54. CHAPTER FIFTY
Monday night, with a gun to the pilot’s head, a move I will pay dearly for, I make him take off despite the falling snow.
I can’t take another moment not being near Jillian.
The Irish Mob pays him a fortune. He’ll get over it.
It’s a torturous five hours that I think I’ll either need to drink or jerk off to get through.
In the end, I pace and stare at my phone. I texted Jillian that I was on my way back. I told her to be at my villa tomorrow with the Borgia case evidence, i.e. witness information, she mentioned on Friday.
With no response, my skin is crawling. Accessing the cameras in her apartment both calms and enrages me. Calm because I see her sitting and watching television. She’s safe, but I’m furious because she obviously has the time to respond, and she’s not.
Meanwhile, she’s stalking Johnny to throat fuck her!
This has gotten out of hand. I have to settle this.
But how?
The weather is warm when we land. Growing up in New York and living in Cambridge while at Harvard, I’ve never lived outside of the Northeast. The idea of walking around without a heavy coat in November is growing on me.
I hate that I feel better here. I should hate this city. I should hate being blackmailed to do Vance’s bidding.
Taryn, a Las Vegas detective on the take for years from Darragh, picks me up and brings me back to the Charter Hotel. Taryn seems like a lonely and ordinary guy. I almost suggest we get drunk, but I need to go to Jillian’s. Bust into her apartment, hold her down, and fuck her.
She only slept with me on Friday because she wanted to drive Johnny insane, so he’d throat fuck her.
As if conjuring such a visceral image sends signals into the ether, she texts me.
Jillian: I hear you’re back in town.
Me: How do you know that? Are YOU stalking ME?
Jillian: Maybe (upside down smiley face).
Me: Did you get the evidence I want to look at?
Jillian: I reviewed it and tweaked your brief.
My sparkles wants to shine in my life…
Me: Come over right now. We can fuck first.
Jillian: Not a good time for…fooling around. Getting over my monthly bill.
Me: Do you think a little blood will stop me from sinking into your cunt?
I’m fucking sick, because I don’t care about the blood, it turns me on. God, I want to hold her down and ram her until she comes, get so damn messy, filthy, feral. I’d heard women are ravenous and have stronger orgasms while on their period.
Her period… That means she’ll start the pills soon.
Yeah, I read her medication insert…
Jillian: I heard guys like you don’t mind.
Me: Guys like me? Do tell.
Jillian: Tough alphas. Perhaps you don’t care. But I do. I also get very bad cramps and headaches. It will be painful for me, Eoghan.
Christ, I feel like a monster.
Me: I didn’t realize. Aren’t orgasms good for cramps? You can suck my cock and I’ll rub your clit until you come.
The dots appear and disappear.
I’m frazzling her.
Me: It’s up to you. I’ve made it clear what I want.
Jillian: You sure did. It’s late. I can come by tomorrow afternoon.
I’m ready to punch the fucking walls. Calming myself, I type back.
Me: See you tomorrow.
I toss the phone aside and grab a bottle of bourbon.
After downing several shots, I pop a few sleeping pills, so I drop the minute my head hits the pillow. It’s all so I can bear the time away from Jillian.
My sparkles.
I wake up feeling worse and work through the hangover on the treadmill in the building’s gym, sweating off the booze and the buzz by running for forty minutes.
With a morning to burn and shit on my to-do-list burning hotter, I shower, dress to kill, and drive well outside of the city to purchase a ghost gun for my meetings today.
“What do you usually carry?” Mark, a potbelly, long haired, bearded cowboy asks.
Taryn recommended the place, and because I trust Taryn, I trust this guy. I take out my Smith and Wesson 9mm with a mahogany inlaid handle.
He whistles. “This is a beaut. What’d it set you back?”
“A grand, but I’ve had it for years.” And killed quite a few people with it.
Mark proceeds to show me some of his 3D printed polymer ghost guns he’s not willing to sell, and then tempts me with a gorgeous nine-gauge shotgun. If Kieran’s pilot sees me get on the plane with a fucking shotgun, he’ll crash the plane on purpose.
I buy the two basic ghost guns and tell him I’ll think about the shotgun.
Back in the city limits, I head out to meet the loan shark Cormac used to finance his drug habit until they stopped fronting him cash.
After negotiating twenty-five cents on the dollar for each of Cormac’s loans—anything more and he was eating bullets—I get the scumbag’s wire info.
After I wrap that up, I track down Cormac’s drug supplier, who is not as cooperative, but finds the time to brag about selling to kids. When I see his pregnant wife sporting a black eye, I put a bullet in his head.
A call to Balor, who hands me off to Shane, erases all traces of me from nearby cameras.
Back at the villa, I put the bloodied suit in a plastic bag and bury it in a suitcase. I’ll have it dry cleaned in New York by a guy we trust to get grisly stains out of our clothes.
Wearing nothing but gray sweatpants, I sit in the office and process the payment to the loan shark, sending copies of my day’s activities to the family group chat.
Riordan: Have you met with Lazaro Scava yet?
Me: No. Wondering if I should skip the underboss and go right to his brother, Nico.
Riordan: I would be furious if someone blew me off.
Me: You don’t put hits on innocent people. I worry this guy Lazaro is touched.
Lachlan: What’s wrong with being touched?
Here we go…
Me: I’m doing my own recon here with these people. I’m fucking alone.
Balor: Recon? You? So you don’t need me?
Rolling my eyes, I grind out…
Me: Get off my back. Any one of you can get your ass here to do it. How the fuck did this end up being my problem?
