Cillian slammed into wakefulness, Devlin’s name caught in his throat, his chest so tight it was a wonder he could draw a full breath, his entire body coated in sweat. He stared blindly at his ceiling for the space of a heartbeat, and then another, before his mind caught up with his instincts.
Home. In my bed. Safe.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to convince himself that it was okay. He’d gone to bed so damn happy last night, still riding high from how well the date with Olivia had gone, better than he could have dreamed. Stupid of him to think that would be enough to keep his nightmares at bay.
With a groan, he climbed out of bed and stripped the mattress of the sweat-covered sheets. No one said anything about the fact that he was changing his bedding several times a week, but he knew the staff noticed. And if they knew, it was highly likely that his parents and probably even Aiden knew.
He wasn’t sure if he appreciated their silence or resented it. No one talked about Devlin, and no one talked about the fact that everything was different now. It was a giant elephant in the room that only seemed to grow as time went on.
It took showering to finally shake the last of his nightmare and put him back on solid ground. He scrubbed his body, letting his mind wander back to how things with Olivia had ended in the car. It had been so fucking difficult not to bury himself between her legs, but she’d given him her trust—something he knew for a fact she didn’t do lightly—and he couldn’t betray that. He didn’t want to.
It didn’t matter. He had no intention of letting her walk out of his life and, as a result, there was plenty of time for them to work up to having sex again. For now, he had the dazed look on her face after her second orgasm to keep his demons at bay. He smiled and shut off the water. The things that woman did for him.
He walked back into his bedroom and froze when he realized he wasn’t alone. What the fuck? “You know, Aiden, sitting here silently in my room isn’t sexy. In fact, it’s downright creepy.”
“I need to talk to you. Since you apparently still don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself, I didn’t dare wake you from your beauty sleep.”
Not this again. Cillian walked into his closet and started pulling on clothes. “Last I checked, I haven’t dropped any balls in the last week, so what crawled up your ass and died?”
“Where were you yesterday?”
Yesterday? He frowned. “I had a date.” After buttoning up his shirt, he moved back into his room to select a tie.
Aiden shook his head. “A date. So you missed out on the announcement that you’re about to become an uncle for a piece of ass.”
He held up his hand and gave his brother his full attention. “Hold on, what? Uncle?”
“Teague and Callie are expecting.” Aiden’s mouth twisted. “She’s due in March.”
The room took a slow turn while he processed that information. “Another generation of O’Malleys is starting.” He wasn’t sure why that was so weird to him, but it was.
“Sheridan-O’Malleys.”
“It might be the fact I was asleep like fifteen minutes ago, but you don’t sound too happy about this.”
Aiden sighed. “It’s a good thing. Or it would be if all signs weren’t pointing to us having an enemy—or multiple enemies—poking around Boston. Callie’s going to be vulnerable, and Teague’s going to be focused on her instead of all the things that could go wrong. It’ll be up to us to pick up the slack.”
“I don’t think Callie’s nearly as vulnerable as people might think.” She’d managed to step up and take over the Sheridan family without more than a few ripples.
Aiden pushed to his feet and started pacing. “You know what I mean. Things aren’t as stable as they should be. We still haven’t heard from Romanov after the Carrigan disaster, and there’s the three percent still missing.”
“I thought you were going to look into that.”
“I did. All the businesses claim that it was an accounting error made in innocence.” Aiden turned on his heel and started another circuit around the room. “They even used the same language.”
“You think they were coached.” It made sense. If someone was crafty enough to slip in and steal from them, they had to be dangerous enough that the businesses affected wouldn’t think to cross them. Considering how they felt about the O’Malleys, that made whoever it was a special kind of scary. Seamus was downright ruthless when it came to getting full and timely payments. It would start with a menacing visit, which was usually enough to bring people back in line—but if it wasn’t, things would escalate quickly. Damage to the property. Damage to the property owner. He hadn’t had to kill anyone since Cillian could remember, but when the O’Malleys first took over the territory, there had been more than a few people who tried to hold out.
If someone was managing to undermine them with that kind of fear present in their people, they were a threat—one that couldn’t be ignored.
