King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)
King of the Cage: Chapter 22

I limped into the subway half an hour later and pressed my card to the turnstile. Well, that hadn’t really gone as I’d planned, but I was still alive to tell the tale, so I was winning.

Sure, I’d fallen short of getting my feet onto the metal platform and had dangled midair for a good minute, before dragging myself up, wrenching every muscle I had on the way. But none of that mattered, because I was free.

I leaned against the escalator and tried to catch my breath as I sailed down toward the platforms. Man, I needed to work out more. I was painfully out of shape.

A steady stream of people brushed past me, and I shifted closer to the side to keep out of their way. Below, the whistle sounded for an approaching train.

Someone bumped into my arm, and I pulled it in.

“Excuse me,” I muttered, getting annoyed at the people who were clearly far fitter than me and able to jog down the moving stairs instead of collapsing against the handrail like me.

“No. You’re not excused, wee one.” Bran’s deep voice froze me to the spot. “I told you not to test me… you didn’t listen. Luckily for us, there’s no tail on you this morning… except mine.”

I opened my mouth to respond but then thought better of it. I could hear the train approaching. It was going to stop and leave before I got off the escalator, unless I hurried. I had a chance to lose Bran, but I needed to be careful. I held my tongue. We got near the bottom of the escalator, jostled together by people stepping off. The train screeched to a stop. I had a few seconds until a stream of people coming from the opposite direction hit us.

Bran stepped off the escalator beside me. I took my chance and stomped down on his foot. I aimed for the one that hadn’t yet stepped off the escalator, hoping to throw him off balance. It worked for a split second before he caught his balance. The man was a natural athlete, and I was just me. Still, I never went down without swinging.

I sprang forward. He cursed and grabbed for me. But I was too fast, quickly darting toward the stream of people who had gotten off the train. I shoved rudely through them, muttering an apology here and there where I could, but being as ruthless as necessary to make sure I got on the train.

I boarded as the doors shut, catching my arm in the process. The doors opened again, and about ten people shot me death glares. I tugged my shirt out of the doors and stepped deeper into the compartment.

I stumbled triumphantly and whirled around to see where Bran had gone. I’d expected him to be standing outside the doors, having just missed the train.

Instead, he was nowhere to be seen. The train pulled away, and I grabbed for a railing to hold before I fell over.

Where was he? Did he get held up on the platform?

The lights blinked on and off as the train swayed forcefully. I glanced around, then stilled; my eyes met an amused dark-green stare.

Bran stood at the doors that connected one of the neighboring compartments with mine. He’d gone for a closer compartment to make sure he got on the train. Now, he pushed open the exit door and stepped between the swaying carriages. I backed up, knocking into people.

“Hey! Watch it.”

“You’re standing on my foot.”

“Get lost, lady.”

I ignored the mutters of other passengers, riveted at the sight of the man striding toward me like an avenging warrior crossing the battlefield. Escape seemed hopeless.

Still, I found myself fumbling for the door to the next carriage.

“Giada, stop!” Bran thundered, drawing all eyes in the compartment.

I slid open the door and stepped between the trains, opening the next before I could close the first.

Bran’s hand shot out and grabbed the handle before I could pull it closed.

I was in one compartment, and he was in the other, reaching between them.

“Stop now, selkie. It’s over,” he said. His amusement was strained now.

Good.

“Yeah, it is,” I murmured and pointed my other hand upward to the speaker, just as the next station was announced. The train was already slowing down.

I could scream for help, of course, but this being New York, there was little chance of anyone stepping in. Crazy shit went down daily in this city, and its residents were the definition of unflappable. But there was a chance some out-of-towner might step in. And what? Get hurt?

No. I wouldn’t get anyone else involved. This was between me and Bran, and it always had been, from day one.

Bran shook his head slightly. “You’re forcing my hand.”

I raised my chin. “Likewise.”

The train swung around a corner. Something cold moved across my skin. I glanced back, stunned to see a handcuff fastened around my wrist. I was so distracted I promptly lost my balance and ripped my hand from the door. I stumbled halfway down the compartment. The train screeched to a stop. Bran stepped into my carriage, right when nearly everyone stood and made for the doors, blocking him. Luckily, it was a big transfer station. With the handcuff dangling from my arm, I joined the crush exiting the train.

A group of teenagers passed me, giggling and pushing. One of them dropped their cap, a pink sparkly number. I swiped it from the floor without breaking my stride and put it on, tucking my hair into my shirt collar.

