Whatever Sean and his “accomplices” had come here for, Sean was now in possession of it. And the only way to get it out of the bank was for him to deliver it himself.
Sean the robber had become Sean the hostage.
“You wasted my goddamn time,” the gunman snapped. “And now you’re going to sit here like a good little lad and keep your mouth shut.”
Sean flinched as he was forcibly pushed to his knees, playing his part to a tee. He was breathing hard, his panicked gaze darting around the lobby like a pinball. In his khakis and sweatshirt, he looked like a terrified college student rather than the badass Bailey knew him to be.
Avoiding his captor’s harsh eyes, Sean settled next to Bailey, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. The Sean Reilly she knew didn’t exist at the moment. This Sean radiated weakness rather than power, and the transformation made her want to smile. Evidently he was a much better actor than she’d thought.
As the gunman marched off again, Bailey and Sean continued to stare straight ahead. She kept her gaze trained on the two men by the window. One of them suddenly made an abrupt move, taking off in a brisk walk toward the rear corridor. Voices spilled out into the lobby, laced with anger, rising in volume.
A moment later, a gunshot exploded in the air.
The sound was deafening, bouncing off the walls and mingling with the screams that erupted from the hostages. The remaining gunman at the window raced over to the frightened hostages, ordering them to shut up, waving his weapon around in a frantic attempt to calm the whimpering people. In the blink of an eye, another masked man burst into the lobby, sprinting to the window and raising his arms in the air as if trying to signal the cops beyond the glass to stand down. He held up the phone in his hand, gesturing wildly.
Bailey held her breath as silence crashed over the room. She studied Sean from the corner of her eye, saw the rigid set of his jaw, but he didn’t look over.
Every single hostage jerked when the phone suddenly rang.
The man at the window relaxed, his shoulders sagging with visible relief. Then he raised the phone to his ear, his
boots slapping against the floor as he retreated to the back again.
Urgent murmuring wafted into the lobby. Bailey’s peripheral vision caught a muscle twitch in Sean’s jaw, but he remained expressionless. The air was thick with tension, which only deepened when the gunman returned, tailed by two other men, and signaled for the remaining robbers to join them. As the five men gathered in a tight huddle, Bailey used their distracted whispering to touch her earpiece.
“Rafe,” she murmured. “Abandon post. Request pickup.”
She felt Sean stiffen beside her, but she didn’t acknowledge him. Whatever was about to go down, she had to be ready. She and Rafe had already arranged for a rendezvous point if she needed one.
And it looked like she was about to need one.
“All right, on your feet, boys and girls.” The brusque order came from the man holding the cell phone.
When nobody moved, he let out a frustrated shout.
“Now!”
Everyone shot to their feet, Bailey and Sean included. God, just looking at the other hostages upset her. They were like a group of miners who’d been trapped underground for weeks. Swaying on their feet, pale and disoriented.
She donned the same petrified mask, trembling as she awaited further instructions.
The masked man pointed to the door. “Let’s go.”
Not a single person made a sound as the group headed for the entrance. The gunman unlocked the door, opened it, and hooked a thumb at the barricade on the street.
“Go,” he told them.
There was a split second of hesitation, and then the hostages ran out the door as if the room was on fire. Bailey was jostled, shoved out of the way, and almost
knocked down as a dozen people streamed past her in a mad race for the street. Two police officers in full assault gear sprinted forward at the freed captives, urgently guiding people away from the bank.
“We need to clear the area,” a male voice barked. “Everybody move.
Now.
”
A hand landed on Bailey’s shoulder, ushering her toward the blockade of law enforcement vehicles. Someone urged her along, pushed her forward, and she lost sight of Sean amid the crowd. The other hostages were crying with relief and stumbling to safety as half a dozen officers moved past them with military precision to form a line in front of the bank.
Where the hell was Sean?
She searched the faces around her, spotted him, and breathed in relief. Someone urged her through the line of crime scene tape, a young garda who swept his gaze over her as if assessing her for injuries.
“Are you all right, Miss?”
She quickly turned on the waterworks, blubbering incoherently as she threw herself into his arms. “Oh my God. It was so scary! I thought they would kill us!”
“It’s okay.” A hand awkwardly patted her head. “You’re safe now. You need to go to those ambulances over there. The people there will check you out and take your statement.”
Bailey nodded rapidly, feeling Sean on her six as she made a beeline for the ambulances. She didn’t dare to turn and look at him, but she sensed his urgency, knew they had to make a move before they reached the emergency vehicles.