Nothing comes through for a minute and then Balor drops this bomb…
Balor: You’re the only one without a kid or a kid on the way. And Im, well, irreplaceable.
That sets me back. Am I fucking expendable?
Me: I’m working on that.
Kieran: What?
Me: Signing off.
A knock at the door stills me and with so much going on, I didn’t realize it’s after 1 p.m. That must be Jillian. My dick stiffens instantly.
I yank open the door and practically lunge for her.
“Wait. Stop!” She steps back. “Friday was…”
Don’t say a mistake.
Don’t say a mistake.
“I shouldn’t have gone home with you.” Yet her eyes say something completely different as they devour my bare chest.
“You should have come to New York with me.”
“How’s the new baby?” She bites her lip, and the semi change of subject reduces me to a semi.
“She’s adorable, if you love pointy heads.”
Jillian snorts and steps further into the room. “You’re bad.”
“I want to be bad. With you.”
“Did you get all your paperwork filed?” She ignores me, though I know she’s struggling to come up with yet another reason to turn me down.
“I updated wills and trusts.” I let her off the hook. “When the wee-one has a social, I can file more paperwork.”
She straightens her spine. “Will you be going back to New York again before we finish the Scava case?”
I cage her against the wall. “Sounds like you don’t want me to leave, sparkles.”
“We have to be realistic. I prosecute crimes and you commit them.”
“So, the drug dealer who was selling to kids and beating his pregnant wife shouldn’t have died today?”
“You…” She heaves. “You killed someone today?”
I study her. It’s not exactly a mask of horror on her face. “Jealous?”
“Jealous?”
“That I can rid your city of crime quicker and easier than you?” I brush my lips over her mouth. “Cross over to the dark side with me, sparkles. My sister, who just gave birth, was FBI and now she’s an assassin. Did she look unhappy in those pictures?”
Jillian’s breathing goes erratic. “An…assassin?”
I hug her and wait for her to stop shaking. “You’ll always be safe with me. And I don’t want you to be an assassin.” Mostly because I worry she’ll kill me. “I want you to shine, sparkles. Do you know what I live for these days?” I meet her eyes.
“What?” She swallows nervously.
My gaze follows the line of her throat muscles. I live for the day I’ll see the outline of my cock bulging in the creamy column of her throat.
But I also live for much more than that.
“I live for your smile. You don’t smile, except when I’m inside you. Think of that. There’s a lot of opportunity out there. You’re stuck working for a man who doesn’t respect you, and he’s your fucking brother. I will worship you and give you everything you want.”
My lizard brain got me into this, telling me I could fuck my shiny new toy senseless and not get attached.
Epic. Failure.
I also just confessed another murder and my true feelings for her at the same time.
She trembles in my arms. Knowing I’ve completely overwhelmed her, I let her go.
“If you want to leave, leave. If you’re in this to win, get your gorgeous arse in my office.” With that, I turn and walk that way.
“Are you…going to change?” She calls after me, a nervous lilt to her voice.
I spin around and grab my hard length straining the front of my joggers. “This is my turf, sparkles. I wear what I want. If you want to strip down to your thong, I won’t stop you.”
When she rolls her eyes, I pull her into me again. “Keep rolling those eyes. It only reminds me how you looked when you came all over my cock buried inside you.”
“My God,” she mutters. “I missed that dirty talk.”
The mood lightens between us, and I relax. “It’s meant to wear you down.”
Inside my office, Jillian sits stiffly in a chair, illustrating what my honesty has done to her.
She takes out a folder and hands it to me. “Can you please look at the revised brief and see if you can come up with anything else to add?”
I read, and we sit in silence while she keeps checking her phone. A sadness hovers over her, and I feel like a dirtbag.
She’s waiting to hear from Johnny. Fuck, I wanted to scare her away from him. But she’s drawn me into another game, and I have to see it through.
“Hoping for a call from the office?” I ask to be a brat.
She looks up then shoves the phone away. “No.”
“What’s up, sparkles?” I flip over the brief she revised, ignoring how seamless her words melt with mine.
We’re so perfect for each other.
“Nothing.”
Liar liar, now my cock is on fire.
She wants Johnny—who’s really me, to fuck her face.
She wants to be throat fucked as punishment for being with another man.
I guess I’ll have to give her what she wants.
It’s useless to concentrate on this bullshit case. I need to fuck this woman. Tossing the folder, I say, “You can go, this will take me some time to review.”
Her eyes lift to mine. “Daniel needs—”
“I need to be home with my family in a couple of weeks, sparkles.” My harsh tone makes her tense. “Sorry. I had a rough night sleeping. I flew in and out of here in two days.”
She holds her head up high and grabs her briefcase. “I understand.”
For a moment, I see the kind of man I really am in her eyes. The kind that frightens people.
Fuck, I hate this wall between us. “I need to set up a meeting with the Borgias.”
“Be careful,” she whispers.
“Aw. Don’t worry about me. But if for some reason their asshole underboss mentions the case to me since I am a lawyer, I’ll tell you. We can regroup.”
“I have back-to-back investigator meetings all week. I can’t come again until Friday.”
I hold her gaze. “I can make you come again right now. Stay and have dinner with me.”
She breaks our eye contact first. “No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” Because I wanted to tell her my hunch about those fucking witnesses, but I keep that to myself.
It’s the key to cracking this whole Borgia scheme wide open. They’ll be out for blood when and if they find out the state is on to them.
Looking pale, she gets up, gripping her briefcase. “I’ll see you Friday.”
I lean back… “Friday.”
Not…
That woman will be under me in a few hours taking my cock down her throat. Even if I have to wear that damn mask…