The older man walking beside me up the stairs stared hard at the handcuff hanging from my sleeve, but I ignored his pointed looks. I was so close to freedom I could taste it. I just needed to get out of the train station, and then I could run and hide somewhere. Find a phone and call my brother.

The escalator upward seemed to move at a snail’s pace. I tried to quiet my ragged breathing and appear calm.

I reached the top and got off, heading for the turnstiles with my head down.

I tapped my card against the reader and left the station. The street was busy, like most New York City streets. I tried my best to blend in until I reached the corner of Central Park. I couldn’t replace a pay phone around here. I needed to get farther from the station, and then I could worry about it. I could go and buy a burner phone, after all, as I had all my cards on me.

I broke off from the snake of people heading down the sidewalk and turned into the park.

The back of my neck itched as I walked, making me twist around constantly to check for any overgrown Irishmen on my tail. I didn’t see any, but the feeling didn’t go away.

It was cold out, and the park was dusted with white. It was much quieter than it would normally be, and something about all the shadows made me nervous.

A noise sounded from a nearby copse of trees. I was near the lake and heading around to the other side. Why had I chosen such a secluded spot? Damn it.

I spun around and stared at the shadows. Was Bran there?

Walking backward to keep my eyes on those shadows as long as I could, I eyed the distance between myself and the end of the path, which connected with the sidewalk. People passed not too far from me. Maybe there would be safety in the crowd.

With that thought, he appeared.

Striding out of the trees and picking up speed until he was running. Having a six-foot-five angry cage fighter running at you wasn’t for the faint of heart.

With a panicked cry, I swiveled and ran, too.

He was too fast. I wasn’t going to make it. His arms closed around me, and his hand covered my mouth just as I opened it to yell for help. I squirmed immediately, but there was no loosening that iron grip. He dragged me back into the shadows of a huge tree.

“Quit wriggling and admit your defeat gracefully,” he ordered.

I bit his finger until I tasted blood, forcing him to let my mouth go.

“Gracefully? You were lucky. I nearly made it,” I panted. God, I was tired. Me and running didn’t mix.

“Come on now, wee one. It wasn’t even close,” Bran teased.

I attempted to sink my elbow into his gut but only managed to hit it against the tree. Pain reverberated up my arm and set my teeth on edge.

“Fuck! I hate you. You’re unbelievably annoying.”

“Likewise.” Bran rested an arm on the tree beside me. “What’s the play now? Are you going to wait around until you can run off again?”

I shrugged. “What do you think?”

He nodded and blew out a long breath. “I thought so. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He grabbed the wrist with the dangling handcuff, and next thing I knew, he held up our linked hands. The psycho had handcuffed us together.

“Now, where are we going this fine afternoon, selkie?”

“We aren’t going anywhere,” I ground out.

He grinned and jangled the handcuffs. “I beg to differ.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” I clarified.

He shrugged. “It can’t be that bad. Give me a chance… At the very least, let me buy you something to eat. I’ll take you to Pino’s,” Bran added.

My stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl at just the name.

“If you think that tempting a hungry Italian with a New York institution is going to work, you have another think coming… But if you’re going anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it, I guess,” I muttered.

Bran laughed. “In that case, I’m going to Pino’s and you’re coming with me, even if I have to haul you there over my shoulder. Let’s not spoil this pretty picture of domestic bliss… The Enclave might be watching, remember?”

Right. The undercover mission to get into the damn secret society and bring the entire thing crashing down. Too bad Bran didn’t seem to understand that he wouldn’t be alive to do any of that once my brother got hold of him.

Still, I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ll come. Don’t make a scene,” I reprimanded him, straightening up and channeling my inner queen.

He chuckled and tucked our bound hands in his pocket. It was indecently warm and unexpectedly comforting. His hand slipped around mine, warming me more.

“Let’s get you fed, wee selkie.”

I kept up the pretense of not being hungry at Pino’s, until Bran ordered half the menu. Plate after plate arrived at the table, and I stared at it, hungry as hell.

“I hope you’re going to help me finish this,” Bran said, nodding to the jam-packed table.

“Well, wasting food is practically a crime.” I pulled a juicy caprese salad my way.

Bran stopped eating to answer his phone. He turned slightly away from me, our bound hands hidden beneath the table. As he talked away, a piece of paper appeared beside my plate. Our waiter had slipped me a note of some kind. Was it his number? A coded message — blink twice if you’re secretly handcuffed to your unwanted date?

I never got the chance to read it. Bran’s heavy hand slapped down on the folded paper with enough force to rattle all the dishes on the table.