They were ten yards away when Sean halted in his tracks. Bailey turned, saw his green eyes focus on the bank doors. The five robbers had just stepped outside. Their guns were lowered, but the way Sean’s shoulders
stiffened, you’d think they were gunning down the police.
“Son of a bitch,” he mumbled under his breath, clearly seeing something Bailey wasn’t. “Damn it, Gallagher. No.”
A frown marred Bailey’s lips at the exact moment that all five men raised their weapons.
Shit.
Sean tried to take a step forward, but Bailey grabbed his arm, keeping him in place. “Don’t. You can’t—”
A gunshot cut her off, summoning a wild curse from Sean’s lips.
One of the men had fired. Nowhere near the Garda officers, as far as Bailey could tell, but she knew he hadn’t aimed to kill anyone.
Just to provoke.
And it worked. The police brigade opened fire as screams echoed in the night. The robbers’ bodies fell like bowling pins, their blood spilling onto the pavement as they jerked and twitched from chest and head wounds. As they died in a hail of bullets that made Bailey’s ears ring.
When the last body hit the ground, shocked silence crashed over the street.
“Bailey,” Sean murmured. Grim, stoic.
She snapped out of her horror. Nodded.
The two of them veered past the waiting ambulances and disappeared into the darkness.
Those crazy bastards. Bloody
morons
. Sean almost wished Gallagher and the others were still alive so he could murder them himself. They hadn’t needed to go out in a blaze of glory, damn it! They could have done their bloody time, trusted Rabbit to find a way to get them out.
But no, he supposed they couldn’t have. The Irish Dagger had too many enemies. A stretch in the Joy for a Dagger member was the equivalent of a death sentence.
Sean stared out the car window, too preoccupied to pay attention to the city scenery whizzing by him. Christ. How was he going to explain to Rabbit why five of his soldiers had died tonight?
And how the hell was he going to get rid of Bailey? He didn’t want her anywhere near this mess. It was too bloody dangerous, and Rabbit was too damn unpredictable.
She was in the passenger side of the sedan, sitting beside the dark-haired man who’d provided their pickup. Rafe. She’d introduced him as a colleague of hers, apparently trusting him enough to assist her, and damned if that didn’t spark a flash of jealousy. God knew she’d
refused
Sean’s
help time and again. But obviously his woman was perfectly content letting a total stranger drive her getaway car.
She’s not your woman, mate.
His possessiveness over her was too much even for him. She was
Oliver’s
girl. Or at least she had been before Sean had swept in and screwed things up for them. He hated himself for what he’d done, and yet each time he thought back to that night . . . he didn’t regret it. He’d wanted Bailey for so long, and for that one night, she’d been his.
Which only made him an even bigger asshole. What kind of man went after his brother’s girl and didn’t fucking regret it?
“My flat is ten streets west of here.” Sean addressed the driver in a curt voice when he became aware of his surroundings. “You can drop me off there.”
Bailey twisted around in her seat, storm clouds darkening her eyes. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been giving me the silent treatment for twenty minutes and
that’s
the first thing you say? Drop me off at my flat?”
Sean set his jaw, responding with a cool look that only intensified her anger.
“I deserve an explanation,” she snapped. “I risked my life for you tonight.”
That triggered his own anger. “I didn’t bloody ask you to! You shouldn’t have come to Dublin.”
“God. You’re such a stubborn ass! You were in
trouble
.”
Maybe it made him a masochist, but he found her so damn attractive when she was fuming at him. Her eyes always went from gray to metallic silver, her fair skin taking on a red flush that made her come alive.
He’d wanted her from the second he’d met her, years ago in South America. She’d been on a job and needed
information about her mark, and she’d looked so tiny and delicate during their first meeting that he’d wanted to yank her into his arms and never let go. Didn’t matter that she’d hated him on sight. Her standoffish attitude had been a challenge, triggering the urge to win over the elusive Bailey.
To make her his.
But he’d failed. Instead of warming up to him, she’d run straight into his brother’s arms.
“I was doing just fine before you showed up,” he muttered. “I got out of the bank, didn’t I?” He shot her a pointed look. “Without your help, I might add.”
“I don’t care that you got out! I care about why you went
in
!”
The next thing he knew, she’d unsnapped her seat belt and climbed into the backseat. The car hit a pothole just as she went to sit, and her hand landed on his thigh as she tried to steady herself.
Sean’s groin instantly stirred at the feel of her palm on his leg, his entire body flooding with heat. It should have been impossible, getting hard at a time like this, but Bailey had always evoked that response in him.
