boss, Mr. MacFarlane. We don’t have any problems with Vasquez. I’m not sure he wants to invite it now.”

Connor said to hell with restraint and pinned the guy against the wall, forearm across his windpipe. The bouncer didn’t even fight back, his eyes wide in his round face.

“This club isn’t in Vasquez territory, is it?” Connor hissed in the man’s face.

“No, sir,” the bouncer choked out.

“Then it’s not Vasquez you need to be making nice with. You got that?”

The guy nodded as well as he could with half his air being cut off.

Connor released him and shook out his arm. “Now do as you’re damn well told and not a word to anyone that I’m here.”

The bouncer nodded again, taking up his spot next to the back door as Connor and his men moved away down the hall.

As he walked, Connor texted Finn. I’m coming in the back. Where is Vasquez?

Finn replied in seconds. Main level, east side of dance floor. Still chatting up her friend Carmen. Jess is in the bathroom.

WTF?! Connor typed as his blood pressure ratcheted up another notch. Anyone could get her back there.

As the dots on the screen indicated Finn was responding, Connor and his men reached the club, entering through a small door behind the coatroom.

“You two,” Connor commanded, “east side of the dance floor. Vasquez is there talking to a girl. Send her away, get him and his guys out of here.” He turned to Ricky. “Jess is in the bathroom. You’re with me.”

Ricky nodded as the other two men moved away, shuffling clubgoers aside the way only large, armed men can.

Connor and Ricky crossed the coatroom and entered another hall with glow-in-the-dark art on the walls and a line of women and the occasional man leaning against the walls vaping, talking, and drinking.

When he reached the door to the women’s room, Connor muttered, “Excuse me,” to a couple of girls blocking the door.

One of them smirked as she eyed him up and down. “Um, that’s the ladies’, hottie.”

“Yeah, I left something inside,” he replied before he swung open the door.

A couple of girls yelped when he and Ricky strode into the lounge that preceded the actual bathroom stalls. One of the girls had a small mirror on her lap as she snorted lines. “Oh shit!” she screeched. “Cops!”

“Get out,” Connor said, giving her a harsh look. She and her two friends jumped and ran, leaving the coke and paraphernalia behind. Another couple of girls scurried past him and out the door. Connor marched into the adjacent bathroom, where he was confronted with a curvy brunette applying lipstick at the mirror.

“Got her,” he said to Ricky over his shoulder.

Ricky nodded. “I’ll be outside,” he answered before turning and exiting the restroom.

Connor leaned a shoulder against the doorframe between the lounge and bathroom. “You knew I was coming.”

Jess looked at him, her beautiful lips shiny and dark red. She turned back to the mirror, rubbed her lips together a couple of times, then put the lipstick back in her purse, moving as if she had all the time in the world.

“Once Finn told me who Vasquez was, I figured you’d be here soon.” She turned back and rested her butt against the granite countertop, glaring at him with her vivid blue eyes.

Connor’s arms were crossed, and his lungs were tight with fury. He knew this wasn’t her fault, knew if he were only normal, she’d never have to go through this, but her defiance was enough to make him crazy.

“And so you figured until I got here, it’d be a good time to go to the one place Finn couldn’t keep you safe?”

Her mask of defiance slipped for a split second, but then it was back in place, her eyes blazing, jaw stubborn and set.

“It’s a public place. No one’s going to gun me down in the middle of a night club.”

“No,” he answered, his own expression rigid and determined. “They’ll just corner you in the bathroom here, shoot you full of sedatives, and drag you out the front door looking like any other club girl who OD’d on a Friday night.”

Her skin paled in the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom.

“You’re an asshole,” she hissed, pushing off the counter, her arms wrapped even tighter around her middle.

He took a step toward her, making it clear she’d have to get around him to leave. “No, I’m truthful.” His voice softened a touch. “Vasquez came clear down into MacFarlane territory to go to a club that’s not special in any way on the very night the woman I love is here for her best friend’s birthday party. That’s too much coincidence for me, Jess.”

Her breath shuddered as she released it, her eyes still hard and angry.

He stepped closer again. “These guys…” He ran a hand through his hair, wishing he could soft-pedal it to her, but knowing he couldn’t. “They won’t hesitate. They won’t go easy on you. They don’t care who you are or what you are. It doesn’t matter to them that your old man depends on you, or you have friends who need you. To get back at me, they will follow you, they will take you, they will torture you, and they will kill you.”

They stood there, eyes locked, the faucet on one of the nearby sinks dripping as the bass from the club music boomed softly in the distance. He saw when it happened—when she broke—and it tore his heart apart. But there wasn’t an option. He’d rather her hate him forever than end up in pieces in Lake Michigan.

