CHAPTER 5
Kian
Once permitted through the gated community near the Hudson River, I drive the Maybach up to the house of glass gleaming in the early morning sunshine and then park outside on the gravel driveway.
No one would guess that just a stone’s throw away is the buzz of Manhattan because the house sits on an idyllic piece of land.
My buddy didn’t grow up poor. None of our circle knew what monetary struggles were. We were privileged kids back then, playing adult things far more advanced than our ages.
Those were enjoyable, wild times no sixteen-year-old boy should have been doing. I was light-fingered then. Any time I saw an expensive car, I wanted it. Racing is in my blood. Most times, I returned the vehicles.
If you cut me open, I bleed the law-breaking Irish MacNamara blood. The rackets go back generations, though my father mostly went legit with his collection of pubs in and around New York. And though I haven’t pinched a sports car in years and can afford to buy my own, the itch of excitement is there if I see one I admire. Knowing I could do it is enough.
It’s a surprise I’m not doing hard jail time. I was a worry for my parents for a while, but as proven by our friend circle, we grew up and matured into law-abiding citizens.
Well, perhaps not me, but the guy who lives in the house is now a law follower.
I’m smiling when the door opens, and the barefoot brunette, prettily dressed, ushers me in. Once upon a time, she was my high school teacher until the dark side corrupted her.
“Hey, sweetheart. I thought you would have seen sense and unchained yourself from the reprobate you married by now. If you need a fast getaway, I can get you a new identity.”
Delaney Fierro laughs at my joke and hugs me briefly. “I try constantly, but he doesn’t make it easy. How are you, Kian?”
“I can’t complain.”
“If you flirt with my wife, you’ll be walking out of here with no kneecaps, Kian.” Turning, I see Lachlan Fierro casually dressed in cream-colored sweats, a hoodie, and a baseball cap worn backward, emerging from the open-planned kitchen seen from the entryway. He flashes a half-grin, so I can only assume he’s joking. I like my kneecaps where they are. You can never tell, though. Lachlan has always been possessive of the teacher he had a taboo affair with in high school.
We slap hands and go in for a bro-hug. Since they moved back to the city from Washington, DC, I’ve seen him only a handful of times. It’s true what they say: once you put on the adult skin, your life takes you in opposite career directions from those you care about. I’m fortunate to call him one of my closest confidants.
We formed an unbreakable bond years back when we were up to no good. I don’t have blood brothers, but I consider Lachlan and Ethan my brothers.
“I can’t help it. She gave me an A that time, and I never recovered.”
Behind us, Delaney laughs, but Lachlan catches her around the waist before she can disappear. He drops his head, and it’s clear that their connection hasn’t waned in the interim years. It’s good to see them happy. No one thought they’d last, that it could only be a sex fling and not something life-affirming. What eighteen-year-old fell in love with their older teacher and made it work? But they’re married now with a kid and living a rare, happy life together. Lachlan transitioned into adulthood much earlier than our close-knit circle, which suits him well. I’ve been putting my new era in place for a while now, with my Samia under the spotlight as the most important.
“I made your smoothie, mouse.” He says it like he’s presented Delaney with jewels for how she beams at him.
My gut clenches because that’s how I want Samia to look at me, with unguarded love, like I hung the fucking moon and grabbed all the stars out of the sky for her. Turning away while Delaney kisses her husband, she asks if she can bring us anything.
“I’m gonna talk to this ingrate in my office, then we’ll join you for a coffee,” Lachlan replies.
“Ingrate.” I chuckle, following him into a spacious office, and plop onto a black couch. “I’m paying for your services, remember?”
“How?” Lachlan arches a brow, and he has me there, so I smirk.
“I’ll buy you a beer.”
“Generous,” he scoffs, sitting behind his high-tech desk. I know a little about computers, but no one is in this lunatics’ league. It’s like he was born with computer chips for a brain. Back in the day, he made a killing by hacking test papers and charging for it. These days, Lachlan is legitimate. Or so he tells it. I guess he has to be since he’s now a law enforcement government man.
“Are you sure what you’ve looked into is untraceable?”
The sour look he discharges would curdle milk, drawing a laugh from me as I hold up a hand in surrender before unzipping my jacket to sit more comfortably.
“Don’t be fucking insulting.”
“You’re a FED, Lachlan.”
