Chapter 24
brONX
Something’s off with Connor tonight.
He’s been sitting at our kitchen island for the past hour, picking at Tierney’s lasagna and jumping every time a phone rings or a door closes.
His leg bounces under the table like he’s got somewhere else to be, and he keeps checking his watch when he thinks we’re not looking.
“You okay there?” I ask, refilling his wine glass. “You seem a little wound up.”
“Yeah, fine. Just tired.” But his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Long day, you know?”
“Doing what?” I take a long gulp of my wine.
He hesitates for a second. “Just... walked around the city. Explored a bit.”
Tierney looks up from her plate. “I thought you were staying close to the building. With everything that’s been happening. You need to be safe.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “I know. Trust me, I was careful. I took security with me.”
Another lie. I know for a fact he left the building alone this afternoon. My men reported it, but I figured he needed some air. Kid’s been cooped up for weeks.
Now I’m wondering what else he needed.
“Where’d you go?” I ask, struggling to keep my tone casual when alarm bells are ringing in my fucking ears.
“Just... around Manhattan. Coffee shops, bookstores. Nothing exciting.”
Vague answers. Generic locations. The kind of response someone gives when they don’t want to be nailed down on specifics.
“Find anything good?”
Connor’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “Not really. Just killed some time.”
Tierney reaches over and squeezes his arm. “You don’t have to feel guilty about getting out. I just worry about you.”
“I know.” But he still looks like he wants to crawl out of his skin.
My phone buzzes against my leg. Text message. I ignore it and focus on Connor’s nervous energy. It spikes with every passing second and I want to know why.
“How are those university applications coming along?” I ask.
“Good. Still waiting to hear back.”
“From which schools again?”
“NYU, Columbia...” He trails off, like he can’t remember the rest of his own list. “A few others.”
“Right. And you’re still thinking about business as your major?”
“Yep. Business.”
Same answers as always. Too rehearsed, too perfect. Something gnaws at my gut. The kid is squirrely as hell tonight, and I don’t like the way his eyes dart around with every bullshit answer he feeds me.
My phone buzzes again. Then again.
“Excuse me,” I say, pulling it out of my pocket. “Work stuff.”
On the screen are three messages from Mannino, each marked urgent.
Need to talk. Now.
It’s about Connor Blake.
Call me. You’re not gonna like this.
Ice floods my veins.
“I need to take this,” I tell Tierney. “Work emergency.”
“Now? During dinner?”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
I head to my office and call Mannino immediately.
“What the hell is it?” I ask the second he picks up.
“Your brother-in-law’s been busy today.”
“Busy how?”
“Meeting with Liam O’Rourke at a coffee shop in Queens.”
Fuck. Liam O'Rourke. One of Declan Blake’s most trusted men. Last I heard, he was handling shipments through Dublin’s docks.
“You sure it was Connor?”
“Positive. O'Rourke flew in to JFK yesterday. Intelligence we got from our sources in Dublin tracked him. Connor sat with him for forty-five minutes this afternoon.”
“What the fuck is O'Rourke doing in New York?”
“That’s what we’d like to know. Whatever business he has here, it involves your brother-in-law.”
My free hand clenches into a fist. “Where in Queens?”
“Astoria. Little café called Murphy’s.”
Murphy’s. The same name as the Irish bastards who threatened Tierney. Can’t be a coincidence.
“Anyone else there?”
“Two other men were with O'Rourke. They looked like muscle from what we could tell. