He opened the first door on the left, and I peeked inside behind him, but it was nothing more than a small bathroom with a shower, toilet, and basin. Nothing fancy. The second door on the left was an office so small it was almost a closet.
I sighed and poked him on the back. “Are ye really doing this? Ye’re gonna give Vail a fright.”
He tossed a glare over his shoulder but didn’t back out of the office like I’d expected, even though there was only one door left, which had to be Vail’s bedroom. He stepped into the office and turned on the light, and I followed, not quite sure what he was up to. The moment I stepped over the threshold, I understood perfectly.
Vail’s desk was stacked high full of books, and loose pieces of notepad paper littered the top of whatever free surface remained. It was a cramped space but big enough that he’d stuffed a whiteboard on the far side of the room near the window, with names scribbled in blue. It was those names that had caught Cillian’s attention, and mine, too, because separately they meant nothing. Together? They were everything. Some had question marks beside them, though, almost like he wasn’t sure if it was the correct information or not.
James?
Corbin.
Someone with a last name of Shannon.
Tadgh? Pronounced Tige.
Ardy? Ard—something? Hitman?
Some kind of pet? Maybe he has an expensive dog?
Follieros—Italians/Irish ally?
Five Families. Who are they today?
Giordanos—Chicago connection? Interstate crimes. Federal tax evasion likely.
There were more names, rows and rows, and some of them were first and last, and even what they did for a living. Most of them were Italian.Fuck.Fear struck me in the gut as I took in the scrawled names strewn across the board.
“Are they...?” I couldn’t get the words out, but it didn’t matter because Cillian was already at Vail’s desk, picking up pieces of paper and shuffling through them. There was a stack of notebooks and he flipped the top one open, then lifted a piece of paper that had been tucked in there. He made sounds of frustration, and that wasn’t a good sign. “What is it?”
I shuffled in closer to his side and stared down at the paper in his hands. It wasn’t much more than what Vail had on the whiteboard, except there were locations. Important locations. One of the addresses written down belonged to the Exotic Virtue, one of the boss’s whorehouses. They wouldn’t let Vail in without proof he knew exactly what it was to begin with, of course, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get himself into trouble. If he went there asking too many questions, Rourke—the bloke who ran it—would take Vail out, with Sloan’s permission. We couldn’t let that happen.
“He knows too much already,” Cillian murmured, his voice gentler than I’d heard from him in a long time. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “If the boss knew, he’d be the next one going to Mount Pleasure.”
“I know.” I swallowed around the dryness of my throat and took the piece of paper from Cillian. It crumpled as I squeezed my fist around it, which meant little. Vail might be all over the place when you spoke to him, but he was smart. He probably remembered pieces of information when it came to his work. “What do we do?”
Cillian’s shoulders slumped and he hissed between his teeth. He turned, pressed his arse against the desk, and dropped his face in his palms. “We should tell Sloan.”
“The boss will want him out of the picture.”
“Yeah.” He shook his head and ran a hand over his chin. “I don’t even know the guy, but I already know Vail won’t let this go if we ask.”
“And if we say anything, he’ll put two and two together.” The crumpled paper scratched at the skin of my palm and I threw it into the rubbish bin near his desk. “We need to give him false leads.”
“False leads?” His forehead creased in confusion, mouth twisting. “Ye’re crazy if ye think he won’t do his research. This”—he waved at the whiteboard—“proves he knows what he’s doing. Fuck.”
“We could ask him.” I grabbed one of his books and stared at the picture of Danny Greene on the front. He was smiling, his mustache curved around the sides of his mouth in the typical seventies style.
“Ask him what?”
“What he’s discovered.” I glanced at Cillian. “He knows we’re interested in it. That’s why we went to his lecture. He might tell us more.”
“Ye want to seduce him to get information out of him?” he asked, eyes widening.
“No. We already want to fuck him, don’t we? We’re just adding a wee bit of interrogation during times we’re not having sex.” Guilt curled in my gut and settled in the pit of it.
I’d gone to Vail’s lecture out of interest, and when I’d seen him, I’d known I wanted him. Lust at first sight, if that was a thing. I hadn’t realized he knew more about the Irish mob than he should, or I wouldn’t have brought him home. Now his safety was at risk. As much as I loved Cillian like family, the Company always came first to him, and that’s how it should be for me, too. But Vail was innocent, a pure soul in a world of monsters. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.
“The boss should know,” Cillian said.
