Page 1 of Twisted Secrets
Chapter One
Need another drink?” The words were clear despite the general ruckus of the bar, the voice like whiskey on the rocks. If Cillian O’Malley put a little imagination into it, he could almost taste her tone. It was the closest he’d come to having an actual drink in ten months.
Olivia.
He looked up, straight into night-dark eyes that made him think reckless thoughts about leaning across this bar and kissing the hell out of this woman. It was something the old Cillian would have done, and if the look on her face was any indication, he would have gotten the shit kicked out of him for the effort. He smiled despite the dark mood that had brought him wandering into Jameson’s to begin with. “Hey, gorgeous.”
The guarded look on her face was the same as the first time they’d met, like she expected him to whip out a gun and start shooting or threaten her or someshit like that. Since he knew for a fact he’d never so much as raised his voice at her in the two times they’d interacted previously, it stung a little thatthatwas her knee-jerk reaction to him.
And it made him want to show her how wrong she was.
“You know, I’d pay good money to know what I did to piss you off so much.”
Olivia’s expression iced over in a way that would send a smarter man running. It just made Cillian more intrigued. He’d been caught up in his family’s dramas for so long, it was refreshing to having an unconnected interaction—even if it was with someone who hated him. Hell, it was almost better this way.
It just added to the tangled mess inside him caused by sitting in this bar. Jameson’s and he had a complicated history that he’d never be able to escape. It was the last place his family had felt whole. He’d been here with his brothers, Aiden and Teague and Devlin, on the final night when they’d been celebrating Teague’s impending marriage. Devlin had been shot in a drive-by on the way home, and the O’Malley family had lost the closest thing to an innocent they could call their own. Cillian hated this place as much as he loved it, but it was here his feet brought him when he wandered.
Olivia crossed her arms over her chest, which only served to accent the way her breasts pressed against her shredded T-shirt. It wasn’t ripped enough to be truly indecent, but he could see several slices of her dusky skin beneath the black fabric, and it was distracting as hell. She cleared her throat, but he still gave her body a slow look, taking in her spiked combat boots, tiny skirt, coming back to that shirt, and then settling on her face. She was beautiful in the way good models were—a little toosharp for strictly traditional good looks, but all the more striking because of it. The mass of dark hair and the anger in near-black eyes took her over the edge into devastating.
She looked like the kind of mistake he would have jumped at a year ago. Hehadjumped at her six months ago when they’d first met, and it had gone in the same direction their current interaction was headed. She’d taken an instant dislike to him, and nothing he could say seemed to convince her that he wasn’t this monster she seemed to label him as.
So much had happened between then and now, so much that weighed him down and threatened to drag him under for good. He hadn’t even been out by himself since he was shot—the same night he’d last seen Olivia. He rubbed his shoulder, half-sure he could feel the scar beneath the fabric of his shirt.
What would it be like to be that carefree and wild version of himself, just for one more night?
“Do. You. Want. Another. Drink?”
Maybe I could let it all go—the stress and the guilt and the sick feeling I can’t quite escape—just for a little while. He leaned onto the bar. “You want to get out of here after your shift?”
Her mouth tightened. “I don’t know why I bother. Never mind.”
“Wait.” He took a deep breath and let go of the wild impulse that had driven him to offer. He wasn’t that guy anymore, and trying to reclaim it was like spitting on Devlin’s grave. Cillian sighed. “I’ll have an apple juice.”
She blinked. “Apple juice.”
“Yes, please.”
He thought he’d sounded perfectly polite, but she frowned harder. “You come in here a couple times aweek—or at least you used to from what Benji says—and you’ve been sitting here, nursing anapple juice?”
“Yeah.” He hadn’t touched alcohol since the night his youngest brother was killed in a drive-by shooting. He was the reason they’d been on that street to begin with, walking home in an effort to sober him up a little. If they’d just called a cab, Devlin would still be alive and…Cillian exhaled harshly. It was pointless to wish for things to be different, but the truth was that he was at least partially responsible for his brother’s death, indirectly or not. He could barely stand the thought of drinking again and potentially putting someone else he loved in danger.
Olivia seemed to realize she was staring and shook herself. She bent over and grabbed the apple juice, shooting a look at him like she’d never seen him before. “Why don’t you drink? Alcoholic?” It was almost amusing watching the horror appear on her face. “Shit, sorry, it’s none of my business.”
Maybe not, but a perverse part of him liked that she wanted to know more about him, even if it was morbid curiosity. “It never brought me anything but trouble.”There are plenty of other ways to get into trouble.
“It doesn’t stop most people from doing it.” She finished pouring his juice and slid it across the bar.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re something of a pessimist?” The edges of her lips quirked, and Cillian cocked his head to the side. “Holy fuck. That was almost a smile. I think you might not hate me as much as I thought.”
Instantly, her amusement was gone. Olivia stepped back, as if the two-foot bar between them wasn’t nearly enough space. “Are you opening a tab or paying now?”
He hadn’t set out tonight planningon coming here, but it was the first time he’d left the house without the muscle his father and brother usually insisted on, and he hadn’t wanted to waste the opportunity. He nodded. “Benji knows me. Have him put it on my running tab.”
She hesitated like she wanted to argue, but then turned and stalked to the giant owner of the bar. Benji had been operating on O’Malley territory before it was O’Malley territory, and Cillian always got the feeling that he’d still be here twenty years from now, regardless of the power struggles that ran through Boston like fault lines. As expected, the big man nodded, and Olivia walked back to him, her permanent frown firmly in place. “Who the hell are you?”
“Cillian O’Malley at your service.” He held out a hand, waiting for a full five seconds for her to take it before he lowered it. “Usually a handshake takes two people.”
“O’Malley.” She glanced around, but the bar was unusually loud tonight, and there was no one within easy eavesdropping range. “I know that name.”
