Chapter 23
LIAM
The burner phone in this car vibrates as soon as we set off.
I exchange a look with Siobhan and answer it. “Connor.”
“You failed to mention that Siobhan Kelly’s apartment was rearranged earlier. Care to share?”
“Why? You already know I’m with her. You have eyes on me.”
“Of course I have eyes on you.”
“Someone put three bullets through her window while I was there. I wasn’t going to leave her exposed.”
“So, you brought her to our armory.” Connor’s voice is cold, controlled. “Do you have any idea what you’ve compromised?”
“She’s not the enemy.”
“She’s a Kelly. That makes her the enemy by definition.”
I glance at Siobhan. She’s staring out the window, but I know she’s hearing every word. Her jaw is set, her fingers drumming against the Glock in her lap.
“Things have changed,” I say carefully.
“Yes, they have. Michael Kelly is in a coma. Chris Kelly is positioning for a takeover. You’re messing about with the one person who could either give us everything we need or destroy everything we’ve built.” He pauses, and I hear the threat in the silence. “Where are you going?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Where?” The word is a warning shot I would be an idiot to ignore.
I glance at Siobhan and hang up.
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” she says.
“Makes no difference. He will figure it out.”
“He has got someone tailing us.”
“No, he saw us on the security feed. No one is following us.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know,” I say, confident in my ability to spot a tail, especially from my own family.
I watch her process that, see her weighing whether to trust my assessment. The silence stretches between us, broken only by the hum of the engine and the occasional scrape of tires on the rough curb when I take a corner too quickly.
“Your brother,” she says finally. “Sean. What’s he like?”
The question catches me off guard. “Why?”
“Because Connor was willing to offer him up in an arranged marriage to get what he wants. I’m trying to understand the O’Neill family dynamics.”
I grip the steering wheel tighter, navigating my way toward her gallery. “Sean’s... complicated. Younger than me by four years. Reckless. Thinks with his fists first, his dick second, and his brain a distant third.”
“Sounds charming.”
“He’s not. Connor keeps him on a shorter leash for a reason. Sean’s got all the violence of our family with none of the control. He’d have made your life hell.”
“And you won’t?”
The question hangs in the air, loaded with more than just curiosity. I risk a glance at her. She’s watching me with those green eyes that see too much, cut too deep.
“I already am,” I admit. “But at least I’m honest about it.”
She laughs, a bitter sound. “You’re honest about using me? That’s your defense?”
“I’m honest about wanting you. Everything else is just fucking noise, sweetheart.”
“Bet you wish you’d finished now,” she says.
I give her a narrow-eyed look. “Hmm?”
“In the parking garage. I bet you wish you’d come.” I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles go white. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” She shifts in her seat, turning toward me. “Don’t point out that you’re driving around with blue balls because you decided to teach me a lesson?”
“Siobhan—”
“I’m just saying, it seems like a tactical error. Going into a potential firefight while you’re distracted.” Her hand slides across the center console, fingers trailing up my thigh. “Seems dangerous.”
I catch her wrist, stopping her progress before she reaches the bulge straining against my jeans. “What are you doing?”
“Returning the favor.” Her voice is silk and sin. “You made your point in the parking garage. I’m a good student. I listened. I followed your lead. Don’t I deserve a reward?”
“This isn’t…” The words die when her free hand works my zipper open.
“Keep your eyes on the road, Liam.” She leans closer, her breath hot against my ear. “I’d hate for us to crash before we get to see what’s so important about my gallery.”
My brain screams that this is a terrible idea. We’re minutes from a potential ambush, Connor’s probably tracking us, and Chris Kelly wants her dead. But my body has other priorities, especially when her fingers wrap around my cock.
“Fuck,” I hiss, jerking involuntarily in her hand.
“That’s the idea.” She strokes me slowly, deliberately, learning the rhythm that makes my breath catch. “Eyes forward, O’Neill.”
I force myself to focus on the road, on the turns I need to make, on checking mirrors for threats. But her hand is relentless, stripping away my control with each measured stroke.
“You’re going to get us killed,” I manage through gritted teeth.
“Then drive faster.” She increases her pace, and I feel my control slipping. “Unless you want to pull over? Let me finish properly?”
“No time.” The words come out strangled. We’re three blocks from the gallery now. Three blocks from whatever trap Chris has waiting. Three blocks from answers.
And she’s destroying me with her hand wrapped around my throbbing dick.
“Pity.” Her thumb swipes over the head. “I was looking forward to tasting you.”
The image that conjures of Siobhan on her knees, those green eyes looking up at me, nearly makes me swerve into oncoming traffic.
“Siobhan.” It’s supposed to be a warning. It comes out as a plea.
“Come for me, Liam.” Her voice drops to a whisper, intimate and commanding. “Come for me.”
The combination of her words and her touch shatters what’s left of my restraint.
I come hard, spilling over her fingers, my vision whiting out for a dangerous second before I regain control of the vehicle.
She doesn’t let go immediately, continuing to stroke me through the aftershocks until I’m shuddering and hypersensitive.
“Better?” she asks, finally releasing me to pull tissues from the open glove box.
I can’t speak. Can barely think. She just gave me a hand job while I drove through Dublin’s streets toward a potential death trap, and I’ve never been more turned on or terrified in my life.
