14. Cillian
CILLIAN
The meeting is in a back room at a restaurant in Midtown that Connor uses because the owner owes him big time and is willing to look the other way.
I hate this place.
It smells overwhelmingly like raw garlic and something being braised.
It’s an old school Italian joint with dark wood paneling on the walls and a dark carpet that looks like it hasn’t been replaced since the restaurant first opened in the eighties.
How the Health Department hasn’t shut this place down is a miracle.
Oh wait, I know why they haven’t. That’s part of the reason why the owner owes Connor big time.
It’s me, Doyle, and a man named Kristoff, who handles Connor’s interests on the eastern waterfront. I’ve met the man twice before and don’t particularly like him.
He has the aura of a man who was always told he was the smartest person in the room and never had anyone push back on it.
He’s arrogant as fuck but he’s also—annoyingly—really fucking smart and a complete asset to the Brennan clan.
He spreads his papers across the table like they’re important. Most of them are.
We’re going over numbers. Container schedules, delivery windows, a discrepancy in the March figures that Kristoff is attributing to weather delays but I’m not convinced.
This shit is dull but necessary; the kind of thing that requires attention if you don’t want to get screwed six months from now.
I have a coffee I haven’t touched because I’m not convinced the coffee pot is always cleaned.
There’s always a weird film on the top of the drink, and one time I fished a hair out of my cup.
The chair is slightly too low for the table and I feel like I’m back in elementary school.
But I’m giving Kristoff my undivided attention.
My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.
I ignore it.
It buzzes again, two minutes later.
I keep my eyes on the papers. This definitely isn’t Connor because my uncle has never called me twice in short succession.
The only other person it could be is Valentina. I feel a stab of irritation.
Valentina knows I’m working.
She knows I don’t pick up when I’m working unless someone is dying. I can only imagine why she’s calling.
Did something in the gallery go sideways?
Or does she need me to pick something up on the way home?
All of it can wait twenty minutes.
Kristoff is explaining, at length, why the March numbers shouldn’t concern me. Doyle is taking notes, looking engaged even though I know he’s really not.
A third call.
I glance at my pocket in irritation. Kristoff doesn’t pause.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. A fourth call.
Doyle glares at me from across the table, his lips pursed. I throw him a filthier look that says, not now. He goes back to his notes.
A fifth call.
Kristoff’s words falter. His eyes drift to the hidden pocket of my jacket, sharp and unblinking. His jaw tightens, a faint twitch in his brow, and he tilts his head slightly, as if weighing whether continuing is worth the trouble.
“One moment,” I say, standing. “Two minutes.”
I step out into the corridor.
The restaurant’s ambient noise closes around me—clinking cutlery, a table of six laughing at something near the front, the kitchen clanging through the swing door at the end of the hall, someone’s terrible taste in background music leaking in from the bar.
I pull out my phone.
Six missed calls. All from Valentina.
My stomach turns over.
She doesn’t do this. Valentina does not call six times. She texts, she knows I’m busy, she would not—
I’m already calling back.
And while it rings, my brain rushes through all potential situations. Did something happen with the baby? Oh god, something went wrong with the baby. She’s still in the first trimester and the statistics on miscarriages at this stage of pregnancy are—
I push that thought down and another one surfaces immediately.
She fell.
She’s not been feeling well, she doesn’t always eat enough because she’s only eating goddamn crackers and she’s been exhausted and if she fell, if she’s alone in the apartment and she—
Emma. My mind seizes on that thought and my mouth dries at the thought of something happening to my baby cousin.
Did something happen to her?
Or Seraphina?
Was there a complication from the birth that Emma hasn’t recovered from?
Or Leo. Leo has enemies and if someone got to Leo and Valentina found out before I—
Or Connor. If Connor did something, said something to her, made a move without telling me—
The call connects.
“You need to come home.”
Her voice stops my racing thoughts. Not the words—it’s how she says them. I’ve heard Valentina angry, raging, and completely untethered. This isn’t that.
This is calm and controlled in a way I’ve never heard. It’s worse than anything she’s ever yelled at me.
“What happened?” I press the phone hard against my ear, my heart still pounding. “Are you okay? Is it the baby—”
“The baby is fine.”
My knees nearly buckle with relief. “Then what—?”
