Sinfully Yours, Sir

by Laylah Roberts

  “Want a drink, a mhuirnín?” Dylan asked.

  Tilly cleared her throat. “No, thanks,” she said. Her stomach was tied in knots.

  After Rogan had poured the drinks, they all sat. Tilly stared at the two men as they took a sip of their drinks. Urgency beat at her. Why were they sitting around sipping on scotch while Miller was in danger? Shouldn’t they be doing something?

  “Umm, shouldn’t we be searching for Miller?” she asked.

  “I’ve made a few calls,” Rogan said, glancing at his watch. “And Aedan should be here soon, I thought it would be easier to wait for him rather than have to go through things twice.”

  Calls? To who? And who was Aedan?

  Even though it near killed her to sit here in this large, luxurious house while Miller could be freezing, scared and hungry, Tilly didn’t have much choice. She didn’t know what to do. She was completely out of her depth.

  As if sensing her disquiet, Dylan drew her into his side, placing a heavy arm over her shoulders. The door behind them opened and she turned to see another man enter. Her breath caught in her throat as he strode toward them. He was striking. Probably the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

  Rogan was attractive but rather cold. She’d once seen a documentary about the blue-ringed octopus. The octopus was mesmerizing, but its venom was strong enough to kill a human. It would pounce on its prey, paralyze them, then tear off pieces with its beak. Rogan reminded her of that octopus.

  The stunning man walking towards them could have fallen from the sky. Except the devilish grin on his face indicated there was nothing angelic about him.

  “Dylan.” The man stepped toward Dylan, who stood. “How are you?”

  “Aedan. I’m good, my friend.” They hugged each other, clapping the other’s back as men liked to do. Aedan stepped back and clasped hold of Dylan’s shoulders. He was actually taller than Dylan but had a much slimmer build. “Damn, it’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”

  Aedan let out a laugh. “Nice haircut.”

  Dylan ran his hand over his closely-shaved head. “Courtesy of the U.S. Marines.”

  “You’ve been out for years.”

  “Yeah, but when it grew back I discovered I had a receding hairline. Not all of us have the funds to spend a fortune on hair products.”

  Aedan grimaced.

  “He spends so much on hair products that he ended up investing in the company,” Rogan said.

  Aedan sniffed. “And it made me a tidy profit.”

  “Everything you touch makes you a profit,” Dylan said dryly, sitting back next to her. “Aedan has the Midas touch,” he told Tilly. “Tilly, meet Aedan—”

  “Blake. I know. I’ve seen all of your movies.” He’d starred in a number of romantic comedies.

  “Ahh, I’ve given all that up to live a simpler life,” he said. Bending down, he held out his hand. She placed her hand in his but instead of shaking it, he brought it to his lips.

  “Mo áilleacht. My beauty.”

  Dylan growled. “Mine, Aedan.”

  “Ahh, well, if you change your mind…”

  She knew he was just teasing her. Aedan was famous. He dated supermodels and actresses. But she found herself blushing a little in pleasure.

  “A simple life as a billionaire businessman,” Rogan said dryly. “Why don’t you sit down before you get yourself in real trouble.”

  Aedan sent her a wink. “You’re just jealous that you don’t have my way with the ladies,” he told Rogan. “The last time he went on a date, Clinton was in The White House.”

  Tilly gaped at him. She was seriously starting to question his intelligence. Rogan did not seem the type of man to tease.

  “Aedan,” Rogan warned in a low, cold voice.

  Tilly shivered and finally the other man took heed and sat quietly.

  “Relax,” Dylan whispered. “They’re always like this. They’re cousins.”

  They were? She couldn’t see any family resemblance.

  “Sorry I got here late,” Aedan said, helping himself to a drink.

  “We just arrived,” Dylan reassured him.

  “So Tilly, were you born in Austin?” Aedan asked as he took a seat.

  “No. I grew up on a ranch a few hours south of here, near the border.”

  “A cowgirl. Ever ride one of those mechanical bucking bulls?”

