Chapter 8 Eian
EIAN
I can’t really swallow back my chuckle when Colby’s jaw doesn’t snap closed after a few seconds.
“Did he just laugh?” I hear Bran whisper, and I snap my head in his direction.
“Watch it.” He laughs at me, and that’s perfectly fine, but when Mac, Duffy, and Blake begin to snicker, I know I can’t let that happen. “You three have something to say?” I ask, and the way my voice bottoms out is enough to get them to stop.
My son can make fun of me, they can’t.
“No, Boss.” Blake shakes his head and lowers his eyes.
“Nothing,” Mac says, and quickly shoves another forkful of food in his mouth.
“Nope,” is Duffy’s eloquent answer, though his smartass smirk doesn’t completely vanish.
“Good.” I nod once. “Then fucking eat already, because I have shit to do later and I still need to show Colby where he’ll be staying.”
“And where’s that?” Duffy risks his life by asking with a shit-eating grin. I understand the subtext, and it tells me that probably none of them missed how differently I act with Colby.
Shit, that’s going to be annoying.
“Celly’s been preparing one of the guest rooms for him all week,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
“Y-you don’t need to show it to me,” Colby says, that stutter telling me a lot more than he probably wants me to know.
Doing my best to keep my face from showing that annoyance, I risk another glance at Colby—he’s proven to be distracting if I look at his face too long.
“I want to,” I tell him, and yeah, it probably comes out as a command, but . . . that’s just how I speak. Whatever, he’ll have to get used to it. “Besides, there are a few things we need to discuss.”
His throat bobs at that, but without another word he lowers his gaze to his plate and starts eating. I make myself look away and continue dinner as if that reaction from Colby didn’t leave me disappointed.
The whole way up the stairs I can practically feel the vibrating waves of Colby’s stress pulsing off him. I think dinner went pretty well, even with Duffy’s knowing glances and Bran’s obvious enthusiasm, but clearly he thinks differently.
Filling him in on me having a son and how that all happened should’ve made him relax around me, at least a little, not fucked with his head even more, yet here we are.
He’s about to jump out of his skin, and I’m wondering what the fuck I can say to get him to fucking chill.
Maggie was still sleeping, and since I don’t predict this will take long, I asked if he was okay leaving her with Rory and the others for a few minutes.
I have to leave soon to go talk to Nan anyway.
I’m still debating on how much to tell her, but I know I’ll find the right balance once she’s in front of me.
As we walk down the long hallway of rooms, I feel this . . . need to just get him to—
Shit, was I actually about to think get him to like me?
“So . . .” I speak loudly before I can get lost down that embarrassing rabbit hole. “This is Bran’s room.” I gesture to the first door on the left. “He doesn’t live here anymore, but it’s still his room, so don’t go in there.”
“Yeah, uh, of course.” His answer isn’t bad when you consider how I’m rambling.
“And right . . .” I stop by the paneled wall between the doors.
“I should probably tell you about this. I push on the wall and it creaks open to a dark, thankfully unused hallway. “This is the entrance to the panic room. It’s there on the right.” I point.
“And you only have to get in there and close it behind you. It’s full of stuff, so you can be in there for a while, and it has a landline.
You only have to press one and it’ll call someone who can help. ”
I don’t mention, of course, who that someone is, and he doesn’t ask.
“Do you have to use it a lot?” he asks instead.
I keep my eyes right on the dark hallway.
“No, we’ve never used it actually, but my father put it in after my mother was killed.”
“Your mother?” he asks, the question coming out so fast I know it was impulsive. When I turn and see his wide, scared eyes, it’s only confirmation.
Reassure him, a very tense voice sounds from the back of my mind—and it sounds like it’s out of fucking patience.
“Yes, the Marianos came in here and killed my mother when I was fourteen. Did you not know that?”
“I don’t think anyone knows that,” he says, a bit defensively, and I have to smile—even if just a little—because I like it when he’s defensive and not scared.
“Well, now you know. Your room is the next one.” I nod in that direction then point to the door opposite.
“That’s the bathroom right there,” I say before opening the door to his bedroom.
It has a brand new bed in it, decorated in warm tones, lots of brown and olive green, almost like a forest, but the big bed is front and center, and it has my mind going places where it can’t go right at the moment.
