The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(14)

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.