“Damn you,” she whispered.

“I know,” he answered, because he was starting to realize it himself. Beginning to understand how messed up his world had made her world.

“I’m not even your girlfriend,” she muttered, holding a hand to her forehead.

“They don’t care.”

She cleared her throat, hopelessness written in the way her shoulders slumped and her gaze dropped to the floor. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“I will fix this,” he said, finally stepping close enough to pull her into his arms. He softly kissed the top of her head. “But I need to talk to Cian and figure out how. In the meantime, you’re going to have to let me assign one of the guys to you. I can’t have stuff like this going on. It’ll kill me, Jess.”

She nodded into his chest.

“You know Ricky,” he said, setting her away from him so he could look her in the eye. “Let him shadow you for the next few days, and Cian and I will come up with a plan. I don’t want to go to war with Vasquez, but it’s pretty clear he’s not over what happened with his sister.”

A wry smile twisted Jess’s beautiful mouth. “That makes two of us,” she said softly.

Connor just pulled her into his arms again and held her in silence. He’d made a mess, and now he was going to have to fix it. But more importantly, he felt like something was going to have to change, because he was only twenty-four years old, and already, he felt like an old man.

* * *

“What do you mean you have a bodyguard?” Carmen shouted into the phone as Jess pulled groceries out of the bag and put things away in the cabinets at her dad’s house. The phone lay on the counter on speaker, and Jess was relieved she didn’t have it pressed to her ear when Carmen went to decibels best heard by dogs.

“That was Alejandro Vasquez and his guys at the club last night. And he wasn’t there to find a hookup.”

Carmen made a disgusted sound. “As if cheating on you wasn’t bad enough, he had to pick Vasquez’s sister. I swear, Jess, I don’t know how you can stand to be in the same room with him much less accept one of his men as a bodyguard.”

Jess sighed as she put a can of soup away. “Look, I know what he did was horrible. Trust me. And it still hurts, but in a way, I think it was what needed to happen. You know I was unhappy, and I don’t think I’d have been able to break it off with him otherwise.” She paused, looking out the window at the kids playing soccer in the street outside her dad’s row house. “I think deep down, he knew what I needed and that I couldn’t do it myself. He made himself the bad guy so I wouldn’t feel guilty. He made it easy for me. He sort of did me a favor.”

“God, Jess, that’s the most convoluted way of explaining a guy being a cheating dick I’ve ever heard.”

Jess smiled to herself. She knew it sounded nuts to anyone else, but in her heart, she knew even if Connor wasn’t conscious of what he was doing, in his own twisted, bizarre way, he’d been trying to give her what she needed—freedom.

“Well, I admit, he could have chosen his floozy better. But the fact is, until he and Cian bring Vasquez to heel, I’m not going to turn down the security detail.”

Carmen snorted. “As if he gave you a choice.”

“And there’s that.” Jess laughed.

The front door slammed, and Jess heard her father’s heavy footsteps as he made his way toward the kitchen in the back of the house.

“Hey, I gotta go,” she told Carmen. “I’ll text you later and maybe we can grab some breakfast before work tomorrow.”

As she disconnected the call, Sean walked into the room. He was dressed in his usual track pants and hooded sweatshirt, his frame still wide and imposing even though his bald head and sagging cheeks showed his age to be on the far end of his middle years. Jess had been a late event in Sean’s life, and one her mother hadn’t stuck around for after the first couple of years.

“What the hell’s one of Robbie’s guys doing hanging out on my steps?” Sean demanded as he scowled, hands on his hips.

Jessica folded up the empty grocery bag and bussed the old man on the cheek as she walked by him to slide the bag in the gap between the fridge and wall with others.

“He’s hanging out with me for a few days,” she said.

Sean stood in the middle of the worn vinyl kitchen floor and rotated to follow her as she busied herself cleaning up dishes from the drying rack and pulled out the ingredients for biscuits from the pantry.

“You dating him?” Sean asked.

“No! Of course not. You think Connor would let one of his guys date me?”

Sean threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know much, do I? I don’t know why there’s one of Robbie’s men on my front stoop. I don’t know why you and Connor MacFarlane broke up. I don’t know where you got the money to pay the utilities at the gym the other day. I feel like a fucking visitor in my own life.”

Jess sighed and rubbed her forehead where a headache threatened.

“Dad, don’t you trust me?”

He stepped closer, his big hand closing around her upper arm. His fingers were knobby from the many times he’d jammed and broken the knuckles, and the pinky on his left hand wouldn’t bend at all.