Suddenly, he was right on the same page as Aiden.
They needed that information, and they needed it yesterday. “We need that name.”
“You think I don’t know that? I don’t have a lot of options available to me.” Aiden ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “Father wants to make an example of one of them.”
Cillian shuddered. He knew exactly what that entailed. “Isn’t that a little extreme? We’ve worked fucking hard to get these businesses to the point where they’re cooperating with us instead of obeying out of sheer terror.” They weren’t exactly on the same page as the Sheridans, but the O’Malleys were still worlds better than the Hallorans. Or they had been before James took over. He had a softer touch than his father, and from what Cillian could tell, his territory had been benefiting from it.
“That’s the point—they aren’t working with us if they’re slipping money away to someone else.” Aiden stopped short. “He says it’s a good time of year for a fire.”
And suddenly it all made sense. His brother had been stepping up more and more as time went on, taking over the day-to-day operations and phasing their father out. But, as far as Cillian could tell, that had mostly been the legal business. Now it looked like Father was handing over the other side of things.
He wasn’t sure whether to comfort his brother or tell him to man the fuck up. They were O’Malleys. That meant that sometimes they had to get their hands dirty and do things that would have them waking up in the middle of the night, breathless and haunted, with demons still riding them. Then again, easy enough for him to say when he wasn’t the one required to set fire to someone’s property. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s the price of doing business. That poor schmuck who’s going to lose his shop knows that as well as I do.” His face went stony. “He better give me the fucking information after that.”
Or he’d have to work the guy over…and maybe worse. There’s nothing to help in this situation. You just power through it and try to make it out the other side without too much damage. “What can I do?”
Aiden turned to look out his window to the street below. “If I bring you their information and books, can you find the money trail?”
He was nowhere near the computer whiz that Devlin had been, but he wasn’t a total disgrace. And he was learning fast. “Unless they’re some sort of tech genius, I should be able to.”
“Good.” Aiden moved toward the door. “Keep your phone on you. I’m going to need you here as soon as I have it.”
“I will.” He watched his oldest brother leave, closing the door softly behind him, and couldn’t shake the feeling that he was seeing what remained of Aiden’s moral code ground to dust. It had been a long time in coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d do it, even if there was. The sad truth was that a certain level of ruthlessness and willingness to get their hands dirty was required of any leader who wanted to stay a leader. Cillian had never been so glad that he wasn’t the heir—or even next in line to the heir. Guilt rose. He shouldn’t be happy one of his siblings was shouldering the burden so he didn’t have to. He’d never avoided his duty to the O’Malleys, but then, he’d never been asked to do the things that were going to be a common thing for his brother as the one in charge. He fucking hoped that Aiden had it in him to do what was necessary.
If he didn’t, then they were all in serious trouble.
*
Olivia managed to sneak two hours of sleep after her shift before Hadley woke up. Then it was time to throw together some food for both of them and figure out what they were doing with their day. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “What do you think, baby girl? Pancakes?” She usually saved them for a special occasion, but after last night, today was feeling pretty damn special. Things had been so unbelievably good with Cillian, and then she’d gone to work and had one of the best shifts since she started at Jameson’s. There were two bachelor parties getting started there, and they’d tipped her well—all while ribbing the grooms they were with. She smiled to remember the way the one groom-to-be had blushed. Whoever he was marrying was a lucky woman. That guy was a serious winner.
Hadley hustled into the kitchen. “Cakes?”
“Yep. We’re doing pancakes. Maybe I’ll even try my hand at Minnie Mouse.” She swept her daughter up and propped her on her hip. “Want to help Mommy?”
“Help!”
“I thought so.” She moved around the minuscule kitchen, grabbing the pancake mix, vegetable oil, eggs, and milk. A quick check to make sure they had syrup and strawberries, and she was ready to get started.
Which, of course, was when someone decided to knock on her door.
“Damn.”
“Damn!”
She froze. Do not react. Do not react. “Hadley, that’s a grown-up word.” Hopefully if she didn’t make a big deal about it, her daughter would let it go. Keeping her face blank, she set her down and headed for the door.
