Chapter 13

Declan~

I couldn't be sure about Noah, but listening to Keavy recite the exact same story that Kenneth had sworn was true had thrown me a bit. Of course, Kenneth hadn't known how she had killed Jacob and Ren, but everything else had been verbatim, and now the woman was telling me that she wasn't afraid to die, and it was hard to doubt her when she had willingly walked out of that bathroom last night.

Jesus fucking Christ.

She also wasn't crying, pleading for her life, or acting hysterically in any way. She'd been drugged, then tied to a chair in a basement, yet looking at her, you'd think that she was having tea with a girlfriend at lunch or some such shit like that. Other than looking a little green around the gills, she seemed perfectly fine, and I had no fucking idea what to make of the goddamn woman.

"So, what's it going to be?" she asked, her green eyes looking me right in the face.

Instead of answering her question, I asked Noah one of my own. "Noah, didn't you once tell me that you couldn't collect from a dead man?"

"That's still true," he replied evenly.

I looked back at Keavy. "Well, it seems to me as if you owe me two men, Ms. Collins."

She blinked at me, and I could see the wheels in her head turning, everything shining in her emerald-colored gaze. "Meaning?"

"Ren and Jacob were two of my most loyal men," I informed her as I pulled her earrings out of my pocket to play with them. "Since you're the one that killed them, then you owe me their replacements."

Keavy arched a perfectly groomed brow. "And how do you propose I go about doing that, Mr. O'Brien?" she drawled out, her disrespect on full display. "Should I hold auditions? Are you going to parade them down here, so that I can judge them from this chair? Do I put out an interest request on social media?" She cocked her head a bit as her back straightened in the metal chair. "Since I'm simply a bartender, I'm not exactly sure how the Irish Mob goes about recruiting their soldiers."

"The last thing that you are is a simple anything," I retorted.

"Your opinion of me aside, that still leaves me not entirely sure how you expect me to find replacements for your friends," she went on. "And are you really going to trust me enough to let me out of this chair?"

Noah let out a low whistle, and it was hard not to be impressed by the woman currently staring me down. There'd been grown men in her position that had pissed themselves before I had even gotten around to questioning them, and they were supposed to have been hardened thugs. Meanwhile, Keavy was acting like she was bored out of her mind and would like for me to just hurry along with a bullet to that stunning face of hers.

"No," I finally answered. "I don't trust you out of that chair."

"Good," she replied. "You shouldn't. Nice earrings, by the way."

"Christ, ye really know nothin' ‘bout self-preservation," I said, wondering what the fuck I was going to do with her.

"I think that's a topic that we're just going to have to agree to disagree on," she remarked. "Apparently, we have different definitions of self-preservation."

While I had a million questions that I wanted to ask this rare creature, I finally asked the one that had been bothering me most. "Why in the fuck did you go home with someone like Kenneth Swanson?"

Her head reared back in surprise, her chin going up a bit. "Excuse me?"

Ignoring her surprise, I said, "Ye can'o tell me ta ye don't really see how ye were ta good fer him."

"My taste in men is hardly any of your business, Mr. O'Brien," she answered. "How about you focus a bit?"

"Okay, on that note, I'm going to head out," Noah announced. "I've got to double check on the Maisie shipment, and I need to meet with Cathal about what's left to do about Swanson."

I gave him a terse nod to let him know that I'd heard him, not stopping him from doing what needed to be done. I also didn't blame him for wanting nothing to do with Keavy Collins. I was going to have to have Kevin do a full background check on her, but something told me that he might not find much. There was no way that she could have family, or else she wouldn't be so cavalier about death. Only people with nothing to lose didn't care about living or dying. Either that, or she really was insane, and I wasn't taking that possibility off the table just yet. There was only one other woman that I knew with that kind of backbone, and Kasen Sartori had to be crazy to have had married Nero Sartori.

"What made you go home with Kenneth Swanson?" I asked again, wanting to know.

Her chin went up again, but she actually answered this time. "I needed to get laid."

I didn't like that answer.

"And there'd been no better options?"

"For what? Dick?" she replied condescendingly. "I wasn't looking to marry the man, Mr. O'Brien. Kenneth asked me to go home with him, I was in need, and he looked like he'd be fine with not cuddling afterwards."

Jesus Christ.

"So, yer a whore, an' he just ‘appened ta be available?" I asked, jealousy coating my tongue when I had no reason to be.

However, instead of defending herself, putting me in my place, or attacking me with a speech on women's lib, she said, "If labeling me a whore will make you feel better about killing me later, then…yeah, sure. I'm a whore, and Kenneth was available."

Refusing to admit where my anger was coming from, I said, "Imma no' gonna kill ye. Ye owe me two men, remember?"

"So you keep saying," she replied uninterested.

I linked my fingers together, then stretched them over my head, anger making my neck hot. Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't my witness have been someone else? For the first time in my life, I was attracted to a woman that had the power to hold something over me, and I didn't particularly appreciate the feeling. Yeah, I had her over a barrel with how she had killed Ren and Jacob, but you only really had someone over a barrel when they cared, and it was clear as day that Keavy Collins didn't care about who I was or the situation that she currently found herself in.

I cocked my head, eyeing her. "I wonder if you'd really be this brave if you weren't tied to that chair right now."

This fucking woman said, "Untie me and find out."

With my eyes raking over her, I said, "Kenneth Swanson was beneath you."

"I'd been hoping," she replied flippantly. "But then your men had to barge into his house and ruin my night."

The image of her riding Kenneth Swanson's dick bothered me enough to piss me off. If this woman wasn't afraid to kill, then I could only imagine what she was like in bed, and I'd bet that she was wild enough to drive a man insane with need. She didn't have one meek bone in her entire person, and my body screamed for her. She probably took dick like the whore that I had accused her of being, and she probably did it while begging for more.

Fuck.

"Still have an itch that needs to be scratched?" I taunted.

Her entire body stilled, and my first instinct was to assure her that none of us were rapists. However, since I was doing my best to figure this woman out, I didn't say anything. I watched and waited for her response, and the fucking girl didn't disappoint when she finally replied.

"Come near me without permission, and you'd better have your will in order," she said, her green eyes darkening. "I will kill you."

I stepped towards the bars, but Keavy didn't flinch in the least. "And what does it take to get permission, I wonder."

"If I were you, I'd stick to women that are more your speed, Mr. O'Brien," she retorted tartly, but there was something in her voice that warned me that she wasn't kidding around.

I wrapped my hands around the bars, everything in me pushing to unlock the cage to see what she'd do, but I wasn't sure if I could control myself if I touched her. Whatever it was about Keavy Collins, it was enough to warp my brain a bit, and I wasn't too proud to admit that I needed some distance to get my head back on straight. Whatever I'd been expecting when Kenneth had given me her name, this hadn't been it. As arrogant as it sounded, I'd been expecting someone that was going to cower at my last name like most people did.

Fuck, if I'd never been more wrong.

"I'll be back, lass," I told her. "Not sure when, but I trust you'll behave until I figure out exactly what to do with you."

She arched a brow again. "Yeah, I'll get right on that."

I let go of the bars, my first thought being that I needed a fucking drink.