Cillian had always been too smart by half. He’d covered it up when he was a kid with a reckless streak a mile wide and a string of shitty decisions, and these days he put that brilliant brain of his to use spinning numbers, doing the books for their operations, and managing anything that required the hacking skills he’d been developing since he took over the job. He’d never bothered to analyzeAiden, though.
He met his brother’s gaze directly. This wasn’t the time for softness or kid gloves. He spoke to Cillian as leader of the O’Malleys to a subordinate. “I don’t care what you think of the situation—or of Charlie. You will fall in line.”
“Consider me the very picture of a loyal soldier.” Cillian rose. “But you had damn well keep Keira safe, Aiden. She stopped painting. Did you know that?”
Aiden sat back in his chair, the sheer weight of everything he carried threatening to drive him into the ground. There were a million ways to kill a person that had nothing to do with stopping their heart. He might have scared off his sister’s dealers, but it seemed like he’d been doing a shitty job taking care of her otherwise. In the last few years, she’d gonefrom being a snarky, flourishing artist to a shell of the woman she was supposed to become. “This will all be over soon.”
Cillian shook his head. “Save the bullshit, Aiden. It will never be over. Even Sloan didn’t escape it, and she ran halfway across the world.”
She hadn’t escaped, but she’d carved out a little slice of happiness for herself, despite everything.
And the information her man provided had been instrumental in Aiden finding the right pressure points to bring Romanov to his knees.
He stared at the desk, the wood polished so thoroughly that it gleamed. Knowing that Sloan’s relationship had strengthened the O’Malleys should have brought him satisfaction, even if she’d gone back into hiding to avoid living in their world. There was no satisfaction to be had, though. He couldn’t bring himself to admit it to anyone out loud, but he missed his little sister.
He missedallof his sisters.
Cillian watched him too closely. “She’s doing well, in case you were wondering. We have a nephew to go along with our nieces. They named him Grady.”
Named for Jude’s dead father, the same way Teague and Callie’s daughter was named for her mother. They were all haunted by the sins of the past and the losses they never got quite over.
It was up to him to ensure that they didn’t have any more names to be added to the list of beloved dead.
***
Charlie woke late, her body still aching from what Aiden had done to her through the early hours of the morning.She rolled over and stretched, luxuriating in the feel of the silken sheets against her bare skin. It would be too easy to let herself get used to this. To forget that this was all a ruse to bring down their mutual enemy.
Aiden might want her body, but he was focused on the endgame. She’d be a fool to do anything else.
She sat up. Through all the plans he’d shared with her, he’d left one thing out—what she was supposed to do with her free time. When she’d agreed to this, she hadn’t really thought about much beyond bringing Romanov to justice. It never occurred to her that it would taketime. Charlie had never been much good with idle hands, and she didn’t imagine she’d learned that skill overnight.
She usually worked from nine to two at Jacques’s, and then woke late and hit the gym for an hour or two, where she went through her regular Krav Maga training, then worked with newbies, assisting as necessary. There was always a need of sparring partners, and she was more than happy to help out. Anything to make sure the person across from her had the skills necessary to ensure that they never ended up as helpless as she’d been when she was attacked.
But she hadn’t had time to research gyms in Boston—or talk to Aiden about what he expected of her while they played out this scenario.
After showering and throwing on a pair of ridiculously expensive jeans and a flowy tank top, she padded out of the room on bare feet. No guard stood outside the door, so she wandered down the hall, taking it all in.
Last night she’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted to really notice the space she moved through. There was something strange about the hallway, but it wasn’t until she was halfway to the stairs that she realized what it was. Charliestopped and looked back the way she’d come.No photos.There weren’t any in the rooms she’d been in downstairs, either, now that she thought about it.
Downstairs, she could understand. Her dad might have a scattering of photos from the last twenty-nine years on the fridge, but the few framed ones were in the upstairs hallway. He didn’t take meetings in their house, but some habits die hard, and displaying his weakness—Charlie—went against the grain.
But to have no photos at all?
That spoke volumes about the family that lived in this place.
She turned back to the stairs.What else will I find if I do some snooping?Aiden and the O’Malleys weren’t technically the enemy, but she’d have to be a fool twice over to take whatever information he decided to feed her without questioning it. Meeting his siblings last night had only driven home what the stakes were—and the fact that the knife in the darkness coming for her might not be held by a Romanov but an O’Malley. Or a Halloran. Or a Sheridan.
Charlie didn’t want to admit that her dad was right and that she was in over her head, but it was sure as hell starting to feel that way.
She walked to the stairs and peered over the railing. Raised voices—Aiden and Cillian—but they were muffled enough that she couldn’t pick out the words. She doubted she could make it down the stairs and to the office door to eavesdrop without their realizing she was there and turning the conversation to safe topics, so she headed toward the back of the house. There had to be a second stairwell around here somewhere.
The temptation to explore the closed doors lining thehallway rose, but she held back. There were two doors—Aiden’s and another—on this leg of the hallway, before it took a hard right turn. Charlie walked to the corner and counted another three doors before the hallway turned again, creating a U shape. Seven rooms…for seven children?
She looked at the room across from Aiden’s and opened the door before she could talk herself out of it. She stopped just inside the doorframe, inhaling a spicy feminine scent. The décor was the very definition of luxury, the big white bed looking soft enough to swallow a person whole, and the dresser along the opposite wall scattered with expensive-looking jewelry and perfume bottles.
The decorations were too…understated to belong to Keira. She didn’t know much about the other sister—Sloan—but Charlie bet this room had belonged to Carrigan. From Liam’s brief family history, the woman hadn’t lived here in almost two years. And yet her room looked as fresh as it would have if she’d just stepped out this morning.
“What are you doing?”
