Page 66 of Ciaran

“Sure.”

He begins to walk toward the coffee shop across from the station when I pull him back.

“Not coffee. A real drink.”

His lips flatten. He knows I’m not a big drinker, so for me to suggest alcohol in the middle of the day is out of character to say the least.

“Okay, Mia, you’re scaring me.”

I link my arm through his. “Let’s get that drink, yeah?”

We slip into a booth at the back of a bar and order our drinks. When I choose bourbon, Ciaran’s eyebrows shoot up. The bartender brings our drinks straight over, and after I take a decent slug of liquor—accompanied by an appropriate amount of coughing—Ciaran reaches for my hand.

“Talk to me, please.”

“Tanner’s blackmailing me,” I blurt. “He’s got a video, and he’s threatening to put it online.”

“Hold on, slow down. What video?” His eyes bulge. “Not of us?”

I struggle to follow his train of thought, finally catching on after a second or two. He thinks Tanner’s plotting some kind of revenge porn. “No. Worse than that. The video is of you.”

Ciaran scratches his cheek. “Doing what, exactly?”

“Hitting someone. It’s clearly you. Draven is there, too, although you can’t see his face on the video. Draven grabs him by his coat, you hit him, then Draven hauls him down an alleyway.”

Ciaran’s shoulders relax. “Oh, that. Yeah, I know exactly what that relates to. There was an altercation in a bar. A guy high on drugs belted his girlfriend in the face. Knocked her out cold. When we turned up, he resisted arrest. We gave chase. Caught up with him by that alley. He’d already punched me.” He points to a faint bruise on his cheekbone. “That’s how I got this. Yeah, maybe I was a little rough, but if we hadn’t gotten control of him, he could have hurt us, himself, or innocent bystanders.”

“Tanner is threatening to release the footage online unless I go back to Chicago with him.”

“Tanner can do whatever the fuck he wants. You’re not going anywhere with that bastard.”

I chew the inside of my mouth. “It looks bad, Ciaran. None of the stuff that happened in the bar is on the footage, only the part where Draven grabs the guy, who kicks you, then you punch him.” I wince.

Ciaran pushes a hand through his hair. “Anything looks bad taken out of context. I didn’t hit him hard. I just needed to shock him, to calm him down, and it worked because the minute we got him into the alley, he stopped fighting, and we were able to get the cuffs on him to safely take him in. He didn’t even make a complaint. Let Tanner do his worst. My superiors will understand.”

I press my fingertips to my temples. “It’s not your superiors I’m worried about. They may support you, but the public might not. You could get kicked off the force.”

He gestures dismissively. “It won’t come to that.”

“Ciaran, it will. You know what’s happened to every other cop who’s ever been filmed doing something the public thinks has overstepped the mark.”

“Then, I’ll do something else.”

“I won’t let you do that. You love being a cop.”

“I love you more.”

“And I love you.” I swallow past a lump in my throat, struggling to contain my emotions. I have to keep a clear head because if I allow myself to think, to really think about what this means, I’ll lose my shit. “But you have to listen to me. If that video comes out online, it’s not only your police career that will be over. The media will drag your name through the mud. The press will camp outside Declan’s hotel. No one will want to stay there. It’ll ruin his business. Maybe Callum will get caught up in it, too. I can’t let that happen, Ciaran. I can’t have that on my conscience.”

He thumps his fist on the table. “You are not going back to Tanner.”

I answer calmly. “It’s the only way.”

“No, it’s fucking not!”

A couple of guys at a nearby table glance our way at Ciaran’s raised voice. I give them a sign of reassurance. They stare at us for a few seconds more, then return to their conversation.

Ciaran rakes his hands through his hair. “I will fix this. Just trust me to fix it.”

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