Page 24 of Twisted Secrets
He washed his face off as best he could and threw on his vest and jacket without bothering with the shirt underneath. It was ruined, and the bloodstained fabric would bring more attention than skipping it altogether. Once he was more or less presentable, he headed downstairs. This early, there was no one out and about—which was the reason they’d scheduled the Erickson meeting for this time. He was going to catch hell for missing it.
And rightfully so. He didn’t have any business wandering into Jameson’s last night in the first place when he knew there was an early morning meeting the next day. It didn’t matter that he didn’t drink anymore—the emotional hangover was almost worse than one driven by alcohol. He hadn’t cared about that, though. He’d been too wrapped up in seeing Olivia again.
She was a distraction, and one he couldn’t afford right now, but he wasn’t about to let her go until they explored this thing between them.Especiallysince she’d actually agreed to a date.
Cillian walked outside as a black town car pulled up. The front window rolled down to show Liam.Huh. Apparently Aiden wasn’t too pissed if he sent his most trusted muscle to scoop him up. Liam looked him up and down. “You’re a mess.”
Or maybe his brother just wanted to get the lectures started early. He sighed. “Rough night.”
“So I see.”
He started to get out, but Cillian waved him back into the car. “I can open my own door.”
“From the look of you, I wouldn’t trust you to wipe your ass by yourself today.”
Considering how shitty he felt, he didn’t blame the man. He just climbed into the backseat and did his best to relax. There would be questions, and he had to be prepared to answer them. His father would want to know why he’d gone to a hotel instead of back home, and if he didn’t have a good reason, there would be even more hell to pay. He couldn’t exactly say that he’d had an amazing woman playing nurse for him and he hadn’t been willing to let that go.
All too soon, the car stopped on Chestnut, its familiar trees no more comforting now than they’d been since he was old enough to know what his fate held.Christ, can you be any more melancholy? Your life is good—better than good. You always knew there were going to be sacrifices made and danger looming.
Yeah, he just hadn’t realized his brother would be the one to pay the price.
It was more than Devlin, though. Missing him was a near-constant ache, but it was nothing compared to the fear of something happening to another one of his siblings. He could comfort himself by saying Teague and Aiden knew the score, and even that Carrigan was no wilting flower. But Sloan and Keira? He didn’t know if he could survive something happening to them. They weren’t innocents—no one in the O’Malley family was—but they deserved better than to be a casualty of a war they weren’t even allowed to fight in.
He climbed the steps to the front door and into the town house. It was eerily silent. He looked around. Nothing. So there was his choice—his father’s office or his room to clean himself up a bit. Cillian looked down at himself. His suit was dark enough to cover up the blood spatter, but it still looked like he’d slept in it. Combined with his bandage…Yeah, Father wasn’t going to be impressed.
The bedroom it was.
He started for the stairs just as heels clipped through the hallway. He froze, and that was all the time it took for his mother to come around the corner. She stopped short, her green eyes going wide in a rare show of surprise and then horror. “Cillian?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” It was exactly as bad as it looked.
She set aside the vase she was carrying and rushed over to him. “What happened? Does your father know?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. There was a brawl down at the pub.” He wasn’t in love with the idea of perpetuating their belief that he was a worthless party boy, but it was better than the alternative.They have enough reason to hate the Hallorans. I’m not going to give them one more—not when it might draw a line in the sand that Carrigan would be on the other side of.“It’s nothing—didn’t even need stitches.”
She moved around him, carefully poking and prodding until she was once again in front of him, her hand pressed against her mouth. It struck Cillian that Aileen O’Malley was getting old. Oh, she hadyears left of the beauty she was renowned for, but she suddenly seemed…fragile. He’d never thought of his mother as fragile before. There had always been something so ironclad and unchangeable about her.
Except she’d gone and changed while he wasn’t looking.
He tried for a smile. “It’s really okay, Mother. Just a few punks with more beer in them than sense.”
“You’ve got to be more careful. If anything happened to you…” She seemed to realize she was in danger of showing too much, because she straightened and threw her shoulders back. He’d seen his sister Carrigan make that exact move more often than he could count. Worried or not, they didn’t make O’Malley women soft—at least not most of them. Aileen frowned. “Go get cleaned up before you talk to your father. He’s not pleased.”
No, he wouldn’t be. Cillian nodded, wishing he could say something to comfort her, but anything that came out of his mouth right now would be a lie at best, and cold comfort at worst. “Will do.” He started up the stairs, wanting to take them two at a time to get away from the uncomfortable realization that his mother was mortal.
“And Cillian?”
He stopped halfway up and turned to face her. “Yeah?”
“This has to stop.” She pressed her lips together. “I can’t have another—”
Devlin.
“I know. It will. This is the last time.” But even as he said the words, he wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. He didn’t exactly go looking for trouble, but that didn’t stop trouble from finding him. And there was something about Olivia that screamed trouble. If he was smart, he’d send her a thank-you bouquet andleave well enough alone. Whatever was in her past had affected her deeply, and he wasn’t without his own skeletons in his closet. Throwing the two of them together might not do anything, but he was too jaded to believe that. There would be fireworks—both good and bad.
He walked into his room and headed for his second shower of the day. Doc Jones be damned, he couldn’t meet his father with his hair filthy with matted blood, and putting on the same dirty clothes after the last shower had negated its effects as far as he was concerned. He kept his head out of the direct spray as much as possible, but in the process of cleaning, he still managed to reopen the cut.
Cillian watched his blood circle the drain, letting the water beat against his back. He had to get his shit together. Now wasn’t the time to let thoughts of Olivia and the pending date distract him. He’d screwed up with missing that meeting this morning, and he’d have to be held accountable. With a curse, he shut off the water and toweled off. It was a whole hell of a lot harder to wrap his head without help, but he managed. Barely. Once he was sure he wasn’t dripping blood anymore, he went to his closet and got dressed slowly, piece by piece.
