Page 33 of Steel Rain

The man had classical, leather taste, and the heart of a real-world New York gangster.

“For the first eighteen years of her life, I can’t remember her wearing anything but dresses, and practicing her piano,” Eoghan said as he gestured for me to take a seat in front of his large antique desk. “She had this long hair, down to her waist, or maybe even longer. I don’t remember. She loved her hair. Spent hours combing it like Rapunzel. She’s a blonde, you know? Naturally?”

“No, I did not know that.” I was surprised. The black hair suited The She-Wolf so well. It didn’t even occur to me that she had colored it.

“That’s why it took me so long to recognize her.”

He went to the other side to a wet bar that was flanked by two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He pulled out two crystal tumblers, and poured a glass of his dry vermouth, and another glass of Johnny Walker Black. He handed the Johnny Walker to me as he took his seat.

“The woman I saw in that octagon,” he shook his head as if in disbelief, “Is not the girl I grew up with.”

The grandfather clock chimed ten o’clock. The sky was black. The stars were out. The snow was almost blue in the wash of silver moonlight outside the window.

“You were friends?” I had garnered that much, but I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted him to say that he had once cared about her, and that his current treatment of her was the anomaly.

“Aye,” he said with a slight nod. “I thought we were close once. Until she disappeared without a word. She froze us out and abandoned us all. Her sister, especially. Now, I wouldn’t trust her as far as she can whip that short hair of hers.”

He took another drink and hummed with pleasure. Then he gazed at me with an assessing look, as if he was contemplating something very, very important.

“I have a week to get answers from her,” he put the glass down on his table, and it quietly thudded as he steepled his fingers. “I don’t care what she does after I know where Kira is.”

That seemed a little too blasé for the man I had come to know in the last few months.

“You wouldn’t go after her? Punish her for her betrayal?” That seemed more in line with the Eoghan that I knew.

Eoghan thought about that for a moment, and I immediately regretted putting those thoughts in his head. Was he thinking of ways to harm her now? Torture her? Just as he had the guys in the basement?

“No, I wouldn’t,” he finally said. “I’m an old, sentimental fool. I can’t stop remembering how she was as a girl, when she and I used to run up and down these halls. No. If I get Kira back, I’d let her go.” Then he shrugged. “Anyway, Dairo would probably make me set her free for the sake of my soul, and my old memories.”

That last statement seemed heavy with innuendo. Had Eoghan been closer to Sin than Dairo? Had that changed? Or was her abandonment so horrible that he simply refused to care about her now?

There was a timid knock on the door.

“Come in!” Eoghan barked.

The door opened, and a small, heart-shaped face peeked through the opening. A girl, with long, blonde curls looked back at us with crystal gray eyes.

“Eoghan?” She asked meekly, in a high, timid voice.

“Siobhan!” Eoghan came to his feet, spilling his glass as he dropped it on the table.

He swiftly walked around, his arms open, as he pulled her inside with a hug.

“Sweet girl,” he pulled her back, cupping her face in his hands. “Are you alright? Good God, are you okay?”

She nodded, crossing her hands in front of herself. It was a defensive posture. But not an aggressive one. She wasn’t scared of Eoghan, butsomethinghad taught her to keep her guard up.

“I’m sorry,” Eoghan said, bending over so that he was at eye level with her. “I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea that you were …”

Eoghan let out a sigh. Then he put a hand on the nape of her neck and hugged her again, pulling her head to his chest.

I flinched. At first, I wondered if there was something wrong with this. A much older man, hugging on a young girl. She was in middle school, at most. But I watched his hands, his face, and his gestures. His face was anguished, and there was something familial about how he was holding her.

She could have been his own daughter.

The girl stepped away from him, and the malice in her eyes was easy to read. It was the look of a woman betrayed. And she blamed Eoghan.

“Believe me, Sibby, if I had known, I would have done something …”

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