21. Cillian
Chapter twenty-one
Cillian
W hen I met Finn at his penthouse this morning to pack a cache of weapons to bring with us, the last thing I expected was for his wife or her best friend to be there. Or that they were making the trip to Shine with us. When I raised my brow at Finn, he replied with a small shake of his head and pursed lips. Looks like he had a few opinions on the matter of Alessia and Gemma coming along, and by the look on his face, he was overruled.
The marriage between Finn and Alessia is not particularly common in criminal organizations, but completely on par with what we grew up around. Though Cormac Monaghan was the head of the organization for years, Maeve was the head of the family and we all fell in line, including her husband. Finn could always lock her in a safe room like he’s threatened to do before. However, Alessia has better aim than her husband—though I would never tell him that—and he probably has an only somewhat irrational fear of losing a certain appendage.
We walk into the clubhouse late in the morning, and Liam and his team aren’t far behind us. There are still a lot of details that need to be hashed out as far as where Farina is and then find the best plan of attack. Our sources are telling us he’s holed up in his home, but we have no way of confirming that. At least until Liam shows up with Sawyer. My hacking skills aren’t too shabby, but Sawyer has ways of getting satellite footage I could only dream of learning. Not that he’d teach me. Hackers are notoriously tight-lipped about their bag of tricks.
“How was last night?” I ask, walking up to Knox, who’s sitting at the bar.
“Fine.” He’s about as much of a wealth of information as I am on any given day.
“Harper and Nova come out of their room?”
“They did.”
That offers some relief. Though he’s not divulging what happened when they did, which does nothing to relieve the tension that’s been plaguing me.
“You know where she's at?”
“Out back.”
“Thanks.”
Usually, his less-than-chatty personality is appreciated. Today, not so much.
I walk out to the back of the clubhouse and find Nova and Harper sitting at a table with giant coffee mugs in their hands. The first thing I notice is the sweatshirt Nova’s wearing. She’s curled up on the chair with the too-large sweatshirt pulled over her knees and calves. A Black Roses sweatshirt. Another man’s sweatshirt. My jaw, along with my chest, tightens in irritation. There’s no reason for me to be vexed. Nova isn’t the type to jump into another man’s bed only days after having sex with me. Or maybe she is. Truthfully, I don’t know her well enough to make that call. And here’s another truth; seeing her in another man’s clothes doesn’t sit right with me. Not at all.
The two turn their gazes in my direction, but I can’t quite read the expression on Nova’s face. There’s a moment when she looks me over, a flash of something in her green eyes, but it’s gone in an instant.
“I wanted you to know I’m back and brought some people with me. This will be over by morning.”
She and Harper share a look before Harper stands. “I should go get ready or…something,” she says and walks past me into the clubhouse.
That wasn’t awkward at all.
“You look refreshed this morning,” Nova says as I stand here like a fucking idiot.
“You look comfy.” My head tilts to the sweatshirt she’s curled up in.
“Oh, yeah. One of the guys let me borrow something a little warmer. Charlie and Lucy said they’d bring some stuff by for Harper and me today since nothing we brought is really suited for this weather.”
Damnit, I should have thought of that yesterday.
“Good night?” I ask.
“It was, actually,” she replies with a slow nod. “I had a few…epiphanies, shall we say.”
“Care to share with the class?”
One thing I learned about Nova the second we met—not when she was playing Charity but when I met the real her—is that all kinds of things fly out of her mouth. It was fascinating if I’m being honest. Like every thought she had needed to be shared. I loved the way her mind worked and the off-the-wall shit she would say in the unlikeliest of situations. But since that night in the hotel, there's been a wall between us. I realize I put it there, but I hate it all the same.
Nova considers whether or not she should share personal information with me as I stand and stare at her. Anything and everything used to flow freely from her lips, but she’s not open with me like she was just a month ago.
It doesn’t seem as though she’s going to confide in me until she exhales a deep breath and opens her mouth to speak. “Harper helped me look at where my anger was really coming from. It was never something I admitted to anyone, and actually just recently kind of admitted to myself. Then I talked with Lucy and got a better feel for what Cooper’s life was like here and how his death affected everyone. Not because they lost a member, but they lost a brother, too. I don’t know. I guess I realized I had more in common with the club than I would have thought. And it was nice being around people who knew and loved him. Kind of like we could share the grief.”
“Wow, that is quite the revelation.”
She lets out a disbelieving huff of laughter. “Trust me, no one is more surprised than I am.”
