“This one. Caffrey. You can take him off the list. He’d be stupid to make a move now.”
“And what about Doyle? I was on the fence about him.”
“He doesn’t have the manpower. Not unless he’s been stockpiling without us knowing…”
Kieran and I work our way down the list, crossing out the impossible and unlikely, until we’re left with only two names. Burke and Keegan.
While both have been allies for our family for years, helping us keep our trade lines open and settling scores among territory disagreements, loyalty in our world is a fickle thing, and I don’t trust either of them to keep it.
“You think one of them would actually betray us?” Kieran’s tone is biting.
“I think they wouldn’t hesitate if they believed they could win.”
“Slimy fuckers.”
I push back my chair and get to my feet to go and fix myself a drink, needing something to take the edge off. “We don’t know anything for sure.”
“Do you want me to apply pressure?”
“Not yet.” I pick up a fresh rocks glass off the bar cart, which is looking a little low.
How much have I been drinking?
I pull the stopper out of the crystal decanter and pour myself three fingers' worth of whiskey. “We can’t risk alerting them that we’re onto them. If they are planning something big, I want to catch them in the act.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Fine, but make sure to do it quietly.”
After I end the call with Kieran, I take my drink and sink into one of the leather armchairs in front of the empty fireplace.
The room is enveloped in darkness except for the small desk lamp, which casts an orange glow over my mountain of papers gathered over the past few days.
My eyes feel heavy, but I know the moment I crawl into bed, my mind will ramp up, and I’ll find myself right back here tryingto untangle the web of secrets and lies that my family is caught up in.
The silence in the room feels haunting as I sip my whiskey, barely feeling the burn as it slides down my throat.
Knowing that this Liam guy is linked to the O’Keefe brothers means I’m one step closer to finding out the truth, but that doesn’t make me feel better. If anything, it makes me feel like the walls are closing in around me, sucking the air out of my lungs until I can barely breathe.
Whoever is behind this is smart and calculated. They didn’t just go after Max and Mila on a whim. They did it because they knew it would draw Ciara to them as a way to get to me. And if I hadn’t gotten to her in time, there was a high chance they could have destroyed everything.
But I refuse to let them win.
I am a Sullivan, after all, and we don’t do well with losing.
The hours passin a blur as I continue to dig into the O’Keefes, searching for anything that could have prompted them to go after not only my father but Callum McCarthy too.
Eventually, my stomach aches from hunger, and I peel my eyes away from my computer screen, getting to my feet, my body weighed down by fatigue. I desperately need a shower and some sleep, but when the lives of everyone I care about are resting on my shoulders, such things seem irrelevant.
But then I think of Ciara and know that I need to show my face. She wasn’t ready to talk the other day, so I let her walk, but I’m tired of hiding out in my office.
I miss her smile and the sound of her laugh, and I miss having her warm body tucked against mine in my bed.
The soft sound of the girls talking hits me as I head down the hall toward the kitchen.
Even just the sound of Ciara’s voice has my blood heating, and I have to exhale my cock twitches in my pants.
The chokehold this woman has on me should be embarrassing if it weren’t for the fact that I fucking love it. No woman has ever affected me like this before, and it’s intoxicating. Even when we’re not speaking and at each other’s throats, I’m still turned on by her.