  “Aedan!” Dylan snapped.

  “What?” The other man gazed at Dylan with mock-innocence, but she could see the wicked glint in his eyes. He seemed light-hearted and fun. Hard to believe he was related to Rogan.

  “Dylan said that your friend has gotten herself into trouble with the Vipers?” Aedan asked.

  “Yes. I don’t know how or why. But she sounded terrified and she was asking for my help.”

  “When is the last time you heard from her, prior to tonight?” Aedan asked.

  “I guess it was probably a couple of months ago. I should have made more of an effort to keep in touch.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Dylan reassured her, squeezing her hand.

  Rogan’s phone rang and he excused himself, moving away.

  Aedan’s gaze turned speculative. “Has she ever been involved with drugs or anything illegal?”

  She took a deep breath and thought about Aedan’s question. These men were helping her, she owed them her honesty.

  “I’m not sure. Miller hasn’t had the easiest life. Her mother left her when she was young and her dad was in and out of jail so her grandmother raised her.”

  “What was he in jail for?” Dylan asked.

  “Umm, stolen goods mostly. I think there were a few drug charges.”

  Rogan finished his call and walked back over to where they sat. “Tilly, are you sure Miller is in trouble?”

  “Of course. She sounded really terrified.”

  Rogan studied her for a long moment. “I wonder why she called you. Someone with no knowledge of the situation, who doesn’t live here, who she hasn’t even talked to in months?”

  Dylan sat forward, his face tense. “What are you thinking?”

  “I called in a favor for some information. Apparently your friend approached the Vipers, wanting in.”

  “No.” Tilly shook her head, the sick feeling in her stomach growing. “That makes no sense. Why would Miller be involved with a gang? And if she went to them then why call me and ask me to help her? No. Your information is wrong. Miller needs me. I have to help her.”

  “Could she have changed her mind?” Dylan asked. “Gotten in too deep and now she’s looking for a way out?”

  “Maybe,” Rogan said. “But why call Tilly for help?”

  “Because she knew I would help her,” Tilly insisted. “She’s like a sister to me.” It didn’t matter that they weren’t as close as they’d once been, Tilly still loved her.

  “I’ve set up a meeting with the Vipers for tomorrow evening,” Rogan told them. “I didn’t give them a reason. I didn’t want to tip our hand.”

  Tilly took a deep breath. “Do you think they’ll tell us where Miller is?”

  Dylan rubbed his hand down her arm. “Probably not. But at least we might be able to find out what’s going on.” He glanced over at Rogan. “Can you give me the address? I’ll meet you there. I need to find us a hotel so we can get some rest.”

  “You’ll take a room upstairs,” Rogan told him. “Until we know what’s going on, you’ll both be safer here.” He walked over to the door and talked to someone on the other side.

  The large man that had shown them in earlier entered.

  “This is Colm, one of my bodyguards. He’ll show you to your room. Make yourselves at home.”

  Colm didn’t look very thrilled, but he gestured for them to follow him upstairs. “Here’s your room. Help yourself to anything you need.”

  The bedroom was huge with a king-sized bed, large windows and a seating area arranged around a gas fireplace. It was far nicer than any hotel.

  “Your friend
s are… nice,” she told him as she sat on the edge of the bed.

  Dylan grinned. “Nice isn’t a word I’d use to describe them.”

  “I feel really bad for dragging them into this mess,” she said.

  “I’m the one who asked them for help.”

  “I’m surprised Rogan could get a meeting with the Vipers so easily. Umm, is he… I mean, does he…”

  “Rogan is the boss of the Cavan gang.”

  “Oh.” Tilly swallowed.

  “I know that he seems scary, but I wouldn’t have brought you here if there was any other choice. It probably doesn’t seem like it, but he is a good man.”

  A good man who was a criminal? Was there such a thing?

  Dylan sighed. “There is more to Rogan than the gang. We’ve been friends for a long time.”

