18. Killian
18
KILLIAN
My fists clenched as Maverick spoke quietly with our waitress. He was probably tipping her out and telling her to practice some discretion.
We didn’t give a fuck what people thought, but people were nasty as fucking shits, and if some of their nasty words or rumors got to Mila and hurt her… yeah, I would fucking burn the world down.
And one of the people who could hurt Mila just happened to be sitting by himself in one of our establishments, enjoying a fucking meal. It was as if the fucker knew we would be here. Someone tipped the fucker off.
Only a few of the restaurant staff knew we were coming.
My eyes looked around the restaurant at the waitstaff, then at Richard, the manager in charge. I didn’t like the fucker, but he was good at his job and ran the place smoothly. He was also terrified of us, which meant he wasn’t the one to tip him off.
My eyes stopped on a waiter hanging by the bar. He was trying to avoid eye contact, and there was just something… antsy about his movements.
He made eye contact with me, blanched, and quickly looked away.
Huh.
I thought it would have been more difficult than that to figure out. How… disappointing.
I recognized the man. He was standing on his last leg here. Richard had been having problems with the fucker because he had been harassing some of the hostesses. I supposed he knew he was going to get fired. Perhaps this was his way of getting back at us? How fucking stupid. He should have just picked getting fired over what was going to happen to him now.
Maverick came up to me and placed his hand on my chest, meeting my eyes. I knew what he was trying to ask. But he didn’t need to worry. I was fucking calm. I wasn’t going to lose it.
I nodded. The slightest shift in his eyes told me he was relieved. We headed over to where Agent fucking Matthew Jones was sitting. The fucker took a sip of his wine casually. We stopped in front of his table, and he waited three fucking seconds before looking up at us. “Gentlemen. How are you doing this evening?”
“You know, it’s starting to feel like you have a crush on us,” I said, my eyes taking in the black suit he wore. I had no doubt he was packing.
Jones scoffed. “You really think so?”
“Following us around, talking to people about us, finding out everything there is to know about us.”
“You’re deflecting, Killian. Is this what you do when you’re interested in a girl? What a pretty girl in a red dress. How… tempting.”
It took everything in me not to jump over the table and tackle the fucker to the ground. The last fucker who talked about Mila in front of me was nothing more than ashes that had been scattered into the Chicago River.
Maverick must have known how I was feeling because he placed one hand on my shoulder.
“Does Lincoln know you’re here?” Maverick asked, his voice low and calm.
Jones’ jaw ticked at the mention of Erin Lincoln, the section chief in charge of Jones’ unit, and from what Larkin, the rat we placed in the FBI crime division, told us, a pain in Jones’ ass. The woman was probably a decade or so older than him and a known fucking hard-ass.
“What is it? Is mother a sore subject?” I asked.
Jones didn’t answer me right away. “I don’t have to report my every move to the unit chief, especially if I’m out enjoying a nice meal on my night off.”
The fucker needed a fucking hobby if this was really what he did on his night off.
“Then we won’t keep you from it,” Maverick chimed in, ever the diplomat. “Hopefully, your night is a little more… fruitful after your meal, seeing as how you won’t be getting any more than that. A meal.”
I made a show of looking around our restaurant. “Seems we might need to make a few changes, seeing as how our dear old friend has taken it upon himself to visit us so much.”
“Yeah?” Maverick asked, playing along. “And what are you thinking about changing?”
My eyes found the man I was sure tipped Jones off about our appearance. I knew I guessed right when the fucker tensed. “Maybe some new staff members.”
“Don’t think about doing anything that will implicate you. If you can let it go, I suggest you do,” Jones said, his voice dark with anger.
I shot him a smile. “Don’t worry. I never let anything implicate me. And I never let anything go. Have a nice night.”
Jones stood up and sputtered something unintelligible, but we were already walking away. I had no doubt he would pull all sorts of strings, hoping to protect his little informant, but he would learn soon enough. When I have my eyes set on someone, there isn’t even a fucking nook on God’s green earth the fucker can hide that I can’t find.
