Page 28 of The Cleaner

I lift my shoulders and shrug. “I suppose I have, not that I meant to. It just happened.”

"Trust me, that's what happens to the majority of us. We don't intend to turn into killers, it just happens," he tells me. I watch as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, black card. "This is your pass to The Agency. Keep it safe, and if you decide that doing what you did tonight is something you want to continue, just give us a call."

I hesitate, not sure if I should take it or not. "You can't be serious?"

Travis shrugs, waving it at me. I reach out and clasp it in my hands. "Not many people can do what you did tonight. You need to think of a better way to incapacitate them, but the final product? Fucking inspired. Then again, knowing what I do about your past, I'd say it was."

"I feel normal. I know I should feel guilty, but I don't," I confess.

He nods. "That's because you know what he would have done had you not killed him. He was never going to let Devin out of his sight. His end game was to get that boy back and you stopped it. You could stop more men and women like him."

I swallow, wondering if I could do it. Would I be able to? "How would you incapacitate them?"

His grin is full of triumph. "That's easy," he says as he turns on his heel. I follow behind him, needing to know the answer. “A drug—something that we can easily supply to you. It’ll be out of the victim’s system within hours of being administered. It will make them sluggish, giving you the opportunity to get them in position, to tie the noose around their necks and throw them off the bridge.”

It sounds so easy when he’s saying it. Like it's the most natural thing to do in the world.

He stops and turns to face me, his expression serious. "Do you want the job?"

I look down at the card in my hand, feeling the weight of my decision. Do I? Could I live with the guilt knowing there are other kids out there like Devin who are stuck at home with monsters because they’ve fallen through the cracks, and I've not done anything to help? No, I couldn't live with the guilt.

"I want it," I say quietly. "I want to ensure there's no one helpless like Devin was."

Travis grins at me. "That's really good, Lisa. I think you've found your calling." He reaches for his phone, and I watch as his fingers move over the screen. "I'll meet you tomorrow," he says as I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. "Don't be late. We've a lot to discuss. If you change your mind, that's okay. There will be no hard feelings and no one will force you to do this job."

I breathe a sigh of relief. I have said yes, but I'm still not sure. I have some time to make a decision. Some time to find out if this is really what I want.

"Tomorrow," he says, and I nod. "Now, it's time to leave, Lisa. We don't want to be caught here. Go straight home," he instructs.

I turn on my heel, not saying goodbye. It's time to get the hell out of here. I've a lot of thinking to do.

I'm scared of what the future holds for me now that I've killed someone.

Chapter

Twelve

MAVERICK

“We're missing a shipment,"Jer says to me, and I can hear the anger in his voice. He's currently in Spain, where he's trying to sort out the drug shipments he has coming from the south of Spain through France, then the United Kingdom, before it lands in Ireland.

"How much?" I ask, wondering just how much money is now gone. How much we've lost.

"Six mil," he grinds out. "We started sending them out in smaller shipments since the Gallaghers started taking over the majority of mainland Spain. I thought we'd only have to worry about them. But we both know whose name is written all over this shit."

He’s full of shit. The man who runs Spain for the Gallaghers is his biological son, something we only found out recently. It’s also one of the main reasons that Jer’s spending more time in Spain. Malcolm is the second son of Denis Gallagher. It’s a fucked up situation for my uncle to have found out he has a son, but knowing he’ll never be able to have his son call him dad as he’s so close to Denis. But Malcolm and Jer have managed to forge some sort of relationship, and Denis is all for it.

I think it also helps that he’s now dating Callie, something I wasn’t too fucking happy about, considering the asshole was married when he and my sister got together—something Callie had no idea about. But my sister is happy and in love, and Denis has vowed to love and protect her. And I know he will. I watched him kill his wife—the woman who had a man break into Callie’s home and try to kill her. Not to mention, the woman was a fucking awful wife and mother. She cheated on Denis throughout their twenty-two year marriage, and out of the six children that she birthed, only two were her husband’s biological children. Denis loves his kids and he loves my sister. We can’t lie, the relationships he has with both Callie and Malcolm have only helped strengthen our hold on Dublin and Europe. Having such close ties to one of the biggest Mafia families in the world is always a fucking bonus.

“You really think that the missing shipment is down to that cunt, Tommy?” I ask, not believing that he’d have the power or knowledge of how to pull something like this off.

Over the past four months, shit has hit the fan with regards to Tommy Jennings and his cronies. It took Tommy ten weeks to figure out that it was me and Stephen who took his son's arm and leg. I'm not sure if it was because Paddy was afraid, or if he couldn't speak, but we heard all about the shit that happened the day he found out we were responsible. He was in The Hanged Man pub and was not quiet about the plans he has for us.

He’s trying to mount a coup, which is fucking laughable. There’s not one of Jer’s men who would ever turn their backs on him. Not even Thomas Grace would be that fucking stupid. But Tommy can try. He can work as many avenues as he likes. None of it’s going to get him far. The only thing it’ll do is piss us all off even more than we already are. He has another son we can go after next if it comes to it.

“What are we going to do about the shipment?” I ask Jer. There’s a fucking lot that we should do, but Jer’s all about keeping things close to his chest, making moves without them being flashy. He likes to slide under the radar. The only time he’ll go big and bold is if someone comes for family or one of his men.

"We need to act fast," Jer says, and his voice has a lethal edge to it. "I have a contact in France who might be able to help us track down the shipment. Word on the street is that Tommy’s brought his daughter into the fold. Apparently, she’s manipulative as hell. She’s sadistic, and she's all about power and money."

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