The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers Book 1) Read online

  That was it. Just like that, after a lifetime of honoring a hierarchy where Ryker ruled inside the Hell and Sin, they’d all turn the decisions and responsibilities over to Adair. “It falls to me?” he asked slowly.

  “We are partial owners in all endeavors and investments,” Ryker said, explaining the plan he’d hatched, “but with each of us overseeing one joint venture.”

  It was a clever scheme. What his brothers spoke of was a way they might diversify their ownings and investments. It would cut them free of that dependency they’d had for so long on the nobility. If executed with the same success as they had with the Hell and Sin, they’d grow in ways they never could have with only the club to their names.

  “This is the future,” Calum quietly urged, misinterpreting the reason for Adair’s silence.

  And through the panic and despair at beginning again, Adair found something vital—purpose. He nodded slowly.

  Ryker laid his hand out, palm down. Adair eyed it a moment and then, dropping the list back on his brother’s desk, covered his hand. Calum and Niall stacked theirs atop his, sealing the empire-building they’d agreed to undertake.

  An unexpected excitement stirred in the embers of resentment. By the earnings he’d amassed in his days as a thief, Adair had found himself behind the other stakeholders. They’d all had an equal contribution to decisions, but Ryker had always had the final word . . . and that had gone for everything—from the location in St. Giles to the gargoyles that lined the steps of the Hell and Sin.

  Agreement reached, Ryker stalked over to his sideboard. He lined up four glasses, and dragging a crystal decanter of brandy back and forth over that horizontal line of snifters, he poured drinks. “There still remains the matter of the Killorans.”

  Adair glanced over at the longcase clock. “They are not to be trusted,” he insisted, taking the drink Niall carried over to him. He clenched his jaw as the bespectacled, spritelike warrior sprang behind his mind’s eye. “And certainly not Cleopatra Killoran.”

  “I don’t disagree on either score,” Ryker confirmed, cradling his drink.

  “You didn’t believe their earlier claims of innocence?” Adair pressed, setting his drink down next to that list.

  “I don’t know either way,” his brother said. “And in the absence of evidence, I choose cautiousness.”

  Some tension went out of Adair’s shoulders. For all the changes that had faced them since the club had burned down, and all that had been tossed at him yesterday with the Killorans and now the proposed changes over their roles and dealings, there was a familiarity to this side of Ryker. It brought reassurance that for all that had been altered, the street remained alive and strong. “What are you thinking?”

  “We’ll honor our vow until they give us reason not to, and the moment they do . . .” Ryker downed his drink and set the empty glass down beside Adair’s.

  Calum cracked his knuckles. “Then we’ll destroy their name and, with it, Killoran’s hopes for the only thing he craves.” Respectability.

  Niall gave an approving nod. “And our debt to them for saving Diana is paid.”

  Adair opened his mouth to speak, but Calum held up a silencing finger and nodded toward the front of the room.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Enter,” Ryker boomed.

  The tall, graying guard, West, who’d been made head butler, shoved the door open. “They’re ’ere, my lord . . . Black, sir. Just arrived. Sitting out in the carriage they are.”

  Adair’s brother nodded. “I’ll be there shortly.” After the servant rushed off, Ryker turned back. “While you’re here, I’d ask you to watch her closely.”

  Before this instance, living in this temporary residence, Adair had felt like an interloper in an unfamiliar world . . . as unsettled as the former guards, dealers, and serving girls who’d taken up work and residence within Ryker’s, Niall’s, and Calum’s London residences.

  The quick patter of footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. A moment later the door flew open, and Penelope and Diana stormed inside. “She’s here,” Penelope announced with far more of her usual cheer than the circumstances merited.

  When Ryker, Calum, and Niall started forward, Niall’s wife, Diana, tossed her arms wide, blocking the entrance. “Wait! I’ll have you remember that no matter what blood runs in her veins and what name is attached to hers, Cleopatra Killoran is no more responsible for her brother’s crimes than I’m responsible for my mother’s,” she said somberly. It had been, after all, Diana’s mother who’d not only sold Ryker and Helena over to Diggory but who’d then tried to orchestrate Helena’s murder.