When we stepped out of the restaurant, the car was parked and waiting for us. Marcus was standing in front of it, keeping guard. He nodded at Maverick and me as we passed. I opened the door and climbed in, finding Mila sitting comfortably on Silas’ lap. My brother’s arms were wrapped tightly around our girl, as if he was afraid she might disappear on him again if he didn’t hold her tight enough.
I knew the fucking feeling well. It was taking all of my self-control not to take her back to the Tiernan mansion and lock her there until I was sure she wouldn’t ever leave.
Hell. I shook away the possessive thought and settled into the seat while Maverick spoke with Marcus, probably trying to decide where to take her.
Mila was looking intently at me. I didn’t want to fucking scare her, but I wondered if she could see the frustration, the anger in my eyes, if she looked any closer. I let out a sigh and opened my arms. She made a small move toward me before stopping herself and looking back at Silas, biting her bottom lip, uncertainty heavy in those fascinating sea eyes of hers.
Silas grinned at me before bringing his lips down to her neck, making a show of kissing the skin there before he let his lips slide up to her ear. He whispered something to her that I didn’t hear. When he pulled away, Mila pushed out from his lap and onto mine. I instinctively wrapped my arms tightly around her, feeling my heart settle from her nearness. My hand rubbed up and down her back to comfort her as much as to comfort me, and she let out a pleasurable sound, snuggling in closer.
Hell.
How could she ever doubt just how much I fucking loved her?
Her face turned up, her eyes meeting mine just as Maverick climbed inside the car. He sat down next to me, his eyes never straying from Mila, a sort of possessiveness there. I fucking knew how he was feeling.
He reached out and grabbed hold of her hand, playing with it.
“How about we go somewhere more casual?”
She perked up. “Casual?”
Maverick nodded. “I know a barbecue joint not too far from here. Would you like that?”
She nodded enthusiastically, and I felt a pinch in my heart.
“I would like that very much,” she said.
“Then that’s where we will go,” Maverick answered, knocking twice on the partition to let Marcus know to take off.
The car drove in silence.
We should have known Mila wasn’t the kind of girl for all of this shit. She never showed any interest in how much money we had, in all the expensive jewelry we gifted her, to even the designer clothes, even if all that belonged to us belonged to her all the same.
Mila was just… Mila.
And we were fucking this up.
I squeezed her, and she looked up at me questioningly. I subtly shook my head and held her closer.
She placed her face on my chest and let out a loud yawn. Silas chuckled. “Fucking adorable.”
At this point, I was sure Mila could do nothing, and he’d think she was adorable.
Maverick and I shared an amused look.
The drive to the barbecue joint Maverick had talked about wasn’t too far. We got there in less than fifteen minutes, despite the traffic. Marcus pulled up to the back, where they had a parking lot for the customers. Maverick got out of the car first, then Silas, until it was just me and the little firecracker left. She moved to get out, but I squeezed her to me.
She turned to look at me.
“You’re keeping something from us,” I said. I didn’t know how I had come to that, but something had been nagging me all day since the moment I left to get her breakfast. The guilty look on her face confirmed it.
She squirmed against me. “I?—”
“If you’re going to open your mouth to lie to me, just don’t,” I said matter-of-factly. If she wanted to keep her little secret for now , I’d let her, but I didn’t want to be lied to.
She nodded.
I cupped her cheek. “Okay, sweetheart. But just know, you’re going to tell me sooner or later.”
She hesitated for a brief second before nodding once more. I let her go when she made to get out of the car. I followed closely behind.
“Finally,” Silas said impatiently, pulling Mila close to him. “I was almost half-convinced Killian might fuck you in the car and make us wait.”
“How tempting,” I muttered. Silas laughed when Mila blushed and glared over at me.
I winked at her, taking the lead in the front, checking our surroundings for any possible threat. Maverick pulled up in the rear while Silas and Mila were in the middle between us.
I opened the door to a loud and busy little joint. Tables scattered about, surrounding the huge wooden bar top manned by three bartenders running around trying to get everyone’s orders in.
