Ryan Renewed: New York Ruthless: Book 5

After Hayden had told us about Erin’s plans to assist the brotherhood to take back control of the Bratva, Mikey and Liam bundled him into the SUV. Liam drove while Mikey sat in the back with my half-brother, because we both agreed that Liam couldn’t be trusted not to kill Hayden on route. I have never seen him so angry. He is a ball of pent-up rage and aggression and if his brothers don’t get back here soon, then I don’t know if Mikey and I will be able to control him.

Liam parks the car in the basement of the apartment building and jumps out, opening the back passenger door and pulling Hayden from the car. He pushes my half-brother toward the far side of the basement while Mikey and I climb out of the car.

Hayden’s hands are tied and he stumbles to the floor. He is still crying. He has cried all the way here. At first he kept telling me how sorry he was, how much he came to care for me, how terrified he was that Erin was going to have him killed. I have no doubt that she would have, too. Evil bitch.

I knew something was off about her from the moment I met her. If everything had gone to plan and the brotherhood had managed to get me that day in the ice cream store, I have no doubt she would have pinned everything on him. He would have been killed anyway, but by the Irish Mafia instead of the Bratva.

My heart hurts a little as I look at him cowering on the floor. He was right when he said this is not his world and while he has no experience of the struggles that I’ve endured, I am glad about that. If my brothers were still alive, I would want them to live a life free of pain and fear. Hayden was broke and all alone in the world when Erin found him and offered him an easy way out. Who can say what we would do if were in a position like that? And I do believe he has a good heart in there somewhere.

Hayden is sprawled on the floor. Liam grabs hold of his hair, gripping it tightly as he pulls my half-brother’s head back, exposing his neck so that I can see his thick vein pulsing. Snot and tears run down his face.

“No,” he whimpers as Liam raises his clenched fist, preparing to bring it crashing down onto Hayden’s face.

“Liam!” I shout, about to run to him but Mikey grabs hold of me. I struggle in his grip but he holds me firmly in place.

Liam doesn’t hear me, or if he does, he ignores me as he punches Hayden in the face and I hear the sickening crunch of bone.

“Liam. No!” I scream as I try to wrench myself from Mikey’s arms.

“I can’t let you go over there, Red,” Mikey hisses in my ear. “He’s lost it. He could hurt you.”

I see Liam preparing to punch Hayden again. “Mikey, please. If he kills Hayden, he’ll never forgive himself. Please let me go to him?”

Mikey sighs deeply but he lets me go and I run to Liam and my half-brother, with Mikey on my heels.

“Liam!” I shout as I reach him, still holding Hayden in his grip as he pummels him with his fist.

He ignores me, completely lost in the grip of his rage. “Liam, please!” I try again, conscious of Mikey hovering beside us. With no option left, I jump on Liam’s back.

“Jessie! What the fuck are you doing?” Mikey roars but I tune him out, wrapping my arms around Liam’s neck.

“Liam, please. It wasn’t his fault,” I say in his ear.

He tries to shake me off but I hold on as Mikey joins us too, trying to pull me off his twin while berating me for acting crazy.

Beneath us, Hayden cowers on the floor, his arms over his head as he tries his best to protect himself from Liam’s onslaught.

“Liam, please, baby,” I plead with him as tears run down my cheeks. “Please don’t do this. I love you so much. Don’t kill my little brother.”

I cling to him as Mikey tries to wrench me free, but Liam stands straight, dropping his fists to his sides and I’m left dangling from his neck like a soap on a rope. I let go of him and slide to the floor.

He turns around to face me, his handsome face full of anger. “He really means that much to you?” he snarls as he wipes the sweat from his brow.

I blink at him in confusion. He thinks I only did this for Hayden. I place my hand on his cheek and his face softens just a little. “You mean everything to me,” I whisper. “You would never forgive yourself if you killed him, because this wasn’t his fault. Erin manipulated him.”

“He could have got you and our babies killed, Jessie!” he snaps.

“I know. But he didn’t.”

His shoulders drop slightly and I feel the wave of relief washing over me. I wrap my arms around his neck again and rest my head on his chest as he pulls me into his huge arms.

“Looks like you just got yourself a reprieve, kid,” Mikey says to Hayden as he helps him up from the floor.

“Thank you,” I whisper to Liam.

“I did it for you, not him,” he growls.

“I know you did.”

We’re interrupted by another SUV pulling into the basement. We stand and watch as Shane and Conor climb out, before Conor reaches onto the back seat and pulls Erin out too. My blood freezes in my veins at the sight of her.

Conor holds onto her arm as they walk toward us. He pushes her onto the floor at my feet when they reach us and she shrieks her disapproval.

Liam releases me from his embrace, but he wraps a protective arm around my waist.

“You okay, Angel?” Conor asks with a frown as he gives me a quick hug.

“Yes. I’m good. And the babies seem good too,” I add, skimming my hands over my rounded belly and Conor rests one of his large hands over mine before stepping back and training his glare back on Erin.

“Thank fuck for that,” Shane says with a sigh as he hugs me tightly and presses a soft kiss on my forehead. Erin looks up at us and pain is so clearly etched on her face that it almost makes me smile. Nothing that happens from here on in could possibly hurt her more than what Shane just did.

“What happened to him?” Conor indicates his head to Hayden, who is practically held up by Mikey with blood pouring from his mouth and nose.

“Liam almost killed him but Jessie asked him not to,” Mikey says matter-of-factly.

