Page 61 of Twisted Secrets
Several hours later he sat back and sighed. Getting into the bank records wasn’t difficult because he had their guy’s name and account numbers, but the account the money had been sent to was a dummy one.Why didn’t they just take out cash? Pretty stupid to do a wire transfer, even if it’s routed through several accounts.
It didn’t make any sense.None of thismade any sense. It was almost like they were being left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Since Cillian knew howthatstory ended, he wasn’t optimistic about what he’d find at the end of this search. He stood and stretched, trying to decide what the next step was. Even if the account was a shell, the money had to gosomewhere. It was just a matter of tracking where it ended up.
A smell had him turning toward the door. Bacon. He walked out of the study, moving slowly because he could hear Olivia chatting with her daughter. Well, she was chatting. The kid was giving enthusiastic answers that might or might not have been English.
He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and watched Olivia move around the kitchen. She’dfound stuff for pancakes somewhere and had one that looked suspiciously like Mickey Mouse going on the frying pan while another pan cooked bacon. Hadley danced around the kitchen, singing some melody that he might have been able to place if half the words weren’t mumbo jumbo.
The whole picture made his chest ache.
What would it be like if this was my life and every day started like this?
Olivia turned and smiled. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind. We were hungry, and I had the sneaking suspicion that you hadn’t eaten anything.”
He stepped into the kitchen. All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and reacquaint himself with her body, but he was conscious that they weren’t alone. It wasn’t his place to set the limits on their relationship when it came to what went down in front of Hadley. So he stopped a few feet away, willing to take his cues from her. “Is Mickey Mouse for me?”
Hadley tugged on his sweats. “No!”
“That’s right, baby girl, it’s Minnie Mouse.” She gave him a stern look. “Cillian isn’t educated on the finer points of Disney characters, but we’ll get him up to speed, won’t we?”
She turned those inky dark eyes on him, and said in a serious voice as she raised her arms, “Up.”
There was no mistaking that meaning. Hoping like hell that he wasn’t stepping on any toes, he bent down and picked her up. She arranged herself against him and then turned that adorable grin his way. He grinned back. This wasn’t so hard. When he glanced at Olivia, he found her watching him with a strange look on her face. “What?”
“Nothing.” She turned back to the stove and flipped the pancake. “I hope you like your baconborderline burnt.”
“Works for me.” What had he missed? He shot a look at Hadley, but she was busy tracing his tattoo with one chubby finger, a look of concentration on her face. Obviously he’d be getting no epiphanies from that corner. He shifted the kid into a more comfortable position. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing. Not having her underfoot really helps.” There was still something off in her voice, but he didn’t think now was the time to call her on it.
Maybe she was regretting the sex? Or maybe she was worried about her ex and Dmitri?Fuck.He didn’t know how to do this. He’d always gone out of his way to keep things uncomplicated in the past, and Olivia was complicated on more levels than he could count. “Sure.” He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and walked out of the kitchen to meet Mark on the back porch. The man didn’t look like he’d spent the night hoofing it through the woods around the house, but who knew? “Anything?”
“We’re clear.”
“Good.” It didn’t mean that someonewouldn’tfollow them, but so far so good. When he’d checked the perimeter last night, he’d been more than satisfied with how they had things set up. It wasn’t a rock-solid wall between him and Olivia and the rest of the world, but for someone who didn’t know these woods to get past them, it’d be a challenge most enemies wouldn’t be up to. “You and the boys want something to eat?”
“We got it covered. Thanks.” Mark’s gaze went to the toddler on his hip. “It’s not my business—”
“You have an opinion. Let’s hear it.” He already knew what it was about—Olivia. Better to get it out there than to let Mark ponder on it and have the subjectfester. Or, worse, talk about it with the other men and risk some distorted version of the truth getting back home before he had a chance to do damage control.If you told them first, you could spin this however you want.
No. Not yet. He had to talk to her first. He refused to do anything else.
Mark fell into an at-ease position. He’d done a few stints overseas, but when it came time for him to come home to Boston, he’d had a hell of a time adjusting to civilian life. It was Aiden who heard he was having trouble—from Mark’s cousin, Liam—and offered him a job. The O’Malleys weren’t exactly the military, but they sure as hell weren’t civilians, either. It turned out to be a weird limbo that Mark flourished in. The man focused on a spot just over Cillian’s shoulder. “If this woman is someone who might be putting your family in danger, then you should think long and hard about keeping them in the dark.”
Olivia wouldn’t hurt his family. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a danger. It was a distinction he wasn’t comfortable thinking about, but that he’d have to face sooner rather than later. Cillian sighed. “I’ve got it covered.”
“If you say so, sir.”
Hell, Mark had to be really uncomfortable for him to start calling Cilliansir. There had to be something he could say to make this right. He thought hard. “I’m giving you my word, Mark. Nothing I’m doing here is going to hurt the O’Malleys.” He hoped.
“Good.” Something in the man relaxed a little. “In that case, I’m going to go relieve Grant.”
“Just make sure you’re getting enough sleep, too.”
“Sleep is for the dead, Mr. O’Malley.”
Cillian watched him walk away,wondering if he’d just made a promise he had no way of keeping. Coming out here hadn’t gotten them a pass on the danger—only a reprieve. They still had to figure out a solution that would keep Olivia off Dmitri’s radar and prevent a conflict between his family and the Romanovs. With the Sheridans and possibly the Hallorans backing them, they’d most likely win. But “most likely” wasn’t a sure thing, and he already knew too well what war sometimes cost.
He walked back into the house. In the kitchen, Olivia had the Minnie Mouse pancake dismantled and covered in syrup. Whatever had been wrong before was apparently resolved, because she smiled when she saw him. Damn it, he hated that he was about to wipe the joy right off her face. “We’ve got to talk, sweetheart.”
