Olivia managed a few hours of sleep while Hadley napped, but it was nowhere near enough. The only thing that got her through her day was the knowledge that she didn’t have a shift for two days and could sleep through the night. To keep herself occupied, she went to work tidying up the apartment. It was old and there were some stains that were never coming out, but the smell of lemon cleaner never failed to make her feel more in control of her life.
Even if it was a joke.
Hadley toddled after her, and she handed over a clean rag. This was one of their day-off rituals. As she vacuumed, Hadley bounced around and ran the cloth over the walls and the television and pretty much every available surface she could reach. Then she went behind it with one of her sticky hands, leaving a trail. Olivia laughed and shook her head. There would be a day coming at some point where she’d have to force her daughter to help clean, so she always focused on enjoying every moment she could of this innocence and fun.
That parental indulgence had never been a part of her life growing up. Andrei barely acknowledged she existed until she was around grade-school age, and her mother was even worse in some ways. She wielded guilt like it was a bladed weapon, a picture-perfect phantom of a woman who drifted in and out of Olivia’s life at the most inopportune of times. Olivia would get to the point where she was sure she was over wanting her mother to love her as more than a failed bargaining chip to force Andrei to leave his wife and marry her…And then her mother would deliver a few well-placed barbs and she’d be a mess of emotion all over again. She’d taken to avoiding the woman when she was all of ten, which worked more often than not because her mother didn’t like seeing evidence of Olivia’s existence any more than Olivia liked seeing the woman responsible for bringing her into the world.
She would never do that to Hadley. Her daughter might not have been planned, but damn it, she would be loved.
Her phone rang three times during the course of the afternoon—all from Sergei—and she didn’t answer it once. Whatever he wanted, he could wait. She wasn’t exactly riding high after her night with Cillian, but she felt a definite buoyancy that made her turn up the music as she cleaned and swing her laughing daughter around the room. She wasn’t ready to give up the rare good mood. Not yet.
“Mama! Again!”
She grinned and flipped the song back to restart. “My baby girl likes LMFAO? I always knew you had great taste.” She wiggled in an exaggerated way that made Hadley let loose a string of infectious toddler giggles. God, she loved that sound. She spun a circle and dipped into the water-filled sink to grab a clean plate to dry next. The apartment didn’t have a dishwasher, which wasn’t terrible since there was only the two of them, but there were days when she felt the lack.
The phone rang again, and Hadley toddled over to it. “Wait!” But it was too late. Her toddler pressed the green button, answering it. Olivia dove for the phone, scaring Hadley in the process. Her daughter instantly started crying, but she couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now. “Hello?” She slapped off the radio. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”
“Olivia.”
Her heart damn near stopped at the silky Russian voice coming through the line. She took the phone away from her ear and glanced at it. Yep, Sergei’s number. It shouldn’t surprise her that Dmitri used his favorite minion’s phone to make this call—he wouldn’t want any more strings connecting them than strictly necessary. Why is he calling now?
She took a shaky breath and tried to kill the panic creeping up inside her. “Dmitri.” No need to ask what he wanted—he’d get around to telling her when he was damn well good and ready.
“I hear you’ve been making new friends.”
She closed her eyes. Cillian. That had to be who he was talking about—he was the only thing that had changed about her life in the last week—but that didn’t mean she was going to roll over and play dead. “New city, new friends. You know how it goes.”
“Hardly.” A pause in which she could perfectly picture him narrowing his eyes. “You haven’t accessed the money I wired into your account.”
She didn’t ask how he knew that. New York might not be the Romanovs’ in total, but enough people owed him allegiance that it wasn’t surprising he had someone at her bank. What she didn’t get was why he cared so much. She couldn’t ask him. No one asked Dmitri Romanov a damn thing. “I don’t want the money. I don’t want the strings that come with it, either.”
“Life rarely cares about individual wants. I’m surprised you haven’t learned that by now.”
She had. That was the problem. She hadn’t asked to be born as Andrei Romanov’s bastard daughter, and she sure as hell hadn’t wanted his sudden change of heart. In a world where family was everything, she’d grown up as a barely tolerated individual within the realm of the Romanovs. It had sucked, but at least she knew she couldn’t rely on anyone else but herself. To have Andrei suddenly decide that he wanted her to actually be a Romanov…No fucking way.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to ignore Hadley’s wails. “If the money is so important to you, take it back.”
“You know it’s not about the money.”
If it was, she might have just taken it. Maybe. Olivia leaned against the counter. If she could just get through to Dmitri, there was a chance he’d leave her alone. “I don’t want to be a Romanov. That was never my place, and Andrei deciding it before he died doesn’t change that.”
He paused. “I gave him my word, Olivia.”
