He considered getting back on his bike and riding away. Away from his family, away from Chicago, away from Jess. But then his phone pinged again.
I have leftover stew and soda bread. Come inside and eat.
He sighed, swinging his leg over the bike and stuffing the keys in his front jeans pocket. He looked around carefully before entering the house, and when he went in, all the lights but the kitchen’s were off.
In the kitchen, Jess was already setting out a plate with dense soda bread on it, and stew was reheating on the stove.
“You want a beer?” she asked casually, not turning to look at him.
“No, I’m good.”
He sat at the kitchen counter, watching her as she moved around the room, stirring the stew, slicing more bread, filling glasses with ice and water. Neither of them spoke.
A few minutes later, she set the food down in front of him and sat on the other stool, a plate in front of her as well.
“You cook this for your dad?” he asked, knowing she often took dinners over so old Sean wouldn’t starve on his own.
“Yeah, I gave the rest to him, but it was my grandma’s original recipe, not the one I usually cook, so I wanted to keep a bit for myself, see what I think of it.”
He nodded and lifted his water glass. “Looks good,” he said. “Sláinte.”
“Sláinte,” she repeated, gently bumping her own glass against his.
The beef was tender, and the potatoes were buttery. Connor ate thinking it might be nearly as good as his mother’s traditional stew. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he took the first few bites, but then he shoveled it in until he’d finished every last drop and also plowed through three thick slices of bread. As he pushed the plate away and sighed, he looked up to find Jess watching him.
“What are you doing here, Connor?” she asked.
Her black eye was healing well, the bruising now yellow and green rather than red and purple. The cast on her wrist had been replaced with a lighter Aircast that she could remove when she needed, and he knew in another couple of weeks, he wouldn’t be able to see she’d been hurt at all.
But he’d know it anyway. He didn’t need to see her bruised and battered to feel the shock and pain of it all over again. It was indelibly etched in his mind, burned into his memory, seared into his soul.
“I had to make sure you’re okay. I worry about you—I can’t stop worrying about you.”
She stood from her stool and took his hand, leading him to the living room sofa. After they sat, she spoke slowly, carefully. “I worry about you too.”
He ignored her words. “I know you’d worry about your dad, but I think—” He paused, his chest tight with pain. “I think you should go—leave town, start over again somewhere else.”
Her eyes were sad as she gazed at him. “Is that what you want?”
He stood and walked to the window, peering out between the curtains, checking the surroundings, looking for unusual cars or people hiding in the shadows like he’d been doing an hour earlier.
“I want you to be safe, Jess, and I’m not sure you ever can be here again.”
“I thought he can’t come back—you handled that…”
He spun, eyes blazing with emotion. “Yeah, Jess, I did. I handled that—permanently. But you think he’s the only one? You think there won’t be ten others just like him over the next ten years? I’ll never be safe. No one who’s around me will ever be safe. It’s always going to be like this, and I think—” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I think that’s finally sinking in.” He sighed, his whole body sagging in defeat. “I’ll never be safe. You’ll never be safe.”
Connor reached the sofa in two strides and knelt in front of her, his hands on her knees, pleading with her, desperate for her to understand how badly he needed her to be safe and happy even if it wasn’t possible to be that with him.
“Unless you leave,” he finished. “If you go somewhere else, disappear, start fresh away from me, away from my family and this neighborhood.”
She started to answer, but he put a finger against her soft pink lips. “I’ll take care of your dad. I’ll make sure he has what he needs, hire a bookkeeper for the gym, pay off the debts. You know I’d never let anything happen to him. And he’ll be happy as long as you’re happy. It’s the truth.”
She grabbed the finger he held against her mouth and wrapped her fist around it before planting a tiny kiss on the tip.
“Then come with me,” she whispered.
He stared at her, disbelief washing over him.
“What?”
She released his hand and looked him in the eye, solid, strong, determined. Maybe this Jess had been there all along and Connor was too self-absorbed to see her.
“Come with me. Tell your family you don’t want to do it anymore, and we’ll leave. We don’t need their money or their help. I’ve got a little money saved up—enough for a couple of months’ rent. We can get jobs, an apartment, be normal. Make friends, go to the movies, sleep on futons until we can afford a real bed. We can be like everyone else, Connor. Just come with me.”
Connor stared at her, his heart racing, throat dry. Leave? Just leave? The thought had never crossed his mind—until last week. Until the night he’d held a gun in his hand and watched Alejandro Vasquez lying in a pool of blood. In that moment, he’d thought maybe it was inevitable. Maybe if you stayed in this life—the life of the MacFarlanes—it was only a matter of time until you faced a kill-or-be-killed moment. A slice of time where it seemed the only way to protect the people you loved was to take someone else’s loved one away.
“I can’t—”
“You can,” she said, firmly.
“My dad would never allow it,” he murmured.
She let her fingers drift through his hair where he kneeled in front of her. “But Cian would. Cian would let you go. He’d even help us, I know it.”