Hadley laughed. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
Great. She was going to have to explain to Mrs. Richards why her daughter was acquiring the vocabulary of a sailor. The older woman would just adore that. Olivia grinned as she unlocked the door. Well, it would make a great story later on in life. And she had four years to cure Hadley of the habit before she started school—plenty of time, at least in theory. She opened the door, and stared, her mind frantically scrambling to come up with a logical reason for what she was seeing.
There wasn’t one.
Dmitri raised a perfectly shaped dark brow. “Are you going to invite me in, Olivia?”
It’s not a hallucination. He’s really here. “I’m seriously considering slamming the door in your face and calling the police.”
If anything, he looked more amused. “You won’t.”
No, she wouldn’t. They weren’t in New York anymore, so there was no reason to think he had half the Boston police force in his back pocket the way he did back home, but that didn’t mean they would side with her. She glanced up and down the hallway. “You’re alone?”
“For the moment.”
So his thugs were around, but he was giving her the illusion of privacy. Since that would only last as long as he indulged it, she stepped back and opened the door wider. Dmitri was more than capable of having one of his men kick down her door if she decided to be difficult, and she didn’t want to deal with the questions—or the financial fallout—that would bring. “What do you want?”
He ignored her question, taking his time looking around the apartment. She tried to see it through his eyes, and cringed. The entirety of it could fit into his office back home, and the fading yellow paint now looked more like piss than the cheery sunshine she was sure the last tenant was aiming for. The carpet was old and frayed and a far cry from the thick ones that covered most of the floors in the Romanov residence.
Stop it. You didn’t invite him here. You’re not responsible for impressing him. It’s not even possible, and you damn well know it.
He grinned when he caught sight of Hadley, the expression completely at odds with the carefully controlled way he normally held himself. The worst part was that she wasn’t sure if it was feigned or not. With Dmitri she never could tell, and that scared the shit out of her. He crouched down. “How’s my favorite Hadley?”
Hadley ran to him, her giggle filling the room as he stood and tickled her. It made Olivia sick, but she wasn’t going to rush over there and tear her daughter from his arms. It was exactly the sort of emotional response that would please him, and she refused to give him the satisfaction. So she crossed her arms over her chest and waited. It only took a few minutes for him to finish playing with her daughter and set Hadley back on the ground. She immediately lifted her chubby arms to be held again. “Up.”
“Ah, ah. Your mommy and I have something to talk about.” He pulled a toy from his pocket, and Olivia nearly rolled her eyes when she saw it was a pretend cell phone. Perfect. “But I brought a surprise for you.”
Hadley’s face lit up. She grabbed the phone and toddled over to sit on the couch, her face a mask of concentration.
Only then did Dmitri turn back to Olivia. “This is what you left your family behind for? I never knew your penchant for playing the martyr went so deep.”
This time she lost the fight not to roll her eyes. “Considering I was more like a stray dog that you let stay in the house than actual family, I don’t know why you keep throwing that word around. I’m not family, and I never will be.”
“Andrei didn’t believe that.”
She hated that the sound of their father’s name made her flinch. “Yes, he did. Right up until he was on his deathbed. Chalk the change of heart up to dementia brought on by seeing his life ending, and let’s move on.”
“As delightful as it would be to keep beating this dead horse, that’s not why I’m here.”
She’d figured as much. “Then why are you here?”
He moved around the living room, which took him a grand total of three steps, and paused in front of a picture of her and Hadley. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was one of the tiny tokens that made this home. Dmitri picked it up, and it was everything she could do not to rush over and snatch it out of his hands. He looked at it far too long for her state of mind. “You aren’t coming back.”
God, were they really going to go around again? “No, I’m not coming back.”
He nodded and set the picture down. She wasn’t sure how to read the look on his face. He didn’t like her. He never had. She was pretty sure if she was on fire, he wouldn’t spare the energy to even think about putting her out. The only reason he was so damn determined to get her back to New York was because his father—their father—had insisted she take the Romanov name, and Dmitri had given his word that he’d see it done.
