“Who are you? What do you want?”
“Where is the girl?” Niall asked, unsure of which name he should use under the circumstances.
“We don’t have her. We were just sent to get the money,” he said.
“By whom?” Niall roared.
“I don’t know. My partner was the one in contact with him. We just took the girl where he told us to and then came back to find the money we were told to retrieve.”
“Tell me where you took her,” Niall told him.
“I’ll tell you, if you don’t hurt me.”
“I can’t make you that promise.”
“We didn’t hurt her, I promise. We just needed to get back the counterfeit money. That’s all I know.”
“This money isn’t real?”
“No, none of it. It was tucked away for laundering, but the woman went and picked all of it up for some reason. I don’t know why.”
Money laundering. That was what this was all about, but how did it get tied into Deidre’s situation? He’d have to sort that out later, but right now, he had to get to her.
“Get up. You’re taking me to her.”
“No. They’ll kill me.”
“I’m going to kill you if you don’t.”
“I’ll make a deal with you. Let me walk out of here with the money in those boxes and I’ll take you to where she is. I get this money back to where it belongs and we never lay eyes on one another again.”
“Why do you care so much about fake foreign cash?” Niall asked, suspicious.
“I don’t, but someone does, and if I don’t get it back to them, I’m a dead man. I might be anyway, but at least I’ll have a chance this way.”
“Fine. Let’s get it and go.”
Niall kept the gun on him as he retrieved the boxes and they made their way out to his car, the gun at his back so that neighbors didn’t see it, but he felt its hard edge at his spine. True to his word, the man took him to an old factory nestled in a less savory side of London.
“She’s in there,” he told him, pointing to a building with only a white van and a dark sedan sitting in front of it.
“Let’s go.”
“No way. I did my part. You said you’d let me go.”
“And I will, just as soon as I see that she is inside and unharmed.”
The man looking wary, obviously knowing that she might not be and that he might pay the price for his involvement in that. He climbed from the car and walked toward the building with Niall, edging along one side to avoid the windows revealing their silhouettes inside.
“Right here. Look,” the man said, leaning in from the brick facade toward a clear space in windows so dirty, they revealed nothing of the insides.
Niall took a quick peek through the glass and felt his blood pressure rise. Just as he peered in, he saw the back of Duncan’s hand come down across Deidre’s face, leaving an angry red welt behind. His blood was boiled as he abandoned the man beside him and made a beeline for the slightly open front door of the factory.
Yanking it open, he charged inside, a heavyset man sitting in a chair by the wall jumping up at the sight of an intruder. Niall didn’t have time to waste on him. He pointed the gun in his hand and fired, hitting him squarely in the forehead.
Duncan whirled around just in time to see him aim the gun again, this time at him. Much to Niall’s surprise, the man smiled at him.
“Well, I didn’t expect to see you here, McNally. I’m curious as to how you found me and got here so quickly.”
“And I’m curious as to what the fuck it is you think you’re doing,” Niall growled.
“Oh, I found my money. It seems that it somehow got sucked up in an identity scam and redirected to a woman here in London. Imagine my surprise to find it was none other than my former betrothed. I guess I was right about you ginger bastards stealing what was rightfully mine.”
“I didn’t steal anything from you, Duncan. You should have stayed in Ireland and licked your wounds like the coward you are.”
“I’m not a coward, Niall. What do you say we settle this like our ancestors? Best shifter takes all? I shift, you shift, and we’ll see who the better man turns out to be. It’s the rule of the land.”
“I already know the answer to that question, and our ancestors are dead. The rules no longer apply,” Niall replied, pulling the trigger twice, the first opening a wound in his chest and the other ripping through his skull at close range.
His body dropped, revealing Deidre, who watched as if in shock at what she had just witnessed. He looked at her, recognizing the razor wire around her body, and realized that it had been Duncan driving the uprising even after Trill was gone. It was on his orders that people were secured with razor wire, not just coincidental.