“Now, I know you aren’t hitting on my wife while she’s sitting beside me, right?”

His dry tone sent shivers down my spine.

The waiter glanced at me and then back at Bran before dropping his dark gaze.

“I-I didn’t know,” he stammered.

Bran pulled our handcuffed hands into plain view.

“Is this clear enough for you? The woman has particular tastes; I doubt you could keep up,” Bran drawled.

The waiter paled at the sight of our bound hands and made a quick getaway. I elbowed Bran as hard as I could in the ribs.

He coughed and moved our joined hands back under the table, patting my leg.

“Don’t get excited, it was only a joke.”

“A joke? Everyone’s staring at us,” I murmured, my cheeks heating up.

“So?” Bran couldn’t have cared less about the attention he was drawing. He somehow managed to lounge in the booth like he hadn’t a care in the world, while also giving the impression he could take out every single man in the joint without breaking a sweat.

He gave me an appraising once-over. “Like you’re not used to it.”

The heat in my cheeks only grew. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m sure you’re used to being stared at… look at you.” Bran’s hot gaze left no room for doubt that he was paying me a compliment.

I shrugged off his words. “Yeah, and everyone knows looking good is the most important thing, right? As long as I keep my mouth shut,” I muttered, unthinkingly, desperately trying to calm my racing heart. What was it about this man that made me feel like I was standing in the middle of an electrical storm?

“What was that, selkie?” Bran shifted in his seat, sitting forward and catching my chin with his free hand, giving me no room to turn away from his probing attention.

I shrugged, and he tutted.

“You don’t say something like that and then fail to elaborate.”

“Pass.”

He nudged my leg under the table. “I’m afraid I must insist.”

I rolled my eyes. “You have a sister, I’m sure she knows all about it. Good little girls should be pretty, and polite, and most of all quiet, if they want to become wives one day. Don’t tell me I’m the first person to let you in on the fact that the world isn’t exactly equal?” I arched an eyebrow at him.

Bran studied me. I felt bare-ass naked again. Why had I overshared like that? I might as well have stuck on a badge that said: Hello, my name is Giada, and here are all my raging issues and insecurities. Please use them against me.

“Who told you to be quieter, selkie?”

“Why? Are you going to offer to kill them for me?” I batted my eyelashes up at him. “You don’t need to bother. They’re long dead.”

His lips quirked upward. There was no judgment. Instead, he nearly seemed proud.

“Yet, you mentioned them just now. Someone can be dead but not buried.”

“Well, they are. I went to their funerals.”

Bran nodded. “It’s a good start, but have you considered digging up the bones, grinding them down into gelatin, and making some nice, phallic-shaped gummies? There’s a certain catharsis from desecrating the remains of your enemies.”

My enemies? It was the very first time in a while that I’d thought of the bitter old relatives who’d taken care of me when Elio went to the military. The ones who’d poked and picked at me to be perfect. The ones who’d told me how loud I was, how smart-ass, how unwanted.

Make phallic-shaped gummies out of Mrs. and Mr. Mancini.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

For the first time in my life, I laughed when thinking about my guardians.

It had never happened before. I’d never been able to make light of it, or move past it, or see myself as stronger than it. And then, just like that, Bran O’Connor, with his macabre, irreverent sense of humor, cast Zio and Zia Mancini, giant demons in my mind, as small and inconsequential. Weak and defeatable.

Bran grinned at my outburst of laughter. The stress of the day crashed over me and only made me laugh harder. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so much. Even that fact set me off again. Maybe I was losing my mind, too.

“If you don’t let me go… my brother will kill you. I’m not joking, and as annoying as you are, I don’t want to see you dead,” I admitted suddenly. “You should let me go if you want to see tomorrow.”

Bran tensed, the rapid change in subject cutting across the warm atmosphere and sobering his mirth.

He let out a long sigh and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.

“I wish I could tell you that I’ll let you go, selkie, but I can’t,” he said, quiet.

My brow furrowed, and I tried to understand what the hell that meant.

“Then you’ll die,” I pointed out starkly.

He shrugged. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take… to keep you.”

I had no response for that. It was incomprehensible.

“Now, eat up, wee one. Since we’ve had such an interesting day, I wanted to end it by introducing you to someone who actually matters in this city. Someone important. A VIP by any definition of the word,” Bran said, pushing my favorite pasta toward me. “Eat your fill, and then we’ll go.”

“Who are we going to go see with all this food?” I grabbed some of the bags of leftovers from Pino’s and slid out of the cab after Bran.

