Chapter Six

Aidan

Maggie stepped out for the rest of the day for classes, so I was alone in my office. I looked at my watch and saw that it was coming up on two o’clock. My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything yet. I looked back at my computer screen and decided I’d finish this bit of research for a case and then go to the deli down the block and grab a sandwich. My stomach growled again to lodge its complaint about the delay.

After another ten minutes of reading, I sighed and leaned back in my chair, rubbing my eyes. Tyler was a troublesome client. Or put another way, a royal pain in my ass. His father paid me well, but made it clear there was no more money in the offering, which meant I needed to dispose of Tyler’s case quickly. It also meant—at least to Tyler—that I needed to get him off scot free.

Which was my dilemma. There was no way he was coming through this unscathed. Yeah, killing that man might have started out accidental, but the fact remained—the victim’s blood was on Tyler’s hands, literally. If he thought I could wipe that off his record completely, he was foolishly mistaken.

I chuckled to myself. Gotta love the spoiled, rich arsehole kids of the elite. They think I can move mountains simply because they snapped their fingers, stomped their feet, and threw a tantrum. But as I reminded myself time and again when I wanted to slap the piss out of one of them—their families paid the bills quite handsomely.

I might be able to help this little brat avoid jail time—in fact, that was pretty much a slam dunk at this point—but I found nothing in case law that would help me keep it off his record. Not that I actually thought I’d find anything, but I was being paid to do my due diligence. And because I took pride in my work and wanted to keep my reputation sterling, I always did my due diligence.

And unfortunately for Tyler, I hadn’t come up with anything.

I stared at the computer screen, hoping for inspiration to strike when a noise in the outer office drew my attention.

“Mags?” I called. “Is that you?”

The door to my office was barely cracked open and the blinds on my windows were down, so I couldn’t see anybody in the lobby. The noise came again.

“Mags?”

The warning bells in my head sounded as I got to my feet. Somebody was in the outer office and was doing their best to not be heard. I crept around my desk and tread as lightly as I could to the door. I peeked through the narrow crack but still didn’t see anyone. Damn! I should’ve grabbed my piece.

Suddenly the door shoved inward with strong momentum and knocked me backward. I stumbled and almost went down before catching myself on one of the two chairs in front of my desk. My eyes widened as adrenaline pumped through me. I looked up to see a man in a gray hoodie standing in the doorway. The shadow cast by his hood obscured his face, but I had a damn good feeling it was the same guy I’d seen lurking around in the parking garage.

“Who the fuck are you?” I snarled.

He didn’t answer, but reached toward the small of his back. I didn’t need to be a fortune teller to know what was coming next. I was positive if I didn’t get to him before he pulled the gun, I was going to have two holes in the chest and one in the head. And I wasn’t going to let that happen. My death wasn’t going to be made to look like a random robbery gone wrong—that was the way executions like this played out to avoid drawing unwanted attention.

Every fiber of my being was on red alert, telling me this guy was a professional hired to kill me. But who’d hired him? And why? A rival within the syndicate? One of the other organizations sensing weakness in our outfit and trying to capitalize on it? Who in the hell would want to kill me? It wasn’t like it was common knowledge that I was stepping into Flynn’s shoes yet. Or maybe it was a pre-emptive strike to keep me from taking over the family business.

I didn’t know and didn’t care—I needed to act. I launched myself at the assassin as he was bringing his weapon—a shiny, chrome nine millimeter with a silencer attached to it—to bear. He grunted as I crashed into him and stumbled backward. His foot caught on the edge of Maggie’s desk and he went down, taking me down with him. I landed on top of him and heard the rush of air leaving his lungs. Unfortunately, he didn’t lose the gun when he fell.

I grabbed the man’s arm as he brought his gun to bear and used my leverage to keep him from pointing it at me. He threw a punch that caught me in the side of the head. He hit me so hard, I was momentarily breathless and seeing stars. But I still somehow managed to keep him from being able to train his gun on me.

“Who sent you?” I hissed through gritted teeth.

The man said nothing but threw another punch that I managed to block with my other arm. I sat astride the man and tried to figure out what to do next. We seemed to be at a stalemate—he was pinned beneath me, and I was holding his wrists in my hands. How the hell was I going to get out of this?

