Chapter 409 411

Chapter 409 411
“You still want me to marry you,” she says, cutting me off.

“Exactly,” Rokiades replies. “I will even spare your child if you agree to it.”

Renata glances at me. Of course, he notices.

“Tsk-tsk. Now, you’re asking for too much. There has to be a consequence. Kian O’Sullivan will not be allowed to live.” He turns his gaze to me. “What do you say, Irishman? Are you willing to die for your men?”

Cillian grabs my arm. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re no martyr.”

I give him a smile. “Sometimes, being a don means making tough decisions. You’re the one who taught me that, brother.”

“You pick that fucking lesson now? Out of all my wisdom over the years?”

I give him a nod I hope is reassuring and turn to Rokiades. “It is my duty as don to die for my men if I have to,” I announce solemnly. “I’ll do what I must.”

“Renata?” Rokiades presses.

She turns to me, her eyes swimming with tears. Uncaring of the legion of men we’re surrounded by, she reaches up and cups my face with both her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I shake my head. “Don’t be,” I say fiercely. “You have been the adventure of my life.”

A tear falls. I reach up and press my finger against the little silver scar on her cheek.

“I gave you this, and I’m sorry for that. But,” I add, turning my finger to the thin scar over my own eyebrow, “you gave me this, and I want to thank you for that. For fighting so hard. I never saw the knife coming.”

She frowns, a ripple of confusion passing over her face.

“Renata!” Rokiades roars. “I don’t like to be kept waiting. Come.”

She holds my gaze for a moment longer. Then she starts to walk around the table.

“Bring him with you,” the Greek commands.

She glances back warily. I move to join her.

“No,” Cillian growls, getting in my way.

“Brother—”

“You can’t fucking do this!”

“I can’t let you die,” I tell him. “You’ve got a family to love. You’ve got the Clan to run. So does Artem. We cannot let him win.”

“We’ll find another way.”

“He presses that button and we’re all gone,” I point out. “I have to do this.”

“Kian—”

“Cillian. Sometimes, even decent men must do terrible things for the greater good.”

He clenches his jaw. And then he bows his head and I know I’ve won. We clasp hands for a moment before I round the table and catch up to Renata.

The two of us walk towards the Greeks, but when we’re halfway there, Rokiades holds up his hand.

“Stop,” he says. “Renata, take his gun.”

She turns to me, but she makes no move to take my gun. In this case though, I’m more than willing to hurry things along. I grab her hand and shove the gun into her palm. “Give it to him.”

“That leaves you unarmed.”

“That’s the point,” I tell her with a wry laugh. “Give my gun to Rokiades. And remember… he won’t be prepared for what he doesn’t see coming.”

She nods slowly, careful to keep her expression appropriately destroyed as her fingers close around the gun.

“Good girl,” Rokiades commends her. “Now, come to me. O’Sullivan, you can stay where you are.”

Renata walks away from me, leaving me standing alone in the gulf between the Irish and the Greeks. The position is a vulnerable one. But I don’t feel vulnerable at all.

Because control is an illusion.

Sometimes, the men who think they have it are mistaken.

Sometimes, the women who think they have nothing have it all.

Renata walks right up to Rokiades and hands him my gun. “How poetic,” Yannis comments, “to be killed with your own weapon.”

He pushes Renata back towards his men and then he approaches me with my gun. The expression on his face is both perverse and manic.

“Any final words?” he asks me.

My eyes meet Renata’s over his shoulder. “She’s stronger than you think,” I tell him.

“Don’t worry,” he replies. “I’ll beat the strength right out of her. And I’m going to enjoy doing it.”

On the last word, he pulls the trigger. The click is loud.

But the bullet never comes.

And the second it takes him to realize that my gun is empty is the second Renata uses to pull out the scalpel I’d pressed into her palm along with the firearm.

Before any of Rokiades’s men can stop her, she steps forward and buries it in the side of his neck.

His body collapses instantly. But before he even hits the ground, I lunge forward and grab the detonator in his hand.

Greek loyalists rush forward and grab Renata, disarming her in a matter of seconds, but I raise the detonator above my head.

“Enough!” I roar. “Let her fucking go now. Or we all die.”

The men holding her release her instantly. She runs towards me, her arms engulfing my body tightly.

“Drop your weapons,” I instruct all of them.

Only after they do as I ordered do I wrap my arm around Renata and pull her back towards the safety of the Clan. As we round the table, I make eye contact with my brother.

“You can take it from here, bro,” I say, handing him the detonator.

Cillian accepts it and gives me a satisfied nod. Then he and Artem take charge. “All you motherfuckers put down your guns…”

I don’t care about the aftermath. The only thing I care about is the woman between my arms. I grip Renata’s face as I look down at her. “How are you feeling?”

“Shaky,” she admits. “Thank you.”

I frown. “For what?”

“For reminding me that I’m not powerless.”

“You never were,” I say, touching the scar she’d given me the first time we’d met. “You were always in control.”

Epilogue: Kian

Six Months Later

“Are you sure about this?” I ask Renata for maybe the fourth time today.

She cradles her large bump and glares at me. “Kian…”

“I know, I know,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m just pointing out that you don’t owe him anything.”

“It’s not about that,” she says. “I want answers about my mother. And he’s the only one who knows the whole story. And anyway… he’s the only family I have left.” Her tone isn’t exactly sad, but there’s a certain melancholy there. Understandably so.

We’re sitting pretty close together. I have my arm draped around her shoulder, but I remove it and take her hand instead. We’d found Drago with his throat slit in a cell beneath Yannis’s mansion. Whether Yannis killed him or one of the Greek soldiers went too far, we may never know.

I’d expected a stronger reaction from Renata when I broke the news to her, but she’d just stared at me and asked to see his body. She stood over him for a long time, and when she turned away, her eyes were dry.

“Renata, are you okay?” I’d asked her.

“Not quite. But I will be.”

“It’s okay to mourn him. He’s your brother.”

“He was my brother. It’s just strange to think he’s not here anymore.”

“Do you need to sit down?”

She turns to face me. “You don’t have to worry about me, Kian. I knew what my brother was. What he did. He got the end he deserved.”

“Still, you don’t have to feel guilty for being sad.”

“If he’d been a better brother, a better man, I would have been sad. Right now, I’m just tired. I’m just glad it’s over.”

I nod. “Do you want to deal with his funeral arrangements yourself? Or should I take charge?”