“I shouldn’t be here, Jess. I shouldn’t be risking someone seeing us together. I shouldn’t be stringing you along. I should let you go, make you leave.”
“And I shouldn’t be letting you in. I should be furious with you, or scared of you, or at least smart enough to stay away from you.”
They gazed at one another, a thousand words passing between them in silence.
“If I went, you would come?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“God, Jess.” He reached up and ran a finger down a silky strand of hair, slow and easy. “Do you know how much I love you? I don’t think I realized until I saw you in that hospital bed.”
He moved onto the sofa next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close. “Where would we go?” he asked, settling in with her soft curves against him.
“Someplace warm,” she murmured. “Florida or California.”
“How about Hawaii?” he asked.
“The farther, the better.”
“Yeah,” Connor agreed, “it’s going to have to be very far away.”
Chapter 17
Xavier watched the screen in front of him as Liam MacFarlane lounged on the sofa in his bachelor pad. So far, his surveillance of Liam had proven the second MacFarlane brother to be a complete bore. He worked on his giant muscles, screwed a different floozy every couple of days, and watched a shit ton of MMA on TV.
A message flashed in the top corner of his screen, and he clicked on it. The oldest MacFarlane brother was online, so Xavier clicked over to see what he was up to.
He sat up straighter, pressing several keys until his screen showed what he wanted it to. Cian’s laptop was transferring a file to an encrypted server.
“Bingo,” Xavier murmured as he intercepted the file and downloaded it to his own machine. The moment the transfer was complete, the file disappeared off Cian’s drive. He flipped on the camera that allowed him to see Cian. The stylish mobster was texting someone on a cheap burner phone. When he was done, he removed the SIM card and destroyed it bef
ore tossing the phone in the trash.
Xavier opened the file he’d stolen. It contained photos, a timeline, and spreadsheets. It didn’t take him long to see that the spreadsheets were mirror images of each other except for the dollar amounts on them. Money appeared between one and the next, money that was undoubtedly being laundered.
“You’ve obviously struck a deal with our friends,” Xavier muttered to himself. “But are you tossing your own family to the wolves?”
He had a hard time believing that, but really, it didn’t matter for his purposes. He needed capital, and Cian was handing it to him on a silver platter.
He watched as Cian sat back in his desk chair, staring at the computer screen with a look of exhaustion. A few seconds later, he stood and walked to his door. Xavier couldn’t see who was there, but Cian followed them out, leaving the computer camera focused on an empty room.
He tapped a pencil on his desk for a moment. He was getting closer. He could feel it. And when he had the last piece, he’d make sure the MacFarlanes gave him exactly what he needed. If Cian was lost in the cross fire, he didn’t much care. Liam was next in line, and he’d be a lot easier to manage than his older brother. Xavier clicked back to the image of Liam in his living room. He had his shirt off and was still sprawled on the sofa, his oversized muscles and tattoos dominating the space. Yes, Liam was a thickheaded moron. Xavier relished the idea of leaving the MacFarlane business in his hands. Cian be damned.
Lila’s fingers flew across the keyboard as page after page opened, layering her screen with billions of bytes of information.
She flipped between pages, closing one out as quickly as she opened another, her mind sifting through, eliminating one thing as rapidly as it saved another to dig into later. Drilling down to the true Xavier wasn’t easy, but Lila had a growing burn deep in her gut that told her it had to be done.
It was odd that she’d worked for the man for so many years and never thought twice about him or his motivations. She’d thought she knew him—your above-average outlaw hacker. She’d been around guys like him since she was a teenager. But his obsession with Cian, the way he’d been acting since they started working with the MacFarlanes—something about that wasn’t like anything she’d known from him or guys like him before. Lila’s sixth sense was ringing like a doorbell, and she needed to let the information in.
If she were being honest with herself, it was scary. These men were all scary, and while she’d always thought she was tough because of her father’s underworld associations, she was rapidly learning there was an entire criminal element that went way beyond anything she knew. If she had any sense, she’d keep her head down and ignore all of it. But there was something else there, something beyond her innate curiosity, and it was hard to admit.
She liked Cian MacFarlane. Not just in the obvious he’s-sexy-as-hell way, but in a genuine, he’s-a-good-guy way. Which he wasn’t. Yet, her gut kept saying it anyway. It didn’t make any sense. It was at odds with everything common sense told her, but regardless, she liked Cian MacFarlane. A lot.
And because of that, she couldn’t allow Xavier’s odd behavior to go unchecked. She had to know if he was a threat to Cian.
When her phone buzzed, she barely glanced at it, but then stopped when she saw Cian’s name flash. Speak of the devil.
She closed out of the page she had just opened, minimized several others, then picked up the phone, reading the text he’d sent.
Do you have time for another special assignment? I could use your help.
She sighed, her gaze darting to the computer screen and back to the phone.
Finally, she answered. When do you need this?
As soon as possible.
She looked at the computer monitor one more time, then hit a key that cancelled all the pages that were open, killing them one by one until there was nothing left but her screen saver—an anime kitten that reached out as if it was going to touch you with its paw over and over again.
