Sinful Hearts: Chapter 33

At first, all I know is pain.

The white noise of distant screaming and faint sirens. The frantic and yet numbing task of clawing through rubble and fire, heedless of the way it’s burning the skin from my hands. The roaring sound that I finally realize is my own voice when the firefighters try and pull me out of the wreckage of the Banshee.

It’s finally Castle that manages to do that, and he does it in his own way: by punching me in the face. It’s probably the only way I’d have ever left that smoking black hole.

It dazes me and quiets the monster raging within me enough that he can drag me from the smoldering building and shove me against the side of a car. Then he physically yanks my head to the side to show me where they’re loading my grandmother, my sister, and Eilish Kildare into the backs of three ambulances.

Callie climbs into hers herself.

Dimitra and Eilish do not.

That sets me off again, roaring and screaming pure, blind rage and hatred at the sky as Castle forcibly throws me into the back of his car as the scent of death curls into the air around us.

“I’m so fucking sorry, brother.”

Ares hugs me tightly, his jaw clenched as I cling to him.

Callie is already up and moving around. Eilish is going to be okay once she’s out of surgery to remove the pieces of shrapnel in her shoulder and her leg. Our grandmother, miraculously, is okay, fuck knows how. They’re keeping her for observation, despite her protests, because they want to watch for internal bleeding from the hit she took. But she’s okay.

They’re all alive.

My eyes squeeze shut.

Sean Farrell isn’t.

The firefighters are saying it looks like he took the brunt of the blast when he used his body to shield my sister and my grandmother from the worst of it.

They’re calling him a hero. And that’s fucking great and all, but I don’t want to eulogize a hero.

I want to thank my fucking friend for what he did and then go buy him a beer.

I grit my teeth against my brother’s shoulder and take a deep breath before I pull away, my face grim.

“Fuck,” Ares hisses, looking away.

Neve blinks back tears as she comes over to hug me, shaking as she clings to me. When she pulls back to sink into my brother’s arms, I turn to survey the scene in the hospital waiting room around me.

The faces and clothes streaked with ash and grime. The wounds, like the gash on my head, that aren’t big enough for anyone here to give a shit about right now. Not while Dimitra is being monitored for internal bleeding and Eilish is having pieces of her pub surgically removed from her body.

The tears. The pain. The shattered spirits.

And then there’s the anger. And even though it’s simmering below the surface, it’s plain to see on everyone’s faces: Ares, Neve, Kratos, Castle, Cillian and Una.

With me, the anger’s not so much under the surface. It’s about to explode outward with a force that’ll make what just happened at The Banshee look like a cheap bottle rocket.

Not the bomb it was.

And it a bomb. Castle’s just gotten off the phone with the Fire Marshall, who confirmed it. Not a gas leak. Not an act of God.

A fucking .

They’re saying it was wired up under the downstairs lounge bar, purposefully put in that central location so as to do the maximum damage to both the downstairs lounge and the bar above it, where most of our family was.

They’re saying it was a relatively complex IED, too. One that took time to set up.

They’re saying that while the security camera hard drives have obviously been reduced to molten slag, the off-site logs show that the back door to the place was opened using a security code late last night.

.

I turn away, yanking my phone out to try calling Elsa again. But same as before, it goes straight to voicemail.

I’m not worried. Well, not worried. My building is far more secure than it looks, despite all that glass. Plus, I sent three of our men over to guard the place, without worrying Elsa, while I was on the way here to the hospital.

I text George, one of the men I sent over there, just to check in. His instant “all good over here” reply has me exhaling slowly.

Maybe she’s in the shower, or taking a nap or something.

Ares glances at Kratos and me.

“There’s no reason to keep quiet about it,” Neve chokes tightly, shaking her head at my brother. “We’re all thinking the same thing anyway.”

Ares’ expression goes grim. But he nods.

“Fine.”

The waiting room is full of nothing but Kildare and Drakos people anyway, and this obviously concerns both families. Ares exhales slowly, his eyes dragging to Cillian.

“Does Dominic know yet?”

As in Dom Farrell, Sean’s father.

Cillian nods stonily. “He does. He’s on a plane right now from Chicago.”

Ares shakes his head. “I’m so fucking sorry, Cil. Sean was a good man. And they’re saying he saved Callie and Ya-ya’s lives. I know Dom won’t give a flying fuck about that right now, and that’s fine. But I want him to know that. Eventually.”

The Irishman nods quietly. “He’ll know.”

Ares grits his teeth as his eyes slowly sweep the room.

“There’s no easy way to put this. But we’re all thinking it anyway, so fuck it.” He pauses. “Someone just declared war on us. It could very well be the Russians, but before of us, or any of the vassal families, goes out there and starts waging World War Three in the streets of Manhattan, we’re going to be goddamn sure it is. Can we please agree to that?”

Cillian’s jaw grinds. But he nods.

“I can tell our people to stand down.” His eyes harden. “

. But my niece is in , Ares. And there’s a limit to my patience when it comes to holding off on retaliation.”

“Fair enough. If anyone has favors owed them, call them the fuck in, now.”

My phone buzzes. I yank it out quickly, expecting it to be Elsa. My brow furrows when I see the name on the screen.

Oren Frey: Cillian’s “detective”.

I move to the corner of the room and answer it.

“I just heard what happened, Hades. And I’m very sorry.”

Oren and I have only spoken once before, a few weeks ago. I’d almost forgotten I’d called him and asked him to do what I did. Now, amidst the chaos of all this, it seems so fucking petty and stupid.