Damn you, Andrei. You didn’t have time for me during your life. Was this just one final “fuck you” before you took that one-way trip to hell? She closed her eyes, violating her determination to wait him out. “What do you want, Dmitri?”
His voice went hard. “Next time Sergei calls, you answer without hesitation. Is that understood?”
That wasn’t an answer, but it was clear that he didn’t really care about giving her one. Big surprise there. “You don’t own me.”
“On the contrary, I own everything about you. Your freedom is a luxury that I allow. If I choose to, I can snatch it back, and there isn’t a single thing you can do about it. And your daughter…”
She gripped her phone so hard, it was a wonder it didn’t shatter. “You can fuck with me all you want. I’m an adult. I can handle it. You come near Hadley, and I’ll kill you myself.”
He tsked. “You know better.”
“This isn’t about blood and this isn’t about family. I don’t owe your father a damn thing. He was nothing more than a sperm donor, which is a half step less than my mother was. You don’t want me in New York, and I sure as hell don’t want to be there. I don’t care if you gave your word. Just let me go, Dmitri.” Please. She didn’t beg, though it was a close thing. The only thing that kept that final word on the right side of her lips was the knowledge that he’d capitalize on any weakness she showed.
“You know I can’t do that.” And hell if he didn’t sound downright regretful. The worst part was that she didn’t know if it was an act or if he was genuinely sorry he had to play these games.
It doesn’t matter. Either way, both Hadley and I lose.
She opened her eyes. “Good-bye, Dmitri.”
“Answer when he calls, Olivia. If you force my hand, you won’t like the results.”
She hung up without responding and set the phone on the counter, her entire body shaking. Hadley immediately was there, her chubby arms raised, her face tear-stained. “Up, up.”
“I got you, baby girl.” She scooped her daughter into her arms and held her close, inhaling the scent of baby powder and clean toddler. Her entire life revolved around making the best life for Hadley that she could, and Dmitri thought he could threaten that…
Over her dead body.
What if it comes to that? He’ll kill me. He wouldn’t even hesitate.
It would leave Hadley even more adrift than Olivia had been growing up. Her mother had always been distant enough that she was little more than a stranger, wrapped up in the affair with Andrei, her owner and boss, all in one neat package. When Olivia found out she was pregnant—after several months of panic attacks—she’d promised herself that she’d never leave her baby alone in the world like both her parents had left her, albeit in different ways. No matter what it took, she’d be there.
Which meant she had to play by Dmitri’s rules.
No matter how much she hated them.
It’s just a phone call here and there. Nothing crazy.
She knew better. The request might sound simple enough on the surface, but her half brother did nothing without reason. Hadley cuddled up against her, and she rested her chin on her daughter’s head. What am I going to do? Running sounded really great right about now—as far and as fast as she could—but it wasn’t really an option. Dmitri had resources beyond what she could dream up, and besides that, she didn’t have the funds to truly disappear without a trace.
Not unless I tap into that goddam money.
No. There had to be another way. Yes, Dmitri wanted something from her, but he was still talking. That meant she had time. Hopefully.
Hadley had quieted and gave one last pathetic super-fake sob. Olivia grinned despite herself. Her daughter had been a drama queen from birth, and that didn’t look to be changing anytime soon. “It’ll be okay, baby girl. I’ll take care of both of us.”
She just wished she knew what her half brother was up to.
*
Cillian worked through the reports in front of him for the fourth time, and came up with the wrong answer again. “Something’s off.” He’d been working on getting things organized in an attempt to digitize their accounts. They were long overdue for a dose of technology, but Bartholomew was a purist at heart and had a borderline-paranoid distrust of all things computer related. Over the last six months, Cillian had spent every moment he wasn’t with the old man working on a program Devlin had created that would encrypt their files digitally—once they were uploaded.
Now the only thing left was to wade through a couple decades’ worth of accounts and do just that.
“Or maybe you’re just hungover and shitty at math.”
He glanced at his older brother sitting behind the desk on the other side of the room. Aiden had conveyed his annoyance for the last few hours by giving Cillian the silent treatment. Not that he minded. He had a wicked headache, and the last thing he wanted was yet another lecture on how irresponsible he was. The subject had already been exhausted between their parents.
He ran his finger down the math he’d gone through, barely resisting the urge to add it up one more time, and sat back. “It’s not my math that’s the problem. It’s the numbers. They aren’t adding up.”
Aiden frowned. “Which numbers?”
At least he had his brother’s full attention now. “Local. They each pay out fifteen percent, right? Except by these numbers, they’re only passing over twelve. It’s not a huge discrepancy, but across all the business, it starts to add up.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Aiden stood and walked around to look over his shoulder. “Why would they be undercutting us? Do you think it’s just bad bookkeeping?”