  He sat beside her on the bed and took her hand. “I was headed for a bad place. My parents had died; I had no one else but my friends. We were all at that age where we thought we were invincible. I—” A knock on the door interrupted him and Dylan went to answer it. She heard some quiet murmuring then he returned with their bags.

  “What happened?” she asked once he’d set the bags down.

  “You should be sleeping.”

  “I don’t think I can.” She was too tense and wound up to sleep.

  “Okay, how about you lie back and I’ll tell you the rest.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine,” she said, noticing how stiff he was.

  Dylan shook his head and sat beside her, resting his back against the headboard. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s more that I try hard not to think about that night.”

  Tilly snuggled up against his side and just waited.

  “My parents were immigrants and poor, but so were most of the people we knew. I met Lucas at school. We both thought of ourselves as basketball stars. Lucas didn’t have a great home life. He had eight brothers and sisters, and his dad drank. His mom was worn down from having too many kids and an asshole of a husband. She was alive, but it was like no one was home. He spent a lot of time at my place.”

  He paused for a long moment and Tilly just waited.

  “When we reached high school, the basketball coach took a real interest in Lucas. He could see how talented he was. He even helped him get a scholarship to attend basketball camp. That’s where Lucas met Aedan.”

  “Aedan is good at basketball?” she asked. Aedan appeared fit, but he didn’t seem athletic.

  “Aedan is crap at basketball,” Dylan said with amusement in his voice. “But his parents had the money to send him and they wanted him to become immersed in American culture. They thought basketball camp was a good way for him to meet people since they’d only been in the states a short time. Aedan had the most miserable time of his life. I think Lucas took pity on him. When they got home the three of us started to hang out and Aedan introduced us to Rogan.”

  “Was he as scary then as he is now?” she asked.

  Dylan laughed. “Not quite. But he still had a presence, if you know what I mean. Rogan’s grandfather immigrated here with nothing and when he died he was one of the richest and most powerful men in the city. Rogan’s grandfather had his finger in numerous businesses. On both sides of the law. He hired a lot of immigrants. He paid his workers well. He took care of them and earned their loyalty.”

  “You liked him?”

  “I don’t think like is the right word. I knew he was a criminal and he had a hard side to him, but he was also charismatic. And he cared about his family. When he died, things changed for Rogan. His dad took over. He was a hard man and he was out to make as much money as he could. However he could.”

  Dylan took a deep breath. “Anyway, my parents had both died within six months of each other and I was staying with an aunt and uncle. They had five kids in a two-bedroom apartment, so I tried to stay out of their way as much as possible. We were all hanging out at Rogan’s house when we overheard some of his father’s men talking about how they needed a stronger street presence to intimidate this rival gang pushing into their territory.

  “We thought we were pretty tough. I guess we’d watched one too many gangster movies or something and romanticized it all. Or maybe Lucas and I were just so dirt poor that we wanted something more and we saw this as our way to break out of poverty. Anyway, the three of us took to the streets that night.”

  “Three of you? You, Rogan and Lucas?”

  “No, me, Aedan and Lucas. Rogan refused to go. We argued with him, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t want anything to do with his father’s business. They never got along. God, we were so stupid. I still can’t believe that we actually managed to find a kid from the other gang selling drugs. I think the only reason we scared him off is because there were three of us to his one. We went back and bragged to Rogan about how bad ass we were. So we went out again the next night. Only this time there wasn’t just one skinny kid. There were two of them and his friend had a gun.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I still dream about it. I still see that gun pointing at me. We all stood there, frozen. I think they were even younger than we were. I don’t even know if they would have shot at us if Lucas hadn’t run. They looked just as shocked as us as he fell to the ground.”

  “Then what happened? Why didn’t they shoot the rest of you?”

  “Rogan turned up.”

  “Rogan? How? Why?”

  “I’m not sure. I never actually asked him. But he yelled at them that he’d called the cops and we could hear sirens. They ran off. Lucas was lying there on the pavement bleeding and we didn’t know what to do. The sirens got closer. Aedan and I were panicking. It was Rogan who held us together. He quickly took off his sweatshirt and folded it up, placing it on Lucas’s stomach. Then he told us to go.”