Shane and Conor both look at me.

“It wasn’t his fault. He had no idea what Erin was really planning. She wanted you to think it was Hayden who was behind it all, so then you two could run off into the sunset.” I say that last part to Shane and his face contorts with anger before he looks at Erin who sits on the floor, looking at us all like we’re something she just stepped in. Even in defeat she thinks she’s better than everyone else.

Shane crouches down so he’s at her eye level. “Tell me that this wasn’t all just some ploy to get me back,” he hisses.

She sits straighter, brushing imaginary dust from her clothes as she looks him straight in the eye. “We belong together, Shane. I can give you babies. Lots of them. And you could guarantee every one of them would be yours,” she sneers as she looks at his brothers and me.

Bitch!

Liam winces beside me as though he expects Erin to get a punch in the mouth for what she just said, but Shane would never hit her. He’s not that guy. Besides, he knows a much more effective way to cause her pain that involves nothing other than his words.

“I thought I made it clear, back in Ireland, that you mean nothing to me, Erin. Less than nothing. You are insignificant,” he spits.

She narrows her eyes at him. “You don’t mean that. You love me. We’d still be together if it wasn’t for your needy little brothers! I’d have fucked them all too if I’d known that was what it would take.”

Liam pulls me tighter as Mikey screws his face up in disgust.

Conor scowls at her. “I wouldn’t touch you with a fifty-foot pole, you piece of shit.”

Shane laughs. “Nobody in this room wants you, Erin. Nobody likes you. Jessie could be carrying a complete stranger’s baby and I’d still love her and her babies more than anything or anyone else in this entire fucking world.” He pulls a handgun from the waistband of his suit pants and presses it against her temple.

Her lip trembles. “Shane! You don’t have to do this.”

“You tried to murder my wife and our children.”

“You can’t kill me. You loved me once. I know you did. This isn’t you,” she pleads.

“You have no idea who I am,” he snarls at her then he looks up at me. “You want to do this, sweetheart?”

I shake my head. I hate Erin but I don’t want to blow her head off.

“She doesn’t have the balls to shoot me,” Erin spits as she glares at me, her face so full of venom and jealousy that it distorts her once beautiful features. “She is a fucking whore and a slut and I hope her babies are born deformed and screaming in pain because what she does with you all is sick and unnatural.”

The anger that ripples through my husbands is so pronounced that I feel it in every fiber of my being. Shane grabs her by the throat and Mikey, Liam and Conor edge forward but their anger pales into insignificance compared to mine. “Stop!” I hiss, holding up my hand and Liam, Mikey and Conor freeze on the spot. “Let her go,” I say to Shane.

He releases his grip on her throat and stands straight. Anger bubbles through my chest like a mini volcano just erupted in my gut.

I lean over her. “You are an evil bitch!” I hiss. “Our babies are going to be strong and beautiful. They will be given more love than you can even comprehend. You think I don’t have the balls to kill you? I have killed men much bigger, stronger and smarter than you, Erin. I could rip your throat out now and I wouldn’t feel a shred of remorse, but I won’t. You want to know why?”

She glares at me, her eyes burning into mine as though she’s hoping I’ll burst into flames just from the heat of her gaze.

“I want you to look into the eyes of the man you love. The same man who despises you and who adores me and our babies, as he ends your pathetic existence.”

Her eyes flicker to Shane and the change in her face is instant. Tears roll down her face.

“Shane!” she pleads. “I love you.”

She’s a smart woman and she knows her best odds are to try and talk her way out of this. To try and reason with the man standing beside her, who indeed did love her once. I reach for Shane’s free hand and lace my fingers through his.

He frowns deeply and I see the emotions flicker over Erin’s face. The soft sigh escaping her lips as she believes he’s going to let her go.

Seems like Shane was right. She doesn’t know him at all. The sound of the gunshot rings around the small room and Erin drops to the floor. Blood pools around her head and her lifeless eyes stare up at me accusingly.

I blink at her. I don’t feel a shred of remorse. She tried to kill me and my unborn children. She was going to pin the blame on Hayden and I can’t even begin to imagine the pain my husbands would have forced him to endure if she had succeeded.

Shane stands and wipes the spatters of Erin’s blood from his hand while Conor takes the gun from him.

“Fuck!” I hear Hayden whisper behind me.

“You’re definitely one of the family now, kid,” Mikey laughs. “Now we’ve beat you up and made you an accessory to murder.”

I turn and glare at him. “Mikey!”

“I’m just playing, Red.” He arches an eyebrow at me.

I turn my attention back to Shane who is staring at Erin’s lifeless body. I wrap my arms around him. “Are you okay?”

He slides his arms around my waist again, squeezing me tightly as he buries his face in my hair. “Yes, but I’ll feel a hell of a lot better once we get you upstairs and checked out properly, so let’s move.”

“What about me?” Hayden asks as he wipes the blood from his nose.

All four of my husbands look at me. “It’s your call,” Liam says with a sigh.

“Come upstairs and we’ll get you cleaned up. And then we can talk,” I say and Hayden nods, giving me a small grateful smile.

“She just saved your fucking life,” Liam snarls at him and Hayden flinches making Mikey chuckle.

“I’ll call someone to clean this up,” Conor says as he takes his cell out of his pocket and dials a number. He walks ahead, barking instructions to someone as I walk between Liam and Shane, each of them with an arm wrapped around my waist while Mikey walks with Hayden to the elevator.