“I was still a FED when you asked me to look into your revenge project.” That’s fair and truthful. He was the first person I thought to ask for help.
For the next minute, Lachlan accesses his wall of computers with skilled taps; he then touches the screen, swipes a few things, and tosses me a tablet. “Look at that.”
Even with the technology we have these days, cameras small as a pinhead, sometimes nightclub CCTV is grainy as shit. But that’s not what I see. It’s clear like I’m watching TV. The footage is only minutes long, and that’s all it takes for my rage to build until everything around me becomes white noise, ready to explode.
It wasn’t as though I didn’t suspect what had happened. I only needed to see the evidence for myself. But viewing it puts a detonated bomb inside my chest. My fists clench tightly.
“I’m gonna bust his fucking face open,” I growl, teeth clenched as violent thoughts manifest.
“No, you’re not. Be smart about it.” Lachlan says.
It falls on unfocused attention because I want to kill the bastard slowly. Ripping his throat out first, then breaking every bone he has, leaving him in agony, to die a painful death on the floor where all deadbeat fuckers belong.
Hitting play, I watch the nightclub footage again and then once more, letting it fuel my rage as I observe the brief scene unfolding in bleak detail. A guy sitting at the bar on the stool next to Samia slips a small vial of liquid into her cocktail while she looks down at her phone. The move was so quick and unseen that it had to be something he’d practiced or used many times before. He initiated a conversation with her once Samia took that first fateful sip of her drink, unaware of what had been done to it. I have no clue what he was trying to charm her with, but she wasn’t buying it. The idiot didn’t entertain her one bit. Only as Samia put a hand to her forehead, appearing disorientated, most likely because the drug had taken effect, did the jerk lean closer to say something, helping Samia off the stool to play the hero. His sinister intent was clear.
My blood burns to think what could have happened to her.
What happened only minutes later.
A group of women intervened before he could escort Samia to the door. Thank fuck for their female instincts by splitting Samia up from the sleaze. The camera angle changes, and she stumbles into the street right into the path of a fucking bus. I will never recover from seeing her folding underneath the massive vehicle for as long as I live.
She could have died, and I wasn’t there. Some perverted fuck nearly had her in his dirty clutches, and I wasn’t there to intervene.
Like my bones are attached to electrodes, my ass jumps up from the couch so I can pace.
“Sit down, Kian. Do you need a drink?”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“And?” he offers a wry smile. “You look like you need it.”
“You think putting alcohol in me will calm me down?”
“Second thoughts, nah,” Lachlan amended. “but sit down anyway. You’re wearing out my floor. I know that shit looks bad.”
“Bad?” I hiss, feeling bile rise in my throat. The turmoil I feel is so enormous and unreal, not an emotion I’m used to. To be in my line of work, the kind that evades the law, I’ve always had to have my wits about me. Nor was it a coward’s game to drag race through the streets in a stolen car, but I did that when I was an egotistical teen. I think of myself as more innovative these days and only occasionally race for fun. But there’s nothing fun about the plans formulating in my head for how I will destroy the creep. It’s a given that Lachlan will have his name and address, workplace, blood type, and even his library fucking card. When Lachlan deep-dives into a person, he leaves no stone unturned.
“She was in the hospital, Lachlan. I wasn’t there to stop it. I had been watching her for fucking months. I’ve always got eyes on her, and the one time I wasn’t there, this happened.” Dragging both hands through my hair, I let out the air in my lungs. The guilt is pain-like, stabbing me in my organs, and I can’t stand it.
“It’s not your fault.”
There are no words to say because it feels like my fault. Samia could be suffering an unimaginable trauma right now if not for the lucky intervention of women who could read the dark intentions of a stranger.
Grabbing the tablet again, I perch on the edge of Lachlan’s desk and rewind the footage to before the guy spiked Samia’s drink. He’d been in the club for over an hour, scouting out his marks. He’d tried to talk to several women but got the brush off. As soon as he spotted Samia, she became his target. It was almost palpable through the screen as I watched him stalking her and her two friends around the club as they danced, waiting for the opportune time they split off from each other so he could pounce.
“I need to do something.”
“Everything I collected on him is compiled into a file. I know people in the NYPD. They take assaults seriously and won’t let this slip through the cracks.”
Despite my inner rage, I snort. “Still can’t deal with you being on the wrong side of the law.”