“No.” He shifted the papers around until he found his list. “I could chalk one up to that—even three. But we’re talking nearly every single business owing us loyalty in the Financial District. That’s too many to write off as coincidence.” He didn’t know what it meant, but just seeing the list of places made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention.
“Hmm.” Aiden rubbed a hand over his mouth, his frown deepening. “Do you think it’s Halloran?”
He almost reached up to touch the cut on his head, but managed to abort the move before it started. “I wouldn’t necessarily rule it out, but I doubt it. Carrigan—”
“Don’t.”
Jesus Christ. She wasn’t dead, no matter what their father liked to preach on the rare occasions when one of their siblings brought her up. Of them all, Cillian would have thought his older brother wouldn’t stand to let her go completely. She’d always been closest with Teague and Aiden, and it felt like yet another betrayal that Aiden was dancing to the tune their father set. Not surprising, but disappointing in a huge way.
Well, he wasn’t going to dance. “It’s not like saying her name three times is going to bring her crashing through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man.”
Aiden clenched his jaw. “She betrayed our family.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.” Cillian didn’t chafe at the bounds as much as some of his siblings, but this was getting ridiculous. “The whole arranged-marriage thing is tired, don’t you think? You can’t blame her for ditching the Russian and going with her heart.”
“Even if her heart led her to James Halloran?”
He looked away. Those wounds are never going to close, not when we keep ripping them open to prove a point. “I don’t like it any more than you do. But she’s still family, no matter what Father says.”
“No, Cillian. She’s not. She’s a Halloran now.” Aiden walked back to his desk and sank into the chair. “Don’t bring her up again.”
Fat chance of that happening. “My point is that James has been quiet these last few months. He’s occupied with her and keeping control of their people. The only reason you even brought him up in the first place was because you’re still pissed she chose him.”
“That’s not it.”
Yes, it was. For whatever reason, Aiden took Carrigan’s choice almost personally. Since Cillian knew for a fact his brother hadn’t been thrilled with the Russian either, he didn’t get it.
Damn it, that wasn’t the truth. He understood it far too well. James Halloran might not have been the one who gave the order that resulted in Devlin’s death, but he was still part of the family who did. That might not be enough to totally condemn him, but it didn’t exactly win him any points, either. Cillian still had a hell of a time wrapping his mind around the fact that Carrigan had gone and fallen for him of all people.
But it was her choice. He respected it, even if he didn’t understand it.
He leaned back, stretching his arms over his head. “If not Halloran, then who? We both know it’s not the Sheridans.” Teague and Callie might not share all their secrets these days, but they were allies. That, at least, he was sure of.
“I don’t know.”
The words settled between them, and the feeling of danger only got worse. Cillian straightened. “Well, we need to find out what’s going on.” It had to be a precursor to something else—something worse—but hell if he could figure out what it was. Even if all the businesses chose to revolt and throw a fit, there were other ways to do it. Better ways. Three percent was just…insulting.
It didn’t make any sense.
“I will find out what’s going on. You are going to stay out of trouble.”
It was like his brother was talking to a child. Protesting that he hadn’t gone looking for trouble just sounded like he was making excuses, which undermined his whole point. Pointing out that he’d danced to whatever tune Aiden and their father set wouldn’t help, either. So Cillian sat there and glared—and felt childish for doing even that. “I can help.”
“You found the discrepancy. That’s helping.” Aiden shrugged into his jacket and stood. “There’s a family dinner tomorrow, and you’re expected to be there.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” It seemed like the only time he got to see all his siblings—Carrigan excluded, of course—was during the obligatory family dinner these days.
Aiden snorted and left the office. Cillian set his list aside and got back to work. Now that he’d brought all the accounts up to date for this week, it was time to go over the notes from the meeting he’d missed this morning. He rifled through the pages his brother had left him, cursing under his breath when he realized they were missing some seriously vital information. “Goddamn it.”
“Problems?”
He glanced up to find Sloan standing on the other side of the desk. He knew she could be quiet when she wanted to, but he hadn’t even heard her come in. “Hey, squirt. How’s it hanging?”
She took the seat across from him and pulled her legs up to rest her chin on her knees. His little sister always seemed to do that—find a position to take up as little space as physically possible. She didn’t look too great, either. She’d always been thin, but she was almost gaunt these days, her dark eyes huge on her face. It made him want to drag her down to the kitchen and make her a sandwich—except he knew it wouldn’t really solve anything in the long term.
Still…
Cillian stood. “I missed lunch. Come on.”
“If you insist.” Her sigh was almost silent, but he caught it all the same. “What happened to your head?”
At least she asked him instead of just accusing him of brawling like everyone else had. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked down the hall toward the kitchen at the back of the house. “Oh, you know me, always leading with my head.”