We were both straining hard—the assassin to free himself and me to keep him from getting free. If he broke loose, I was a dead man. Sweat dotted my brow and a knot formed in my stomach—the man was strong. Really strong. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to keep him pinned.

“Who feckin’ sent you?” I repeated.

Using his lower body for leverage, the man bucked upward and threw me off. I flew backward and landed on my ass. Knowing I had to move fast, I scrambled backward as quickly as I could, crab walking back into my office just as the man sat up and squeezed off three shots.

The bullets tore into the wall next to the door just as I’d passed. A splinter of wood shot out and stuck me. I felt the warm, sticky blood flowing down my cheek. Rolling to my right, I got behind the wall and jumped to my feet. And not a moment too soon as the gunman was right behind me.

He entered the room with his gun held out in front of him and turned in my direction. I grabbed the first thing I could get hold of—a potted plant, as it turned out—and hurled it at him like I was throwing a fastball. The man jumped backward to avoid getting hit by the flying plant. It gave me the split second I needed to launch myself at him for a second time.

I drove my shoulder into his midsection as hard as I could. He grunted as I carried him backward like a linebacker wrapping up a ball carrier. We crashed into a bookshelf, spilling books and knick-knacks to the floor and on top of us.

I slammed him into the bookcase again, driving my shoulder into his stomach even harder now that I had a little leverage. I grabbed the hand he had his gun in and slammed it against the bookcase, too. The man beat on my back with his other hand, but the blows didn’t faze me. I was using the only advantage I had—the intense and frenzied desire to stay alive.

No matter how many times I cracked his hand against the wood of the bookcase, I couldn’t dislodge the gun, so I did the only thing I could think to do. Using all my strength, I drove my knee into the man’s crotch. He let out a strangled gasp and a small moan as he started to crumple forward. Grabbing him by the back of the head, I brought my knee up and drove it into his face with an unwavering brute force. Feeling the bones in his nose giving way, I threw a punch to the side of his head and his body slumped against the ground.

The gun clattered to the hardwood floor and spun away from me. As blood poured from his nose, the man grabbed his wounded crotch, and I rushed over to pick up the gun. I stood up and turned around as the man slowly staggered to his knees, digging at something on his ankle—a second holster.

His hood had fallen off, and I finally got a look at him. I didn’t recognize him in the slightest. He had dark hair, darker eyes, and a hardened face that looked cold and cruel. By the look in his eyes, I could see he was a man who took immense pleasure in killing others—a cruel and vicious killer.

His hand clasped around the gun in his ankle holster and started to pull it out. Acting purely on my instinct to survive, I raised the gun in my hand and squeezed the trigger. I pulled it again and again and again—watching as the man’s body jerked and twitched as the bullets ripped through his flesh. Blossoms of crimson erupted on his sweatshirt as the bullets penetrated his body, and his eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.

Finally, the trigger merely clicked, signaling the gun was void of ammunition. He remained on his knees, swaying as he stared at me. The front of his sweatshirt now bathed in blood and a thin stream seeped out of his mouth, rolling down his chin. He cocked his head and looked at me. It was as if he was trying to figure out who I was—or maybe, how I’d managed to beat him. The truth of the matter was, I didn’t know how I’d beaten him. It was pure Irish luck and the will to survive.

My body was trembling with an excess of adrenaline, and the knot in my stomach constricted painfully. A wild and wide range of emotions coursed through me—I’d just killed a man. But as I looked at the man in front of me, I realized the one thing I didn’t feel was sympathy. Or sorrow. No, I’d done what needed to be done and felt justified. Righteous, even. This man came here to kill me and somehow, I’d turned the tables on him.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally slumped to his side and fell to the wooden office floor. Blood pooled around him as his face—his eyes wide and unseeing—began to grow pale. He’d come to kill me, though his luck had expired just as he had at my hands. The bloody hands of an O’Brien. I felt my face flush with triumph and pride.

Feelings that vanished immediately when I heard the gasp behind me. I raised my gun and spun around, my heart dropping into my shoes when I saw who was standing in the doorway behind me—Maggie.

“W-what are you doing here?” I stammered, lowering the weapon.

“Classes were canceled,” she said, her eyes fixed on the corpse on my office floor. “Is he—dead?”

I nodded. “Y-yeah, he’s dead, Mags. He came here to kill me.”