Lachlan Fierro isn’t out on the streets arresting criminals, and I think he’d burst into flames if he had to wear a cop uniform. Luckily for me, I suppose, or we’d be constantly playing cat and mouse. He spends his days digitally chasing terrorists.
“Prison is too good for him. I want him dead.”
And then he speaks to my logical side, the side that’s taken a hike in the last half hour. “How will you pursue Samia Madsen if you’re behind bars?”
“What good is having a FED for a best friend if I can’t use his services to keep me out of jail?”
“My services are no longer for illegal means, you little shit, and not for covering up a murder. Break the guy another way before I hand over this file to the NYPD.”
I know he’s right on some level, but the depths of hell is where I want to send that guy. I want him destroyed in every way before I dump his corpse in a sewer for the rats to piss on.
No one tries to hurt my girl and gets away with it.
But Lachlan is speaking sense. If I go in guns blazing, I could be taken away from Samia, and I don’t have time to go insane being away from her.
It would be fucking inconvenient.
Exhaling, I gather composure from the soles of my feet and remain silent momentarily. Lachlan used face recognition technology to identify him. So now I have a dossier on who he is and, better still, where I can hurt him the most.
At that moment, while my head is whirling with revenge, Lachlan’s office door flies open, and a pocket rocket petite blondie barges in with a scruffy-looking stuffed cat tucked underneath her arm. Two chihuahuas shadow behind her, barking in warning at me like they think they’re the size of a Buick. They only zip it when Lachlan says so.
I immediately go down to my haunches in time to catch a hurtling little girl in my arms. “Uncle Kian! Mommy didn’t tell me you was here!” she exclaims excitedly, flashing her smile. She’s lost two teeth since seeing her a few months back, and now she has the cutest lisp.
After a hug, she wriggles down and rushes over to Lachlan, who sits her on his lap.
“I was talking to your dad first before coming to see you. I wouldn’t go without seeing my best girl, would I?”
She giggles and emphatically shakes her head. “Nope.”
I know how little girls act. My twin sisters are ten years younger, so I listen to Ellie’s run-on babbling, explaining her school adventures. Then her cunning Fierro gene kicks in when she grins and tells me, “Uncle Ethan gived me ten dollars the other day.”
Lachlan snorts and ruffles her hair.
“Is that so?” I narrow my eyes. That asshole is always trying to outdo me in the best uncle stakes. He always ends up as the runner-up to me.
“Yeah, he said I was the bestest, most prettiest girl in the universe, didn’t he, Daddy?” she asks Lachlan to back her up.
He doesn’t disappoint, and he and I share an amused glint. “He sure did, baby.”
“I’m gonna buy more books. I got a new shelf in my room, Uncle Kian.”
Slipping a hand into my back pocket, I grab my wallet and fish out twenty dollars. That’s when Ellie climbs down from her dad’s lap and inches over to me, all sweetness and blue eyes. Her hand is outstretched even before I offer it.
“Don’t forget to tell Uncle Ethan, pipsqueak, yeah?”
“I will, Uncle Kian! I gotta get changed. Grampy Noah is picking me up.” She kisses my cheek and rushes over to do the same to her dad, and then she’s off like a whirlwind. The two ankle-biters follow behind like they’re in her little gang.
“She just conned you, you know.” Proudly laughs Lachlan.
“I got that. She’s your kid, but Ethan isn’t pushing me out because he’s here more often. That scheming bastard.”
“Well, you’ll have to double that bribe money once my second daughter comes,” he announces, waiting for the news to sink in.
“Shit, man, you’re having another kid?”
“Yeah, Laney is four months pregnant. We just found out she’s a girl.”
For years, I’ve watched friends have kids. Whether it was in committed relationships or a one-night-stand accident that changed their whole life, for others, it suited them. I never thought I’d want to be that man, to be a father. Kids are okay in small doses. I lived with two holy terrors for years, and though the girls are adored, I find most kids are annoying.
Not sure when those tides changed. But I know why.
Samia.
It’s prehistoric to want to tie her to me in every way I can. If she wants kids, we’ll have a football team worth of the puke makers. Watch me be the dad of the year, doing the school drop-offs and diaper changes.
Now I’m thinking of her. I cut the visit short after a quick coffee with the Fierros in their family room, and I head into the city, detouring to grab Samia’s favorite coffee and donut.