A haggard-looking hostess came up to us, her brown hair tied up in a high bun, tired brown eyes surrounded by crow’s feet.
“Hiya, folks. Four?”
“Yes,” I answered.
She grabbed four menus and smiled at me. “Follow me back.”
I tried to ignore the crowd. This was the place Maverick wanted to take Mila to?
“We might be a little overdressed,” I heard Mila say to Silas. I turned back and looked at her briefly, taking in her red dress. She looked fucking hot, and if any fucker had anything to say to her, I might just throw my knife at ’em.
I shook away the murderous thought just as the hostess led us to a square table in the middle of the restaurant. I shook my head, pointing to the circular booth in the very back. “We’ll take that one.”
She looked at it. “It’s not clean yet.”
“We can wait,” I answered, bypassing her and moving over to it. The hostess stood there for a beat before she hurried along to find the busboy. We stood while they quickly cleaned, with Silas whispering something to Mila and making her smile. I watched them the entire time. I knew he was mostly trying to get her to relax, and though I was fucking glad he was able to entice a smile out of her, there was an ugly emotion in my chest that felt a hell of a lot like jealousy.
Hell, it might be.
Silas had this way about him that always put the women we were with at ease. It never bothered me before, mainly because that worked in our favor, but with Mila… I wasn’t sure I could ever be the one to help put her at ease. To tease a smile out of her when she was feeling nervous or stressed.
I would lay my fucking life down for her. I would love her until my last dying breath, and I knew my brothers were the same way.
But to be like Silas…
“Your staring is making Mila nervous,” Maverick said, coming up close to me.
I blinked, and sure enough, she was looking back at me, a small frown on her face and shifting on her feet.
“I always make her nervous.”
Maverick shrugged. “True, but with how things are between us right now, why don’t you tone it down, yeah?”
I let out a sigh. The table was all cleared and clean, and I moved over to it, saving myself from having to answer him. Silas and Mila took the middle while Maverick and I took the outside, with Maverick next to Mila. The waitress arrived, and we let Maverick order for us, seeing as how he was the only one who’d been here. I barely listened.
I stopped the waitress from leaving when Maverick finished. “Bring me an unopened beer.”
“Make that two,” Silas said.
She left, and Mila leaned back against the booth. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I would say you guys rehearsed it.”
I frowned at her. “Rehearsed what?”
“The way you move in line. Where you sit. It’s all so… purposeful.”
“Baby, with what we do, every action taken when we’re out in public needs to be purposeful,” I said. One moment of inattention could mean our death. And with who we were and what we did, there were a lot of fuckers out there gunning for our heads. I looked at Mila. They were gunning for Mila’s head as well. And not just because she was now associated with us or because she was our weakness.
But because of what she was expected to inherit in just two short months from now. Hell.
She nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Our life is your life now,” Maverick said.
She turned to him, looking confused. Maverick grabbed her hand. “There’s going to be some changes in your life. Surely you knew it was coming.”
“What kind of changes?”
“You’ll be assigned a bodyguard, and he is to follow close behind everywhere you go.”
“What?” she asked, sounding incredulous.
“Yes. There are men who hate our guts and would do anything to destroy us. We didn’t have anything important enough for them to use against us. We do now.”
And there was no mistaking what he meant by that. Surely Mila understood that, even if she wanted to bury her head in the sand.
“Me?” Her voice was quiet, and she was looking down at the table. Was she really so surprised that she was now our weakness? The thing I feared would happen from the beginning when Silas insisted we keep her had already happened. Surprisingly, I was okay with that. More than okay with it.
Some weaknesses were worth it.
“And it might sound controlling,” Maverick continued. “But we have to know where you are at all times. No matter what.”
“Oh yeah, and I am sure being controlling is going to be such a hardship for you,” Mila said dryly.
Maverick’s lips twitched. He was a controlling bastard on a good day. But over the girl we loved? Yeah, the fucker was going to be unbearable. Poor Mila.
“Are there any other rules you want to bestow upon me?” Mila grumbled, the sarcasm heavy in her voice.
“Not at the moment. But I will definitely let you know when I think of any.”