Thanks, but no thanks.
“I hear you have a new boyfriend.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“And an O’Malley?” He tsked. “I knew your taste in men was questionable after Sergei, but this is taking things a bit far. At least Sergei was one of ours, if misguided at times.”
Times like when he let Olivia seduce him. It had been a mistake—looking for love in all the wrong places—and she’d known Dmitri didn’t approve, but this was the first he’d ever verbally acknowledged it. “I thought he could give me what I needed.” Why the hell am I trying to talk sense with this man? He doesn’t care.
“And you think this O’Malley will do the same?” He shook his head. “He won’t. They’re selfish beasts, every single one of them.”
“As much as I’ve enjoyed this sibling bonding time, the day I start taking dating advice from you is the day hell freezes over.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m here about business and not love, isn’t it?”
Damn it, she knew he had a reason for showing up. “Then I’ll ask again. What is it you want?”
“You might resist coming back to New York, but you’re now in a unique position to be useful.” The for once went unsaid. He touched her faded and worn second-hand couch and made a sound of distaste. “The O’Malley family and I have a complicated history.”
Oh no. No, no, no. She held herself straight and still, the sound of her daughter playing in the next room a surreal counterpoint to what was going on in this one. “I don’t want any part of it.”
“That’s unfortunate, Olivia, because this man of yours, Cillian, does the books for the family—”
“Stop. Just stop.” She wanted to cover her ears and curl into a ball to escape his words. She didn’t want her borderline-evil half brother turning his attention on Cillian. She might have thought they were alike initially, but time had more than proved her wrong. Cillian wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t even close. “If you hurt him—”
“Darling sister, as much as I enjoy your willingness to think the absolute worst of me, I have no intention of laying a hand on the boy.”
Which wasn’t the same thing as saying he wasn’t planning on hurting Cillian—or worse. She forced her expression to as close to neutral as she was capable of. If Dmitri had a plan, she needed to know what it was. “Then what do you want with him?”
“The information he has access to.” He spread his arms, the very picture of innocence. She knew better. “They owe me a debt. I can collect it without harming anyone in any way—except financially, of course.”
Just because he could didn’t mean he would. The Romanov family might not have an official motto, but if they did, it would be something like “Never leave an enemy alive at your back.” They were big fans of burning the ground and salting it behind them when they took out competitors. There was no reason to think that the O’Malleys would be any different. She shook her head. “Even if I wanted to help—and I very much don’t—it’s not like he’s inviting me back to his office and leaving me unattended to dig through his records. What you’re asking is impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible with the right motivation.” He turned back to the photograph and picked it up. This time, there was no mistaking the threat of his attention. “You have a very beautiful daughter—a daughter with Romanov blood in her veins no matter how much you wish to deny it.”
“Stop it,” she whispered through suddenly numb lips.
He ignored her. “I’ve been lax with you up until this point, but the truth is that she’s the next generation. Our father had specific ideas of what that involved. If you insist on fighting those plans…You know how these things work.”
Yeah, she did, but she still found herself verbalizing it. “You’re threatening to take my daughter from me.”
“Olivia, please stop with the dramatics.” He set the photograph down, every move perfectly controlled. “I’m not the monster you like to pretend.”
No, he was worse. He’s threatening to take my baby if I don’t do what he wants. Oh God, what am I going to do? She forced her panic down and tried to think. “Then what, exactly, are you being very careful not to threaten me with?”
“A child should know her family. That’s all I’m implying. I would think you and I agreed on this.” He paused, his dark eyes so cold it was a wonder there wasn’t a layer of ice around his body. “Sergei deserves access to her.”
“Over my goddamn dead body.” This wasn’t about Sergei and it wasn’t about bringing a twice-bastard descendant of Andrei Romanov into the fold. It was about punishing her for not doing what he wanted. Fuck that.
“No need for that kind of talk.” He smiled, the expression making her go cold. “Think about what I said, Olivia. I’m a patient man, but the time is rapidly approaching when you’ll be required to make a decision—to declare your alliance, if you will.”
