King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)
King of the Cage: Prologue

I saw her across a crowded room.

Isn’t that how the cliché goes?

Nothing in my life had ever come close to resembling a story with a happy ending, never mind a fairy tale told to clueless kids to prolong their optimism and innocence, and yet, I’d be a fucking liar if I said that the music didn’t stop the second her dark eyes met mine.

I have been a lot of things in my life. A fighter, in and out of the ring, a criminal, a gangster, an executioner, a brother, and a disappointing son, but I’d never been a liar.

I saw her across a crowded room, and the world stood still. I won’t deny it.

I also wouldn’t deny, and I’d kill anyone who did, that when I saw her across that crowded room, and the world stopped and her eyes met my gaze, from that moment on…

She was mine.

Bran

“Mam! The girls from St. Teresa’s pulled my hair braids out,” Quinn cried, running as fast as her little legs could carry her.

I followed close behind, my hand still locked around the incriminating evidence from the scene. My da had always told me that O’Connor men cleaned up after themselves.

“Don’t leave nothing for the guards to replace, boy.”

I always tried to follow his advice, but seemed to fall short in ways I could never understand. Killian never had that problem. My older brother was just like Da. He never said the wrong thing or did anything to embarrass the family.

Da must wish he had two Killians to run the family, instead of one of you.

“Let me see here.” Sheila O’Connor’s voice was as warm and soft as a hug.

Quinn ran across the yard, scattering ducks and chickens as she went, and disappeared through the kitchen door. I followed slowly.

“Boy, what’s wrong with your sister?” My da sat on the doorstep of Uncle Sam’s house.

“Those O’Malley girls messed with Quinn, pulled her hair and pushed her down.”

My da shrugged. “The O’Malleys are good people. Seamus O’Malley is mighty useful to the business. I hope you didn’t go starting trouble with them on behalf of your sister.”

Both men were smoking pipes and watching me.

“But she was crying, Da! They really upset her, and she ripped her dress,” I protested hotly. My face was turning red, and my chest felt tight. I was going to be in trouble for this, I could tell.

“And little girls will cry over a torn dress or hair, but a grown boy shouldn’t care,” my da barked at me.

“She was crying,” I repeated.

“He’s a stubborn lad,” Uncle Sam remarked.

“Stubborn and soft at the same time, a losing combination.” Da sighed. His gaze dropped to my hand, and he stilled.

I took a step back when he stood.

“What have you got there, boy?”

“They made Quinn cry… so I made them cry,” I told him defiantly.

The deed was done, there was no point lying about it. Everyone in our neighborhood knew everything about each other. Lying was pointless.

“Let me see,” Da instructed in a low tone.

I knew that tone. It promised a good, hard beating.

I took another step back, looking left and right, sizing up my options for escaping the upcoming thrashing.

“You run, and you’ll only make it worse,” Uncle Sam remarked lightly, my childish terror a source of amusement for him.

I looked my da in the eye, lifted my hand, and tossed the long, cut-off braids of the O’Malley girls at him. They flew through the air, one dark red, the other blonde, and hit him square in the chest.

Then I turned on my heel and ran for my life.

“Here, sit here.” Mam tapped the side of the copper hip bath in the kitchen. She’d placed it before the fire and filled it with warm water and oats. “It’ll soothe you.”

I stood awkwardly beside her. I was a teenager now, and being in the bath in front of Mam had started to feel weird.

“Keep your shirt on if you like, and I’ll get you a dry one after.” She tutted at me as I fussed about.

Quickly agreeing, I sank into the warm water, my long linen shirt soaking through immediately. The cuts across my arse burned at contact with the water.

“How does it feel?” she asked, going to the chair on the other side of the hearth and taking up her knitting.

“Sore, but better,” I muttered and rested my head back against the tub lip.

Mam shook her head at me. “What were you thinking? Cutting off the wee girls’ hair like that, Bran?”

“They upset Quinn. They’re always messing with her, saying she’s spoiled and that her family are criminals. Someone had to teach them a lesson.”

“It didn’t have to be you, though. You know your father…”

“Doesn’t love me as much as Killian and Quinn,” I finished for her.

She frowned and put her knitting down. “Oh, Bran, why would you say that? Of course he does. He just has a funny way of showing it. Men like your father, and his father before him… they’re hard in a way you can’t understand. They’ve walls around their hearts so high, they don’t even know they have them. They’ve never seen over them.”

“Da loves Quinn.”

“She’s a girl, it’s different,” Mam said quickly.

“He loves Killian.”

Mam sighed. “Because Killian already has that wall. He was born with it. Killian doesn’t make him feel anything at all. They are alike, Killian and your da. Very alike.”

“Every time I try to act like Da, I mess it up and he’s angry. Nothing I do is ever right. Nothing is ever good enough.”

“Stop trying, then. Just be yourself. There is no one in the world who can be you, except you.”

I sank back in the water, bending my knees to get deeper. Mam went back to knitting.

Just stop trying. I’d been trying my whole life. What would happen if I stopped? Stopped trying, stopped caring, stopped all of it?

There was only the quiet of the kitchen, with the occasional creak from the Aga and a crackle of bark popping from the fire. The clack of knitting needles, and my mother’s soft humming.

She murmured quiet words. The song was familiar, though I hadn’t heard it for a long time.

“What song is that?” I asked, trying to shake off my disappointment at catching yet another beating from my da.

“The one about the Selkie and the spring tide.’”

I stared at her, willing her to tell me the story again but too proud and aware of my age to ask for it.

“One day, the spring tide will bring a selkie to you. She’s yours, this magical creature… you’ll have to decide to let her go or to hide her seal skin, so she can never leave. If you let her keep her the skin, she might leave sometimes, but she’ll always come back. If you hide it, one day, she’ll replace it and leave for good. Or so the song has it.” Mam smiled at me.

She hummed again, and my eyes drifted closed. Just stop trying. Just be you.

Maybe I should. Just be the black sheep. The disappointment.

Maybe I wasn’t capable of being anything but.