She glowered at him just as the food arrived. It looked like Maverick ordered a little bit of everything. A small grumbling sound came out as soon as the waitress left, and I turned to Mila.
She blushed. “What? I’m hungry.”
Silas threw his head back and laughed, pulling her closer to him. He whispered something else to her, and that tight feeling increased. I looked away from him as someone set down an unopened beer bottle in front of me. I pulled out my lighter and uncapped the bottle before throwing the lighter over to Silas. He uncapped his and took a long sip. Mila stared at him, a strange look on her face.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to read her mind.
Maverick was stacking food on her plate when Silas noticed her staring. Something moved in his eyes, but it was gone before I could really think what that was.
He pointed the beer at her. “Want some, angel?”
If I didn’t know any better, I might say his voice sounded off.
She sputtered a bit, and I wondered why she was so nervous when all he did was offer her beer. Had she never had a drink before?
Come to think of it, I didn’t recall ever seeing her drink.
Finally, she shook her head, confirming what I guessed. “I don’t drink.”
“Hmm,” was all Silas said to that, as if he didn’t believe her.
I frowned at him. He shook his head subtly and turned his attention back to Mila as Maverick placed her plate down. Mila looked down at her food and licked her lips. Fuck me, but I felt that move all the way to my dick, imagining all the ways she could show just how alluring her tongue could be.
I shifted and tried to think of dead puppies to talk down the hard-on. Wasn’t happening.
“Why don’t you drink?” Maverick asked.
“Huh? Oh, I guess I just saw too much of that at the club, and I just… I don't want to be like them. I don’t want to be controlled by substances,” Mila answered, stabbing a boneless hot wing with her fork and taking a bite.
That made sense. Mila probably saw a lot of shit while living in that shitty place.
“Did you always live there?” I asked.
She shook her head, taking another bite. “We lived with my grandpa for a while. I think we moved out when I was around six.”
“Your mom’s dad?” I said, even if we already knew the answer.
She nodded. “My dad didn’t have anything. From the stories I heard, my grandpa was quite powerful in his day.”
No fucking doubt about it. But ole Gunnar Rhinelander was good because no matter how much research we had put into Daniel Hayes and his family, we never thought Gunnar was the one who owned Stocken Isle.
Mila shrugged. “I always got the feeling my dad hated my grandpa. Hated him and feared him. At least when Grandpa was alive.” She looked around the table at us. “He died when I was seven. But I’m sure you know that already.”
“We didn’t know the intimate details that went on in your family dynamic though,” Maverick pointed out.
Mila looked down at the table. “Then we’re the same because I can’t exactly say I know them either. Everything was always kept quiet. I do know that my parents never really loved each other.”
“Why do you say that?” Silas asked. It wasn’t anything surprising that sometimes people married without loving each other. Hell, I was sure our mom had spent her entire marriage with our dad hating him. Hating him and fearing him.
“She got pregnant with me out of wedlock,” Mila said. “And my grandpa was big on image, so he made them marry.”
And I was beginning to see what Rhinelander wanted, he usually got.
“Not that my dad was all that upset over it, I don’t think. He didn’t have any money when he married my mom. He rose to power from the resources my grandpa provided him.” She looked around at us once more before looking away. “And by… you know.”
I reached over Silas, clasped her chin gently, and turned her toward me. “The night he attacked our family home. It’s okay. You can say it.”
“I’m sorry he did that.”
Letting go of her, I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Silas grabbed her hand and squeezed it comfortingly.
And had Daniel not attacked our family home, he would not have set us on a trajectory path to him nineteen years later. And we probably would have never met Mila. I couldn’t be upset over that. No, I was fucking grateful. And it wasn’t like we were mourning the death of our father. Hell, I should probably thank the fucker for saving us the trouble of having to kill our old man ourselves, a plan that we had already set in motion before the attack.
