“Any progress?”
I force my eyes away from the screen and glower at him. “I’ve been working on this for less than half a day, Ronan. Maybe try giving me the basic courtesy of time before breathing down my neck.”
He frowns, his jaw tightening as he folds his arms over his chest. “My tech guy didn’t get anywhere with it, and he’s the best of the best.”
The hidden meaning in his words has me grinding my teeth.
“And yet, I’ve already found three additional payments he missed.” I turn my laptop to show him the screen. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
He opens his mouth to retort, but I cut him off before he can. “If you think you can do better, be my guest. I’ll be happy to watch you try.”
He narrows his eyes for a second before exhaling and running a hand through his dark hair, disheveling the strands.
“Why the hell are these payments so important, anyway?” My voice comes out sharper than I intended. “They’ve been sitting in this spreadsheet for months, some of them years, so what’s changed? Why the sudden rush to decode them now?”
Ronan hesitates, his jaw flexing again as he moves to perch on the edge of the desk.
I lean back in my chair, watching him internally battle with how much information to share with me.
But maybe he sees something in my face, a mixture of frustration and exhaustion, because this time, he actually gives me a proper answer.
“I think these payments are connected to my father’s murder.”
I stare at him, waiting for the punchline, but it doesn’t come.
“What?”
“I said?—”
“I know what you said. I’m just… trying to understand how that makes any sense. Someone was clearly getting regular payments from Seamus, and you think whoever it was decided to kill him? That’s your theory?”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No offense, but it sounds completely insane.”
“But not implausible. I’ve been over it a hundred times, but nothing adds up. There are no enemies we didn’t already know about and no obvious motive. But these payments… They’re the one thing that doesn’t fit the pattern, and I’ve got this gut feeling.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re solving murders with gut feelings now?”
He shoots me a look, but I don’t balk.
“If someone was being paid by your father, killing him would mean the payments stop. It’s like burning your own paycheck.”
“Unless the payments were a threat… Or leverage, some kind of insurance.”
I hate that he’s starting to convince me of his theory, but what I hate even more is how genuinely troubled he looks. This time, he’s not playing the brooding asshole just to wind me up. From the look on his face, these payments are eating him alive.
“Maybe your father was hiding something. Something big enough to kill for.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve hit a nerve.
Ronan straightens, and his eyes turn cold as he glares at me. “Not everyone’s father was a lying piece of shit, Ciara.”
I flinch, but it isn’t enough to get Ronan to soften.
The muscle in his jaw ticks as he glowers at me, the silence weighing heavily between us.
“Just keep working on the files.” He pushes himself off the desk. “I need answers.”