“I’m glad being here helped, Nova.”
I offer her a smile and she returns it, but there’s still this heavy unease between us. There was a natural camaraderie I felt with her from the start, and it’s broken now. I don’t know if we can ever get it back. I don’t know if she wants to try, if it’s all that important to her.
Jude peeks his head in from the doorway. “My brother’s here,” he tells me. “And Lucifer and Charlie just got here with some things for you and Harper,” he says, turning toward Nova.
Good, she can change out of that sweatshirt.
“Thanks, Jude,” she replies. When he walks back inside, she lets out a real laugh. The one I haven’t heard for far too long. “Those two are something else. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so in love but so intent on pissing the other person off. It was like watching a tennis match last night.”
The fond smile on Nova’s face does something to my heart. Her face, her energy, it’s so much lighter than it was yesterday when I left her here. She came here because she was out of options and wasn’t willing to accept my help. But coming here has lifted something from her, and now she’s found the family her brother was searching for, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. I recognize it because that’s what I found with the Monaghans.
“I need to go inside and talk to Liam. Finn’s wife and Eoghan’s fiancée are here too if you want to meet them.” Not that she’s going to have much of a choice. Making the trip to be close to their men wasn’t the only reason Gemma and Alessia came with us.
“Sure, I’m just going to head to my room first and get changed.”
“Okay, see you in there.”
I turn and head back inside, wishing we could stay out here and I could enjoy this other side of Nova I haven’t seen since everything went to shit.
But things need to get done, and plans need to be made. Today isn’t the day for enjoying the beauty in front of me. It’s for making sure she’s safe and taking out the motherfuckers that threaten it.
Walking back into the main room of the clubhouse, I see Gemma and Alessia talking with Lucy and Charlie. The women have formed a friendship since the first time they met at a fight night a few months ago. Liam is at the bar talking with Finn and Ozzy as everyone else says their hellos.
“Sawyer here?” I ask, walking up to Liam.
“He’s grabbing himself a cup of coffee and a donut from the kitchen,” Liam answers. “He had a long night of getting into some footage and tracking down a few people. Seems Tony is at the Farina compound, and as far as we can tell, he hasn’t left since yesterday afternoon.”
Finn nods. “Makes it a bit easier for us.”
“Trust me, nothing is going to be easy about this,” Sawyer says, walking over with a coffee in one hand and his laptop in the other. “The guards are working in shifts of six. From what I can tell, they switch every twelve hours. In my experience, it’s going to be best for us to go in about four in the morning. The shift change happens at five, so the guards on duty will be tired enough that they may not be particularly alert, but the ones relieving them also won’t be up and ready yet. That will get us in. It doesn’t look to me like the guards are leaving the property. Farina has a house separate from his where the guards go after their shift to get some rest. They’re expecting something, unless that’s standard protocol for them.”
“That’s not standard for Farina,” I hear someone say as they walk up to our little group.
I turn and see Luca—Finn’s cousin.
“I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it,” Finn says to his cousin, who has been traveling through Italy with his new wife, Giada, who is saying hello to Alessia and Gemma.
“I wasn’t either, but glad I did,” he replies before turning his attention to the rest of the group. “Farina never had more than four guards on at one time, and from what I saw when I was undercover with Cataldi, the guards never stayed on the property. They’re definitely prepared for a full-scale attack.”
“Well, I certainly hate to see them prepare for nothing,” Liam quips.
Nova and Harper catch my attention as they walk from the hallway to the group of women sitting on the couches. I see Lucy introduce the two women to Alessia, Gemma, and Giada. Nova is wearing a smile on her face as she casually chats with everyone. Seeing her so friendly—and dare I say, relaxed—in this clubhouse and with the other women eases something for me. I hated the way she looked when we first walked in here yesterday, how stiff and ready to jump down someone’s throat she was. Like the weight of the world was on her. Today is different. From what I can see, this is the Nova I met months ago who was quick with a smile and a joke.
Alessia catches my gaze, and the corner of her mouth tips up in a knowing smile. I know what she's thinking, and maybe in another life, she would be right. But Nova and I aren’t in a place where it matters how well she gets along with the other women. It doesn’t matter that her sense of ease around Alessia, Gemma, or Giada means so fucking much to me.
“Cillian, are you listening?” Sawyer asks. “I need to make sure everyone is aware of the plan and knows the roles they’re playing, otherwise this whole thing will go to shit.”
Finn casts me a worried look, but I ignore him.
“Yup, I’m here. Let’s dial it in.”