“That door.” I point to the wall on the right.
“Leads to the adjoining room.” I walk over and open it for him, then wait for him to finish looking around the room and walk through.
“This is the nursery Celly put together for Maggie.”
“Holy shit,” he whispers.
“What? Is something missing?” As far as I can remember this is more than enough to take care of a baby. “I’m sure we can—”
“No, no. This is incredible, just . . . amazing. The walls . . .”
I look around and have to smile at the safari theme. Celly paid a pretty penny for it all, I know, since I got the bill.
“Yeah, Celly thought she’d like that. We had a jungle theme for Bran when he was little; he loved the monkeys.
” I clear my throat to get rid of that sentimental tone, and turn so we’re face-to-face.
“You have tonight to settle in and rest, then tomorrow I want you to resume your investigation into the human trafficking ring.”
“Okay,” he whispers, looking at the room for another moment, and then he tilts his head up to look at me. “I have most of my research in a security deposit box at the bank, though.”
“Then we’ll go get it tomorrow.” He frowns hard at that. “I won’t be going in with you,” I explain through gritted teeth. “But I’ll be watching and waiting outside.”
“Yeah, okay. That makes sense,” he mumbles.
I want to step forward, lean in, taste those rosy lips, but I fight it.
“I need to go see my aunt now.” A test, yes, but also my brand of olive branch.
“You have an aunt?” he mumbles the question with a frown.
“I do. Her existence has been kept a secret for decades for her own protection, but she normally comes over for dinner on Saturdays. Since you’re here and I don’t yet have a reason to believe you’ll keep her a secret from the world, you’re not meeting her yet.
” Now I can’t stop myself from taking one tiny step forward.
“You won’t know her name or what she looks like until I know you’re not going to go running to the press with that information. ”
After a long second where his face is frozen in shock, he closes his mouth, his shoulders drop then shrug, and finally, he nods. “That also makes sense. You’ll come to find out soon, though, that I never reveal a source. I have integrity.”
I understand he’s trying to express his values more than a practice he keeps for his profession, but that’s precisely the problem I have with him. The problem I’ll eventually have to deal with.
“But your job used to be to make new information available to the public. That is exactly what I can’t let you do.
I know you have a . . . code,” I settle on.
“Like you said, you don’t reveal your sources, but I want to make something very clear to you, Colby.
I don’t care if you feel this need inside you to tell the whole world our secrets, if it’s your calling or whatever-the-fuck.
Hell, I can get my men to stand around and listen to you drone on and on about the world’s issues if it’ll help, if you need that limelight.
But what happens in this house isn’t for public consumption. What—”
“I know that,” he interrupts me, the words coming out hard and sharp.
“What I do with my business,” I continue as if he hadn’t interrupted me, because my annoyance is rising rapidly.
“What I talk about with my family, my son’s name and face, the existence of my aunt .
. . if you ever reveal any of those things to anyone outside the family or to the world, I’m going to kill you—”
“Because I’d be putting your family in danger, I know,” he interrupts me again, and even rolls his eyes at me.
“I really don’t like being interrupted,” I say through gritted teeth. I can see by his widening eyes that that got his attention. “Raise your fucking hand or wait for me to be done if you have something to say.”
“Fine, jeez,” he mumbles.
“I also have a code, Colby.” I soften my tone just a little now—I think he got the point—and pull the gold pendant I’ve worn since Da died out from under my shirt. “You know what this is?”
He looks at it with a thoughtful frown.
“Some kind of animal,” he says softly. “Eating its own tail? Is that a fox?”
“It is. It’s the symbol of cunning, because that’s what the head of the Irish mafia has to be, Colby.
I have to be unforgiving, relenting, brutal, and above all, cunning.
I can’t worry about hurt feelings or temper tantrums, and I can only have people around me I trust. You’re not here because I trust you.
You’re here because you need protection and because you’re going to help me. ”
“And I have to earn your trust.” He nods in understanding, then returns his gaze to my eyes. Those dark eyes compel me. I’m so glad he came to that conclusion all by himself.
“You do, and I want you to.” It feels necessary to tell him that. I don’t want him to think he’s fighting a losing battle, as much as I don’t want to think that when it comes to . . . us.