Chapter 1 - BROKEN GLASS
The crowbar hit the floor before Iris understood who had come out of the dark hallway.
Declan.
Three nights earlier, he had barely been able to stand without bleeding through his shirt. Now he moved as if pain were an inconvenience he had already dismissed.
The man with the crowbar folded around the blade between his ribs. Declan caught the back of his jacket before he could crash into the glass-strewn floor, twisted once, and lowered him with an almost insulting degree of control.
The gunman tried to turn.
Declan struck his wrist against the counter. The suppressed pistol clattered beneath a row of overturned flea medication. A second later the man was face-down, one arm locked behind him, Declan's knee between his shoulder blades.
“Who sent you?” Declan asked.
The man coughed against the linoleum.
“Go to hell.”
Declan bent the trapped arm another inch.
A wet, involuntary sound escaped the man.
Iris found her voice.
“Stop.”
Declan looked at her.
It was the first time she saw it clearly: the division inside him.
One part of Declan was the wounded man who had obeyed while she dug a bullet out of his body.
The other part was this.
Cold.
Precise.
Terrifyingly practiced.
“He was about to shoot you,” Declan said.
“I noticed.”
“Then let me work.”
“This is my clinic.”
His gaze swept over the shattered door, the blood, the broken display, and the man groaning beneath him.
“Not anymore.”
Anger cut through Iris's fear.
She stepped out from behind the desk.
“It is absolutely still my clinic.”
Declan's jaw moved once.
The gunman laughed into the floor.
“You really don't know who he is, do you?”
Iris stared at him.
Declan's expression did not change.
The gunman turned his head enough to look at her with one watering eye.
“Ask your patient his last name.”
Declan drove his forearm against the back of the man's neck.
“Who sent you?”
The man went silent.
For three seconds, only rain and the frantic barking from the kennel room filled the clinic.
Then the wounded man by the counter moved.
Iris saw it first.
His hand slid inside his jacket.
“Declan.”
Declan turned.
The man produced a second gun.
Everything happened too fast to separate into moments.
Declan shoved the gunman on the floor sideways.
Iris dropped behind the desk.
A shot cracked through the room.
Not suppressed this time.
The front window starred near the ceiling.
Declan fired once with the pistol he had picked up from the floor.
The man beside the counter jerked and fell backward.
Silence.
Real silence.
The kind that came after something irreversible.
Iris remained crouched with both hands pressed to the side of her head.
Declan stood in the center of the reception area breathing hard.
His coat was dark at the lower right side.
Blood.
His stitches had opened.
“Are you hit?” she asked.
“No.”
“That was not my question.”
His eyes dropped to his side as if he had forgotten the wound existed.
“Stitches.”
“Of course.”
Iris rose slowly.
The gunman Declan had pinned was still alive. He had rolled onto his side, clutching his shoulder where the first shot had grazed him during the struggle.
The second attacker was not moving.
Iris forced herself not to look at him for too long.
She had seen death before.
Animals on tables.
Animals on roads.
A boy in an emergency room seven years ago whose face had been her brother's until the white sheet covered it.
Human death changed the air in a room.
“Police,” she said.
Declan looked at her.
“We call the police.”
“No.”
She laughed once because the alternative was screaming.
“Someone just blew through my front door with a suppressed pistol.”
“I know.”
“One man is dead.”
“I know.”
“And your answer is no?”
“Yes.”
Iris crossed the room, grabbed the landline, and lifted the receiver.
No dial tone.
She looked toward the wire beneath the desk.
Cut.
Declan checked his phone.
“No service?” she asked.
“Jammer.”
The surviving gunman smiled through blood.
“Smart girl.”
Declan looked down at him.
“You came prepared.”
The smile faded.
Declan crouched and searched the man's jacket.
Wallet.
Two magazines.
Burner phone.
Plastic zip ties.
A syringe.
Iris stared at the syringe.
“What is that?”
Declan held it up to the light.
Clear fluid.
He did not answer.
He did not have to.
The man had aimed at Iris's knee instead of her chest.
They had not planned to kill her immediately.
They had planned to take her.
Iris's stomach tightened.
Declan reached into another pocket and stopped.
His stillness changed.
“What?” Iris asked.
He pulled out a photograph.
Not a phone image.
Not a recent print.
An actual photograph with worn white edges.
He looked at it once, then at Iris.
“What?” she repeated.
Declan stood.
“Iris.”
“Give it to me.”
He did not.
“Give me the photograph.”
She crossed the distance and took it from his hand.
The room seemed to tilt.
The picture had been taken outside Hayes Veterinary Clinic years earlier, before Iris bought new signage and replaced the old green awning.
A younger Iris stood near the door, hair pulled into a careless knot, both arms wrapped around a large golden retriever.
Beside her was her brother Evan.
Twenty-six years old.
Alive.
Laughing at something outside the frame.
Iris's fingers went numb.
“This was taken eight years ago.”
Declan said nothing.
She turned the photograph over.
Two words had been written in black ink.
HAYES SISTER.
Beneath them was an address.
Her apartment.
Upstairs.
Her blood went cold.
“No.”
Declan's face became unreadable.
Iris looked at the surviving attacker.
“Why do you have this?”
He closed his eyes.
She stepped closer.
“Why do you have a picture of my dead brother?”
Nothing.
She kicked his boot.
“Answer me.”
Declan caught her wrist before she could do it again.
“Don't.”
She ripped free.
“Don't what? Ask why men with guns came into my clinic carrying a photograph of Evan?”
Declan's gaze remained on the picture.
The anger inside Iris sharpened.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I know the photograph isn't about tonight.”