Seeing the look in his eyes, she snatched her hand back and settled in the seat next to him. “Why were you robbing that bank?” she demanded.
“Why else do people rob banks? For money.”
A genuine rush of laughter left her mouth. “You have more money than you’ll ever be able to spend. Lord knows you charge us an arm and a leg when we hit you up for intel. But fine, let’s pretend you needed the money. Where is it?” She swept her hand in the air in front of him. “Where’s your bucketload of cash, Sean?”
He stifled a groan. “The heist didn’t go as planned. We had to abort before we could get into the vault.”
“We, huh?” she echoed. “O’Hare’s foot soldiers, you mean. So, what, you’re suddenly back in the IRA?”
“The IRA no longer exists, luv. You should brush up on your Irish history.”
Another laugh, this one heavy with scorn. “Bullshit. We both know a new splinter faction pops up every other week. There might not be an official militant republican army anymore, but the IRA fucking exists. The Irish Dagger exists. And Eamon O’Hare is still leading it, same way he’s led it for decades.”
Sean gave up on contradicting her. It was no secret that Rabbit was, and remained, a staunch supporter of a united Ireland. Just like Sean’s father had been.
Colin Reilly had been heavily involved with the Dagger since his youth. He’d lived through the protests and riots in the seventies and eighties, witnessed the escalating violence. Hell, he’d
contributed
to that violence.
Shootings, bombings, and stabbings had been a daily occurrence in Sean’s life. He and Ollie had seen their father get stitched up in the back room of O’Hare’s Pub. They’d watched the Dagger members drink to successful bombings. Heard the men make plans to take down government officials or opponents of their cause.
Sean had never understood what his father was fighting for. The Reillys were from Dublin, yet they were battling over the North, a place Sean had never even visited as a child. As he’d gotten older, he’d come to understand the politics behind it, but the cause hadn’t interested him and Ollie. They’d left Dublin to work as mercenaries, eventually becoming some of the most sought-out information dealers on the map, and neither one of them had looked back.
But the past had a funny way of dragging you back in.
“The question is,” Bailey went on, interrupting his
thoughts, “why are you letting O’Hare call the shots again? You and Ollie quit being his errand boys a long time ago.”
He might have been touched that she’d gone to so much trouble to investigate his past, but he knew damn well she hadn’t done it out of curiosity. Bailey liked to know her enemies, and Sean had been placed squarely in that camp when he’d deceived her last year.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “We left his crew years ago.”
“Then why are you working for him again?”
“Who says I am?”
Frustration clouded her face. “Stop playing games with me. You may as well tell me the truth, because if you don’t, I’ll just get Paige to look into everything you’ve been doing this past week, and we both know Paige is very good at her job.”
Shit. The threat didn’t bounce off him the way most threats did. Paige Grant
was
good, and the last thing he wanted was her investigating his recent movements. He’d made too many little side trips that he didn’t want Bailey knowing about.
But Sean didn’t want her involved in this either. Rabbit was a dangerous man. Once upon a time he’d possessed some semblance of honor, but his actions of late proved that he wasn’t above using anyone he could to advance his agenda.
Still, Sean figured he could give her
something
. He’d learned a long time ago that the best lies were always rooted in truth.
“You win, luv. I’m working for Rabbit again.” He met her eyes. “Happy now?”
As always, Bailey saw right through him. “Not in the slightest. I want to know what he has on you.”
Bloody hell. The woman was too smart for her own good.
“That’s none of your concern,” he said tersely.
Triumph lit her gaze. “But he does have
something
.”
“Obviously, Bailey.” Sarcasm crept into his tone, along with a weight of fatigue that pressed into his chest. “I don’t go around robbing banks for the hell of it, okay?”
“What’s he holding over your head?”
Ignoring her, Sean peered out the window, then barked a command at their silent driver. “Turn left on the next street. There’s a stretch of warehouses coming up to your right.”
“Damn it, Sean,” Bailey grumbled. “Tell me.”
“No.” His jaw tightened. “It’s time for us to go our separate ways. I appreciate that you came all this way to save my ass, but it didn’t need saving.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Why?” he shot back. “Why do you even bloody care? We’re not friends, remember? You made that pretty fucking clear in Paris this summer.”
Bailey’s expression flickered with unhappiness. She faltered, her hands curling into fists. “I care about—Oliver,” she mumbled. Stuttering on the last word, as if she didn’t want to speak Ollie’s name in front of Sean. “I don’t want to see him suffer when you get yourself killed.”