He led us through the doors of a big stately building set back from the street and surrounded by trees. “You can call her Sheila. I call her Mam.”

Mam? Bran’s mother? Instant nerves flourished in my gut.

Bran was taking me to meet his mother. And by the looks of it, she lived in a long-term care facility. Had Bran mentioned that she wasn’t well?

I stopped in the hall and pulled Bran to a stop, as well.

“I’m not wearing ‘meet your mother’ clothes,” I said. To be honest, the borrowed clothes would look insane to anybody, but Bran’s mother? He really expected me to meet her in this outfit?

Bran cocked an eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t worry about that, wee one. I’m going to be dead any day now when your brother replaces out about us, remember?”

I frowned at him, feeling called out. My brother really was going to murder him any day, so why was I getting so worried about making a good impression on his mother?

I tossed my hair back and nodded.

“You’re right. I forgot. At least undo our hands,” I reminded him. “Unless you want the nurses calling the police or something.”

Bran inclined his head toward the end of the hall. “Your concern for my well-being is touching.” He undid the handcuffs with a small key from his pocket.

I rotated my wrist, trying to get the blood flowing again.

Bran reached out and took my wrist in his huge hand. He rubbed his long fingers against my pulse point and then around, covering everywhere the handcuff had touched with firm, dragging movements that melted away my stiffness.

“And don’t worry about Mam. She won’t remember who I am anyway, or who you are ten seconds after we leave. I just wanted you to meet her,” he finished.

I followed him to a room and waited as he knocked. A nurse let us in. Sheila O’Connor sat in the bay window, looking down at the gardens below.

“Sheila, your son is here to see you, and he’s brought a lady with him,” the nurse said to Sheila before smiling warmly at Bran.

Clearly, he was a favorite with the nurses here, from the way they all flirted with him. Not that I was jealous or had even noticed. Not at all.

“She’s my wife, actually. We’re newlyweds,” Bran told the nurse.

“Well, I’ll be! Sheila, your boy is married. Congratulations!”

“Thank you.” Bran drifted away with the nurse.

She called over others to come and congratulate him.

I hovered awkwardly before sitting beside Sheila.

She hummed softly. It was a melancholy tune. Then she sang, her voice soft and wistful. I listened along until she stopped. With a jolt, I glanced at her and realized she was staring at me.

“Um, that was a nice song. What’s it called?” I didn’t want to set her off or upset her by mentioning Bran.

“‘The Selkie and the Spring Tide.’ This one’s for you, my dear,” Sheila said.

Her eyes seemed keen and perceptive. Was she having a good spell? I knew it could happen for people with dementia. I had to get Bran.

“I’ll be right back,” I said quickly and stood.

Bran was inside the doorway, still getting praised and patted by the ladies of the nursing staff.

I tugged him inside.

“I think your mom is having a good day,” I told him quickly.

We hurried to Sheila, and Bran crouched beside her.

“Mam?”

Sheila looked away from the fir tree outside the window and gazed at her son. A smile split her face, and she looked ten years younger.

“Brandon. Where have you been?”

“I’m here, Mam, I’m always here. I come and see you every week,” he told her. His deep voice was scratchy.

She stroked his hair. “Don’t let your da know you’re home. He’s been threatening to have your hide for cutting off those lassies’ pigtails, not that they didn’t deserve it.”

Bran’s face fell for a microsecond, but I caught it. His mother wasn’t as lucid as she’d seemed. She was walking the halls of the past, and his visit had been good timing.

“Dae fash, Mam. You know I can take what the old man gives me and more,” Bran said, his Irish brogue turned up to the max.

“I know you can, and you do, but I worry about my boy,” Sheila said, her voice soft. “My big, gentle giant of a man. You’ll replace your place one day, I know it.”

Just like that, she turned away and hummed again. Bran watched her for a while. She didn’t acknowledge him.

We left soon after, planning to make our way back to Hell’s Kitchen by cab. I found myself humming Sheila’s tune from earlier as we stood by the curb waiting.

Bran stilled and looked at me curiously.

“Your mom was humming it… she said it’s for me,” I told him.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Did she really?”

“Yes, she did. It’s called ‘The Selkie and Spring Tide,’ if you’re wondering,” I said.

He stared at me for a long time, something warm in his gaze that I could barely stand. There was something intimidating about being gawped at like that. The cab pulled up and jerked Bran from his spell.

“Come on, then, wife. We better get home. Otherwise, how will your brother kill me tonight if he doesn’t know where I am?”