Liam stood and pulled his ball cap off, running a hand over hair that was longer than he usually kept it.
As he walked to him, Cian put his hand out and mussed that hair. "What the hell, man? Katya refuse to let you cut this shit?"
Liam stood like a big stocky dog letting Cian ruffle his fur. "Gotta’ give her something to hold on to, if you know what I mean," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. Cian laughed, and felt pressure and pain leave his body at the same time.
Then both men sobered as they took seats on the rickety sofa, turning to face one another.
"You shouldn’t have taken the risk," Cian said. "I told you not to come."
Liam brushed the concerns aside. "The Russians are busy licking their wounds and hiding from the Feds. They aren’t going to be looking for me very hard right now, and you and Finn need me."
"So does Katya," Cian said softly.
Liam swallowed thickly, his brows drawing down over his steely blue eyes. "She’s safe. I trust the people you hired. And I’ll get back to her as fast as I can."
"I’m not sure you can do anything here," Cian added, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Once you gave me Riley’s name, I was able to track down the cell he’s using here in town—Pop gave the number to Marty—and I saw her. On camera. He set it up because he is a psychopath. And now he’s given me five days…" He couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too horrifying. He simply let the words hang there in the midst of the nearly dark room between he and Liam, like so many things hung between them now—time, geography, love, family.
"What does he want? Money?" Liam asked, his voice softer than usual.
"The organization," Cian answered.
"Son of a bitch."
Then Cian looked his brother in the eyes and got more honest with him than he had in years. "I could give a shit about the Devils at this point."
Liam’s jaw went hard, but he didn’t say anything else.
Cian stood and began pacing the small room. "I never asked for this life—none of us did—but I know we’re not suited for much else. Maybe I’ll always be a criminal, or maybe I’ll find myself an island like yours. Either way, the truth is, I would never trade Lila’s life for this pile of shit Pop built on Uncle Dylan’s blood.”
Liam’s expression turned from hard to grim at the mention of the man their father had used to run roughshod over his sons. Only Cian and Liam knew the truth of that night, and they’d each spent years trying to find a way to dig out from under the weight of it.
"But," Cian continued, "I will also never cater to psychopaths and extortionists. This crazy fucker thinks he can take the woman I love, torture her, and walk away with his life? It’ll never happen."
Cian stopped his restless pacing and faced Liam. "I’m fully prepared to give up the Devils, but it won’t be because Michael Riley is taking over."
"We need to find her," Liam said matter-of-factly.
"We need to find her first, then we can set my plans for Finn in motion."
Cian walked to the kitchen and reached into a cabinet over the stove to pull down a bottle of cheap whiskey. He poured two glasses half-full then returned to the living room, handing one to Liam as he took a healthy swig from the other.
"The timing on this is everything," Cian warned.
"If we’re helping Finn last, we need to be in touch with him before then," Liam answered decisively.
Cian huffed a breath in disdain. "Good luck with that. The Feds have him buttoned down so tight it’s impossible to get to him. The only recourse is to send a message through the attorney, but of course they thought of that immediately. They have Maguire under surveillance, too. I haven’t wanted to risk it. Once I know I’ve found Lila, I can take care of Finn. But I can’t risk the Feds or CPD catching me before I find her."
Liam shifted, kicking up a big booted foot onto the flimsy coffee table.
"I’ve already started checking things out." He smirked.
"What the hell did you do?" Cian felt a headache coming on. Liam wasn’t like their youngest brother, Connor, who’d been a true youngest child, taking risks right and left with no thought to the consequences. Connor figured someone older would always bail him out—and in all fairness, they had. Liam wasn’t reckless, but he was fearless, and didn’t have a great deal of regard for his own safety when it came to protecting his brothers.
"I paid a little visit to Finn’s building. You know, you can learn a lot by hanging out around the place they have your brother under house arrest."
Cian scowled at him. "You can also risk having the Feds that are swarming the place recognize you and put you in prison for the rest of your life. Do you have any idea what it took for me to get you out of here and safe on that island?"
Liam had the grace to look chagrined. "I do, but you have to know I'm too good for them to catch me."
Cian sighed. "What did you learn on this supposedly safe reconnaissance you conducted?"
"I discovered there’s a certain CPD detective hanging around."
"Yeah, there are Feds and CPD there twenty-four seven. I don’t think you needed to visit to discover that. He is under house arrest."
Cian waited for more. He was simply too exhausted to add much to the discussion.
"The detective I ran into is a very pretty female—"
"The one the lawyer says Finn was flirting with when he was arrested?”
"The same. She must be staking out his building because she followed me into the basement where I was checking out the mechanical system for the building."
"Dammit. What happened to no one seeing you?" Cian’s blood pressure spiked. His brothers were going to be the death of him. Why the hell couldn’t Liam have just stayed gone and safe where Cian had stashed him?
"She’s tenacious. But I handled her."
"Do I want to know how?"
"Let’s just say she’ll be no worse for the wear once she wakes up."
"Christ." Cian sighed and rested his aching head in his hands.
