Page 30 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

Stylish but also loose enough that if we were attacked, I could easily move and bend.

I approached the table, my father on my right, and Vasily on my left. Both dressed to the nines in Armani suits and gold Rolexes. The woman at Starbucks this morning had a field day with them when we ordered our coffees.

Neither of them noticed, of course. They just smiled, placed their orders, and moved to surround me as if a barista attack was imminent. One of them had been eyeing me with thinly disguised hate when Vasily all but brushed off her obvious advances.

Sully stood and reached out his hand to me with a disarming smile. I took it with a smile of my own. Once we all exchanged pleasantries, we sat.

“Thank you for coming.” Sully leaned back in his chair comfortably.

I glanced at my father and then at Vas. Smirking darkly, I said, “I was under the impression I wouldn’t get the box of evidence I wanted if we didn’t. Not the best way to start relations, is it?”

Sully chuckled. “No, I suppose not,” he admitted. “You’ll have to forgive me. I have been trying to get your father to agree to a sit down for years now.”

Father snorted derisively. “Then you shouldn’t have been trying to push into my territory.”

“And I have tried telling you that it wasn’t us.”

“Men bearing the mark of the O’Malley clan don’t lie,” my father snarled. He pointed his finger at Sully. “Each of them was selling your drugs stamped with your mark, and so were they.”

Sully waved his hand at him dismissively. My father growled. “Do you honestly believe I would be that careless? Also, if they were truly my men, I would have retaliated.”

“You did.”

Sully snorted. “I never retaliated, and that is why I’ve been trying to sit down with you,” he explained calmly. “Your territory is nice and all, but I don’t need it. I have my own, and I like it here. Why would I want to give that all up for a territory that’s three hours away?”

“Shipping ports,” Liam said confidently.

“I don’t need your shipping ports, Kavanaugh,” he told him. “I run one of the most successful ground transport companies in the nation. Boats aren’t my family’s thing, and you know that. It’s why my father turned down your offer all those years ago.”

That caught my attention. Liam had been out of town on my grandfather’s request to scope out a trucking company here in Portland. It was his alibi.

“You never bought it from him?” I asked my father.

He shook his head. “No.” The muscles in his jaw clenched tightly. “Nearly got me killed coming down here. Luckily, Owen O’Malley didn’t have an itchy trigger finger, or I would be dead.”

“He set you up,” Sully deadpanned.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my father snarled. Vas and I exchanged a knowing look. “That man raised me.”

“No, he didn’t.” I said at the same time as Sully.

Well shit.

Sully looked at me with mirrored surprise. “Looks like I’m not the only one who’s been digging where I shouldn’t.”

“What the hell are the two of you going on about?” Liam roared, his face turning red. “Seamus McDonough raised me. Arranged for Katherine and me to go to college together.”

“I am not contesting that.” Sully’s voice was low and calm, like he was talking to a spooked animal. “What I am saying is that the man who sent you to buy my father’s trucking company wasn’t Seamus McDonough.”

“And neither was the man at the gala,” I spoke up. My hands twisted nervously in my lap. This was a conversation I had been avoiding. He never believed me when I voiced my doubts about him, and I was not up to feeling that sting of rejection again. As a result, I avoided talking to him about anything related to my mother and grandfather. The only reason he was here now was because Sully wanted the sit down.

Liam groaned. “Not this again, Ava,” he chastised. “We already put it to bed.”

“No,” I growled. Pain lanced through my heart at his words. We hadn’tput it to bedas he said. He chose to ignore what was in front of his eyes. “You refused to acknowledge what is right in front of your goddamn eyes. I understood your reticence when it was just me, but now you have someone else telling you the exact same thing. Something isn’t right about Seamus McDonough. If that’s who he even is.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Avaleigh.” He stood his ground. “This isn’t some—”

“Actually, she does,” Sully interrupted. “Whoever is setting us up is using Seamus McDonough as a patsy.”

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