I shook my head.
He sighed. “No. All we know is that there’s some shite going down, and ye can’t get involved. If somethin’ were to happen to ye, Rowen and Fallon would never forgive themselves, and we wouldn’t forgive them neither. Now, ye stay at Conall’s side, ye hear me? The boss will keep Conall safe, so wherever he goes, ye go with him.”
Silence fell. Vail’s ragged breathing on the other end of the line was the only thing we could hear. It took a few long seconds before he made a noise of agreement.
“Fine. But I’m still worried. Lor and I both are.”
“Is Lor with you now?” I asked gruffly.
“I’m here,” came Lor’s uncertain voice. “Dr. Mifflin has been with me since early this morning when Fallon and Rowen dropped him off. They told us to stay together.”
“Ye do that, then.” Cillian glared at the phone. “Ye heard what I said to him. Wherever Conall goes, he goes. Ye too.”
“I understand.” Lor’s submissive tone was cute, and I had a feeling he would make a man very happy in the future. I’d gotten the vibe that he was gay—or at least bi—because I’d seen him glance longer than necessary at Fallon a time or twenty. Lor so easily took orders, as though he was born to do it.
“Good,” Cillian grunted out.
“We need to go now. We have a job to do, but we’ll call you when it’s done,” I said, glancing toward the front of the car. We were in thick city traffic getting closer to our destination. I needed to prepare for the inevitable fight. “Baby, be safe, okay?”
“I love you,” Vail whispered. “And I love you, too, Cillian.”
“Love you, bug.” Cillian’s face twisted and some of the anger bled out of him. Vail had that effect on all of us.
“Love you, too, baby. We’ll talk soon.” I ended the call, even though I wanted to spend more time on the phone with him. His comforting voice eased the tension in me, and now that we were back to silence, the stress returned.
I’d always been calm going into fights, but this was a completely different situation. Joaquin wasn’t stupid and killing him had become one of the hardest assignments I’d ever had. I was beginning to think he was smarter than we originally gave him credit for, and that irritated the hell out of me.
Jamie turned to look back at us again, his brow furrowed. “All right, lads, we’re coming up on the apartment. When we get there, we’ll split up. There’s exactly four ways to get out of this place, I made sure to check. So, we’re gonna take one each. Think ya can handle it?”
Cillian snorted and crossed his thick arms. “Might as well ask if a pig loves shite. We know how to fecking do our job, Jamie. Ye don’t need to treat us like newbies.”
Jamie held up his palms and grinned.
“What are the four ways out?” I asked as Corbin pulled the car into a diagonal parking space in front of an old high-rise.
Jamie went into boss mode, listing the escape routes. He went on to talk about possible scenarios in which things went wrong before he assigned us each an exit. I got the south hallway, while Cillian was coming in from the north. There were two different fire escapes, and Jamie and Corbin had those.
“Ya good, boys?” Jamie asked as we got out of the car. We decided to go in there with the handguns in our holsters. There was no use drawing unwanted attention, and we didn’t want the neighbors to call the cops. According to the whore, Joaquin went alone to see him because he wasbrave. I called it stupid. It was rare for Sloan to go anywhere without guards. He always had someone nearby to defend him and Conall if they needed it. It was more likely Joaquin was embarrassed about what he was up to and didn’t want his men to know.
“We understand,” Cillian grunted out, sniffing. He was probably still pissy with Jamie for not telling us about what was happening in New York, and I didn’t blame him, but that wouldn’t help us now. “We’re not imbeciles.”
Jamie’s mouth pursed and irritation flashed across his face. Cillian was pushing it with Jamie, and I needed to pull him back from going too far.
Once Jamie nodded, Cillian and I headed toward the front of the big, boxlike brown brick building, while Jamie and Corbin went around the back to get to the fire exits. We went through the glass doors with no security and into the unmanned lobby. Jamie had said this was in the shitty part of town—compared to Hibiscus Island—but I hadn’t realized how much until now. I didn’t understand why Joaquin would find a lover in this area when he could afford a high-class man. Hell, with his looks he wouldn’t need to pay at all.
“You need to stop what you’re doing with Jamie,” I murmured as we headed to the stairs. There wasn’t an elevator in this place.
“What the feck are ye talking about?” Cillian snapped. I glanced at him over my shoulder. He’d softened a lot since Vail came into our lives, and though I knew he would never be Rowen’s kind of sweet, he’d slowly learned to open the thick walls he’d built around himself and let people in. Letusin. I’d always been the closest to him, which meant I’d seen the change, even if he didn’t want to accept it.
“You know what I’m talking about.” I focused on the stairs and took two at a time, Cillian close behind me. We got to a platform on the U-shaped steps, and he grabbed me from behind, shoving me hard against the wall beside a wide window that shook at the force.
His stare was a mixture of fury and lust, a weird combination that had my dick awakening. This was the wrong time and place, but my body didn’t get the memo and neither did Cillian as he crowded me against the wall. I pushed his chest, and he retaliated until he had himself pressed tightly against me. His mouth ate mine in a hungry kiss that made all my blood rush south.
As much as I wanted to continue this and pin him against the stairs and fuck him, we had an assignment. The sooner we got Joaquin, the sooner we could go home and have as much sex as we wanted—with each other and Fallon and Vail. I nipped his bottom lip and let out a growl, and he smirked.
“Later,” I promised.
He nodded and straightened, taking a step back. We started to move up the stairs again and got to the next floor and halfway up another set of steps when we heard the crash of a door.