"I asked around in an anonymous way. She’s investigating Danny’s death," Liam said. "The Feds have cut CPD out of anything to do with the family or the other charges. My guess is she’s not technically after Finn, she just thinks he’s the best bet to find you and me."
"Right. Which is why contacting him shouldn't be on our laundry list. Like I said, I have a plan to protect him. It doesn’t require contacting him. It’s Lila I need to focus on."
Liam looked at Cian for a moment. "I’ve never seen you like this," he said softly. "You really love her."
Cian swallowed, his headache throbbing so hard it made him nauseous. "What does that mean?"
"You sound…desperate. I’ve never seen you desperate. Or lost. Or confused. You’re the single smartest strategist I’ve ever known. You’ve never let anything stop you from what you want. Not police, not competitors, not Pop.”
"Maybe I’m not as smart as you thought I was," Cian said dully, honestly not caring what Liam thought about him anymore. He just needed to find Lila, make sure she was safe and then trade himself to the Feds for Finn’s release. Then he could finally rest.
God, he wanted to rest.
But he couldn’t tell Liam he intended to give himself up for Finn, Liam would never allow it. Therefore, Liam was going to continue to worry at the Finn issue like a dog with a bone.
"But if you have trusted my strategies all these years, then you need to trust that I have a plan for Finn, and right now he’s not in any danger—other than dying of boredom."
Liam scowled. "He needs to know we haven’t abandoned him."
"Do you really think after a lifetime of loyalty, Finn will believe we’ve up and forgotten him?"
Liam shook his head. "Maybe I need to hear he’s okay, then."
Cian sighed again. "Fine. Explain your plan, then help me figure out how we get Lila."
Liam just grinned. "I think I know who we can use to contact him."
Cian listened and realized
that, while Liam’s plan wasn’t perfect, it was possible, and Cian had the key to make it work. It was a complication, it was a detour in the road to finding Lila, but if they acted fast, they could execute it and keep moving.
And moving was all Cian could do. He only hoped he was moving toward Lila and not away from her.
Chapter 7
In another part of the city, Finn watched the raindrops splatter against his living room windows. The colored lights of the city at night were a blur behind the watery windows. Reds, greens, blinking, flashing, moving along the wet streets.
Across the street from him, another apartment building showed little squares of lights, places where people like him were moving about their evenings, eating dinner, watching movies, putting children to bed. Except, they weren’t like him, not really. They weren’t the son of a mafia boss, they weren’t under house arrest, they weren’t about to spend the remainder of their lives in prison.
He rested his forehead against the cool glass and closed his eyes. He knew Cian was out there somewhere. He could feel it in his very bones. And he knew that as long as Cian had breath in him, he’d do anything he could to keep Finn alive and out of prison. But really, Finn thought, what was the point? Because what kind of a life could he ever have?
For over twenty years, Finn MacFarlane had known he would end up here—alone, in custody, without a future. He’d known it when he was only a child of eight or ten and he watched his father’s men change shifts, his gaze following them as they walked around the family’s fenced and gated property with guns and walkie talkies. He’d known it when he was a young teen sitting silently behind his bedroom door as he listened to his oldest brother sob while his next oldest brother kept saying, "It’s not your fault, it’s Pop’s. Uncle Dylan didn’t blame you. No one blames you."
He’d known it the day his baby brother had stood in Cian’s office, looked them in the eyes, and said, "I’m leaving, I want out." Since they were in high school, Connor had always been the one who led the most normal life. He’d started dating Jess as a teenager, he’d played football, gone to prom, been popular. Finn had always known it was Connor who would get out.
Connor had the world, and Cian and Liam had each other. It was Finn who’d been the loner. Connor fit with all the things that were normal, while Liam and Cian fit with all things criminal. The three of them had their places, whether they wanted them or not. But Finn? Finn was the transition point, the kid who got too much of Robbie’s notice to be good at normal, but not enough of his influence to be good at criminal.
Finn would lie awake in bed at night sometimes and wonder how he could be more one way or the other. A better mobster…or a better human. But the answers never came, and his brothers needed him, so he did what had to be done, whether that was cleaning up a murder or meeting with distributors about guns or drugs or territory. In lieu of a plan for his future, he’d chosen to be the best helper to his brothers that he could be.
He sighed as he heard the door to his condo open. Jesus, they didn’t even have the decency to knock. Of all the things that could bother him right now, that was the smallest, yet the most significant. He kept his head resting against the glass, not interested in going to the trouble to banter with whichever agent had been selected to play bad cop or good cop tonight.
Then he opened his eyes and looked at the reflection in the glass. It wasn’t one of the Feds. It was her.
He slowly straightened and turned to see her standing in the middle of the room, staring at him with a strange expression.
"Yeah?" he growled, wishing she didn’t look so tough and so delicate all at the same time.
Her expression shuttered and she put her hands in the pockets of her trench coat. "I want to talk to you about Cian."
"I thought we covered that the other six times you’ve been here. I don’t know where he is." Finn leaned his back against the window and crossed his arms over the black t-shirt he’d donned earlier with track pants to practice his martial arts.