  “This is different,” Niall growled.

  “No, Niall, it isn’t.” His wife gave him a sad little smile. “No matter how much you might wish it to be. Those acts carried out by Broderick Killoran against Ryker were his actions. Not his sister’s. Not any of his sisters’.”

  “You don’t know that,” Adair said quietly. “You don’t know what she is capable of or what crimes she’s committed. None of us do. And until we do, we’ll treat her with the proper cautiousness.”

  Penelope tightened her mouth. “She saved Diana’s life. That is all we know of her thus far. As Diana said, we owe the young lady our kindness.”

  Young lady. Adair snorted. A Killoran was no more a lady than he was a fancy gent. No matter how much the young woman’s brother wished it to be. “Come,” Penelope urged. “Let us go greet our guest.”

  As his siblings and their spouses filed from the room to greet Killoran’s sister, Adair took up his previous spot at the window. He stared down at the elegant, black-lacquered carriage that no doubt contained Cleopatra Killoran along with whichever sibling would take up residence here.

  The garish pink curtain parted ever so slightly, and Adair narrowed his eyes as he shoved open his jacket, deliberately revealing the pistol tucked at his waist.

  “A guest,” he muttered.

  The day a Killoran was anything but an enemy of the Hell and Sin family was the day the world ceased spinning.

  Chapter 5

  After nearly twenty years spent on this miserable, cold earth, Cleopatra was capable of hating far more than she loved.

  In fact, she could count on her two hands, and not even all the way up to the ten digits, what she loved. Or rather, who—the people whom she loved.

  It was the same people who now sat in the spacious conveyance. Cleopatra looked from her unusually stoic eldest brother to a downcast Gertrude, and then to a seething Ophelia. With Reggie perched atop the carriage, there was but one missing from their ragtag bunch. Stephen had refused to accompany them to a bloody Black’s, as he’d always referred to that rival family.

  “You’re a bloody bastard, you know that, Broderick?” Ophelia spat.

  “It’s for the good of the group,” he said tightly, his icy tones the ones he used when doling out tasks and assignments inside the Devil’s Den. “You know that.” He looked pointedly about. “You all knew long ago what my intentions were. Why . . . Cleopatra even struck the terms with Black and his men,” he correctly reminded them.

  “Because of you,” Ophelia snarled. “You insisted on introductions to Polite Society.”

  Their brother tossed up his hands in exasperation. “What in blazes did you think the damned introductions were for?”

  As brother and sister launched into an all-out attack, Cleopatra welcomed the focus to remain there and not on her. For the palpable tension in their exchange, it also offered a balm to Cleopatra’s restlessness. For all the fights and challenges that arose among their group, in the end, it had never resulted in a fist or slap or hateful words that oftentimes could be more painful than an actual physical blow. And I’m leaving it behind . . .

  Because Broderick would not rest until his goals had been achieved. She’d known that the moment she’d gone to Niall Marksman and struck the agreement between them. Why, it was something she’d learned the moment the terror-filled boy,
on the cusp of manhood, had entered their midst and challenged Mac Diggory on their behalf. When Broderick committed himself to something, nothing could alter him from that course. It had been that steely determination that had enabled them to rise to the level of greatness they had.

  Where was the greatness in this? A ball of regret stuck in her throat, and she struggled to choke it back. It was a bloody goodbye from the only place she belonged, for a place she could never truly be part of.

  “. . . I don’t care whether we have noble connections,” Ophelia screeched, making another appeal to their obstinate brother.

  Cleopatra winced at that shrill cry. Ophelia still hadn’t truly discovered the depth of Broderick’s resolve in binding their family to the ton. She still hadn’t accepted what Cleopatra had long ago—Broderick’s single-mindedness in this endeavor.

  Restless, Cleopatra cracked the curtains ever so slightly and stared out at her new home. She ran her gaze over the white stucco front of the Grosvenor Square residence.

