Chapter Sixteen
RONAN
The coffee in my hand is bitter and way too strong, even for my taste, but I sip it anyway as I climb out of my Mercedes.
I’ve parked right out front of the towering skyscraper where Sullivan Investments is located, which is where I plan on spending the entire day. I’ve not been back here since my father’s death, and I can’t hold off any longer.
If I’m going to step into his shoes, I need to rip the fucking Band-Aid off and act like the boss.
Even though it’s eight in the morning, the sky is dark and angry, which only adds to my mood as I stalk up the front steps toward the building.
I’m yet to find a single lead that brings me closer to finding my father’s killer, which means all of the tabloids are still circulating various rumors despite my recent nuptials.
I hoped the wedding would keep them busy for a while, but it seems people are more interested in bloodshed than happy ever afters.
Tossing my coffee in the garbage can outside, I push open the heavy glass door and head inside to the expansive foyer. The security guard on my right gives me a curt nod, though he makes no attempt to hide his curiosity as he looks at me.
Despite spending countless hours in this very building, learning the names of every single employee as well as their spouses and offspring, I’m under no illusion that most of them will be watching with eagle eyes to see if I crash and burn.
My father left behind very big shoes to fill, and that pressure is slowly starting to suffocate me.
As I step into the elevator, I tug at my tie, suddenly claustrophobic as the irritating music filters through the speakers.
A lot of the work I have to do today could easily have been done from my home office, but I need to save face in the aftermath of my father’s death. Not only that, but after stupidly walking in on Ciara in the bath last night, being around her would only be a distraction.
I don’t know why I’m so hell-bent on torturing myself. I could have just knocked on the damn door, but no. I had to catch a glimpse of her naked body, all pink and wet in the hot water.
It took everything in me not to haul her out of that bath and carry her to bed to finish what I started the other night. But I can’t cross that line with Ciara.
Teasing her is one thing, but fucking her? That would be a mistake.
We might be married on paper, but in real life, I need to keep some distance between us. I can’t afford to lose focus, not when my father has barely been in the ground a week.
Now is my time to prove he made the right choice by naming me head of the family, and I refuse to blow that chance because I want to get into Ciara’s pants.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think about it, all the damn time.
“Get a fucking grip, Sullivan,” I hiss through my teeth as I rub a hand over my jaw, staring at the floor numbers, which seem to be climbing especially slowly today.
When the doors finally open onto the sixteenth floor, I head across the main floor, where most of the employees' cubicles are situated, toward my father’s office at the far end, ignoring the sympathetic stares of everyone I pass.
There’s nothing I hate more than people feeling sorry for me.
When I finally step inside the office and close the door behind me, his absence hits me like a punch to the gut.
Everything is the same as the last time I was here. I half-expect him to walk in and immediately cross to the ridiculous globe bar that he bought at an auction and pour us both a glass of scotch.
Instead, there’s nothing but silence.
I lean against the door for a moment, letting it all sink in.
The last time I saw him in this office, he was the epitome of alive, barking orders down the phone and cursing out some poor bastard who owed him money.
Now he’s nothing but a memory, trapped in a room that still smells like his aftershave.
I rub my jaw and force myself to cross to the desk and drop into the black leather chair. It creaks under my weight, and I let out a long exhale as I lean back and look up at the ceiling.
I thought my father would always be here. Even in the violent, fucked-up world we live in, I thought he was untouchable. An immortal among men, who could never be stopped. But now he’s gone, and I’m the one sitting at his desk, trying to act like that doesn’t terrify the hell out of me.
After shrugging out of my jacket and rolling up the sleeves of my white shirt, I log into the computer and open up the ledgers.
It’s routine work that will keep me busy for most of the morning, tracking the legitimate investments as well as the illegal ones hidden beneath layers of fake transactions, ghost companies, and offshore accounts.
This firm is one of the reasons my family is able to fly under the radar despite all of our illegal dealings. But in order to keep things running smoothly, it’s my job to keep track of every single payment that moves in and out of this company.
“What the…”
There are a series of encrypted payments inside a random folder, all without any notes or a paper trail, which is unusual.
I scroll through the transactions again, frowning as I try to decode them.
None of the other accounts are encoded like this. No matter how small and insignificant the payment, my father always made sure there was a log. But with these particular payments, there’s nothing but strings of encrypted metadata and outgoing funds to dead-end shell companies in Eastern Europe.
I lean back as my heart starts to pound.
Why the hell are these transactions encrypted? There’s no way my father didn’t know about them, so why would he want to keep them hidden, even from the family?
From the sick feeling in my stomach, I’m almost certain that they have something to do with his death.
I pull out my phone and dial Connell Sachsman, one of the best tech guys on my staff.
He’s a former hacker who Kieran managed to bribe to join the dark side five years ago, and he’s become invaluable to us. The guy is only in his mid-twenties, but he’s a genius with a laptop, so hopefully he’ll be able to find out what the hell is going on with these transactions.