Detective Watson’s cheeks colored slightly. Finn’s gaze narrowed as his breath tightened, and the energy in the room became palpable. Of all the fucked-up times to get turned on by a woman. He couldn’t have chosen worse if he’d tried, but for whatever reason, she apparently did it for him. And he hated that. Pretty much hated her, even as he wanted to strip her out of her fucking detective clothes and toss her onto his kitchen table, ass in the air.
"I have some new information. It might change your mind about talking to me about your brother."
He huffed out a breath of disbelief. "You have any siblings, Detective?"
She glared at him. "That’s none of your business."
"Sweetheart, if I was going to use your family to threaten you, I wouldn’t ask if you had siblings. That’s not how it works."
He watched her jaw flex in frustration, her eyes sparking. "Fine. No, I don’t have any siblings."
"And that’s why you don’t understand what I’m telling you. I get it." He pushed off the wall of windows and stalked closer to her. She held her ground, but he saw her fingers twitch toward her waist. Belt holster, then. Under the trench coat.
He stopped an arm’s length from her. Close enough to see her pupils flare. Close enough that he could disarm her and break her neck before she had time to shout for help. But Finn had never killed anyone. Never even shot anyone. He knew how, but he’d never found the need, nor the desire. But Detective Keira Watson didn’t know that. She was a brave woman.
"I see why you don’t understand what I’m telling you, but you need to absorb this—it doesn’t matter if Cian slaughtered a thousand innocents or has a warehouse full of starving puppies. I will not sell him out. Never. No matter what."
He watched as her chest heaved with each breath, and her long, silky throat moved as she swallowed.
When she spoke again, her voice was rough and quiet. "What if he’s been informing to the Feds?"
Finn blinked, his brain taking puzzle pieces and shifting them around on a flat plane as he tried to see the picture it was forming. It could be a total lie, but he honestly didn’t think Detective Watson was skilled enough to pull that off. She believed this information, whether it was accurate or not.
And a part of him believed it, too. But his faith in Cian was unshakeable. If he was dealing with the Feds, there was a reason for it.
"I imagine my brother would do all kinds of things he finds distasteful in order to get me out," he finally answered.
She shook her head obstinately. "No, not in the last week, Finn. For the last several years. Cian’s been selling out your family for a long time now. He’s been a Federal informant this whole time. He doesn’t care about what happens to you. You may be here because of him. He said it was your dad who told the cops where you were, but how do you know that? Maybe he was the one who turned you and Liam in that day you were arrested."
Finn’s gut clenched at the reminder of what his father had done to them. And it had been his father, of that he had no doubt. It was classic Robbie MacFarlane—have him and Liam arrested because they weren’t toeing the line. Then use them to control Cian, get the business back under his thumb.
"Maybe he was." Finn began to slowly circle the detective. She stood stock still, as if she could sense his mood wasn’t his usual. The normal was in short supply tonight. The mobster roaring to be free. He walked around her back, his hands aching to strip the damn coat from her shoulders so he could see her form beneath. "Maybe he’s been selling us out for years. Or maybe he’s been keeping us out of prison for years. Maybe he’s going to find a way to keep me safe now. Or maybe he’s lying dead at the bottom of the lake."
He stopped, leaning in until he felt her hair against his cheek. His words were whispered in her ear and he heard her gasp as his hot breath touched delicate skin. "I don’t give a fuck."
Continuing his pacing, he worked his way back to face her. She gazed at him with a mixture of desire and hatred that nearly undid him.
"You don’t care if Cian’s out there somewhere dead?" Her voice was still husky with want even as her eyes glared lasers of spite at him.
"There’s nothing I can do about it if he is." He kept his gaze hard, the way he’d learned to do when his father called him into the study because Finn had been too restrained for Robbie’s liking. Robbie loved to teach Finn about the penalty for being restrained. His skin itched at the memory. Belts and fists. Finn knew a lot about belts and fists.
His brothers never understood why he’d chosen martial arts over boxing, but he did it because he wanted more control at his disposal. He wanted the ability to use restraint if he so chose, and he remembered Robbie every time he made that choice. Martial arts focused on restraint and finesse, two things Robbie disdained. Finn was all about anything Robbie disdained.
"That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t care," she responded softly.
His heart pinched painfully, and suddenly he needed her gone. Needed her soft brown curls and plump lips and hard as nails gray eyes out of his condo, out of his life.
He moved faster than the blink of an eye, grabbing her arm on the side with the gun holster and wrapping it behind her back at the same time he pulled her against him. He caught her free arm and held it down by their sides where she couldn’t do anything with it. As she began to struggle, he pulled up on the arm behind her back—not enough to hurt her, just enough to warn.
"You need to stop coming here and trying to get me to betray my brothers," he growled.
Instead of seeing fear in her eyes, though, he saw defiance. "I won’t stop until I get the answers I need. I think your brother killed Danny O’Reilly, and it’s my job to put him in prison for it. You know things you’re not telling me that could help find him. If you want me to stop asking you questions, there are only two options—tell me what I need to know or kill me. Which will it be, Finn?"
Touch of Dark: Dublin Devils 3 Page 5
