Page 7 of The Villain

Jace’s eyes immediately met mine, sincerity shining through them, along with a hint of fear. “No, Cian. Not at all.”

“Then fix your fucking attitude. I need my brother workingwithme, not against me.”

His cheeks reddened as he dropped his gaze to the dirt. “I’m sorry.”

I had a headache. It was blooming right between my eyes. “Don’t you have stock to put away?” The younger members of the crew worked at O'Shea’s across the street, our bar and attached motel. The business was an easy front for laundering money, and while my father had been a fucking bastard, he’d been smart to start it.

Jace moved his lips, and I could have sworn he was mimicking me before he lifted his head. “Yeah. I’ll go.”

“You do that.”

He shot another guilty look at Rhys’s injured hand before slinking back toward Frank.

“Want me to call Bev?” I gestured to Rhys’s hand. “You might need stitches.”

Dr. Bev Wallace was an ageless surgeon who had worked for my father for as long as I could remember. She’d fixed upcountless crew members over the years, everything from bullet holes to stab wounds to broken arms. We paid her well, but she also owed an emotional debt to my father for killing the man who’d murdered her daughter. Sometimes, I wondered if she regretted taking on that debt—especially after she’d patched me up one too many times as a kid. But she’d remained loyal, even after Patrick had passed.

Rhys shook his head, then scratched at his dark hair. “It’s fine.”

“Jace is?—”

“I know.” He pressed his lips into a thin line, and I didn’t bother saying anything else. Rhys knew Jace as well as I did. He flicked his brown eyes toward the shed. “I’ll get Hack and Mads to rotate guard shifts at the shed. Jace isn’t the only one out for that devil’s blood.”

I ground my molars. Rhys wasn’t wrong. Andfuck, now my headache was an ice pick stabbing me behind the eyes. “Thanks.”

Rhys watched me closely. “Take a break. We got it covered.”

Rhys and I walked back into Frank together, and he immediately peeled off to talk to Hack, who sat on a raggedy couch with his tablet. This section of the building was one open concept room. A full industrial kitchen ran along the back wall, while the front of the room held a lounge area with a few couches, a TV, and a pool table. We also had a stocked bar, currently occupied by Rank O’Leary, whose beady eyes tracked me across the floor.

Rank had been loyal to my father, and he’d made it clear I was not up to snuff as the next leader of the O'Shea’s. He had a few supporters who felt the same way, mostly other old-timers who couldn’t let go of Patrick’s death and still blamed me.

They thought I should have been the one to travel to Detroit and risk my neck. But Patrick had been a control freak, and even though he’d trained me to take over the crew since I was six, hehadn’t been willing to let go of the reins. If he had told me to go to Detroit that day, I would have gone.

And then I would have been the one on the receiving end of Devlin Walsh’s bullet.

All I wanted right now was to make it up the stairs and into my apartment, but Rank moved surprisingly fast for an old man. He had two friends with him, Grave and Plank. They were both a little dumb, but they’d been bouncers at O'Shea’s since the beginning.

“Don’t see any blood on you,” Rank snapped, his dark gaze taking me in from head to toe. He was smaller than me and had always tried to puff himself up like some pissed-off cat. Like size meant anything. Like he had any fucking clue what real power looked like, or how to lead a crew. He’d been growing bolder lately, and his challenges to my authority were starting to cross the line. “Looks like you went too soft on the devil.”

I looked down my nose at him. “I didn’t ask for your opinion. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.” Then I turned and gave him my back, dismissing him. One thing I’d learned about men like Rank was that entertaining dialogue was a sign of weakness. He needed to be put in his place.

I heard him sputtering behind me as I ascended the stairs, probably still searching for a comeback, but I had already reached the top before I heard him mutter something unintelligible. His words didn’t matter. He had nothing to do with Devlin Walsh. Plenty of men felt they were owed their pound of flesh when they hadn’t earned shit.

Patrick wasmyfather. This wasmycrew.

Which meant Devlin Walsh was mine and mine alone.

The oldest section of Frank had originally been a bed and breakfast in the early 1900s. Since then, two additions had been made, one on either side. One had been built by the second owners. It was the section I’d just been in, where they’d addedthe kitchen and a second floor. The first floor had been a restaurant and bar for years, and the second had added more rooms for guests.

After my father bought the place, he added a section on the opposite side of the original building, and that’s where I was headed now. It held a two-story garage that took up the bottom levels, with enough space for several cars, our yard care equipment, and a modest home gym. The third floor housed the apartment I’d lived in with my father until I turned eighteen, when I’d moved into a bedroom of my own in Frank, only returning to claim the apartment after he had died.

I strode down the hallway through the oldest section of Frank, now a two-story dorm for the younger members of the O'Shea crew. The ones I trusted. Most of the older members, like Rank, didn’t live in our compound anymore—they had houses and families of their own. But a few old-timers still lived above the lounge and kitchen area, in rooms my father had renovated.

As I passed Mads’s room, I heard his raised voice and stopped at the open door.

“—and call me back, woman!” He ended the call and threw his phone on the bed, raking his fingers through his dirty blond hair and tugging so hard his eyes pulled tight.

I leaned against the doorframe. “Still can’t get a hold of her?”