Pain sliced into his chest as her motives became clear. Of course she’d come for Oliver. He’d known that the second she’d dropped out of the ceiling back in the bank, but hearing her admit it was . . . torture.
“And I don’t get why O’Hare needed you for a low-rent bank job,” she went on, oblivious to the hot agony seizing Sean’s throat. “It makes no sense. And even less sense that you agreed.”
He pushed away the bitterness, deciding to give her another morsel of the truth. “Look, Rabbit thinks there’s
a rat on his crew who’s feeding information to his rivals. He didn’t trust his men to do the job alone, so he wanted me there to make sure he got what he needed from the bank.”
“Uh-huh. All that sweet, sweet cash, right?” she said sarcastically.
Sighing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive. “He wanted this, okay? And I got it for him. So you see? There’s no reason for you to be here. I’m going to give this to Rabbit, the two of us will be square, and then I’m done with him.”
Bailey went quiet for a beat. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She was like a shark with a taste of blood. Sean knew she wouldn’t let up, but fortunately, the car stopped before he was forced to lie to her. As Rafe pulled up at the curb, Sean tapped the back of the man’s seat and said, “Thanks for the ride, mate.”
He was out of the car before Rafe could respond, slamming the door to stop Bailey from following. But the blasted woman just jumped out of the other door, her boots snapping against the pavement as she angrily rounded the vehicle.
“Get back in the car,” he said sternly.
She glared at him. “No.” Shoulders rigid, she turned toward the open passenger window and addressed her colleague. “Thanks for the assist today. I owe you one.”
Then, to Sean’s dismay, she tapped the window frame to signal Rafe to drive, and the tight-lipped bastard actually did, leaving the smell of oil and car exhaust in his wake.
“Damn it,” Sean burst out. “Get the fuck out of here, Bailey. I don’t need you.”
“Yes, you do.” She folded her arms, anger coloring her
tone. “You’re still playing games, but I know something is wrong. I
know
you.”
The volatile emotions bubbling inside him spilled over like a volcanic eruption. “What, you think because you’ve had my cock inside you that it means you know me? Think again, luv.”
His crude words brought a flush to her cheeks, and her expression went stricken. He knew she was thinking about their night together. The way he’d filled her. Fucked her. And now he was thinking about it too, the sheer perfection of her hot pussy clamped around him, her nails raking down his back as she moaned in abandon.
Sean’s gaze dropped to her mouth, those pale pink lips that had so eagerly kissed him that night.
But of course she’d been eager. She’d thought she was kissing
Oliver
, for Christ’s sake. He’d been making love to Bailey that night, but she sure as hell hadn’t been making love to him.
“You don’t know me,” he said flatly. “You were never
interested
in knowing me, and I don’t want you here.”
“Well, too bad, because I’m not going anywhere.”
Sean struggled to control his frustration. He’d known she was stubborn, but seeing that muleheadedness firsthand made him want to strangle her.
“I’m serious. Starting now, I’m your fucking shadow, Sean. I won’t—”
“He has Ollie.”
Bailey froze. “Rabbit?”
Sean pressed his fists against his sides, pissed off that he’d caved. No, that she’d
broken
him.
Without another word, he stalked toward his building, breathing in the crisp autumn air. Figured that it wasn’t raining tonight. The whole bloody country was wet and
misty ninety percent of the year, and the one night he could have used some fog to disappear into, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
“What do you mean, he has Ollie?” Bailey stayed hot on his heels, following him to the key panel on the building’s outer wall.
Sean sighed. “Rabbit phoned me and Ollie about a month ago, demanding we rejoin the crew. Like I said, he’s gotten paranoid. He thinks he’s dealing with a traitor, and he turned to us because he trusts us. Because he trusted our father.”
“Did you and Ollie turn him down?”
“Of course. We’re not daft. We had no interest in working for him again.”
Sean tapped a series of numbers into the keypad to unlock the front door, but he didn’t make a move toward the entrance. He wasn’t worried that anyone would overhear them. Not only did he own the entire building, but the place was completely off the books. Sean kept two other flats in the city—the first one easy to find, the second requiring a shit ton of digging to locate, which he knew Rabbit had done. But this third loft was his safe house, where he and his brother stored the backups for all the intel they’d acquired over the years. Nobody but him and Oliver knew it existed.
And he needed to get upstairs right fucking now. He had to examine the contents of the flash drive and figure out what he was working with here.
But first, he had to ditch Bailey.