36. Cian
Chapter 36
Cian
Darren’s still in the medical unit from injuries he sustained during the final push to kill Enzo. Finn got him out while Riley and Rory finished the job. Darren thought he was fine, but the idiot lost a fuck-ton of blood. Damn near passed out yesterday once we finally made it back.
That’s the only reason he’s not with us in the smoking lounge on the estate’s first floor.
The room is outfitted with hardwood floors and wall paneling with cushy leather-upholstered furniture. Off to the right, Rory monopolizes the billiard table, playing against himself. Finn smokes in the armchair to my left.
He doesn’t think I notice, but he’s been watching me over the entire past hour.
Maybe he’s trying to be available to me. In case I need to… talk .
Like talking would help.
I’m drowning in chaos here, trying to imagine a life without Harper now that she’s decided to leave the Kings. Before we returned, I worried that she’d never want to see me again after getting snatched on my watch.
When she told me to make love to her, even after everything, I almost died from relief.
There’s something about Harper that’s unforgettable. Irresistible. I’m addicted to her. How I ever managed to stay away from her before will remain one of life’s mysteries. No clue where I found that type of restraint.
I’m too far gone for her and completely unprepared for this situation.
I’m spiraling through my own emotions like a skydiver with no parachute.
Nothing.My brain can’t come up with a single image when I try to picture my days without her. It goes without saying my nights will become unbearable, empty shells of darkness. I kissed her one time and didn’t sleep with another woman for two whole months.
Now that I’ve kissed Harper dozens of times and know that fucking her a few times is the equivalent of experiencing lifetimes of intimacy and passion, I may never touch another woman again.
That should be the bleakest thought of all, and yet it doesn’t even faze me.
The thought of never touching a woman doesn’t kill me, but the thought of never touching her again destroys me, over and over again.
My heart splinters. Did she lie when she assured me that she didn’t blame me for my mother’s death? That she was glad I killed my father? Do I terrify her now, enough for her to wash her hands of me?
I touch my chin to my chest and try to hide the fact that I’m falling apart from the men who know me best.
How did she ruin me like this? I’ll never recover.
“Heard Harper put on quite the show yesterday.” Finn finally addresses me and the elephant in the room.
The clack of billiard balls colliding prompts me to glance up.
Rory skirts the edge of the pool table to approach the chairs.
“Is she still here?” he asks. “They’re letting her stay on estate grounds for the time being?”
“Do they have a choice?” Finn asks no one in particular.
It honestly surprised me as much as Rory that Harper wasn’t immediately kicked out…or worse. But when Thomas tried to argue after she left the office, Shane shut him down and said she could stay while she recovered. It was the least they owed her, he reasoned, after she got kidnapped in our care.
That reminder stung, but I don’t disagree.
I crack my knuckles, and my friends return their attention to me.
“She’s still here, but she’s decided to break from the family.”
Finn takes a long drag from his cigarette and blows out the smoke. “And how much of her decision has to do with you?”
Fuck him for asking me that. I spit the word between us. “ None .”
Rory’s eyebrows quirk in surprise. “We all thought you two went in there to announce your marriage.”
If I’d been drinking something when Rory said that I would have choked on it and died. Embarrassment blazes up the back of my neck.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I don’t mean to sound defensive, but it just happens. The same way I didn’t mean to fall in love with Harper Brennan but did anyway.
“Would’ve been a good time for it.” Finn releases a deep exhale, almost like a sigh.
Rory nods and shifts his attention back to the billiard table.
“A good time to what ?” My eyes drill into the side of Finn’s scarred, unbothered face.
Finn takes another drag. “Marry her and get out of Dodge.”
Huh?
What the hell are they saying? I was supposed to march into Shane’s office, announce that Harper’s mine, and carry her out like a prize I won at the fucking state fair?
Rory sinks a few more balls, his expression serious.
Finn appears equally glum.
Now I’m suspicious. Glancing back and forth between my friends, I try to suss out the meaning behind their enigmatic behavior, but it doesn’t come together.
When no one says anything else, I force out a breath.
“Is something going on around here I don’t know about?”
Finn and Rory share a wary glance.
“He’ll find out sooner or later,” Rory concedes, positioning his cue stick just so.
I look at Finn, but his eyes are far away.
“My dad thinks there’s a mole in the family.”
A mole.
Those two words settle an apocalyptic mood over the room.
“A traitor?” My voice sounds strange. “Here?”
“It was just a hunch.” Rory straightens up. “Until they got Harper at the airport.”
Rory’s words bring me to a screeching halt. My eyebrows fly up my face.
“Wait. Just…fucking wait.” I can’t even process this news. “Are you saying one of the Kings is moonlighting for the De Lucas ?”
“Yup.” Finn’s tone drops an octave.
I shake my head, dazed. “What does your dad think?”
“He thinks it was the perfect cover-up.” Something bitter twists Finn’s face as he snuffs out the end of his cigarette. “The De Lucas were already after me. If the mole wants to shake up the power, helping the De Lucas take me out would destabilize the clan and leave my dad wide open.”
I hum, mind racing. “Who’s got that big a death wish?”
“Someone sneaky.” Rory leans his stick against the table and folds his arms over his chest. “Someone who thinks they’re smart enough to get away with it.”
“And has no respect for family,” Finn adds, balling his fists.
I rake a hand through my hair. “This changes everything.”
Is it possible that I was set up to fail this whole time? That from the beginning, I wasn’t able to protect Harper because someone on our side was working against us all along?
I didn’t think I had any more energy for rage left inside me, but I was wrong. I am my father’s son, after all.
“What does Harper’s abduction have to do with the mole?”
