The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(3)

Adair settled a hard stare on her . . . Cleopatra Killoran. Broderick Killoran’s sister. The one who’d arranged the truce between their families . . . who’d led them to Niall’s wife, Diana, so she might be saved. It had all been orchestrated to knock down their guard. And how easily they’d fallen into the trap. She had the look of a child, but she bore the evil of the street in her ruthless gaze. Only a damned fool would see nothing more than a bespectacled miss with a mop of drab brown curls when they looked at her. He’d marked her as trouble for them the moment she’d revealed herself.

Miss Killoran stiffened and glanced about. Her keen gaze missed nothing, touching on every corner and detail of the room.

Their stares clashed. Any other person would have had the sense to look away.

Cleopatra Killoran curled her lips up in the corners in a derisively mocking smile. Then, with a slight shake of her head, indicating she’d sized him up and found him wanting, she looked back at the front of the room.

A palpable hatred burned in his veins.

The faint groan of leather jerked his attention back to Killoran as he dropped an ankle over his opposite knee. He opened his mouth to speak, but Miss Killoran swiftly placed her right palm on the back of his seat.

The gaming hell owner, in his elegant wool suit better fitted for the fancy end of London than the slums he’d grown up in, glanced at his sister. A look passed between the pair.

A lord or lady of the ton would never note the silent exchange. Adair had learned firsthand a lesson in what came with opening one’s mouth in the streets. A person either perished, or learned a new language. That’s the one that was now being spoken before him. The slight arching of Killoran’s blond eyebrows, the tightening at the corners of Miss Killoran’s too-full lips.

Then Killoran reclined farther back in his seat and continued on with an intractable silence. The little hellion behind him looked back at Adair and smirked.

Smirked. A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye. He cracked his knuckles. Damn this family and damn this meeting.

In the end, the impasse was broken by the unlikeliest of people. “The deal is off,” Ryker announced in his low, gravelly tones.

Abandoning his earlier nonchalance, Broderick sprang forward in his seat. “We have a deal, Black.” The rival proprietor slammed his fist on the edge of Ryker’s desk. “A damned deal.”

And even as he damned his brother for conceding the first word in this war, a thrill of triumph went through Adair at yanking the one thing Killoran craved, that only they could give him. More specifically what Ryker and his wife, Penelope, could orchestrate for the bastard—respectability.

Miss Killoran caught her brother’s eye and gave a slight shake of her head. Cheeks flushed, Killoran jumped up. Planting his hands on the edge of the immaculate mahogany piece, he leaned forward. “You bloody bastard,” he spat. “If it weren’t for my family, that one’s . . .”—he jerked his chin at Niall, who stood to the left of Ryker—“wife would be dead.” The seething man straightened. “I should have left her to her fate.”

Niall’s primitive shout went up as he launched himself forward. Calum and Ryker quickly scrambled over, grabbing him by the arms. “Ya bloody bastard,” he thundered as he struggled to break free. “Oi’ll rip your entrails from your throat and feed them back to ya through your gutted belly,” he bellowed.

The ugly guard at Killoran’s side took a step forward.

Adair quickly yanked his gun out and trained it on the towering brute, halting the man in his tracks.

Most women would have cowered and shook at a gun being brandished at a man a foot away from her. Cleopatra Killoran tipped her chin in Adair’s direction and held his gaze squarely as she moved herself between the muzzle of Adair’s gun and the guard.

He stitched his eyebrows. The hellion was either mad, fearless, or a lackwit. She’d put herself between a bullet and a man in her brother’s employ? Mayhap she was a combination of the three.

“Cleo,” Killoran said sharply.

That swift change from unaffected bastard to a man poised for battle marked his weakness. Killoran cared about the girl behind him.

She angled her shoulder, presenting herself full-forward to the room. “Did you truly expect a Black, or anyone inside the Hell and Sin, to honor their word?” She spat on the floor at Adair’s feet.

A muscle jumped in the corner of his eye as the tension thickened.

In the street, a man was only as good as his word. It was a currency more valuable than gold.

Killoran shouldered himself before her. Again, like the London thief she no doubt had once been, she ducked out from behind him and took a place at the head of the desk. She stood there, arms akimbo, engaged in a silent battle with Ryker.

Adair rocked back. And by God, for the first time in his life, he doubted his brother’s ability to win a particular fight . . . and against a slip of a Killoran, no less.

“Our agreement ended the day a fire was set to the Hell and Sin,” Ryker said in steely tones.

“Pfft, your patrons were better for it.”

At the young woman’s brazenness, Adair’s mouth fell open and fury stirred to life.

“But we didn’t need to burn down your club to destroy it. You all”—she gestured to Adair and his brothers—“managed to do that on your own. Marrying yourselves fancy ladies.”