“Little girl, you know I trust you with my life, but you need to trust me too. I may be old, but I’m not dead. You don’t need to do everything yourself. Haven’t I taken good care of you for twenty-four years? Do you think I can’t anymore?”

She stepped close and put her arms around his waist. “Of course you can take care of me, Dad. I just thought maybe it would be good if I took care of you for a while.”

He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Oh, Jessie girl,” he said softly. “I worry about you so much. I thought maybe the MacFarlane boy would be the one to marry you and take care of you after I’m gone. Why’d you break up with him? Hmm? Can’t you at least tell me that much?”

She pulled back and looked in his faded blue eyes. “He cheated on me. But you had to have known that. Everyone in the whole neighborhood knows it.”

He stroked a hand down her hair. “I don’t listen to gossip. You know that.” His eyes were sad, and she watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. “He still loves you, though, don’t he?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t live that life.”

“So, why’s Ricky O’Malley on my stoop?”

Jess pulled away, walking back to the mixing bowl and measuring out flour and baking powder from memory as she talked. “Alejandro Vasquez is pissed at Connor, and he was in the club where we had Carmen’s birthday last night. Connor freaked out and told me I’m stuck with Ricky for a few days.”

Sean’s hands flexed into fists as he began to pace the small kitchen. “That fecker approach you?” he asked as his normally mild Irish accent grew heavier.

“No,” Jess answered as she turned to face him. “But he and his guys were hitting on Carmen and some of the other girls.”

“Maybe I need to take some of the guys from the gym and pay the motherfecker a visit.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Dad. It’s not that big a deal. Honest. Just let Connor and his brothers deal with it. Ricky will watch my back, and it’ll all be fine.”

He looked at her from under his heavy brows, then pointed a finger at her emphatically. “You tell me if you see Vasquez or any of his men again, you hear me?”

“Yes, Dad.” She refrained from more eye rolling. God help her, how she dealt with all these Irish men and their testosterone, she’d never know. “But he won’t. It’s not a problem.”

“Maybe I need to talk to Robbie about this. The boys may not have told him.” Sean had started his life in the US working for Robbie long before Jess was born, but when his fists had been more useful in an amateur ring than as an enforcer, Robbie had been good enough to release him from his duties, and Sean had gone on to open the gym.

“Shit, no, Dad. Don’t get in the middle of their family crap.” As if Robbie gave a damn what happened to her anyway. Jess knew Sean thought of Robbie as an old friend, but the Robbie she’d come to know while she was Connor’s girlfriend wouldn’t lift a finger to help her unless there was something in it for him. Robbie could barely manage to care about his own sons, much less someone else’s daughter.

“Fine, I won’t say nothing right now, but I better not hear about Vasquez hanging out in this neighborhood.”

“Okay, okay,” Jess answered impatiently, desperate to change the subject. “Do you want gravy with your biscuits? I thought I’d make you some for dinner since I’m here. And maybe we can invite Ricky in to have a bite with us?”

Sean muttered something under his breath but then started toward the front door. “Fine. We’ll invite him to eat. I guess it’s the least I can do since he’s looking after you.”

Jessica pulled the flour back out to double the recipe. Some days, she thought no matter what she did, she’d be spending the rest of her life cooking for one Irish man or another. If she was being honest, she understood why her mom had left. She just wished her mom had cared enough to take her along.

* * *

Cian paced alongside the loading dock of the empty warehouse, his expensive shoes making a slight thumping noise as they hit the concrete. He’d come from mass with his parents, and that always meant button-up shirts and dress shoes, just like when they were little boys. He checked the time on his watch and saw his meeting was now six minutes late. One more minute, he told himself, then he would go. But of course, at that very moment, headlights came weaving through the empty parking lot, a late-model American sedan bouncing over the myriad potholes and cracks in the surface of the pavement.

When the car finally pulled to a stop, headlights pinning Cian to the wall he’d leaned against, he’d pulled his gun from the discreet shoulder holster he kept it in and let it dangle casually at his side, behind the edge of his pants.

The car doors opened, and dark figures emerged from the driver’s and passenger’s sides.

“You want to turn off the lights, or did you intend to send out engraved invitations to this?” Cian asked.

The driver swore but opened the car door and doused the headlights, allowing Cian’s eyes to adjust to the new darkness as the men once again walked toward him.

He deftly tucked the gun into the back waistband of his pants, slid his hands into his front pockets, and waited quietly.

“Make this quick, MacFarlane. We have better things to do with our time,” the passenger of the car said.

“Just relax, Bruce,” Cian answered, not moving from where he lounged against the bricks. No matter what he might feel on the inside, he looked like he had ice water in his veins. The only time Cian had come close to losing it was long ago and far away, in another warehouse with his father in his face and a trusted employee bound to a chair.