“We’re still trying to figure out what a mole would have gotten out of it.” Rory moves toward the liquor cabinet across the room. “Maybe nothing.”
“Or maybe it was a trust exercise.” Finn motions for Rory to grab two extra glasses along with his own. Rory reads Finn’s mind and returns carrying a damn good bottle of scotch.
“A test.” I catch on to Finn’s train of thought. Maybe the mole was trying to build trust with the De Lucas. I already know that Enzo’s interest in Harper goes deeper than any grudge, real or imagined, he had with Finn. If Enzo wanted Harper, and the mole was hoping to draw Enzo into an alliance, delivering Harper to him would have been a perfect show of goodwill.
Proof positive that the mole is willing to betray the Kings.
Whatever the cost.
“But what if they just followed us?” I ask.
“They didn’t.” Finn sounds certain as he sips his scotch. “My guess? They knew the plane number, the flight time, and the terminal. Rory and I have been over the tapes. They even knew where to station female operatives for the grab, knowing we wouldn’t expect that.”
Rory nods. “Planning an abduction that well on a simple hunch about when you’d get back? Impossible.”
Finn’s brown eyes darken to nearly black. “They had inside information, all right. The question is, from who? There are so many possibilities, it’s overwhelming.”
An uneasy silence falls over us.
The worst part is that Finn’s right—the mole could be anyone. The Gallagher clan is huge. We have hundreds of members. Only the top one percent of us live here at the estate. The rest of our associates are spread across our territories throughout the boroughs and beyond. Anyone of a lower rank—even those just out of reach of the inner circle—could find a reason to betray our family. Unfortunately, the creation of a traitor often doesn’t take much.
Just trying to imagine where to begin sniffing out a mole makes my head pound.
“An unknown enemy is the worst kind.” I grouse the words and just like that, we’re all teenagers again. Shane used to drill the phrase into us when we were young, stupid foot soldiers training for the big leagues.
“Damn right.” Finn downs the rest of his glass and sets it on the table between our armchairs. “And you know how ugly a mole hunt can get.”
We were young when it happened, but the last time there were rumors of a mole within the clan, bodies started dropping like snow in a blizzard. Digging out a mole is a messy, dangerous, calculating business that pits brothers against each other.
Suspicion breeds violence of every kind.
A mole in a mafia family is almost as bad as an all-out war. Just the rumor of one can lead to a family’s implosion. The only way to stop the madness is to find them, any and all of their accomplices and acolytes, and put them to death.
Nothing sacred is safe until then.
The relief tied to Enzo’s downfall hasn’t even hit me yet, and now I find out the Kings are about to confront an internal crisis of epic proportions, the worst we’ve seen in more than two decades.
I want to ask, what else can go wrong , but I know better than to invoke Murphy’s Law.
“So Harper doesn’t want to work for her old man anymore.” Finn pours himself another drink.
Rory gulps down a few swallows. “Can’t say I blame her.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Scrubbing my palm down my face, I try and fail to wrap my head around this situation.
“Truth is…” Finn takes a fresh swig, “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to get out. Start over. Do something different. Something that, I don’t know, helps people.”
My jaw damn near hits the floor. Finn? Heir to this mafia? He’s been groomed to lead his entire life. I’ve never heard him say anything, anything before that even comes close to treason.
Finn clears his throat, like the alcohol went down the wrong way. “That’ll never happen, obviously. But I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about what I’d do if I weren’t heir to the Irish Kings. I’d also be lying if I claimed I wasn’t brainstorming possibilities for the future.”
Rory’s as taken aback as I am. “Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Finn?”
Finn just sips from his glass.
Unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice, I clarify. “You’re saying you’d leave your place in this family?”
“To be with Riley, if necessary?” He gives us a little smile and winks. “In a heartbeat.”
Like it’s nothing.
Like it would be nothing at all for him to walk away from everything he’s ever known to be with her. I’ve never seen Finn so detached and unbothered, like we could be anywhere right now, on a plane, at an amusement park. Mars. He must really be serious.
A strange sensation opens in my chest. Almost like hope, wonder, and courage all balled up together.
And then, he fucks me up even more. “You seem surprised. I thought you’d be the first one to understand.”
My mind is so blown that I may never recover.
Rory slams his empty glass down, and that pulls me out of my shock.
“Hold on.” His brow scrunches in confusion. “What the hell are Darren and I supposed to do if you two fuck off to the suburbs?”
Finn snorts.Actually snorts. “Make your own adventure.”
I’m barely listening anymore. Because Finn’s right about me.
I do understand the urge to leave the Kings behind. It’s never come up because I’ve never been in love with someone before now. The world I live in and the job I do? They’re fine, if I’m alone in the world, with no one to miss me and no one to miss. As soon as I picture Harper standing by my side, my feelings do a 180-degree reversal.
The Kings have always had my allegiance, respect, and obedience. But my heart’s never been in it, mostly because I didn’t believe I had a heart. I thought it died the same day my mother did.
It took Harper to resurrect the thing, and now that it’s beating in my chest again, the idea of letting her go is the same as suicide.
Life without her is the bleakest, most depraved, devoid future I can conceive of. I won’t survive it, and I wouldn’t want to.
What I want is simple.
I stand so abruptly, Rory and Finn both jump.
“What’s wrong?” Rory’s alert.
“I need to talk to Shane.” I’m already at the door.
“Take the interstate.” Finn throws the words at my back. “Dad and Donal are headed to Vegas on business. Tonight.”
“ What ?” I swing back around.
“If you hurry, you can catch them.”
Hesitation stops me for three seconds, and then I race from the room.
I’m not even sure if Harper wants to be with me, and here I am…risking fuck all for the chance to be close to her.
Again.
And nothing has ever felt so right.