  “Home,” she mouthed, and a palpable loathing coated her tongue. This place would never be home. She’d but one, and as Stephen had accurately pointed out yesterday morn, it was one Cleopatra would never return to. Instead, she’d trade off all that and trust herself over to the Blacks. They’d been raised first as gang members on opposite ends of London, and then as hated rivals. Now her brother would trust those people to honor Marksman’s pledge? This is not forever . . . Only—the only thing to get her out of this prison would be shackles to a fancy toff. Her pulse pounded in her ears in a beat of panic. She lifted her gaze upward and caught the belligerent figure glaring at her.

  Adair Thorne. At three inches past six feet, his gold-tinged brown hair pulled back in a queue at the base of his neck, he’d the look of a street tough, as out of place at that window as Cleopatra herself was in these streets. He propped his hands on his hips, emphasizing the gun on his person.

  The sight of it brought her eyes closed and ushered in a deeper peace and calm.

  “It should be me,” Gertrude said softly, and Cleopatra snapped her eyes open.

  Dropping the curtain, Cleopatra faced her sister. “Don’t be silly.”

  Her sister’s mouth was drawn so tight it drained the blood from a scar at the corner of her lips. “Why is it silly?” she demanded in uncharacteristically firm tones. “I’m the eldest.”

  “Because . . .” What answer could Cleopatra give without insulting Gertrude? Even valuing truth and straightforwardness, as each of the Killorans did, in this instance Cleopatra’s mind shied away from the truth. She’d sooner cut herself than hurt her siblings. It was why she was here now. “I need to be here.”

  “I should be protecting you,” Gertrude pressed. “And Fie and Stephen,” she added.

  “You’re needed at home,” she finally said.

  “I—”

  “It is done,” Cleopatra swiftly interrupted, and before her sister could argue any further, she shot a hand up. That firm rap instantly cut across Broderick and Ophelia’s heated argument. The door was immediately opened, and ignoring the guard’s hand, Cleopatra hopped out. Her boots settled with a quiet thump on cobblestones cleaner than most beds and floors she’d known for the first years of her life.

  At her back, she dimly registered her siblings joining her on the pavement and Reggie scrambling down from atop the carriage. Elegantly clad lords and ladies strolling down the street stared back at the Killorans like circus oddities had just been deposited outside Ryker Black’s residence. But then, that is precisely what they were to these people. People good enough to lose their fortunes to, but shameful enough to avoid for anything more than that. Cleopatra set her jaw, and when Lord Sanderson, a miserably clad dandy, took an extended look, she growled, “Ya’ve got a problem?”

  Swallowing hard, the young man spun on his heel and sprinted off in the opposite direction.

  “Bloody hell, Cleo,” her brother griped at her side. “The point is to catch a husband, not scare every lord out of London.”

  She’d gladly scare them all the way to the Devil to be spared a future with one of those fops—if the end result would be different for her sisters.

  “Come,” he murmured, holding out his elbow. “Let me—”

  “Lead me into the enemy’s lair?” she snapped. These same people he’d taught her to hate, and now expected her to live with? “I don’t require an escort. I will do this.” And disapprove until she drew her last breath. “But I’ll be damned if you or any of my sisters are the one to usher me through that doorway.”

  For the devil-may-care attitude he’d adopted and worn like a second skin through the years, the column of Broderick’s throat moved. He had some regret in asking Cleopatra to do this—nay—in expecting any of his sisters to. Good, the blighter could chew on the Devil’s trident for it.

  More than half fearing all her confidence and strength would crack if she stole another look at her siblings, Cleopatra started forward. She kept her gaze trained on the open doorway, then stopped. Wheeling around, she marched back to her brother. She spoke in a low voice reserved for him. “When we met you, and you gave us names, I loved you for that.” At that time, she would have sooner slit her own throat than admit as much. Cleopatra searched her gaze over his unreadable face. “You gave us the names of queens.” A wad of emotion stuck in her throat, and she despised herself for that weakness. It had seen her beat by Mac Diggory too many times as a child until she’d learned to conceal that weakness. “Now I know it’s not because you saw girls of strength and power, as you said . . . but because you wanted to make us into something we’re not.”