I took in her hand, the softness of it, the delicateness, how fucking small it looked against Silas’ hand, playing over her words in my head. I was sure my brothers were doing the same thing. I had already told them about Mila’s inheritance. Her twenty-fifth birthday was quickly approaching, which meant Sebastian was getting desperate. And desperate men usually did stupid, rash things that could get other people hurt. My eyes locked onto Mila’s face. She was eating her food, making soft sounds of pleasure from the taste. For the first time since I met her, she actually seemed carefree. It was a good look on her.
I vowed then that I would do whatever it took to ensure she wore this look for the rest of her life.
Carefree and…
Carefree and happy.
No matter the cost.
It was close to ten o’clock at night by the time we got Mila back to her motel, and I was fucking dreading the moment she would leave this car and go back to that shitty motel room, spending another night in those fucking sheets that didn’t deserve to touch her skin.
I wanted to fucking book a room in one of the best hotels Chicago could offer and make sure she stayed there until she was ready to come back home with us. Stay there with the rest of us by her side, keeping her safe.
Fuck all of this waiting around.
I was sick of it.
Silas might be onto something when he suggested we kidnap Mila again. I knew my brothers were thinking the same thing I was, judging by the look on their faces. The car pulled to a stop, and Mila let out a small sigh from where she was tucked by Silas’ side.
“Thank you for tonight,” she said softly.
Silas squeezed her. “You’re welcome, angel.”
She looked around at us, biting her bottom lip, obviously wanting to ask us something. I waited for her to work up the nerve. Disappointment came when she didn’t. I opened the car door and got out, bending down and holding out my hand to her. Slowly, she placed her much smaller hand in mine and let me pull her out of the car. She stood close to me as we waited for my brothers to come out as well.
Silently, we walked her to her room.
We waited for her to unlock the door, opening it to the darkened room.
Silas kissed her on the cheek as he passed, walking inside to check out the room to make sure it was safe for her.
She looked down at the ground, shifting on her feet.
We watched her.
And fuck it, but I wasn’t waiting for her to be ready anymore.
She could get herself ready for us while staying at the Tiernan mansion. I looked at Maverick, and I was sure he could read the thoughts on my face. He didn’t say anything. Only went back to staring at Mila as if she held a string that was keeping him tethered to the ground. To her.
I knew the fucking feeling.
She jumped when Silas came out. “It’s okay, angel. It’s just me.”
She nodded and looked up at him briefly before looking back down. She seemed almost sad. Which would make her kidnapping a little easier. I nearly smiled at the thought.
“Goodnight,” she said softly, looking up at us.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Maverick said, cupping her cheek and kissing her lips.
When he pulled back, Mila swayed. Silas wrapped his arms around her from behind, turning her head back and kissing her deeply. She let out a small moan. “Goodnight, angel.”
When Silas pulled back, I was right in front of her. She looked up at me with animated eyes that I wanted to drown in just as I closed the distance between us and kissed her with everything in me. Telling her all the things I was incapable of putting into words.
“Night, firecracker,” I said when I pulled away, my voice gruff. She licked her lips, and unable to resist, I leaned down and pressed a hard, quick kiss on them. “Lock the door behind you.”
She blinked and nodded, turning around and walking into the room.
Fuck, but it was so fucking hard to watch her walk away from us.
As soon as she closed the door, it was taking all of my self-control not to kick it down and take her out of there, away from this shit place.
“Marcus will stay with her?” I asked.
Maverick nodded. “We can take the car I left here for Mila.”
“And we’re coming back,” I said.
“Of course,” Maverick answered.
I looked at both of my brothers. I was sure my expression matched theirs.
“Is it time?” Silas asked.
“It’s time,” Maverick confirmed. “We are taking her tonight.”
“I’ll make a reservation at the hotel nearby. We’ll stay the night tonight. And then we’re going home.” My voice was hard and brooked no room for arguments. Not that I think my brothers would argue with me.
“And then we’re going home,” Maverick repeated.
Fuck, but I couldn’t wait.
We weren’t taking her back at this moment because Maverick still had to coordinate with Emilio back home while he worked to deal with the shit show that was the Cadorna Famiglia, and Silas and I were going to deal with the asshole who dared put his hand on Mila.
But after that…
She was ours.