Meet me at the Starbucks, she typed into the phone. Then she grabbed her tablet and bag and went to see the mobster she couldn’t seem to shake.
“Mr. MacFarlane has a table in the back,” Danny said as he met Lila at the door.
“How’s that new app I made you?” Lila asked as she smiled at him.
“It’s really great,” he replied, ushering her through the crowded coffee shop. “It works exactly like I wanted. Tracks all my steps and the money I spend in one place. You should sell it. You’d make a ton.”
She grinned. “You know, I just don’t want to spend the time, but if I ever did, I’d name it the Danny app and use a caricature of your face as the avatar.”
They were both laughing as they reached Cian’s table, and he stood to greet them, looking at Danny with tension showing in the lines around his mouth.
“Is Louis at the back?” Cian asked, gesturing to the other chair so Lila could sit down.
“Yes, sir,” Danny answered, sobering immediately when he saw Cian’s expression.
“Good. I’ll text when I’m ready to go.”
Danny nodded to Cian and gave Lila a quick wink before he made his way back to the front of the restaurant.
Cian sat and leaned back in his chair, giving Lila the once-over. She pretended to ignore him as she took off her jacket and opened her bag to remove the tablet.
“I didn’t realize you and Danny were such good friends,” he said slowly.
She glanced at him as he stared her down from across the tiny table, a shiver running through her from head to toe.
“I created a little app for him. He was complaining about having to use several different ones to get everything he needed, so I made him one with all the features he wanted combined.”
Cian blinked at her. “You can do that?”
Her brow wrinkled. She’d hacked the FBI for him and he was impressed with an app? Poor man, she thought. He had no clue about technology.
“Yeah, I can do a lot of stuff.”
“I bet you can,” he murmured as he took a sip of his coffee.
“Why did you call me here?” she asked, trying to ignore the way his remark made her feel. “Because I know it wasn’t to talk about my three-day-long friendship with Danny.”
Cian cleared his throat and sat forward. His blue eyes bore into hers, and she blinked back, trying to keep her mind focused on the job he was going to give her.
“I need more information, and it has to stay between us again.”
She nodded and waited. It was one of her most useful qualities, the ability to wait people out.
A barista called out a drink order, and she realized she hadn’t gotten anything to drink, and unlike all the other times they’d met here, Cian hadn’t offered her anything. He was either very distracted, or…something. She didn’t know what, but it made her feel gloomy.
“I need you to look for information on my father,” he said quietly.
“What kind of information?”
He glanced around, his long finger absentmindedly circling the tabletop. “Everything. Anything. Financial records, the records of his arrest three years ago, the case the FBI was building against him, who he talks to every day, where he goes, what he spends.”
Her heart beat a few times extra. As much as she tried to ignore her client’s dealings and motivations, there could be only one reason for this line of questioning—he was planning a coup. Taking the organization away from his father. And what would happen to the old man after that? Would Cian have him killed? Was he capable of that? Did she want him to be? Did she want him not to be?
“Is there something in particular you’re hoping to find?” she asked, her jaw tight.
He shook his head slightly. “You don’t need to worry about that. Just hand it all over to me, and I’ll sift through it.”
She nodded, suddenly more frightened by what he’d just asked her to do than anything else he’d requested to this point.
“Will the bonus I paid for the last job be ade
quate? Don’t hesitate to ask for more.”
“No. That was more than generous,” she said. She’d taken a delivery of ten thousand in cash the morning after she hacked the FBI.
“How soon can you get this done?”
“It probably won’t be hard, but there will be a lot of places to get into. It’ll take time.”
He nodded sharply. “Okay, I’ll check in with you in a few days, then.”
He went quiet, scanning the store with a thoroughness that spoke to how often he did it. She realized he was nearly always on alert, looking at his surroundings, keeping his back to walls, watching the door to any room, his body language relaxed but also ready to move at any moment.
She couldn’t say what possessed her to do it, but she suddenly reached across the table, putting her hand on his and twining their fingers together.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice rougher than normal.
His blue eyes looked at her from under the shock of dark hair that always fell over his brow. He idly rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “I will be,” he said. “Thank you for asking.” Then he was standing and picking up his coffee cup. He looked down at her expectantly.
“I think I’m going to stay here and do some work,” she told him, feeling slightly rebuffed by his cool response.
“I’ll leave Danny here. He’ll walk you to your car. It’s going to be dark soon.”
“You really don’t need—”
“Lila. Danny’s staying.”
She nodded.
He watched her for another moment, then gave his head a small shake before walking away. As he left, Lila’s sense of foreboding grew. Cian might think he needed information about his father, but Lila’s gut told her he needed information on Xavier more, so she decided to start with that. But first, she ordered two cups of coffee, one for her and one for Danny. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 18
Robbie MacFarlane sat at the massive desk in his home office and considered his life. For the most part, he was pleased. He’d risen higher and achieved more than he’d ever dreamed was possible.
Breath of Deceit (Dublin Devils Book 1) Page 16