  “Cleo,” he said gruffly.

  Cleopatra glowered him into silence. “Shut your bloody mouth,” she said, her voice raspy. “I’ll have this done in several months, and you’ll not expect my sisters to . . .” Marry. My God, I cannot even bring myself to spit that word out. “. . . do the same. Are we clear?”

  “It is for the good of the group,” he repeated somberly, with a resolve that made her believe she’d merely imagined the flash of remorse she’d spied earlier. “If we have noble connections, we will never have to worry about losing all and living in the squalor we did.” He took her hands, squeezing. “Think of it, Cleo. We will be dependent upon no man.” As they’d been with Diggory.

  Adair Thorne’s sister killing that blighter was one favor she’d be forever grateful to their rival gang for, but she would sooner slice her own throat than breathe that thanks aloud.

  Cleopatra briefly squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want her siblings to be racked with the fear they’d once known, beholden to a bastard like Diggory. Didn’t want to suffer through the cold nights, with nothing but tattered garments to drive back the winter’s chill. As much as it pained her and she despised it, she knew Broderick was right. She had thought his plan was logical from the moment he’d laid it out years earlier. That did little to ease the panic and pain in her leaving her life behind, now.

  Turning on her heel, she stalked forward, bag in hand, toward Black’s residence and his butler. By the glower on the graying, scarred stranger’s face, he was just another one of Black’s guards.

  “Thank you,” Broderick called after her.

  “Go to hell, Broderick,” she shot back, not breaking stride.

  “Cleo?” Gertrude called out, her voice quavering.

  Cleopatra damned her heart for wrenching and quickened her steps to enter the enemy’s lair. Grateful for the muslin cloak that shielded her actions from the army of waiting Blacks, Cleopatra burrowed inside the folds. Warily, she passed her gaze around the eclectic gathering: Black and his scarred, battle-marked brothers . . . and the smiling, innocent-eyed misses who stared warmly back.

  Warmth. It was something Cleopatra had only ever known and been shown by her siblings.

  “What are you doing here?” Adair Thorne snapped.

  Cleopatra’s face went hot. Stiffening, she shot a go-to-hell glance over her shoulder
to where the surly bastard stood.

  “Do hush, Adair.” Favoring her brother-in-law with a glower, Black’s wife came over to greet Cleopatra, a question in her eyes.

  “I came instead,” she said lamely, not offering details as to why she’d taken Gertrude’s place.

  Lady Chatham smiled. “How lovely to have you back among us, Miss Killoran—”

  Niall Marksman’s wife, the same woman Cleopatra had helped to freedom nearly a year earlier, interrupted. “Given you’ll be living among our family, I expect we should dispense with formalities? You may call me Diana, and this is my sister-in-law Penelope.” Black’s wife lifted her fingers in a cheerful little wave.

  Mad. They are utterly mad, this lot. Cleopatra stole a glance about to Black’s gang and found her own pained consternation reflected back in their ruthless eyes. She tamped down a sigh. Who in blazes would have ventured that she, Cleopatra Killoran, member of the Devil’s Den, would ever have a moment of commiseration with Black and his men?

  A footman came forward to help her with her cloak, and Cleopatra automatically shot a hand out, slapping his fingers for daring to touch any part of her—garments included. “Cleopatra,” she clipped out. “You may call me Cleopatra.” For whether she wished to be here or not, these were the people she’d be spending the remainder of her unwed days with.

  “Splendid,” Penelope Black piped in. What reason did the woman have to be cheerful? “And I believe you know my husband. Please, you may call him Ryker—”

  “No,” Cleopatra said sharply, glancing to the man her own family had called enemy for too many years to overcome.

  An awkward pall descended. “Mr. Black, then,” Penelope suggested with the relentlessness of a starved dog with a bone.

  And the staggering reality of being here . . . among Black and his kin . . . with the purpose of making a match among a world she would never belong to, cinched the airflow to her lungs. But the horror of horrors continued.