  “What? He told you to leave? Why?”

  “Because the cops were getting close. We’d been part of a gang shooting. Things were going to get messy, and the police would be the least of our problems.”

  “The other gang?” she asked.

  “Yeah, the Seven Sinners. Rogan promised us he had this. I still didn’t want to leave. Lucas was my best friend. Rogan yelled at us, said he couldn’t protect us unless we left. We ran. I have never forgiven myself for that. Lucas died on the way to the hospital. He’d lost too much blood.”

  “If you’d stayed it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

  “Maybe not. But I would have been there.” He sighed. “The next evening, Rogan’s father turned up on my doorstep. He hands me an envelope full of cash and tells me to get out of town. I tried to protest, but he just glared at me with these cold eyes. He told me that Rogan wanted me to have a chance at a life. He said he didn’t understand why his son cared, but I’d only have this one chance. I took the money. I didn’t know what else to do; I was living in fear of either the cops or the gang finding me. But I couldn’t go without seeing Rogan and Aedan again.”

  He ran his hand through her hair, massaging her scalp. “I met the two of them at our usual place. Rogan had been arrested by the police, but his father’s lawyer had gotten him out. They had no real evidence and apparently a witness came forward and swore that he’d seen someone else shoot Lucas.”

  “A witness? They didn’t mention you and Aedan?”

  “No. No doubt they were paid to forget us.”

  “By Rogan’s father?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?” She frowned. “Why did he help you?”

  “I don’t know. Rogan was free, but he had to lay low. He urged me to leave town. Said he’d already lost one friend, he didn’t want to lose us as well. Aedan’s parents were sending him back to Ireland to stay with his grandfather until he finished school. He was a bit younger than the rest of us. I begged Rogan to come with me. I figured we could make it together. But he refused.

  “I got angry with him. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t leave. So I took the money and left town. I re
ally went off the deep end, drinking and smoking. I was burning through that cash. One morning I woke up in a doorway. I’d paid some guy to buy me a bottle of vodka because I was underage. I must have just passed out on the street. This man in a suit walked past and actually dropped some money on me. It was a new low. I just stared at the money, my head aching, stinking to the heavens and I wondered what the hell I was doing. I went back to the cheap motel to clean myself up and that’s when I realized that my room key and my wallet were gone.”

  He cleared his throat. “I had one photo of Lucas. It was of the four of us when we were a few years younger. My mom took it. I kept it in my wallet. I was so angry at myself. It was the kick in the ass I needed, though. Lucas and my parents were gone, but I wasn’t. I could piss away my life or I could make something of it. Lucas had always talked about joining the service.

  “Luckily, I’d left the majority of the money in the motel room. I cleaned myself up. I started working out. When I had myself together, I joined the Marines. I wanted to turn my life around, to be someone my parents and Lucas would be proud of.”

  “I’m so sorry about Lucas, Dylan,” she said.

  “Me too. I wish we had listened to Rogan. We should never have been there. But I can’t turn back time; the only thing I can do is make sure I live my life to the fullest. For Lucas.”

  Dylan brushed his hand through her hair. “You can’t tell anyone about this, Tilly.”

  “I know. I won’t, I promise. So you didn’t stay in contact with Aedan and Rogan?”

  He shrugged. “We took different paths. Aedan went on to become this movie star and now he’s a rich businessman. Rogan took over the family business.”

  She yawned. “Sorry.”

  Leaning down, he kissed her forehead. “Why don’t you close your eyes? Just rest them for a little bit.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good night, a mhuirnín.”

  ***

  Dylan walked back downstairs and into the sitting room where Rogan and Aedan still sat.

  “Nice place,” he told Rogan as he sat and picked up his glass of scotch, taking a healthy sip.

  “The old house held too many memories. I wanted a fresh start.”

  Dylan nodded. He could understand that.