Page 44 of Twisted Secrets
“It might be the fact I was asleep like fifteen minutes ago, but you don’t sound too happy about this.”
Aiden sighed. “It’s a good thing. Or it would be if all signs weren’t pointing to us having an enemy—or multiple enemies—poking around Boston. Callie’s going to be vulnerable, and Teague’s going to be focused on her instead of all the things that could go wrong. It’ll be up to us to pick up the slack.”
“I don’t think Callie’s nearly as vulnerable as people might think.” She’d managed to step up and take over the Sheridan family without more than a few ripples.
Aiden pushed to his feet and started pacing. “You know what I mean. Things aren’t as stable as they should be. We still haven’t heard from Romanov after the Carrigan disaster, and there’s the three percent still missing.”
“I thought you were going to look into that.”
“I did. All the businesses claim that it was an accounting error made in innocence.” Aiden turned on his heel and started another circuit around the room. “They even used the same language.”
“You think they were coached.” Itmade sense. If someone was crafty enough to slip in and steal from them, they had to be dangerous enough that the businesses affected wouldn’t think to cross them. Considering how they felt about the O’Malleys, that made whoever it was a special kind of scary. Seamus was downright ruthless when it came to getting full and timely payments. It would start with a menacing visit, which was usually enough to bring people back in line—but if it wasn’t, things would escalate quickly. Damage to the property. Damage to the property owner. He hadn’t had to kill anyone since Cillian could remember, but when the O’Malleys first took over the territory, there had been more than a few people who tried to hold out.
If someone was managing to undermine them withthatkind of fear present in their people, they were a threat—one that couldn’t be ignored.
Suddenly, he was right on the same page as Aiden.
They needed that information, and they needed it yesterday. “We need that name.”
“You think I don’t know that? I don’t have a lot of options available to me.” Aiden ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “Father wants to make an example of one of them.”
Cillian shuddered. He knew exactly what that entailed. “Isn’t that a little extreme? We’ve worked fucking hard to get these businesses to the point where they’re cooperating with us instead of obeying out of sheer terror.” They weren’t exactly on the same page as the Sheridans, but the O’Malleys were still worlds better than the Hallorans. Or they had been before James took over. He had a softer touch than his father, and from what Cillian could tell, his territory had been benefiting from it.
“That’s the point—theyaren’tworking withus if they’re slipping money away to someone else.” Aiden stopped short. “He says it’s a good time of year for a fire.”
And suddenly it all made sense. His brother had been stepping up more and more as time went on, taking over the day-to-day operations and phasing their father out. But, as far as Cillian could tell, that had mostly been the legal business. Now it looked like Father was handing over the other side of things.
He wasn’t sure whether to comfort his brother or tell him to man the fuck up. They were O’Malleys. That meant that sometimes they had to get their hands dirty and do things that would have them waking up in the middle of the night, breathless and haunted, with demons still riding them. Then again, easy enough for him to say whenhewasn’t the one required to set fire to someone’s property. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s the price of doing business. That poor schmuck who’s going to lose his shop knows that as well as I do.” His face went stony. “He better give me the fucking information after that.”
Or he’d have to work the guy over…and maybe worse.There’s nothing to help in this situation. You just power through it and try to make it out the other side without too much damage. “What can I do?”
Aiden turned to look out his window to the street below. “If I bring you their information and books, can you find the money trail?”
He was nowhere near the computer whiz that Devlin had been, but he wasn’t a total disgrace. And he was learning fast. “Unless they’re some sort of tech genius, I should be able to.”
“Good.” Aiden moved toward the door. “Keep your phone on you. I’m going to need you hereas soon as I have it.”
“I will.” He watched his oldest brother leave, closing the door softly behind him, and couldn’t shake the feeling that he was seeing what remained of Aiden’s moral code ground to dust. It had been a long time in coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d do it, even if there was. The sad truth was that a certain level of ruthlessness and willingness to get their hands dirty was required of any leader who wanted tostaya leader. Cillian had never been so glad that he wasn’t the heir—or even next in line to the heir. Guilt rose. He shouldn’t be happy one of his siblings was shouldering the burden so he didn’t have to. He’d never avoided his duty to the O’Malleys, but then, he’d never been asked to do the things that were going to be a common thing for his brother as the one in charge. He fucking hoped that Aiden had it in him to do what was necessary.
If he didn’t, then they were all in serious trouble.
***
Olivia managed to sneak two hours of sleep after her shift before Hadley woke up. Then it was time to throw together some food for both of them and figure out what they were doing with their day. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “What do you think, baby girl? Pancakes?” She usually saved them for a special occasion, but after last night, today was feeling pretty damn special. Things had been so unbelievably good with Cillian, and then she’d gone to work and had one of the best shifts since she started at Jameson’s. There were two bachelor parties getting started there, and they’d tipped herwell—all while ribbing the grooms they were with. She smiled to remember the way the one groom-to-be had blushed. Whoever he was marrying was a lucky woman. That guy was a serious winner.
Hadley hustled into the kitchen. “Cakes?”
“Yep. We’re doing pancakes. Maybe I’ll even try my hand at Minnie Mouse.” She swept her daughter up and propped her on her hip. “Want to help Mommy?”
“Help!”
“I thought so.” She moved around the minuscule kitchen, grabbing the pancake mix, vegetable oil, eggs, and milk. A quick check to make sure they had syrup and strawberries, and she was ready to get started.
