The Devil’s Keepsake by Somme Sketcher

Lorcan

I wake up to the sound of my iPhone alarm. Like every morning since the explosion, I wish I never woke up at all.

Through blurry eyes, I fumble for the snooze button, but when it keeps bleating at me, I hurl my cell against the wall, smashing it into pieces and finally getting it to shut up.

But silence is impossible to come by these days. The hangover beats against my temples like a badly played drum, and it’s not the only thing that’s throbbing. I touch the tender spot on my cheek, and then it comes flooding back to me.

That little bitch.

I leap to my feet and stride across the Persian rug to the window. My bedroom and the study are the only two rooms in the Manor where I have a perfect view of the Museum. A cobbled, three-story outhouse with Victorian windows and sprawling ivy snaking up and across the exterior. It’s been here since my grandfather bought the estate. He used it as a guesthouse for when distant relatives visited from Ireland.

My father used it to stow away his mistresses.

Even though my mother died from cancer when I was still in diapers, he never felt comfortable bringing another woman into their shared home, so whoever was his flavor of the month stayed there. They changed more often than the seasons.

When he died and I moved back to the estate, I transformed it into the Museum. The most expensive, rarest antiques and keepsakes I’ve collected from all around the world live there. With my armed guards surrounding the estate walls twenty-four hours a day and the same security system that they use in the Kremlin, it’s safer than the fucking Louvre.

It’s laughable that Murphy’s little girl thought she could escape. Well, almost. I didn’t find the slash across my face very fucking funny.

As the fog lifts from my brain, the fury seeps in. My hands curl into fists and my heart thumps against my chest. Does this bitch not know who she’s messing with? There’s not a single soul on the East Coast that would dare stand up to me like she did last night. And they sure as hell wouldn’t still be breathing if they did.

She’s lucky to be alive. She’s even luckier that I didn’t take her precious virginity right then and there to teach her a lesson.

My cock tingles at the thought of her warm pussy pressing against my leg, dampening the suit fabric by the second.

No.I swallow the lust building in my throat and head to the en suite. When I break in her pussy, it won’t be out of anger. It’ll be a reward, and I’ll savor every fucking moment.

I want nothing more than to get back into bed with a bottle of The Smugglers Club and block out the rest of the world. But I’ve got a city to run and enemies to make.

I’m a busy man. Poppy Murphy isn’t the center of my universe, only a little speck somewhere in the galaxy. Nothing more than a trophy and a toy. I need to keep my head in the game if we’re to go up against the Bratnovs.

So, I’ll bide my time.

I scrub away last night’s sins in the shower, slip on a fresh suit, then press the buzzer by the bed. I’m slipping on my Audemars Piguet watch when there’s a knock on the door.

“Enter.”

Orna appears in the doorway, eyebrows raised. “Yes, your majesty?” she says, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“There’s a chick in the Museum. See to it that she’s comfortable.”

My cousin’s eyes narrow. “Please, for the love of God, tell me that you’re talking about a bird.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Orna walks around the side of the bed and comes between me and my reflection. “A woman? You have a woman in the outhouse?” She frowns, glancing at the cobbled building outside my window. Poppy’s room is on the other side; I can see the glow when the lights are on, but unfortunately, I can’t see directly into the room. “I’m guessing she’s not there by her own free will.” She eyes my cheek. “What happened to your face?”

I ignore the question. “Then you guess correctly. Now move. I have things to do.”

She folds her arms and her scowl deepens. I take back what I said earlier, about nobody in Boston daring to stand up to me. Orna thinks that because we spent every summer together as kids that she can give it a shot. Sometimes, she forgets that we aren’t in the sandbox anymore. I’m the king of the castle now. Her boss. She’s good for nothing but being the head housemaid, like her mom was before her.

“Jesus, Lorc. How long has she been there? When were you gonna tell me? She must be starving.”

“Two days. She’s fine. She has water,” I grunt. When we got off the jet from Stanford, I sent a housekeeper to give her a robe and leave a glass of water by her bedside.

Orna mutters something about “dick” and “head” under her breath as she stomps out of the room.

I smirk at my reflection. If Orna wasn’t being such a little bitch, I might have warned her to pat Poppy down before she enters. She might find herself on the receiving end of a shank.

By the time I’ve chucked two aspirin down my throat and washed them down with an Americano, my hangover is almost gone.

Time to head to the Quinn Ventures H.Q.