“Claire Murphy is here,” she says icily. “With her—or should I say your—son.”
The restaurant goes silent.
Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe everyone’s still clattering plates and talking, and my brain just…stopped hearing it, frozen on the slow-motion disaster unfolding behind my eyes.
Claire.
Is in my apartment.
With Valentina.
Oh, fuck.
I swallow, suddenly glad I didn’t touch any of that disgusting coffee. “I—”
“You have thirty minutes,” Valentina continues, her voice like death. “Twenty-nine now.” She hangs up and I stand in the hallway of the restaurant, contemplating how my entire life has blown up.
A month. I have been running the most careful operation of my adult life. But I did not account for Claire Murphy deciding that the silence was too much and showing up in person.
I did not plan for that and did not see this coming, which was such a fucking rookie mistake.
Valentina is in our apartment with the woman I’ve been secretly meeting for a month and my alleged son and I have twenty-nine minutes.
Twenty-seven now.
I shove through the door back into the private room so hard it swings wide and cracks against the wall. It startles Doyle and Kristoff, who jump in their seats. I don’t care. I go straight for my bag on the back of the chair and knock the chair sideways getting to it. I don’t pick it up.
“I have to go,” I tell them, trying to keep my voice neutral but it’s coming out all wrong.
“What? We’re not finished,” Kristoff complains, recovering from his earlier fright. “We still have’t resolved the March discrepancy and I need your sign-off on the delivery windows before I can—”
“Cillian, you can’t leave,” Doyle says, his brow furrowed. “Whatever it is, it can wait an hour. Connor wants these numbers closed today and if we don’t—”
Holy fuck, none of this is important. “I said I have to go,” I nearly snap, feeling my nerves stretch like a rubber band.
“You can’t walk out in the middle of our meeting!” Kristoff says shrilly, looking insulted that I want to get out of here. “Connor is expecting a report by end of business day and I didn’t fly in from—”
“If we don’t close this today it’s another two weeks before we can get everyone in the same room and—” Doyle is talking over him, both of them talking at once, but I can barely hear them over the sound of my pulse hammering in my ears and Valentina’s voice on a loop in my head—Claire Murphy is here, with her—or should I say—your son.
Everything is imploding right now in real time while these two men sit here talking about container schedules and I can’t take it anymore.
“Shut the fuck up!” I roar.
Both of them fall silent. Kristoff jerks back in his chair and even the unflappable Doyle’s eyes widen in shock. The hum of the restaurant from the other side of the wall feels very far away.
My hands are fisted so tightly my knuckles have gone white. My jaw aches. I didn’t realize I’d been clenching it.
I breathe out.
“We’re done today,” I continue, my voice calmer but still ragged. I’m not Connor’s heir being professional. Instead, I’m barely holding it together, talking to two men who are looking at me like they’ve never seen this before. “Doyle, reach out to reschedule.”
Doyle’s mouth is a flat line of disapproval, but he knows he can’t dispute me. He nods.
I look at Kristoff.
Kristoff does not say anything for possibly the first time in my experience of him.
I leave.
I’m in a cab within four minutes and I spend the entire ride staring out the window at the city going past, my mind racing as my leg jiggles anxiously. What does Valentina know? How long has Claire been there?
The cab stops at a red light on 57th.
I look at my phone, my fingers hovering above Valentina’s name. Should I call her back? Try to explain myself? I shake my head and push my phone back into my pocket. No. There’s nothing I can say on a phone that is going to help this situation.
I don’t think there’s anything I can say in person that’ll help, but dammit I’m going to try.
Twelve minutes.
The elevator up to the apartment is the longest elevator ride of my life, including the ones I’ve taken in buildings where I was fairly confident I wasn’t coming back down.
Valentina’s ice-cold voice plays through my head.
She barely said anything, but what I heard was bad.
I know what she looks like when she’s furious. I know what she looks like when she’s hurt. I don’t know what she looks like when she’s both at the same time and I’m unfortunately about to find out.
The doors open and I speed walk down the hall, looking around for my wife.
The first thing I see is Finn.
He’s on the far end of the sofa, a backpack at his feet and a tablet in his hands. He looks up the second I come in, and his eyes immediately widen before he shrinks back into the cushions with a wary expression. He has brown hair and brown eyes with a small serious face.
Fucking hell, this is a disaster.