She stared at him.
He continued.
“The edges are worn. The ink is old. Someone has kept it for years.”
“That does not explain why they had it.”
“No.”
“Or why you showed up here exactly when they did.”
Declan looked toward the dark kennel hall.
Iris followed his gaze.
“You were already inside.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Back door.”
“Why?”
“I came to see you.”
“At midnight. Through the back door.”
“I saw the vehicle parked across the alley.”
“What vehicle?”
“Black Tahoe. Two men inside. One watching your clinic. One watching the apartment windows.”
Iris's mouth dried.
“So you broke in?”
“The back lock is inadequate.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It opened quickly.”
Despite everything, Iris almost threw something at him.
The surviving attacker began to laugh.
Soft at first.
Then harder.
Declan turned toward him.
“What is funny?”
The man spat blood onto the floor.
“You still don't get it.”
Declan's expression became still.
The man looked at Iris.
“He didn't bring this to you, lady.”
Iris frowned.
“Bring what?”
The man smiled.
“Trouble.”
His eyes shifted to Declan.
“You came here because of Hayes.”
Declan moved so quickly Iris barely saw it.
He grabbed the man's jacket and dragged him upright against the counter.
“Say the name again.”
“Hayes.”
The man smiled wider.
“Evan Hayes.”
Iris felt something inside her break loose.
Declan's face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
Recognition.
Iris saw it.
“You knew him.”
Declan did not look at her.
“You knew my brother.”
The attacker laughed again.
“Everybody knew him at the end.”
Declan hit him.
One short blow.
The man's head snapped sideways.
“Declan.”
He ignored Iris.
“Who sent you?”
“Ask Patrick.”
That stopped him.
The silence that followed was different from the others.
Personal.
The man saw it too.
“There it is.”
His smile became ugly.
“Now he understands.”
Declan's fingers tightened in the man's jacket.
“Patrick who?” Iris demanded.
Neither answered.
A faint electronic chirp sounded from somewhere near the fallen gunman's body.
Declan released the attacker immediately.
“Move.”
Iris blinked.
“What?”
“Now.”
He crossed to the dead man's jacket and pulled out a small black device.
A red light blinked on its face.
Once.
Twice.
Declan swore.
Iris had not heard him swear once while she was digging a bullet from his body.
That frightened her more than the gunfire.
“What is it?”
“Tracker.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they know he stopped moving.”
The surviving attacker grinned.
Declan looked at Iris.
“We have maybe three minutes.”
“To do what?”
“Leave.”
“I have six animals in the back.”
“You have what?”
“Three dogs. Two cats. One rabbit recovering from surgery.”
Declan stared at her.
“I am not leaving them.”
“Iris—”
“No.”
She pointed at him.
“You do not get to walk into my life bleeding, disappear, come back while armed men attack my clinic, recognize my dead brother's name, and then start giving me orders.”
A muscle worked in his jaw.
From outside came the low growl of an engine.
Then another.
Headlights washed across the broken front windows.
Declan looked toward the street.
“Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“We take the animals.”
Iris blinked.
“You're serious?”
“No. I thought this would be a good time for humor.”
Another engine stopped.
Car doors opened.
Declan picked up the fallen pistol and checked the magazine.
“How many carriers?”
“Four.”
“Get them.”
Iris ran.
The kennels erupted as she entered. Dogs barked wildly. A tabby cat hissed from a recovery cage. The rabbit thumped hard enough to shake its enclosure.
“Everybody is having a terrible night,” Iris muttered.
Her hands moved automatically.
Carrier.
Towel.
Medication bag.
Charts.
She loaded the cats first.
Declan appeared in the doorway.
“Thirty seconds.”
“I need sixty.”
“You have thirty.”
“You want to sedate a seventy-pound shepherd while people shoot at us?”
Declan looked at the shepherd.
The shepherd bared its teeth.
Declan looked back at Iris.
“Sixty.”
She almost smiled.
Then a bullet shattered the remaining glass at the front of the clinic.
The dogs screamed.
Declan turned toward the sound.
“Make it forty.”
He disappeared into the hall.
Iris shoved the photograph of Evan into her coat pocket.
Her hand struck something else there.
A small hard object.
She pulled it out.
A brass key.
Old.
Tarnished.
She did not recognize it.
Taped to the key was a folded strip of paper.
Her name was written on it.
IRIS.
Her breath stopped.
The handwriting was Evan's.
She knew it immediately.
Seven years had passed since she had seen those slanted capital letters on grocery lists, birthday cards, and stupid notes he left on her windshield.
Her fingers shook as she unfolded the paper.
Only one sentence had been written inside.
IF DECLAN KADE EVER COMES TO YOU BLEEDING, IT MEANS THEY FINALLY FOUND WHAT I HID.
Iris read it twice.
Then a third time.
The surname hit her last.
Kade.
Declan Kade.
Even Iris knew that name.
Everyone in the south end did.
Construction companies.
Nightclubs.
Private security.
Dock contracts.
And whispers about everything that existed underneath them.
Declan Kade was not a criminal who happened to be powerful.
According to half the city, he was the man criminals asked permission from.
A shot thundered from reception.
Declan shouted her name.
Iris closed her fist around the key.
For seven years, she had believed her brother died in a random robbery outside a train station.
Now Evan's handwriting told her three impossible things.
He had known Declan Kade.
He had expected Declan to be shot.
And somewhere inside or beneath the clinic, Evan had hidden something dangerous enough that men had waited seven years to come looking for it.
“Iris!”
May you like
She shoved the note into her pocket and grabbed the first carrier.
Then she ran toward the gunfire.