“Don’t tell me you ran into a door.”
He was about to make a joke, but the tight way she held herself stopped him. She was genuinely worried, and fuck if that didn’t make him feel even worse than his parents and Aiden combined. “It was a wrong-place, wrong-time kind of thing. I know it doesn’t help, but I wasn’t out looking for trouble.”
“Are you sure?”
He stopped short, and she made it another three steps before he caught up to her. “What kind of question is that?”
“I’m not blind, Cillian. Everyone else might be occupied with their own issues, but I’ve noticed that you come and go at all hours of the night, and most of the time it’s on foot. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots—you’re out trolling for trouble.” Her gaze rested on his bandage. “It looks like you finally found it last night.”
“That’s not fair.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’m right, aren’t I?”
Yeah, she was. Or she had been. He’d been a ship without an anchor, drifting wherever the current took him, until it was only a matter of time before he wrecked himself on the rocks. But things were different now. As cliché as it was, last night with Olivia had shifted things for him. He wasn’t magically okay or any bullshit like that, but he felt like he had part of a purpose for the first time in over a year.
If he told anyone else in his family that, they’d laugh him out of the room. Sloan, though…Sloan might actually listen. “I met a girl, squirt.”
“A girl.” If anything, her voice went even flatter.
“Well, a woman.” He pushed open the door to the kitchen and held it for her. “She wouldn’t give me the time of day. Not that I blame her.”
“I can’t decide if that makes her smart or a fool.”
“Sit down.” He waited for her to do so before he went to raid the fridge. Their cook usually left the makings for snacks tucked away in case any of them got hungry between meals. He opened the bottom drawer. Sure enough, there were three different kinds of deli meat and the good sliced cheese that had probably actually seen a cow at some point. Perfect.
He brought it all out and set it across from Sloan. “Turkey, ham, or beef?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Yeah, he just bet she wasn’t. He put on a stern face. “Well, I am, and you know Mother would smack me if I ate in front of you without making you one, too.”
Some humor appeared in Sloan’s eyes. “You must be thinking of someone else. Our mother doesn’t lower herself to smacking.”
“You’re right. She’d just level one of those looks at us.” He shuddered, putting a little extra shake into it for her benefit. “Don’t throw me to the wolves, squirt. Let me make you a sandwich.”
She sighed. “If you’re going to insist, I’ll take a turkey. No mayo, please.”
“I remember.” Ever since she was a child, his sister hadn’t been a fan of condiments. He could understand some of the aversion—too much mayo was fucking disgusting—but she didn’t even eat ketchup.
She waited until he had the bread laid out before she spoke again. “So…this girl. Tell me about her.”
“She’s about your age, I think, and she’s a bartender down at Jameson’s.” He slathered mustard onto one side of his bread. “She’s got a kid. And a past, if I’m not wrong.”
“You’re joking.”
“What?”
“A single mother? Really?”
He tried and failed not to be insulted by the shock in her voice. “What’s wrong with a single mother?”
“Nothing.” Sloan crossed her arms over her chest, her shoulders hunching even as she met his gaze. “But you’re…you. You have a history of dating blondes with bigger chests than brains—and that’s if what you do could even be called dating.”
She was right, but that didn’t take the sting out of it. He carefully placed the meat on the bread, not looking at her. He’d known what his family thought of the way he’d gone about his life, and he’d never cared before. Now he did. He wasn’t sure when that switch had been flipped, but he didn’t like it. “I’m nowhere near as worthless as everyone seems to think, you know.”
“Oh, Cillian, that wasn’t what I meant at all. It’s just that you like your freedom and you like to party, and it doesn’t seem like a single mom worth her salt has much time for either of those things.”
Another point to Sloan. He sighed and finished putting the sandwiches together. “It’s just a date, squirt.”
It didn’t matter if no one had faith in him and his ability to be a responsible goddamn adult. He liked Olivia. She obviously felt that same connection. The rest would fall into place as they went. It was pointless to worry too much about it when there was so much unsaid between them. She knew what family he was a part of, and he got the feeling that she knew exactly what that meant, but they hadn’t gotten into the dirty details. And she had a past that she’d obviously moved to escape.
Nothing was simple in life.
He’d known that since he was a kid, but the last year had really solidified that truth. In a perfect world they would have avoided war in Boston without any personal casualties—and if someone went out, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been Devlin. And the fact that his older sister was with a man she was totally and completely in love with would have been a good thing, rather than something that got her banished from their family.
But that wasn’t the world he lived in. He could only do what it took to make the best of things in this reality. For Cillian, that meant spending more time with Olivia and seeing if this thing with her would be…Well, hell, he wasn’t sure. Something.
He pushed Sloan’s plate over to her. “It’ll all work out. Just you wait and see.”