11. Lachlan #3
I walk out of her room without another word.
I hear the door slam behind me and the lock click into place, and I stand in the hallway for a long moment.
My hand presses against the wall as I try to get myself under control and push down the rage and frustration and desperate, aching need that's threatening to consume me.
The panties are still in my pocket. I should give them back and apologize for everything.
But I don't. I keep them because I'm selfish and fucked up and apparently incapable of doing the right thing when it comes to her, and I walk back to my office, closing the door behind me and trying to focus on anything other than the taste of her still on my lips.
My phone buzzes with a text from Rian: Need you downstairs. Problem with the Donovans.
I stare at the message for a moment, trying to make my brain shift gears.
I have responsibilities beyond my obsession with Adriana.
I'm the head of an organization that requires my attention and my leadership.
The Donovans are a small crew that operates on the South Side, paying us protection money in exchange for the right to run their gambling operation without interference.
If there's a problem with them, it means they're either refusing to pay, or they're causing trouble that's going to blow back on us.
I text back: Be there in five.
I take a moment to splash cold water on my face in my bathroom and try to get my body under control, push down the arousal that's still thrumming through my veins from kissing Adriana. Then I head downstairs to the conference room where Rian, Jack, and Cormac are waiting, their expressions grim.
"What's the situation?" I ask, my voice edged with the frustration and anger I'm trying to suppress.
"Colin Donovan has been skimming," Rian says without preamble.
"We've been tracking his payments for the past month, and he's been shorting us by about twenty percent.
When Jack confronted him about it yesterday, he claimed it was an accounting error, but the numbers don't lie. He's stealing from us."
"How much are we talking?"
"About fifty grand over the past six weeks," Jack says, anger edging his voice as well, but for entirely different reasons. "It's not about the money, boss. It's about the principle. If we let Donovan get away with this, every other crew is going to think they can do the same thing."
He's right. In this world, weakness is death, and letting someone steal from us without consequences is the fastest way to lose the respect and fear that keeps our organization running.
But the thought of the violence I'm going to have to commit makes me think about Adriana's words—You've become just another violent man who takes what he wants.
"Where is he?" Regardless of my growing understanding that maybe Adriana is right about me, I have a job to do.
"We've got him at the warehouse," Cormac says. "Waiting for you."
We take two cars, driving through the city in silence. I spend the entire ride trying to push down the part of me that's questioning whether this is who I want to be, whether this is the man Adriana should be afraid of.
The warehouse is a place we use for storage and occasionally for situations like this that require privacy and a place where screaming won't attract attention.
Colin Donovan is in the center of the main floor, tied to a chair, his face already bruised from whatever my men did to subdue him.
He looks up when we enter, and I can see the fear in his eyes.
He understands that this isn't going to end well for him.
"Lachlan." His voice is shaking. "Listen, I can explain. It was just—"
"You stole from me." I cut him off. "You took money that wasn't yours, and you thought I wouldn't notice. You thought you could get away with it."
"It was a mistake." I can see him trying to find the words that will save him, to figure out what he can say that will make this stop. "I swear, it was just a mistake. I'll pay it back, every cent, with interest. Just give me a chance—"
"You had your chance." I move closer, and I see him flinching away from me.
I see the moment he understands that there's no talking his way out of this.
"You had your chance when you decided to work with us, when you agreed to pay protection money in exchange for our support.
You had your chance when Jack confronted you yesterday, and you lied to his face. You don't get another one."
I pull out my gun, and I see Colin's eyes go wide.
He starts to struggle against the ropes, begging, pleading, promising anything if I'll just let him live.
And part of me—the part that's still human and still remembers what it's like to have a conscience—wants to stop.
I want to find another way and prove that I'm not the monster Adriana thinks I am.
But I can't. In this world, mercy is weakness, and weakness gets you killed.
If I let Colin live, if I let him walk away from this, every other crew in Chicago will hear about it.
They'll start testing me, pushing boundaries, seeing how much they can get away with.
I've built this empire on the certainty that crossing me means death, and I can't afford to show anything less than that now.
So I pull the trigger.
The sound is deafening in the enclosed space.
Colin's head snaps back, blood spraying across the concrete floor, and then he slumps forward in the chair, dead before his body fully registers what happened.
I stand there for a moment, the gun still in my hand, and I can feel my men watching me.
I force myself to holster the weapon, turn away from the body, and walk toward the exit like this is just another day. Just another problem solved.
But I can't stop thinking about Adriana and the way she looked at me when she said I'd become just another violent man, the fear in her eyes when I tried to touch her. She's right—I have become someone who kills without hesitation, who solves problems with bullets and brutality.
And I did it all for her.
"Clean this up," I tell Rian. "Make sure his crew understands what happens when you steal from us. And send a message to the other operations—anyone who's thinking about testing us should think twice."
"Already on it, boss," Rian says. There's approval in his voice, respect for the fact that I handled this the way a leader should. I didn't hesitate or show weakness.
But all I can feel is sick.
I go and wash up, and then walk out of the warehouse and get into my car.
"Home," I tell the driver flatly, and then I sink back against the cool leather seat, closing my eyes.
I've killed before. I've done worse things than putting a bullet in a man who stole from me.
But something about this feels different.
Maybe it's because I'm realizing that she's right to be afraid of me. I am dangerous. I'm exactly the kind of man she should run from.
My phone buzzes, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I look down to see a text from an unknown number. I almost ignore it and delete it without reading, but something makes me open it. What I see makes my blood run cold.
It's a picture of Adriana.
I think it's from the same series of photos I saw the guard with.
Adriana is posed on a bed, wearing nothing but a red lacy lingerie set, her legs spread suggestively.
Just like those other photos, I can see from the look in her eyes that she doesn't want to be doing this.
They look blank and glassy, and I hate that my body has an automatic response to seeing her posed so suggestively in red lace, despite the context.
I don't want to see her like this, but my cock thickens instantly, still aching for her from earlier.
The image is followed by another text, this one with words:
Missing your wife already, Gallagher? The men she took these photos for are too. Want to see more?