Page 24 of Beautiful Sinners

He gets four perplexed looks.

“My son.”

The irony isn’t lost on me. I actually do know the son of a don, or whatever the hell Cillian calls himself in Ireland. Don sounds too Italian. I’ll have to look it up.

Hoping to be subtle, I compare Evan and his father. Evan looks nothing like Cillian. Evan’s hair is jet black not red. In a way, if I squint a little, Evan kind of resembles Constantine.

“Congratulations,” Tristan replies dryly. “Now, where’s my sister?”

Serving himself slices of roast beef from a serving plate, Cillian glances up. “Who said I know where Alana is? I only said she was safe.”

“Her name isDierdre, and don’t play me for stupid.”

He waves his fork in my direction. “You gonna eat, lass?”

What the hell. He seems to want to draw out this bizarre conversation, and I’m starving.

“Can you pass me whatever that is?” I tell Constantine. I don’t care what it is. Food is food right now to my empty stomach.

He takes over and dishes out what looks like corned beef hash, a non-traditional dish that isn’t really Irish. It’s a bastardized Irish American dish, but something Alana and I would make every St. Patrick’s Day. As soon as the steam wafts up from my plate and hits my nose, I voraciously dig in—and groan like a food whore when the flavor hits my palette. Holy shit, this is good.

My fork stops midway to my mouth with my next bite when Hendrix’s cock hardens under my ass, and he teases a hand down between my legs.

He’s not seriously going to—

I suck in air and almost aspirate my food when he presses a finger into me through the cotton of the sweatpants. I catch the moan that almost—embarrassingly—comes out that has nothing to do with how good the food tastes. Fighting the urge to open my legs wider, I clench my thighs together as hard as I can, trapping his hand from wandering any farther, and feel his warm breath on my shoulder when he quietly chuckles.

“Safe and sound, just like I said. She’s with friends in Texas.”

It takes me a second to get that Cillian is replying to Tristan’s earlier comment.

“Who?” Tristan demands, not touching the plate Constantine pushes in front of him.

Cillian’s green eyes sparkle with some inside joke only he gets. “Declan Levine. He owed me a favor.”

As if the name Declan Levine was a physical blow to the chest, Tristan crashes back into his chair. It rocks precariously on its two hind legs before righting, and Tristan erupts.

“You put my sister in the middle of a mob war, and you claim she’s safe!”

Evan finally speaks up. “There is no war. Keane Agosti runs things now with his wife, Alexan—”

He cuts Evan off. “I fucking know who they are. I also know how they came into power, and how much blood was shed to do it.”

Cillian wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin. “Like I said. She’s safe.”

Something dawns on me and sours the food I’d just eaten. “Howdo you know Alana? And how did you know what was going to happen at Hendrix’s house?”

A brash grin slowly grows and spreads across Cillian’s face. “I know a lot of things, lass.”

“This is bullshit!” Done with diplomacy, Tristan angrily shoves back from the table, hauls me off Hendrix’s lap, and takes my hand in an iron grip. “We’re leaving.”

“Ye are correct, young Amato. Ye are leaving. A private plane is waiting to take ye to yer sister. Now, sit yer ass down, shut the feck up, and eat the food my cook worked hours to prepare. Your last name carries no weight here, so don’t think for one second yer blustering will do anything other than make you look like a child throwing a temper tantrum.” Cillian’s shrewd verdant eyes land on me, and he switches accents again. “And I know Alana because I’ve been protecting her for the last ten years. Just like I’ve been protecting you…Aoife.”

A bolt of jagged white lightning strikes me from out of the blue when what he doesn’t come right out and say rings loudly in my ears.

“It wasyou?” I whisper.

The way his steady gaze bores into me tells me I’m right.

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