Antoin’s waiting for me in the lobby. “We have a problem,” he announces, handing his coffee cup to the nearest maid.

“Another goddamn problem. Great.”

He stops in his tracks, a frown creasing his brow. “What happened to your face?” I nod to the pink and purple bruises creeping down his collar. “What happened to your neck?”

He offers me a small grin, one that I return. And just like that, the beef is squashed.

“I’ll drive us to the office,” he says, holding up the keys to my Bentley. “You’re probably still over the limit.”

I don’t disagree.

As soon as we pull out of the gates, he’s back to business. “I got a call from John Brasco.”

God, it’s nice not having to drive on a hangover. I sink into the plush leather seat and rest my head against the cold window. “Who?”

“Owns Movers and Shakers, the nightclub in the Theater District. He hasn’t received his coke shipment from Bratnov.” A vibrating noise comes from the breast pocket of his suit. His knuckles tighten around my steering wheel. “Hear that? My cell’s been blowing up all morning with calls exactly like Brasco’s. The whole city’s dry. Ain’t you been getting the calls too?”

My mind flicks to the shattered remnants of the iPhone that dared to wake me up this morning. “Phone’s broken. Anyway, it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” Antoin barks, shooting a death glare at me.

“You ran that red,” I drawl, closing my eyes again.

“Lorcan, it’s Friday morning. The clubs and bars can’t be dry for the whole fucking weekend. It’s gonna cause chaos.”

“We are the Quinns,” I growl back. “I already told you. We aren’t relying on other families anymore. We don’t need them.”

The purr of the Bentley’s engine and the quiet chatter of the radio float between us for a few minutes.

“You wanna know why your pops was so successful?” Antoin eventually asks. I peel an eye open to glare at him.

“I thought you learned your lesson about having my father’s name in your mouth.”

“It was because of the relationships he built with other families up and down the East Coast. He was a businessman, Lorcan. Not a mob boss. This ain’t the Godfather anymore, no ‘swimming-with-the-fishes’ type thing. You’re burning all of the bridges your father and brothers built, all ‘cause you’re feeling stubborn.”

My fists clench, itching to swing a right hook. If he weren’t driving my Bentley, they’d be connecting with his jaw right now. Finally, a red light that Antoin actually slows to meet. He turns to face me, a serious expression clouding his face. “This game is about making money.”

“We have money,” I say through gritted teeth. “A ton of fuckin’ money. I want power. I want the whole East Coast.”

My father secured Boston, and I’m going to honor his legacy by doing one better. Expanding our reach—and I don’t give a fuck who we have to go to war with to get it.

I’ve been on autopilot since the Italian’s package bomb blew my family into pieces. From the penthouse office at the Quinn Ventures building, barking orders between gulps of whiskey and unleashing bullets from my Glock when anyone sends me over the edge. I sign the contracts Antoin slides across my desk. I give the final approval to Donnacha to clean up my whiskey-fueled rages. It’s time to take back control.

And I don’t give a fuck who we have to go to war with to get it.

The rumble comes deep from Antoin’s chest, and I watch, amused, as the vein tick, tick, ticks at the side of his temple. He’s a good cousin and colleague, sure. But he knows his place, and more importantly, he knows mine. Anything I say goes. I say jump, and I also say how high — he only figures out how to make it happen.

“So, what’s the plan, Boss?” he asks, swinging the Bentley into the underground parking lot of the Quinn towers.

“Send some men to trail the Bratnovs. If they are planning an attack, we want to be one step ahead. Then, I want you and Donnacha on the first flight to Colombia to talk to the Vargas family. That’s who the Bratnovs get their coke from. We’ll go direct. No more being the middle man.”

“It should be you who goes. It’s a big move and they’ll want to speak with the boss.”

As we pull into my parking space, I roll the idea around my head. Colombia… the second-best hookers in the world. And I have been wanting to get my hands on that Botero painting for some time now. But then I think about my most recently acquired artifact. The pretty little China Doll in my Museum.

“Can’t,” I mutter, sliding on my Cartier shades. “I have business to attend to here.”

“What business? I know all of your business.”

I might as well tell him. Orna is his sister, and she and my other female cousins have big mouths. “I have Marcus Murphy’s daughter in the Museum.”

Antoin freezes, the color drains from his face. “You crazy son of a bitch,” he mutters under his breath. “You did it. You actually fuckin’ did it.”

A satisfied smile stretches across my face.