Chapter Seven

Maggie

I stared down at the dead man on the floor with my heart in my throat. My stomach churned, and I couldn’t stop staring. No matter how hard I tried to look away, I couldn’t bring myself to avert my eyes. It was like there was some physical force keeping my eyes focused on the dead man. A few seconds later, Aidan stepped over and pulled me away from the body, forcing me to look up at him instead.

“Mags.”

Aidan gripped me by the shoulders and held me there. His grip was a little too tight for comfort, and the look on his face sent shivers down my spine. His eyes looked darker and more dangerous than I’d ever seen them.

I’m no fool. I knew what it meant walking in on something like this. Especially in a mob family. It meant I was either dead, or I’d just sold my soul to the O’Brien syndicate. Neither one sounded good to me. Even though Aidan and I worked together—we weren’t exactly close. Not close enough for him to trust me with a secret of that magnitude.

“What—what happened? What can I do?” I tried hard to sound strong and then realizing I didn’t want to know what had happened. It was better for me not knowing.

“What can you do?” Aidan asked as he walked to the front office and locked the door. Oh God, is he gonna kill me, too?

“Yes. What can I do to help you?” My heart pumped hard enough in my head, I got dizzy. Is this the end? Am I gonna die? “I, uh…I came back to see if you needed any help with…oh fuck, Aiden. I wasn’t expecting this—” I waved my hand in the direction of the bloody corpse. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

The look of shock on Aidan’s face was priceless. He probably never expected me to say anything like that, to be willing to put my own freedom at stake for him. Even though I worked for him and was willing to do anything he asked of me, our professional relationship had never been tested like this before. And judging by the look on his face, he didn’t think I’d be willing to compromise myself to help him with something like that.

“Uhm well, for starters—”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut, Aidan. I promise. You don’t need to worry about me.” He had to believe I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I knew working for him was a huge risk, but he had to believe me.

He stared at me then looked down at the body on the floor and took a deep breath. It was almost like he was contemplating what he needed to do—kill me to keep me quiet—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

I stood there, his hands on my shoulders, only not as tight as before. I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and blurted, “Trust me, Aidan. I’ll not only keep my mouth shut, but I’ll help you dispose of the body. If you go down, I’ll go down with you. But I promise you, Aidan, that will never be the case because only you and I know what happened here, and it’s going to stay that way.”

I tried to sound confident, as if I’d done this before and it was nothing new. I hadn’t, of course. I’d never touched a dead body in my entire life, and my only experience with dead people was at funerals where they’d been embalmed, cleaned up, and made to look like they were sleeping.

But this bloody mess? This was on a whole other level and a little hard to take in. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t real, that it was staged. Just like in the movies. A very realistic movie at that. I had just pledged my loyalty to Aidan, but that didn’t mean I could actually deal with the mess of it all. I’d be lucky if I didn’t throw up.

“Mags, I don’t know—” Aidan let go of my shoulders and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I wouldn’t hurt you—I’m not that kind of man. I hope you know that. It’s just—you shouldn’t have seen this.”

“But I have seen it, Aidan. It’s too late for that now,” I said. “And because I’m here, I’m going to do my job and help you in any way I can. Now, what needs to be done?”

I’ve always been loyal to Aidan over the years. I’d heard whispers and rumors about him, of course. It was kind of unavoidable given his genetics. Despite all the gossip, I ignored most of it. None of it mattered to me, anyway.

Hell, just in the course of my day to day duties, I’d heard more than enough to go to the feds and turn him in for his involvement with the syndicate. But I’d never betray Aidan O’Brien. Some might say I was betraying my profession by protecting my mentor, but I knew the law was rarely so black and white. Aidan was a good man. If someone was lying dead on his floor, there was a reason for it. He wasn’t a ruthless killer like Flynn was. Aidan didn’t get off on hurting people. He did what had to be done.

And so did I.

“Are you sure, Maggie?” Aidan’s face was masked in pain and trepidation. A look I’d never seen before.

“I’m positive.” I knew it would prove my loyalty and hopefully keep me alive, but also because this was Aidan—a man I’d grown to love over the years. A man I’d do anything for. Even if my feelings weren’t returned. “But we better hurry.”

Aidan nodded, he was already on the phone—probably a member of the syndicate.

“I need a cleanup crew at my office, stat,” he said.

I knew it wasn’t just a typical cleanup crew, either. Definitely not Rosie’s Housekeeping Services. The crew Aidan spoke to would be people who knew how to clean this sort of thing up. Make it disappear entirely. As soon as he was off the phone, Aidan knelt by the body and started looking through his clothing.

“What are you doing?” I asked, a little grossed out by the horrific scene of death surrounding me. The corpse lay at an odd angle across the floor, thick in its own blood—the sanguine fluid coagulating in the seams of the hardwood floor.

“Looking for any identifying marks, trying to determine who he is and why he wanted to kill me.” Bile crawled up my throat and my stomach twisted in knots as Aidan carefully searched the body. Bullet wounds riddled the torso, arms, and legs.

“You don’t know?”

Aidan shook his head. “There could be any number of men after me. If we tried to narrow it down to everyone who’d benefit from me being dead, it would be one hell of a long list. If I can figure out who this asshole is, it might give us a better idea.”

Biting my lip, I paced the room a bit before Aidan turned to me.

“Can you get me some trash bags?” he asked over his shoulder as he checked the man’s pockets.

I walked to the supply closet and grabbed a few large garbage bags and handed them to Aidan.

“Thank you,” he said. “My guys will know what to do, but I’m going to make their job a little easier for them.”

“Did you find anything useful?” I asked, curiously.

“Not a damn thing, Mags.” He shook his head, and I could see his frustration growing. No ID. No tattoos. Nothing we could use to identify him. We had nothing to go on. Nowhere to start.