Chapter Two

Kieran

Present Day.

My eyes picked up little in the dark space, but my nose picked up enough. The scent of blood in the air. Old blood that'd already coagulated. My grandmother worked at a meat plant, and she always had that smell on her clothes. A metallic tinge with a touch of rot. Whoever died in here had been cooking for a while.

Sweat beaded my hairline. The late spring temperature in this part of the world already in the low eighties. My skin prickled against the soft wool suit I wore doing little to stem the toxic feeling raging just on the edge of my skin. I had to calm down. I'd cut my hair yesterday. Short on the side, longer on top, and smoothed back away from my face. The idea was to show elegance while being ready for violence. Cillian had taught me that, like he'd taught me how to fight, how to handle knives, batons, guns. Cillian Liam Brennan, my grandfather, had shown me how to be a man so that I would one day topple over my deadbeat biological father's throne. Although I didn't carry his name, I carried his blood. The reason Cillian had plucked me from my grandmother's house when I was ten. I had kicked and screamed. I had cried, but Grandma had done nothing to stop them. She'd watched them take me out of the only home I'd ever known. She had known my bloodline and hadn't prepared me.

I hated her for it.

I never saw her again. The memory of her a collage of scattered images. Brown eyes, wrinkled at the edges. A bland face that could've been the countless other caretakers who'd come and gone over the years. But I remembered her smell. Iron and rot.

Without hesitating, I approached the end of the warehouse. I'd always been summoned to a house in the woods, a cabin, a warehouse throughout the world. Cillian was an international torturer. I was his plaything to mold as he saw fit. It felt like an anchor around my neck. Except for the little dark swirl inside of me reserved for things I wanted which included bringing this family down, taking away their billions, sending my grandfather to hell. That mission kept the threads of my soul pieced together under the Kiton wool suit I wore with the cufflinks by Cartier and a Patek Phillip wristwatch. Over forty grand of shit on my body and I still felt like the mud in his fucking shoes.

I'd worn a Kevlar vest under it. I wasn't a total idiot.

The beats of my Berlutis on the concrete floor were the only sound in the eerily dark space. The moment Cillian had contacted me with the coordinates to this place I knew it'd involve a kill. Not that he couldn't have done it his damn self. He always tested me, as if he expected me to fail, to refuse. I hadn't yet. At least not in his eyes. My father was a different story. I hadn't seen him in years and didn't want to think about him when faced with the shit I had to do for his father.

The source of the smell made an appearance to the left of an old table where a man sat, hooded, and breathing fast. He'd been chained to the base of the table and sat naked. The smell of sweat and something sour overpowered the smell of blood here.

Cillian leaned against the wall, illuminated by the dim light above him. A tableau of a noir scene. He stood over six feet. Still very much powerful with a physique that contradicted his age. He had salt and pepper hair and beard, and stunning green eyes. My father's eyes. My eyes.

"Grandfather," I said in a dry tone. He hated when I used his name or used sir. For him, it had to be Grandfather. I learned that early on with a few bruises to remind me.

"Kieran," he said back with that same tone. "It took you long enough."

Telling him my flight had been delayed would be seen as my error in judgement. I should've put a gun in the pilot's face and demand he take off against the flight control tower's instructions. It didn't matter that it'd be impossible to do. "My apologies," I said with a hand to the chest and a slight bow. My stomach knotted at the blood-stained floor and the rotting corpse who no longer looked even human. If this man had family, they'd have to have a closed casket funeral.

The other man started to struggle against his binds. The sawing in and out of his breath pulled the bag in and out. He grunted, suggesting he'd been gagged. Or his tongue had been ripped out. I preferred to visualize the gag.

"You do remember the greedy bastards tapping into my shipment of merchandise, yes?"

I remembered his rage a few months ago and something about his shipping lines being compromised. Whenever Grandfather was pissed, I'd feel it for days. "Yes," I said, keeping every part of me behind a thick wall.

Standing before my grandfather, I wasn't Kieran Romano, son of Victoria Romano. I wasn't a nineteen-year-old student getting ready to start his second year of college. I wasn't the guy who ruled Arcadia University. I wasn't an A student. I wasn't the guy wanting to study law to do something with my life that was mine. Something that didn't belong to the Brennans.

That person I pushed behind a steel wall.

The person that came when summoned by Cillian Brennan was an aged, ruthless, killer by the name of Kieran X. I had learned the design of the drug trade that made the Brennans millions and reputable across continents. I'd also learned about their legitimate business. For the past two years, I had become cold with one goal in mind.

Make my father pay.

Tristan Brennan, the eldest and heir to the Brennan family's businesses, would suffer as I ripped his wealth, power, and legitimate heir out of his hands. I'd watch as his perfect world crumbled, and he would beg for mercy. Perhaps I'd let his son live. My younger half-brother was nine and in line of succession only because I was the bastard secret.

I clenched my fists letting those thoughts fuel the killer inside of me. Cillian lifted his chin to the man struggling in the chair. He didn't have to speak. I saw the gun on the edge of the table, lifted my eyes briefly to the mirror behind the guy as I moved to pick up the gun. The weapon felt good in my gloved hand. Perfect. I aimed it at the bag, imagined my father's tight face behind it, dark hair, strong features, and eyes like mine, and I pulled the trigger. The report echoed in the room, left my ears ringing for a few seconds. The man's head jerked back on impact, and he slumped in the chair, blood saturating the bag, his shoulders, the floor under him. Everything fell silent.

I lifted my eyes to the mirror.

I didn't recognize the face looking back at me.

My expression was void of emotion. A statue cut from marble. My lips stretched into a thin line. My eyes a darker green, shadowed, inhuman while my sins clawed at my insides. The dead screamed in one unison cry inside of me. All the men I'd killed throughout the years. Some nameless, some faceless, some I remembered, some had faded into the deep abyss of what remained of my soul. I just added one more.

I heard Cillian in the space. "You can tell a lot about a man watching him kill," he said. His voice oozed something that made me feel dirty, violated, without even being touched. I watched him in the mirror as he dropped an envelope on the desk. "Your summer assignment."

Without another word, he walked out.

The contents of that envelope held the names of the people that needed to be erased. My grandfather's kill list. The reason he'd kept me alive.

My eyes dragged back to my reflection and for a heartbeat, a shadow passed along the mirror's surface.

Death.

A slow smirk lifted the corners of my mouth. Yeah, fucker. I'm coming for you.