“That’s not fair.” She was having a difficult time getting a full breath when it felt like he’d sucked up all the air in the room. This was the exact thing she’d left New York to avoid. I should have run farther. “I don’t want any part of this. I’m not taking sides.” She hadn’t even been aware that there were sides when she started falling for Cillian. She should have known better.
“Then you never should have let the O’Malley boy so close.” He moved to the door and paused as he opened it. “When it comes right down to it, all we have in this world is family, Olivia. You’d do well to remember that.”
She waited for the door to close before she picked up the vase on the rickety end table and threw it at the wood. It hit the door but, being plastic, didn’t shatter into a million pieces. She cursed and hurried over to pick up the scattered flowers before Hadley could come investigate. What the hell am I going to do? Dmitri might be content with careful nonthreats right now, but that wouldn’t last. The longer she didn’t do what he wanted, the more explicit the consequences would be.
He’ll take Hadley. He wouldn’t even hesitate. If what he said is any indication, he’s already preparing for it.
It was possible he’d started preparing for it the second he realized she’d never bend to Andrei’s will.
“I never should have put Sergei on the birth certificate.” She’d had a moment of sentimental weakness when he’d shown up at the hospital and held their daughter for the first—and probably only—time. Stupid. It wouldn’t have ultimately changed anything, though. All he needed was a paternity test to prove that he was the father, and he’d have rights to Hadley. With the Romanov finances backing him, he’d be able to tie her up in court indefinitely.
And that was if they even bothered to go the legal road. It was just as easy for Olivia to go to work one night and come home to find Mrs. Richards incapacitated and Hadley gone to God alone knew where.
The band around her chest got tighter at the thought. Oh God, oh God, oh God. What am I going to do?
Running sounded like a really great plan, but she couldn’t run on no cash, and if the ease that Dmitri found her with this time was any indication, she wasn’t very good at it. They’d need new identities, cash to spare, and connections she just plain didn’t have. He’d find them. It probably wouldn’t even take him a month with his resources.
“Mama?”
She pasted a smile on her face and turned to her daughter. “Hey, baby girl. How about we watch some Beauty and the Beast while I make pancakes?” Some cuddle time might be able to beat back the panic making black dots dance across her vision.
“Up!” Hadley lifted her arms, and Olivia was all too happy to scoop her up, grab the throw blanket off the back of the couch, and get them set up in their favorite spot. She turned on the movie and settled in, letting the feel of her daughter, healthy and whole, in her arms relax her.
Her mind circled the problem as the movie progressed, but the solution didn’t magically appear in front of her face. If anything, the more she thought about it, the clearer it became that she was in over her head in a big way. As much as she hated to admit it, Dmitri was right—there were only two options. She either had to obey him like a well-behaved lap dog, or she had to ask for help. She wasn’t a fan of either option. Olivia had always taken care of herself, and the idea of needing to lean on someone stuck in her throat.
She looked down at Hadley. For you, baby girl, I’ll do it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you out of Romanov hands.
Really, there was only one person she could ask for help who’d actually have the resources to do something effective. Cillian. She cuddled her daughter closer, considering. She liked him. She liked him a lot. That didn’t mean she completely trusted him. Plus, trusting him with her and trusting him with Hadley were two very different things.
She’d told him that she had a past, but it was a big leap from having an abusive boyfriend like she’d let him believe and having one of the strongest cells of the Russian mob on the East Coast on her ass. It was entirely possible that he’d offer her something similar to what Dmitri had—his power for her information.
It was like choosing between the rock and the hard place. Neither of them was a great option.
You believe Cillian is different.
Sure, but do I believe it enough to trust him with my life? Or, more importantly, with Hadley’s?
She didn’t know. What she wouldn’t give for a crystal ball to tell her what the right answer was. But, in the end, it didn’t really matter. Dmitri wasn’t an option. That meant she had to throw herself on Cillian’s mercy. To do anything else would only postpone the moment when her half brother took Hadley away from her.
I said I’d do anything to keep her away from the Romanovs. I meant it. She took a shuddering breath and reached for her phone. It’s now or never.