The federal agent flipped him off.

Cian shook his head slightly to clear the memory. “You guys have a big date planned or something? Don going to take you out dining and dancing in your new pink cocktail dress?”

Bruce did what Bruce always did and lunged at Cian. Don did what he always did and stopped him.

“Will you quit taunting him, MacFarlane? Surely you have worthier prey to play with.”

Cian nodded his agreement. “True. He’s not worth the trouble.”

“You called this shindig,” Bruce spat as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “What do you have for us?”

Cian strode a few steps away from the men. “I want to know why you’ve got guys sitting outside my place of business twenty-four seven. The whole point of what I’m doing here—risking my life, I might add—is so my family doesn’t have you assholes breathing down our necks all the time.”

He heard Bruce snort, and Don chuckled in response.

“No, MacFarlane, the reason you do this is so your old man and Liam don’t spend the rest of their lives in federal lockup getting it up the ass twice a day.”

Cian’s pulse flared and his stomach turned as he spun on the men. He had Don’s tie in his fist so fast, all Bruce could do was stumble back before Cian’s elbow landed in his eye.

“Listen to me,” Cian growled in the shorter man’s face. “I could make you disappear into thin air. They’d never find a trace of you, and your wife would have nothing to bury. That sweet daughter of yours would never know what it was like to have Daddy walk her down the aisle, and your fucking golden doodle wouldn’t have anyone to go to the park down the block with anymore. You think because I cooperate with you that means you own me? Think again.”

He shoved Don away, ignoring the coughing and wheezing that followed. Bruce stood a few feet away, gun drawn, ready to shoot if Cian took things too far, but in spite of what the agents might think, Cian would never take it too far. He was always in control. Did it make him sick when they talked about his brother in prison? Yes. Did it make him lose control? No. But he had to flex his muscle, make some threats, play the game the way they expected if he wanted to survive this and keep his brothers safe.

He turned to face Bruce, holding his hands out from his sides. “You going to do anything with that or just pretend you’re an actual cop?”

Bruce slowly uncocked the weapon, lowering it when Don muttered he was fine.

“Is someone going to answer me about the surveillance on my place?” Cian asked. “I need to get back to work so my men don’t wonder where I am.”

He saw the two agents glance at each other and knew then he wasn’t going to like what came next.

Bruce leaned down and picked up his unlit cigarette from the asphalt where he’d dropped it during the scuffle. He put it between his lips and pulled out a lighter. After he’d taken a long drag and blown the smoke to one side, he spoke, eyes glittery in the dim light from an adjacent light pole.

“We made a deal you’d gather information for us, and we’d let your old man and Liam off the hook. We never said we wouldn’t continue to investigate MacFarlane activities.”

Cian took a deep breath, because now he did feel like losing it.

“You understand if you’re on me all the time, you’ll make it so I can’t get you information on anyone? No one will be doing business with me if I have a tail twenty-four seven. You wanted me to inform on associates and the Vasquez family. I’ve been doing that, but I can’t do it with feds glued to my ass.”

Don cleared his throat, but his voice was still rough. “What you’ve been giving us isn’t enough.”

Shit. Cian had been waiting for this day. Sharing information that couldn’t be traced back to him or implicate his family wasn’t easy. He walked a fine line between giving the feds enough info to keep them engaged while not giving them anything of real value. He’d obviously erred on the side of too much caution, something that wouldn’t have surprised his old man a bit.

“I can’t make information appear out of thin air—unless you want me to start planting things, which, considering it’s the Vasquez family we’re talking about, wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.”

“Look, we know there are limits on what you’re going to be able to get on the Vasquez operation. Unless you have someone on the inside, you can’t get the kinds of details we need to make significant charges stick.”

He folded his arms, feeling the heightened pulse pounding there under his wrists.

“Start small. Isn’t that what you guys do? Bring them in on whatever you have so you can get search warrants and subpoenas? I’ve given you things that would get the ball rolling. Even without a fancy law degree, I know that.”

“The bureau’s sick of the resources it takes to make convictions that don’t slow you scumbags down,” Don said with surprisingly little animosity. “They want bigger convictions, bigger fish. They want to show a real impact. We’ve got the Senate Judiciary pushing hard for progress on organized crime and the opioid crisis.”

Cian frowned.

“Sorry.” Don shrugged.

“What’s it going to take to get your men off my back?” Cian asked, suddenly so tired, he felt as though he could go to sleep and never wake up.

Don shot a look at Bruce, who quietly turned and walked back to the car, where he pulled out his phone and began a conversation of some sort.

