Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 02] Read Online Free Page A

wall—stunned to find herself separated and completely alone. The wave of people continued to swell until Jane was engulfed again. Unable to find a clear spot or an empty corner, she felt the world spinning out of control.
    Two hands shoved against her back, sending her careening. She whirled around, swinging her reticule. She garnered a split second’s worth of room but connected with nothing, and the momentum tore her reticule down and off her wrist. Gone. Her money, her makeshift weapon…
    The next push didn’t take her by surprise, but someone else was standing on her dress hem. Jane flailed her arms, helpless to stop herself from being pitched to the ground.
    At once, she attempted to scramble up, but her skirts had spread out over the floor like the wings of a framed butterfly, pinned there by the stampede. Over and over, she fought to rise, but always new boots trapped her skirts.
    Jane darted her hands out between ankles, yanking at the material with desperate strength, struggling to gather her dress about her legs.
    She couldn’t catch her breath under the press of people. How had this night gone so wrong—
    A boot came straight for her head. To dodge it, she rolled toward the wall as far as she could, but then, even over the commotion, she distinctly heard the eerie ping of metal.
    Looking up with dread, she saw one of the hanging murals directly above her, swaying wildly. The brass chain holding it had an opened link that was straightening under the massive weight.
    Like a shot, the link popped, and the chain lashed out like a whip. The mural came crashing down.

Four
    W hen Davis Grey chased the dragon, he had no dreams.
    In that hazy twilight of opium, the pain in his body ebbed; no longer could he see the faces of the men, women, and children he’d killed.
    Chasing the dragon , Grey thought with a weary exhalation, staring at the paint chipping across the ceiling of his hidden east London loft. What an appropriate saying to describe the habit—and his life.
    In the past, the smoke had quelled the rage in his heart, yet finally his need for revenge had overpowered even opium’s sweet pull.
    He rose in stages from his sweat-dampened bed, then crossed to the basin to splash water over his face. In the basin mirror, he studied his naked body.
    Four crusting bullet wounds riddled his pale chest and torso, a constant reminder of the attempt on his life. Though it had been six months ago since Edward Weyland, for whom Grey had killed faithfully, had sent him to his own destruction, the wounds still hadn’t healed completely. Though half a year had passed, Grey could remember perfectly the order in which he’d taken each bullet from a trio of Weyland’s hungry, younger killers.
    Yet somehow Grey had survived. He’d lost much muscle, but he still possessed a wiry strength—enough to enact his plans.
    He ran a finger down his chest, skating around the wounds in fascination. Perhaps Weyland should have sent his best man for the kill. But then Weyland always spared Hugh MacCarrick the altering jobs, the ones that changed a man forever.
    Those tasks should have been split between Grey and Hugh, but Weyland carefully meted out each one. Hugh was dispatched to kill people who were out-and-out evil, dangerous people who often fought for the lives Hugh sought to take. Grey executed the variables, the peripherals. Toward the end, Grey hadn’t been very particular if children got in the way.
    In dreams, he saw their glassy, sightless eyes.
    Weyland, that bloody bastard, didn’t even send Hugh to kill me.
    That galled Grey more than anything, scalding him inside.
    Soon Grey would deliver his retribution. Weyland treasured only one thing in this world—his daughter, Jane. MacCarrick had loved her from afar for years. Take away Jane, and two men would be destroyed, forever.
    A little work had ensured that Weyland and his informants knew Grey was stirring. Cunning and two deaths had ensured that they thought Grey was