Chapter 11

Declan~

A t first, I hadn't planned on sitting at the bar. For twenty minutes, I'd been content with standing in one of the dark corners, observing her from afar. Luckily, no one had recognized me, but in all fairness, most people lived with their faces glued to their phones nowadays, so it'd been easy to squeeze through the bar undetected. Besides, it was a Friday night, and everyone in here was too busy getting drunk, dancing, having a good time, or looking to get laid. No one was too interested in some random guy that was keeping to himself, pretending to check his phone like everyone else.

However, once the two girls from the bar had left to go sit with some guys that had snagged their attention, I'd taken the opportunity to get a look at the woman up close, and when her green eyes had looked up at me, I had nearly landed on my ass. To say that Keavy Collins was beautiful was an understatement, and I'd been right about her social media pictures not doing her justice.

She stood at about only five-foot-four, which was nothing compared to my six-foot-two. However, she was neither petite nor voluptuous, and I'd say that her figure was common, though no doubt extremely feminine. Dressed in a form-fitting t-shirt that matched the color of her green eyes, the size of her rack was easy to make out, and so was her slim waist. She was also wearing a pair of black jeans that showcased a very nice ass whenever she turned around to grab something from the shelves.

Now, while she had a nice figure, it was her face that was a sonofabitch. She had black hair that easily hung to the middle of her back if she let it down, and her green eyes were closer to a glittering emerald than jade color. Her black brows and eyelashes made them stand out like a neon light, and the remarkable thing about her doll-like face was that she wasn't wearing any makeup, which was absolutely astounding to me. Natural beauty was rare, but Keavy Collins had it in spades.

I had ended up drinking three whiskeys at the bar, watching her interact with the other customers, trying to get a feel for her. She'd been friendly enough, remembering everyone's orders, and it'd been easy to see that she got along well with her coworker. They had talked a lot in between helping the patrons, and they also worked fluidly, like they worked together all the time.

Keavy also hadn't acted like someone that had just murdered two men the night before. Despite Kenneth swearing that she'd had, the woman had shown up to work, acting like nothing was wrong. Though she had balked a bit when I'd sat down at the bar, that could have meant anything. She could have recognized who I was, or she could have just been swayed by my face. Not for nothing, we weren't a bad-looking lot, and a lot of women had sworn by that.

At any rate, apart from that brief moment, Keavy Collins had acted like a normal person, working her normal job, mingling with normal people, and just living a normal life. She also didn't look like she could take down two grown men with guns. In all honesty, I could only hope that Kenneth was lying, because if he wasn't, then Ren and Jacob would be embarrassed as they rested in the ground. To be taken down by a slip of a girl would be hard for any man to accept.

Now, thanks to Kevin's talent with a computer, I knew which car was hers, where she lived, and almost everything else rudimentary about her. She worked at Miller's, lived in an apartment complex on Pendant Street, drove a white compact car, was thirty-two, and lived alone, which was the most important thing to know about her.

So, after letting the guys know that I'd found her, I'd had Cathal continue to ‘question' Kenneth, and Kenneth's story wasn't changing. No matter what Cathal did to him, he kept insisting that Keavy had been the one to kill Ren and Jacob, and that's where it got tricky. He already knew that we were going to kill him, so why keep lying? Why take her down when he wasn't going to get anything out of it?

Though I absolutely planned on getting to the bottom of this, I wasn't going to take her to where we were holding Kenneth. Instead, I was going to take her to the O'Brien compound where we had a nice basement that we liked to keep our prisoners. The place was a two-story manor that had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, two sitting rooms, a war room, and a basement that tunneled to the five acres of woodland that sat behind the manicured one-acre of land that the house sat on. There were no neighbors for miles, and more importantly, the basement was soundproofed.

As I waited in the dark, I watched for Keavy, and as soon as I saw her making her way towards her car, I stepped out of the shadows, and her feet stopped when she noticed me. Even though she was standing near the driver's side door, she made no move to get in, and most women would have. It was past two-thirty in the morning, so her safety should have been her utmost concern at this time of night.

However, it seemed as if it wasn't.

"Lassie," I greeted as I walked closer to her car.

Her chin went up, and that's when I saw it. Even with the darkness of night surrounding us, there was enough light from the streetlamps to show off that determination in her eyes. Whatever this woman was, scared wasn't it, finally bringing some credibility to Kenneth's story.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice sounding strong and confident.

"Just thought that we should get to know each other better," I remarked, my voice sounding every bit as strong and as confident as hers.

"It's kind of late for that, don't you think?"

I cocked my head as I took a few steps closer to her. "I think that we should probably introduce ourselves properly."

The delicate column of her neck worked as she swallowed her apprehension. "I already gave you my name."

"Your first name," I reminded her. "What's your last name, lass?"

Because I was watching her so intently, I noticed her hands tightening around the strap of her purse. "Collins," she answered, actually surprising me a bit. "My name is Keavy Collins."

"Irish through and through," I remarked, still feeling her out.

"I guess," she replied. "I never bothered to check."

I took a few more steps towards her, and I knew that I didn't have much time. Though she'd been the last one to leave Miller's, it was still possible that someone else could come walking around the corner any minute. Like most cities, we had a few homeless people wandering the streets, and I didn't need any witnesses for this.

Finally standing only a few feet away from her, I asked, "Do you know who I am, lass?"

"I can take a guess," she answered, her backbone shining through like she couldn't help herself.

"Then guess for me," I ordered.

Her hands tightened around her purse strap again before answering, "You're an O'Brien."

I smirked at that.

I couldn't help it.

"Try again," I told her.

Keavy let out a heavy sigh before saying, "You're Declan O'Brien."

"Very good," I murmured. "Now, can you think of any reason why I think that we should get to know each other better?"

To my fucking surprise, she said, "I imagine it has something to do with Kenneth Swanson."

Staring into this gorgeous woman's face, I asked, "Did you kill my men, Ms. Collins?"

"I prefer to think of it as defending myself," she replied evenly, and fuck me if she didn't just admit to killing Jacob and Ren last night.

I shook my head. "You really must not know the meaning of self-preservation, do you?"

"Obviously I do, or else your men would still be alive, Mr. O'Brien," she retorted, and my dick got hard at the same time that my anger flared.

"Do you really not know who you're dealing with, lass?"

"Do you?"

Though impressed, I was still pissed, and no matter how enthralled I was becoming, I knew that we didn't have time for this. So, I stepped back as I signaled Lochlan, and before the lovely Ms. Collins could act, Lochlan was coming up behind her, and then sticking a syringe in her neck. He caught her in his arms just in time, and I found myself inexplicably not appreciating how he was holding her close.

"What the fuck, Declan?" Lochlan hissed. "Did she just admit to killing Jake and Ren?"

"It seems so," I answered, wondering why in the fuck she ever got tangled up with a loser like Kenneth Swanson. Shaking my head from those thoughts, I reached for her purse, fishing her keys out, then added, "Take her to Dearg Due. I'll drive her car behind you."

"What are you going to do with her?" he asked, holding her up like he was escorting a drunk girl home.

"I'm going to find out what happened last night," I answered. "I want to know how in the fuck she managed to get the drop on two of our guys. I want to know how she got caught up with a guy like Kenneth Swanson."

"And Kenneth?"

"Kill the fucker," I ordered. "We don't need him anymore."