Thankfully, he picks up on the third ring.
“Boss?”
“I’m sending you something now that I need you to look into.” I put the call on speaker and copy the folder into an email.
“What is it?”
“A series of encrypted transactions.” I hit send. “I need to know who the hell this money was sent to.” I run a hand through my hair as I wait for him to take a quick look.
His answering low whistle makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“How bad is it?”
“This shit looks military-grade. Who the hell encoded this?”
“That’s what I’m paying you to find out.”
“Do you think this is related to…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but I know exactly where his thoughts are going, because mine are already there.
“I don’t know, and I don’t like not knowing. Call me the second you have anything, no matter what time.”
“Got it.”
Once the time hits five p.m., I leave the office and drive out to Kieran’s place over in Central Park West, where all three of my brothers are already waiting to have a family meeting.
The fact that Cormac is willingly in Kieran’s presence without me playing buffer only reminds me I have something else to add to my long list of problems to fix. The way the pair of them have acted toward each other since the funeral, it’s hard to believe they’re anything other than strangers.
If our father could see them now, he’d be disappointed.
All I can hope is that I get there before all hell breaks loose.
I park my car in the underground garage of Kieran’s building, rolling my eyes at the extensive collection of luxury vehicles he owns. I swear, if these encrypted transactions turn out to be Kieran’s way of secretly buying shit, I’m going to kill him.
While I ride the elevator up to the penthouse, I quickly check my messages to see if there’s anything from Ciara, but of course, there’s nothing but radio silence. I’m a little disappointed she’s not being more of a pain in my ass, if only to keep me amused during my long workday.
I wonder what’s keeping her so occupied…
The door pings open, and I blink away the thought of Ciara as I step out into the expansive living area of Kieran’s penthouse.
Everything is either matte black or metal, making the place feel cold and uninviting, which I guess sums Kieran up perfectly. The only enviable feature of his obnoxious home is the floor-to-ceiling windows, which look out over Central Park and the New York skyline.
The second I walk into the kitchen, tension radiates between Kieran and Cormac. The former is leaning against the black marble countertop with a drink in hand and his mouth pressed into a thin line.
Cormac, on the other hand, is seated at the island with his arms folded and his expression completely unreadable. I glance around to see Brennan standing off to the side, looking like he wants to be anywhere but here.
“You’re late.” Kieran barely glances my way.
“I don’t give a fuck.” I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and twist the cap off. “I was at work.”
“We were talking about Cormac’s little adventure. But he’s still refusing to tell us what the hell he’s been doing the past two years.”
“I told you,” Cormac says coolly. “I worked in surveillance for a government agency. That’s all you need to know.”
“That’s all we need to know?” Kieran laughs coldly.
“Yes.”
“You’ve got some fucking nerve, you know that? You disappear for two years and expect us to just hand you a seat at the table now you’re back?”
“I’m not asking for anything.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
I slam the water bottle on the counter hard enough to make Kieran jump. “Enough.”
Both of them fall silent, and Brennan glances anxiously between them.
“We are not doing this. Not now.”
Kieran glares at me. “You just expect us to trust him?”
“Yes, because he’s our brother.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes brothers stab you in the back.”
Cormac stands then, his dark eyes flashing as he looks at Kieran. “Trust me, brother, if I wanted to stab you, I would have done so already.”
“Try me—”
I step between them. “Enough! I don’t give a shit what you two think about each other right now. We are Sullivans, and we need to start acting like it. We’ve got enemies circling us like vultures, and you're both standing here swinging your dicks at each other like we’re in a fucking playground.”
Brennan shrugs. “He’s not wrong.”
“Damn right, I’m not. Dad’s gone, which means if we don’t start working together, if we keep letting personal grudges tear us apart, we won’t need enemies. We’ll destroy ourselves just fine on our own.”
Kieran folds his arms, but for once, he doesn’t argue with me. His gaze remains fixed on Cormac, whose jaw ticks. But he also keeps quiet, which is as much of a win as I’m going to get from those two.
I run a hand through my hair and exhale as I look at each of my brothers in turn. I was considering telling them about the encrypted transactions I found today, but from the way they’re acting, I decide to keep it to myself for the time being.
“From now on, we don’t fight each other. We fight them.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I ignore Brennan, instead turning to look at Cormac, whose shoulders are so stiff he looks as if he’s carved from stone.
“And just so you know, I don’t care what you were doing for the past two years. You have my trust, brother.” I catch Kieran opening his mouth out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to him next. “And I don’t want to hear another fucking word about it.”
Right now, I don’t have the time to waste on stupid brawls between the two of them. Not when our father might have been hiding something so catastrophic that it led to him being buried six feet under.
This empire is mine now, and I have a sinking feeling I’ve only just scratched the surface of the secrets it holds.