More importantly, what had he let slip?Their entire business—their entirelife—depended on flying below the radar of law enforcement, and his goddamn brother had been willingly handing that information over in return for…Fuck, he didn’t know.There weren’t payoffs, though that sort of thing would be hard to track.The only one messing with O’Malley business appeared to be Dmitri Romanov, and Aiden highly doubtedthatman was in bed with the feds.The only thing that stood out as too coincidental was the raid on the Hallorans.Teague had definitely had something to do with that.
Even then, only a few of their men were arrested.Those fuckers had their eyes on the prize—Victor Halloran.That old bastard was currently living out what remained of his days in federal prison.Good riddance.
Doesn’t mean they won’t come for us eventually, armed with whatever information my brother gave them.
Theonlysilver lining to the whole shit show was that Teague had never been privy to certain information because he was neither the heir nor the one running the books.
But he still knew plenty to damn them and the Sheridans, both.God, what would Callie say?
Aiden eyed the phone.He could call Teague right now, arrange a meet up, and…What?Try to force him to confess everything?Threaten him?
It’s what their father would have done.
But, as everyone was so fond of reminding him, he wasn’t their father.He might be close these days, but he couldn’t make himself go through with it.They’d already lost a brother to circumstances that might have been avoidable.To lose another over shit like this?Maybe he was weak, but Aiden couldn’t pull the trigger, proverbially or otherwise.
Not to mention, he was pretty fucking sure Teague was behind Sloan’s convenient disappearance two weeks ago.Of them all, Teague was the only one not going mad with worry.New papers weren’t hard to get ahold of if someone knew where to look.
Especially when that someone had the goddamn FBI in his pocket.
His gaze shifted to the other man in the photos, one John Finch.Aiden drummed his fingers on the desk, considering.He might not be willing to take irreversible steps with Teague, but this agent had no such protections in place.
He picked up his phone and dialed without taking his gaze from the photo.Liam answered almost immediately.“What can I do for you, boss?”
“I need you to find everything you can on an FBI agent named John Finch.And I mean everything—I want to know who he cares about most in the world, and if he has any vices that can be exploited, and every noteworthy case he’s had in the last decade.”
Liam hesitated.“There a reason you don’t want Cillian on this?The kid’s getting pretty damn good at hacking.Give him a half an hour, and he could get you everything you need to know.”
If he did, Cillian would find out about Teague.
Aiden shook his head, even though the other man couldn’t see.“I want you on this.Only you.And, Liam, it goes without saying that this stays between us.”
Another hesitation, longer this time.“Is there something going on that I need to know about?”
They’d been friends for a long time.Aiden didn’t like taking the boss man tone with him, and, truthfully, Liam didn’t need threats to do his job.He sighed.“There’s trouble, but until we have this information, there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.”The cat was already out of the bag where Teague was concerned—he’d already talked to the feds.Now it was just a matter of figuring outwhathe’d told them.
And doing damage control.
“Got it.I’ll see what I can do and pass along the information as soon as I have something.”
“Thanks.”Aiden hung up and sat back, releasing a pent-up breath.He’d fix this.It might not be the way his father would have gone about it, but he’d fix it all the same.Their family had taken too many blows in too short a time, and he’d be damned before he let one of their own bring them down for good.Depending on what Teague had told the feds, their father could be looking at jail time right alongside Victor Halloran.
Aidencould be looking at jail time.
He stared at the phone again, the tightness in his chest making it hard to breathe.Hurting Teague right now, even to get information, would do more harm than good, but hehadto know what his brother had told John Finch—and he had to know it sooner, rather than later.
If he didn’t…
If Seamus returned and found out what Teague had done…
Aiden cursed and scrubbed his hands over his face.Sloan’s disappearance had broken something in their father.He’d gone out to the house in Connecticut with their mother and just…not come back.Aiden spoke with him daily, but he’d more or less handed over everything.Aiden kept thinking that one day Seamus would show up and take control again, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Now he was starting to wonder if it would never happen.
He’d been trained to expect a knife in the back from everyone around him—from ally to enemy.In their world, everyone was out for themselves and willing to play dirty to get what they want.
He just hadn’t expected the hand holding the knife to belong to his brother.
***
