“Listen,” Maureen went on, “I know there’re other things we need to be talkin’ about, but right now—”

“You’re worried,” he interrupted. “I’m worried myself. But getting out of the country’d be next to impossible for me right now. Going to Russia—”

“Who said anything about Russia?”

“I thought Trinity went back with Oleg.”

“She left with him, yeah, but your sister’s not in Russia. She’s in America. Last I knew, she was in Nevada.”

Jax spun toward the desk, digging up a pencil and a sheet of paper.

“Anything else you can tell me about where Trinity’s been staying, or about this Oleg guy or his people?” he asked.

Maureen rattled off what she knew, which was precious little, and Jax scrawled down anything that sounded promising—which wasn’t much. Only when he hung up the phone did he sense the presence of someone else behind him.

He turned to see his mother, Gemma, staring at him with a familiar, disgusted curl to her lips.

Gemma sneered. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

4

Caitlin Dunphy had been stabbed to death by her boyfriend after she’d found him in a pub with another girl. Hurt and humiliated, Caitlin had confronted him and then left the pub in tears, after which the girl he’d been chatting up had given him a further dressing-down and poured a beer over his head. The boyfriend, Tim Kelley, had stalked back to Caitlin’s flat with more alcohol fueling him than a drunken sailor would’ve thought wise. Tim and Caitlin had argued, and then they’d fought, fists flying. Like any good Irish girl, she’d given as good as she’d gotten… right up until he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the throat.

Trinity had loved dear Caitlin. They’d been at school together as girls and spent plenty of nights together at the pub, as well as mornings on a run in the park. Once they’d even been in jail together, and the less said about that, the better. Trinity had been unable to cry at Caitlin’s funeral, rage obliterating her grief, desperate to get her fingers around the handle of a knife and give Tim Kelley what he had coming. Less than a month later, the bastard was done for, but it hadn’t been Trinity who’d killed him.

She’d regretted that for years. Always would. Trinity Ashby had spent her life on the fringes of a violent world, but she’d never been a criminal herself, and she certainly wasn’t a killer. She would’ve made an exception for Tim Kelley.

For Caitlin Dunphy.

When John Carney had asked her name, Caitlin’s had popped out. It shamed her now to think of it.

Too late to turn back now, she thought.

In so many ways.

* * *

The Summerlin Gun Show wrapped up in the late afternoon, but the breakdown took a while. Trinity had a hell of a time keeping Oleg and the other guys from getting impatient while they waited, never mind that the four of them just standing around together—this Irish girl and a trio of grim Russian guys, all edgy and paranoid—was going to draw some unwanted attention, even in the waning hours of a gun show. She’d sent Gavril and Feliks off on a drive, while she and Oleg had alternated between perusing the sellers’ booths, listening to the musical act performing at the east end of the show, and visiting the big silver Airstream trailer that had been converted into a mobile cantina and snack shop.

Their kettle corn had been delicious.

Now, with the gun show over and the sun swiftly sinking behind the red mountains in the west, they drove along the dirt road leading up to the main house on Oscar Temple’s ranch. There were fences everywhere, but their focus was on security. They spotted a couple of guards and at least three cameras, which made Oleg and the guys nervous. They were following the battered old Ford pickup with the heavy cab on the back that John Carney used to bring his wares to gun shows, and Carney had called ahead.

They were expected.

Trinity had to wonder, though, just what it was that Oscar Temple might be expecting. Carney must have given him the basics, but would a man like Temple react poorly to scuffed-up, stone-faced men with Russian accents? If she’d learned anything about Americans, she thought he might.

“Let me do the talkin’,” Trinity said from the backseat.

Gavril was at the wheel, with Oleg in the passenger seat and Feliks in the back, beside Trinity. They all scowled at her, even the man with whom she’d fallen in love.

“It’s possible you have said that once or twice already,” Oleg said.

Trinity narrowed her eyes, pushed herself up between the seats, and made sure he was looking her in the eye.

“I’ll say it a thousand times if that’s what it takes to get through your thick Russian skulls.”

Oleg’s grin stretched the thin white scar that ran along his jaw from chin to earlobe. The tattoos on the back of his neck and along his arms were somehow cruel and beautiful at the same time. He had high cheekbones and a small mouth and the narrow eyes of a man who might like to hurt you. The stubble on his shaved scalp did nothing to alleviate such concerns, but Trinity knew better. She’d felt his touch and seen the hunger for her in his eyes. Oleg would never hurt her, except perhaps by dying for her, and she wanted to do everything in her power to prevent that.

Gavril drove. Always. Ugly and dark-eyed, he had a face that looked as if he’d been in a thousand fights and lost them all.

Feliks was the quiet one. Six and a half feet tall, he had built himself into a wall of muscle. Trinity had the feeling that most fights with Feliks ended before they began, with his opponent pissing himself before a punch could be thrown.

“You talk to us like children,” Gavril said. “I crushed the throat of a man who spoke to me like that.”

Trinity smiled and sat back in her seat. “You’re not the first man to hint he’d like to kill me. I believed the other guy more.”

“One of us loves you, Irish,” Gavril muttered, huge hands tight on the wheel. “But it isn’t me.”

Oleg glanced into the backseat again, one eyebrow raised. Gavril might be a killer, but the two men were like brothers, and he would never hurt the woman Oleg loved. Feliks kept silent, as always, but he rolled his eyes just a bit to indicate that he also thought Gavril’s threats were hollow.

The huge, rambling ranch house grew larger ahead of them. Trinity saw Carney’s brake lights go on, and then Gavril hit the brake. The tires of their black Mercedes kicked up a cloud of dust, and they waited for it to clear before opening the doors. The Bratva had taught her not to expose herself anywhere she didn’t have a clear view of her surroundings.

Trinity climbed out of the car and slammed the rear door. The Mercedes ticked as the engine cooled. She’d suggested they steal something a little less Russian Mafia–cliché than a black European sedan, but Gavril insisted that they had standards. Oleg had swapped out the plates with those from an old Volkswagen Rabbit. Nobody would be catching up with them tonight, at least.

Oleg and Feliks emerged from the car a few seconds behind her. Gavril waited behind the wheel, right hand no doubt on the ignition. They had no key, but getting the engine running would take the man half a second. He’d done this once or twice before.

Carney stepped out of his pickup and put his hands to the small of his back the way aging men always did. He stretched and then ambled toward them, more cowboy now than the Irish boy he’d been raised.

“Miss Dunphy,” he said.

She wanted to tell him her real name, but she could not. Oleg might decide that information was worth killing him for.

“I ought to tell you now,” Carney went on, “I’m not real comfortable with this.”

Feliks dropped his hand back a bit, the better to reach for the gun tucked into his rear waistband if he had the need.