“I’m not keeping you at a distance by not introducing you to my aunt. I’m just giving us both times to build trust because that’s what it’s going to take. Excuse me if—despite all the evidence—I need a little more time to get used to the idea of you.”
Why does he have to be so rational all of a sudden? I can’t let that stand.
“You’re the one who keeps kissing me and making me go all stupid with your cooking and adorable requests to hold me while you sleep.”
It seems I’ve rendered him speechless for a long moment and that’s amusing enough, but then he goes ahead and makes it better.
“Adorable?” he demands, sounding appalled. “I’m not fucking adorable, I’m?—”
“Sorry to interruptsucha romantic moment,” Rory pipes up, not sounding sorryat all. “But what the hell is this?”
“The receipt,” I cry out. I stand so fast the chair topples over behind me, but I don’t care because I’m happier that she found it than I should be. “Where did you find it? I’ve been looking for it for days.”
“It was stuck between these papers,” she mumbles. “But did you see what’s written on the back?”
“Yes, I did—” She hands it over to Eian before I can explain.
“Fuck,” Eian hisses. “This was the receipt you got from Luca?” he demands, and the change is so sudden it takes me a second to remember this is mob-boss Eian.
“Yes, the one from the diner when he met with?—”
“Cotroni,” Eian finishes looking right at Rory. “Did you goto this address, on this day? What did you see?” he barks out.
“No, I didn’t go.” I speak quickly with my heart almost beating out of my chest. “I was going to, but that’s the day I got fired. I figured out he worked for the Italians the day I got the receipt and told my boss, and two days later he fired me for beingunethical.” I spit the last word out with disgust.
“This is from more than a year ago,” Rory says, sounding uncharacteristically emotional, almost alarmed. “Fourteen months plus a week, I think. If they got someone inside?—”
“Inside where?” I need to know what the fuck they’re talking about because as far as I could tell from the little research I did on that address before I got fired, that building is pretty normal. It’s in Queens, full of tenants, only has seven floors if I remember correctly.
“It’s one of our brothels,” Eian finally tells me.
I know I need to breathe, but all the oxygen in the world isn’t going to help me now.
“We need to go there and figure out who was there fourteen months ago.” I’m ready to go now too, just sprint out of here and?—
“Good thing we keep the books in order,” Rory says, and the predatory smile that stretches her cheeks tells me shealready knows how she’s going to torture whoever that poor shmuck is.
Turns out Rory—whogave Duffy’s pout some competition this morning—and her plan will have to wait.
“Remember, we’re not here to talk to anyone but Cillian, all right?” Only two blocks away from the brothel I didn’t know existed, I can tell Eian’s trying to hide his nerves, but I don’t know if that’s because he’s about to look for a spy in his business or if it has something to do with me.
“Got it,” I say, just like I did the last three times he said a variation of the same thing.
I decide to give him silence as we wait at a traffic light. He needs to get into the mindset of the boss, and I doubt the morning where he was playing with Maggie again was any help.
I wanted to ask if he’d slept as well as I did the second time we shared a bed—and I refuse to admit I’m disappointed we did nothing more than kiss—but I could see from the dark circles under his eyes he didn’t.
I don’t know if that’s normal for him or not, and I don’t know if his twitchiness as he turns the car into an alley is his usual MO, because there are still so many things about him I don’t know.
At least now I can admit—even if only to myself—that I do want to find all those things out about him.
If I’ve learned anything since I came to live at his house, it’s that Eian will do anything and everything to punish those who hurt innocents. In fact, he’ll inconvenience himself for it, and that’s more than I ever thought anyone in the mafia was capable of.
Today isn’t about that, though, or about my growing feelings for Eian. Today we have to find a spy, and though I was excited for a moment about getting to be in the thick of it again, Eian’s mood kinda ruined that.
“Let’s go,” he murmurs, sounding deadly as he climbs out of the muscle car I didn’t know he had. Blake took us to a garage in the city where we left him then grabbed this ride, and I’m not sure why, but I doubt asking right now would lead to any real answers.
The first thing I notice about the inside of the nondescript building is that it looks and smells clean. Personally, I’ve never been inside a brothel before, but this sure as shit isn’t what I was expecting. We walk down a long hallway lined with black doors that contrast well with the light-gray walls, and almost at the end, there’s an opening I suspect is for the stairs.