Don stepped closer to Cian as though he had things to say he didn’t want Bruce to hear, but Cian knew it was all a ploy to seem as if they had a level of intimacy they didn’t. The feds and their constant head games. Sometimes he really believed they thought he was stupid.

“Look, I personally don’t have a problem with the info you’ve been giving us. It’s all panned out. You haven’t screwed us over once, which is pretty rare for informants at your level.”

“But?”

“But like I said, it’s not enough, and no matter what you do, you can’t get us what we need on the Vasquez organization.”

That was when Cian finally got it. “You’ve found someone inside to flip on Vasquez.”

Don just looked at him.

Cian’s chest squeezed, and sweat broke out along his hairline. He knew what came next.

“And what do you want from me now?” he asked, only because he needed it said out loud before he told them to screw themselves.

“MacFarlane info,” Don said blandly, as if he wasn’t asking Cian to betray his own flesh and blood.

Cian swore under his breath before he leaned in and spat in Don’s face, “Fuck. You.”

“I’m sure the girls think you’re very pretty, but I prefer tits.”

Cian growled before he began to pace in a tight line up and down in front of Don. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Bruce watching him from where he leaned back against the car, probably ready to shoot him in the head if the mood struck right.

“We’re done here, then,” Cian said, stopping to pull his car keys out of his pocket.

“That’s fine,” Don said before turning to look behind him. “Hey!” he called to Bruce. “Was it Finn or Connor we caught on camera making that big buy last month?”

“I don’t know, man, which one has his cute girlfriend’s initials tattooed on his forearm?”

Cian’s heart sank to somewhere south of his knees. Connor.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Don said snapping his fingers. “Connor. The baby, right?” he asked Cian.

“No,” Cian snarled. “You will not get anywhere near Connor.” He’d given up trying to be cool. His self-control had officially snapped.

“I’m sorry, but we have him taking a shipment from the Martinezes down in Albuquerque. On camera. Cash passed. The whole nine yards. It’s like a dream come true.”

“You son of a bitch,” Cian whispered, not even looking at the agent.

“So, ball’s in your court. Here’s the offer. Immunity for you and Connor. Everyone else is fair game, and you’ll give us what we need to put Liam, Robbie, and your lieutenants in prison for life. We want the Devils shut down or at least crippled to the point it’s down for years, not months.”

Nausea rolled through Cian, his hands tingling as he flexed them over and over again. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. He needed to keep them all safe. Let his father take the fall and rot in prison until he died alone, Cian couldn’t care less about what happened to Robbie. But how was he supposed to choose one brother over the others? No. He simply couldn’t. He had to get all three of them out, no matter what.

“What about Finn?” he asked, voice rough with resignation.

Don shrugged. “No one cares much what happens to him. If he gets caught in the net, fine. If not, it’s no deal breaker. We know he doesn’t have what it takes to run the show. If the other players are out, Finn’s rendered irrelevant.”

Jesus. His tenderhearted, talented, brilliant brother reduced to “irrelevant.” It was shocking, even to someone as jaded as him.

“Immunity won’t be of much use to us when everyone finds out I’ve cut a deal for me and Connor. If you think my old man can’t or won’t get to us from a prison cell, you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

“Oh, did I forget the other part? Witness protection,” Don said, a smug smile on his shiny face.

Cian sighed as he quickly shuffled through the options. If he could get witness protection, Connor would be out for good. Then he’d have to figure out what to do about Liam and Finn. But maybe one less brother to worry about was the best choice under the circumstances. Lighten the load for a bit. Give him some breathing space to calculate the next move. It wasn’t as if he had a choice anyway.

“Fine,” he finally told Don. “Witness protection for Connor…” He thought for a moment. “And his girlfriend, Jessica O’Neil.”

“Thought they split up,” Don said, demonstrating once again his vast knowledge of all things MacFarlane. It would be a little creepy if Cian didn’t know the man was paid to keep track.

“It’s complicated,” Cian said. “But in case, I want her included in his package.”

“Fine. New identity for the old boxer’s daughter too.”

“It’s going to take me a while to get you what you need—financials, emails, that kind of thing.”

Don nodded. “I want the overview of the activities first, then I’ll tell you what evidence is useful and what isn’t.”

“And in the meantime? The surveillance?”

“I think we’ll keep it right where it is,” Don said. “It’s proven to be useful for all sorts of reasons.”

Cian swallowed the bile and nodded sharply. Then, without another word, he walked to his car and started it up. Five miles away, on a quiet street a few blocks from Union Park he pulled the car over to the curb, turned off the engine, and leaned his head against the steering wheel as a single tear rolled down his cheek.