Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kieran
F uck.
I almost just made a huge fucking mistake. I can’t allow her to get under my fucking skin like that. I turn away from Ada’s still frozen frame and head for the front door. She’s not stupid enough to attempt to make a run for it in the current circumstances. I scrub my hands down my face and through my short hair to try to collect myself.
She fit into my arms like she had been built for me and me alone.
I need to focus.
I pull open the door, knowing full well who is waiting for me on the other side. Liam isn’t exactly the face that I want to see right now, but he is a welcome distraction from whatever the hell that was about to build into. I have to keep myself in check so I don’t rush things.
“Thought that you were going to make me wait there all evening!” Liam says with a mischievous grin. He presses a bottle of whiskey into my hands because he never comes empty handed. He slips off his shoes and then pulls a pair of slippers from inside of his coat to change into for wearing inside of my house.
With a knowing wink he finally spots Ada, who is attempting to pull the shirt she’s wearing like a dress down lower to cover more of her slender frame. Liam whistles low and turns to me with a knowing look. “Oh, I was interrupting your work. You’ll have to excuse me for cock blocking, cousin.”
His grin only widens when I elbow him in the ribs. Hard.
Rubbing at the spot on his side that will absolutely have a bruise on it tomorrow, he walks further into the place like he lives here. He’s always been only too happy to make himself at home wherever he is. He moves to my leftover steak and starts eating right off of my plate while watching Ada, seeing what she will do. No doubt he wants to unsettle her just a little bit.
“Don’t feel like you have to stop on my account. Just pretend that I’m not here.” Liam says with a cheeky grin. Normally, his comments roll right off of me because I know that he doesn’t mean anything by it. But, today, for whatever reason, I don’t like it. Maybe because my blood is still running so hot. I feel the urge to snap at him.
I can see the same sort of fury boiling on Ada’s face as she grinds her teeth.
“What? Did I say something wrong? I’m just calling it how I see it.” Liam shrugs with faux innocence. “Unless… oh, poor dear… was it not good for you?”
That I do punch him for. Square in the arm hard enough to make him flinch.
“How we spend our evening is none of your business. If you’re quite done stealing my food, we really should get going.” I glance down at my watch. I didn’t realize how much time had passed. We do have rather important business to attend to.
“You’re leaving?” Ada asks. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that it was something akin to worry on her face.
“You should try to get some sleep while I’m out.” I grab my black leather jacket from the back of the couch and shrug it onto my body.
I catch Ada’s eye as she struggles with the torrent of objections she clearly has. But I can see that she also doesn’t trust Liam and doesn’t like feeling outnumbered. I don’t have time to try to decipher her bundle of emotions, either of our emotions.
I would much rather stay here and continue fighting through things with her than going to the meeting that I’ve been summoned with Patrick Doyle, Liam’s father and my current boss.
I don’t dare turn back to look over my shoulder as I leave Ada locked inside of the house, and accompany Liam down to his car.
My uncle isn’t the sort of man that I would ever choose to spend time with.
Despite the fact that Liam and I get along fairly well and that we have enough in common to carry a conversation, my uncle is very different. He’s a fierce man, stubborn as a mule. He and my father almost never saw eye to eye. Patrick is the one who decided to split the family in half when he disagreed with my father’s call. He never did like that my father was the oldest and therefore inherited most of the legacy.
But he is ruthless and scrappy and has managed to make quite a name for himself.
If I had had any other choice but to seek him out for help, I would have done so. Unfortunately, when my father died, my only option was family. Patrick would have been well within his rights to turn me away, nephew or not. He would have also been within his rights to take my head since I was technically from another clan.
His ‘mercy’, however, comes with a very steep cost.
One that I have to pay in blood whenever he sees fit. It’s a debt that to my uncle, will never be repaid.
The drive to the meeting is tense, not because of the lack of conversation. Liam doesn’t know what silence is. He’s more than happy to carry on his conversation all by himself with little more than a grunt or two of input from me. I just have to hope that whatever the cause of this meeting is for, it will be over quickly.
I only listen with half an ear to the things that Liam is rambling on about. My mind is too consumed with thoughts of Ada and the possible things that my uncle might be about to ask me to do.
Liam is the only person who knows anything of my plans with Ada, and I intend to keep it that way.
Patrick’s task will have to be completed quickly. I can’t afford to be away from Ada for very long. God knows what she will do if she’s left alone for too long considering that she’s clearly got a history of self-destructive habits.
We park in the front drive of Liam’s place, and uncle Patrick is waiting for us right in the sitting area when we walk into the house. He’s got today’s newspaper in his hands, and he doesn’t so much as look up from whatever article he’s reading. I’m sure that he has absolutely no intention of telling us what he wants until he finishes reading. It’s all part of his constant need for power. Liam and I have no choice but to stand there with our hands clasped behind our backs while we wait for orders.
Patrick is a tall, imposing man. Graying black hair and icy blue eyes. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen the man smile in my life. I don’t think that his face even works that way. He wears nothing but tailored designer three-piece suits, always in all black. Despite his advanced age, he hasn’t lost a single pound of muscle or power since he was younger.
I suppose that I should be happy that he doesn’t look at all like my father.
I don’t know what I would do if I had to stand here looking into an echo of the man I lost. My father might have been a conniving bastard, but he was still my dad. We fought, but I didn’t want to lose him, I wasn’t ready. Not that one truly ever is.
When he finishes reading, Patrick snaps his fingers for his assistant to take the paper and bring him a lit cigar and a glass of sherry. Only then does he pay us any attention.
Patrick makes a very deliberate show of checking his watch to ensure that we know that he’s displeased with having to wait even the couple of minutes, that he was inconvenienced by our tardiness. Still, Liam and I stand shoulder to shoulder with our feet evenly spaced like any other soldier waiting for orders.
“I have another assignment for you,” Patrick says finally, gesturing with the cigar in his hand to the folder on the table closest to where I stand. I know better than to reach for it before I’m given permission to. Last time I made that particular mistake, I ended up with a cigar burn on the back of my hand. The damned thing scarred. I have more than enough of those as it is, I don’t need more things marring my tattooed skin.
“I don’t have to tell you that discretion is of the utmost importance. I want this man gone, of course, but given the importance that he has to New York and Boston’s Cosa Nostra, I need to ensure that the trail that will lead back to us will take time. Calling cards, of course, but only at a moment of my choosing should they end up here,” Patrick explains. I know that whatever other information that he wants me to have is going to be inside the envelope.
There’s a very small list of people I could be assigned to kill.
“I don’t care how you eliminate Jeremy Rizzo, but you have forty-eight hours to do it. Am I understood?” Patrick said, and I have no choice but to nod that I understand. My position here with their family is precarious as it is. A silent curse runs through my mind because I know exactly who that man is.
I know that Ada isn’t going to take the news of her brother’s associate being killed lightly. The muscle in my jaw tenses with apprehension. It’s the only external sign that I’m uncomfortable with this at all. Fortunately, it’s subtle enough that nobody notices.
“Dismissed.” Patrick says to me, and me alone. I chance a glance at Liam, whose stoic expression isn’t one that I can easily read. I take the envelope off of the table and tuck it under my arm before heading right back out the front door. I don’t even know if Liam wants me to wait for him. The person that he is with me is not the same person that he is when he’s with his father. That’s something that I understand all too well.
This is going to complicate my already precarious situation with Ada so much more.
Nevermind that the outcome of this situation could put my own chances at revenge on hold. Depending on the size of the fallout, it could ruin a whole lot more than I’m willing to admit.
I just have to keep it a secret from her. I don’t have a choice. The situation is delicate as it is. One wrong move could destroy everything.