She cleans her hand, then tucks me back into my jeans and zips me up like she’s done this a thousand times. The casualness of it is somehow more intimate than the act itself.
“You’re insane,” I finally manage.
She tosses the tissues in the backseat. “You’re welcome.”
I pull over a block from the gallery, parking in the shadow of a closed restaurant. My hands are still shaking slightly as I kill the engine. I turn to look at her, this woman who just unmade me while I was supposed to be protecting her.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“Why do that? Now?”
She meets my gaze, and something in her expression makes my chest tighten. “Because in about five minutes, we might both be dead. And I wanted you to know that I see you, Liam O’Neill. Not the heir. Not the strategist. Not the weapon Connor’s trying to aim at my family. I see you.”
The words hit harder than any bullet could. I stare at her, unable to form words. She’s stripped me bare in more ways than one, and we’re sitting in a stolen moment of vulnerability while death waits around the corner.
“Check the cams on your phone,” I say, focusing back on the reason we are here.
The glow illuminates her face in the darkness of the car, highlighting the determined set of her jaw. My body is still humming from what just happened, but I force myself to compartmentalize. Focus.
“Front entrance, clear. Back entrance, clear. Main gallery floor, clear. My office, clear. Looks like we are good to go.”
“No, we are as good to go as far as we can. Just because there is no one standing outside the front entrance, doesn’t mean there is no one lurking outside the line of sight.”
She nods, tucking the phone away. The screen goes dark, but the memory of her hand on me is a brand. “So, what’s the plan?” she asks, all business again.
“Back door. Less options for an ambush.” I check my weapon, the cold metal a familiar comfort against the heat still coiling in my gut. “We go in quiet, and we find out what the fuck is so valuable in there.”
She gives a sharp nod. No argument. No defiance. The game in the car bought me this fragile, temporary truce built on shared release and mutual insanity.
“Let’s go,” I say, opening my door. The Dublin night air is cold on my face, a welcome shock after the suffocating heat of the car.
We move together, two shadows sticking to the deeper darkness of doorways and awnings.
She moves well, light on her feet, the Glock held low and ready at her side.
She’s a natural, and the thought is both thrilling and deeply fucking sad.
We reach the mouth of the alley. I hold up a hand, stopping her. I listen, every nerve ending screaming, sorting through the city sounds for anything out of place.
Nothing.
I give her a look. Ready?
She meets my gaze, and for a split second, I see the woman from the car, the one who looked at me like I was the only thing in her world. Then it’s gone, replaced by the queen ready to take back her castle. She gives a single, sharp nod.
We move into the darkness toward the back door.
Siobhan has her keys ready and unlocks it before we slip inside without getting a bullet aimed at us. Closing the door quietly, she gets to work on the alarm panel. It beeps twice and disengages.
“All clear,” she says in a normal tone.
I don’t answer, I just nod and move forward.
“We don’t even know where to look or what we are looking for,” she muses as we make our way to her office.
“Something big and out of sight.”
“Under…ground?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
My gaze shoots to hers. “It’s a good place to start. But where would we access such a theoretical place?”
“Has to be from my office,” she says. “There has to be something in there. The renovation took weeks…” She locks gazes with me and licks her lips. “I thought it was strange, but I didn’t question it.”
I follow her into the office and position myself by the door, weapon ready, while she goes to her desk. She doesn’t hesitate, just starts running her hands along the underside, frowning in concentration.
“The plans,” she murmurs, more to herself than to me. She sits down and fires up the PC. The screen illuminates her face as she taps into the keyboard.
She scans it for a moment, tapping through pages, her mouse clicking every so often.
“Here,” she says, pointing. “The original blueprints show a standard foundation, but on the final inspection report, it appears to be bigger.”
I cross over to her and lean down to peer over her shoulder at the screen.
She’s not wrong. It’s not immediately obvious; it could just be a scale error.
“It’s not an error,” I say, my voice low. My mind is already mapping the space, calculating square footage, potential uses. “Your father built something under your feet, Siobhan. Something he didn’t want anyone to know about.”
“The floor,” she says, her gaze snapping from the screen to the polished oak beneath her feet. “When they installed it, there was one section... near the back wall. The contractor said it needed special reinforcement for a heavy sculpture I was acquiring. I never questioned it.”
Of course she didn’t. Michael Kelly is a master of hiding things in plain sight, using legitimacy as a cloak.
I move to the back wall, running my hand along the baseboard. Siobhan joins me. “The sculpture was a bronze,” she says, her voice gaining speed. “It sat on a pedestal right here.”
We both look at the empty space she is pointing to. I drop to my knees, examining the floorboards. The grain is perfect, the seams invisible. But when I press down hard on the third board from the wall, there’s a faint click, almost inaudible.
Siobhan’s breath catches. I press again, harder, and a section of the floor, about four feet square, depresses a fraction of an inch before rising with a soft pneumatic hiss.
A hidden panel.
I find the edge with my fingertips and lift. It rises easily, revealing a dark, square opening and a steel ladder descending into blackness. The air that wafts up is stale, metallic, and cold. The scent of aged secrets.
“Well,” I say, looking at her. “Looks like we found what all the fuss is about.”