“Thank you,” I growl. “Now maybe isn’t the best time—”

“Unfortunately,” he growls. “It might be all good a time.”

My eyes darken. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about what, or should I say who, you asked me to look into.”

Elsa.

I asked him to look into Elsa, and I’ve spent the last three weeks regretting it every time she’s smiled at me or kissed me.

“Oren, this “I’m not some yellow pages private detective, Hades. Nor am I unaware of the intricate politics involved with people like yourself and families such as your own when I do work for them. I’m fully versed in the dynamics of your family, and Cillian’s, as well as of those who you both might call enemies. Which is why I struggled with even calling you right now.”

My pulse quickens, a whining sound ringing in my ears.

“What did you find.”

He exhales slowly. “Her background is clean. Mom died when she was eighteen and her sister was seven. They were pretty poor, but she worked two jobs—interning at a law firm, running coffees, making copies, that sort of thing, and also running the back office for a local grocery store. She managed to get herself into no less than Cambridge, where she was top of her class, all while playing mother to her little sister, Nora.”

I already know all of this. It still makes me grin with foolish pride, even if the world is burning around me. But I’m not sure where he’s going with any of this, or how it’s remotely relevant to any of what’s going on.

“Oren—”

“The reason I’m calling right , and the reason I truly wrestled with this, Hades,” he growls, “isn’t because of how smart she is, or how driven, or the blood and sweat it took for her to get to where she and her sister are right now. I’m calling you because of who her father is.”

The ringing sound in my ears grows louder. My pulse thuds harder.

“And he is?”

Oren is silent.

“

”

“Stavrin.”

The floor drops away.

“Leo Stavrin. I’d tell you who he is, but I know you already know. And given this evening’s events, that’s why I wasn’t so sure about calling.”

“Thank you.”

“Look, Hades—”

“That’s all I need,” I say in a voice that sounds like the edge of a knife. “Thank you, Oren.”

I hang up. In a trance, my face a mask of pure, livid rage, I turn and start to walk for the door.

Ares spots me first, frowning as he moves to intercept me.

“Woah, who was that?”

“Out of my way.”

His jaw clenches. “Hades—”

With a furious roar I explode, shoving him back as I yank the gun from the holster under my jacket.

“HADES!” Neve screams.

Ares holds up his hand to her, his eyes still locked on mine. His face darkens when I chamber a round, my face a cold mask of fury.

“

, man,” he growls. “I can’t help you if you don’t—”

“I am going to with something, Ares,” I snarl. “That’s all you need to know.”

He shakes his head, Castle and Kratos moving behind him, eyeing me and the gun warily.

“You’re not going after Gavan fucking Tsarenko by yourself, brother,” Ares growls quietly. “Let us settle things here, and then you and I, and the rest of us, can all go knock down Gavan’s—”

“I’m not going after Gavan.”

He frowns. “Then who—”

“

The room is silent after my voice booms through it. Ares and I lock eyes. Then, slowly, he dips his chin in a slow nod. He steps away, letting me surge past him and out the door like an avenging angel of death.

No, I’m not going after Gavan.

I’m going after the little fucking spy who’s been playing me like a goddamn idiot. The little blonde who’s had me wrapped around her fucking finger while she fed intel to the enemy.

And when I find her, I’m going to fucking bury her.

It’s a miracle I don’t die in a fiery car crash as I scream across the bridge from Manhattan into Brooklyn. It’s as if I’ve got blinders on—like I’m seeing in tunnel vision, completely unaware of anything and everything around me as I plow recklessly through traffic.

It all comes in flashes—horribly, blindingly obvious flashes, now that I think about it.

That first night, when I was so caught up in realizing that the girl from Club Venom was Elsa that I didn’t focus on the part where she was at one in the morning.

Of course she was. Because she’s his fucking .

I think of all the times I was so stupidly cavalier with her. All the times I left my phone open around her, or chatted away to Ares with her in earshot.

Listening. Writing all that shit down.

Plotting to destroy me and mine, all while slowly breaking down every wall I have. And now someone is dead—a is dead—and my grandmother and basically my sister-in-law are still in the hospital because I got careless with my feelings.

She fucking played me.

I’m going to her.

The car mounts the curb outside my building as I come to a screeching stop. My eyes dart to the van across the street with “Athenian Dry-Cleaning” stenciled on the side of it, which is my guy George and his crew.

I storm over there to tell them to scatter—to get the fuck out of here before I start shooting. When I get to the van, I frown.

It’s empty.

?

Suddenly, something catches my eye: liquid, dripping from the side sliding door of the van.

My brow knits, and when I lean closer, my veins chill.

It’s blood.

Pulse racing, I yank open the sliding door, and instantly grit my teeth.

.

George and the two other guys I sent are dead in a heap on the floor of the van, all with their throats cut.

I don’t think. I just whirl, bolting across the street, smashing in the keypad code to my building, then bolting up the stairs through the unfinished floors until I get to the top.

I can’t tell if I want her to be there so that I can kill her with my bare hands, or if I’m hoping she’s gone so I don’t have to.

So I don’t have to kill the woman I love for being instrumental in the death of my friend, and in almost killing my family.

But, luckily or unfortunately, she’s not there.

I tear through the house, looking under every bed and in every closet. But the place is empty.

Her clothes are missing from my closet. The toothbrush she left here a few weeks ago is gone.

is gone. And I have no idea if the roaring sensation inside of me demanding I chase her is so that I can kiss her as if my life depended on it…

…or kill her.