Page 10 of Twisted Secrets
Benji didn’t blink. “I like you, Cillian—you’re a good kid for the most part—but trouble follows you around like stink on a pig. She doesn’t need any more trouble in her life.”
Which meant she already had some sort of trouble. Benji might play at the fun, lovable oaf, but he obviously knew more than he was saying—kind of like how he was on the O’Malley payroll and never mentionedit. Not high up, but there all the same. Cillian had found his name on the roster last week when he was going over the family finances, though he hadn’t put much thought into it before now. Seventy-five percent of the business owners in their territory paid to one degree or another for various things—protection, favors, random shit that he was still having a hell of a time decoding. He’d spent the last six months with the old moneyman, Bartholomew, learning the various tricks of the trade—the kind of stuff you couldn’t pick up in college. Now Cillian was officially handling the family’s money; it was his job to keep track of that sort of thing as well as the investments that kept them flush.
But for Benji, the O’Malleys paid out.
He sat back. He was going to have to think about that. He could ask Benji, but he had a feeling the man wouldn’t tell him anything useful. No, the answers would be found in the ledgers that were now Cillian’s responsibility. All the O’Malleys’ dirty little secrets were there, secreted in Bartholomew’s code. He had the key. He just needed to buckle down and do the work to find the information he wanted.
The puzzle almost—almost—distracted him from the conversation. “I’m not looking to bring her trouble.” That was the last thing he wanted. Too many people had already been hurt because of him. He couldn’t stand it if anyone else bore the weight of his shitty decisions.
“You weren’t looking to bring trouble to that brother of yours, either.”
The words lashed him, leaving a blistering pain in their wake. No, he hadn’t meant to bring trouble to Devlin. He’d thought it was an excuse to let loose a little with his brothers the way they used to, and he’d drank too much—as was his usual back then. Cillian gripped the baras the room swayed around him.No. I’m not doing this shit tonight. The steel band around his chest tightened, making it damn difficult to draw a full breath. “Low blow, Benji.”
The bartender held up his hands. “I’m sorry to bring it up, but I need you to understand this girl isn’t for you. I don’t know how else to make this clear to you.”
A perverse part of him wanted to push just for the sake of pushing, but that wasn’t the man Cillian was anymore. He released the bar and stood, wavering only slightly on his feet. “I got it. Loud and clear.” It didn’t mean he’d listen, but he wasn’t going to start a conflict about it right now. He downed the rest of his juice and set cash on the bar next to the empty glass—enough to pay for the drink and a tip that was exactly thirty percent.
He pushed to his feet and strode over to where Olivia had just dropped off a set of drinks to the couple who looked half a second away from sneaking off to some dark corner and banging their brains out. He envied them, just a little. Their lives weren’t shadowed by past traumas. All they cared about was the here and now and each other.
He focused on Olivia. “I’m sorry.”
She stopped short. “What?”
“I was out of line, and I’m sorry. I haven’t exactly been at my best lately.”Latelybeing the last fucking year, with no signs of it getting better in the future.
She pressed her lips together, considering him. In their limited interactions, he’d noticed that she flipped between mouthing off and looking at him like she was half-sure he’d transform into a monster when she wasn’t paying attention. Which one was the real Olivia? The cautious woman or the snarly spitfire? He wanted to know, even though he’d already promised himself he’dleave her alone.
Finally she propped her tray on her hip. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah, well, you made your position pretty clear, and I still came here tonight looking to change your mind. It was kind of a dick move, and for that I’m sorry.”
“I see.” But her tone said she still wasn’t sure what to think of him.
He should leave it at that and walk away. But the old Cillian, the part he couldn’t quite banish and wasn’t sure if he even wanted to, piped up. “Don’t get me wrong, the offer’s still on the table if you change your mind. I’d love to spend a solid week making you scream my name while you come around my cock. Or a single night. Or somewhere in between. Your call. But I won’t bring it up again.”
Her dark eyes went a little hazy. “You’re bringing it up right now.”
“To make sure we’re on the same page. I want you. You want me, too. You’ve got your reasons for not taking what I’ve offered, and I respect that.” Or at least he was doing his damnedest to respect that. He shrugged, trying to work out some of the tension in his shoulders. “But if you change your mind, I’m all over it.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.” She didn’t sound sure, though.
If he didn’t miss his mark, Olivia would spend the rest of tonight thinking about the possibility of them fucking until they forgot their own names.Good. He permitted himself a grin. “I’ll see you around, sweetheart.” When he hit the street, even with the sticky heat of the July night trying to cling to him, he had the urge to whistle for the first time in too long.
Chapter Four
Sloan O’Malley held her phone, staring at the caller ID while it rang. There was no name next to the number, but there didn’t have to be. She knew who it was.Carrigan. Her thumb hovered over the end call button, but she couldn’t do that any more than she could answer it. Some days she wished she could see things as black and white as her father did. To him, Carrigan had betrayed the family by dodging her forced marriage to Dmitri Romanov and falling in love with James Halloran instead. She did the most unforgivable thing of all—daring to choose a man over her family. To Seamus O’Malley, Carrigan was dead and gone the second she walked out the door. He’d done what passed for mourning for a few days, and then to all appearances, it was business as usual.
Though he hadn’t mentioned marriage where Sloan was concerned.
Six months of waiting for the sword tofall—would she have to take Carrigan’s place to secure an alliance with the Romanovs?—and Sloan was just plain exhausted. But her father hadn’t even breathed the wordmarriage, to Dmitri or otherwise, and she suspected she had Carrigan to thank for the reprieve.
Sloan set her phone aside, where it finally stopped ringing, and sent her sister to voice mail. They hadn’t talked since she’d walked out of the house, leaving the rest of them to fend for themselves while she pursued her happiness. Sloan was a terrible person for judging her for that, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Maybe if Carrigan’s happiness had been tied up in anyone other than a Halloran it would have been easier to stomach.Maybe.
She still didn’t understand. There were millions of men out there in the world, none of which was responsible—directly or otherwise—for the death of Devlin. Why couldn’t her sister have fallen in love with one of them? That, at least, would be understandable.
Sloan left her phone on her dresser and slipped on her shoes. She had to get out of this house, which had started to feel a whole lot like a tomb. Her siblings were dropping off, one by one. Even those who hadn’t left felt like they had a foot out the door.They’re all going to leave me. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it will happen.
Cillian didn’t chafe at the bit of familial responsibility, but he was half the man he used to be. Their father saw it as his growing up, but Sloan knew better. Part of the thing inside him that had been so vital and full of life was withered and dead. How long before the rest of him followed suit?
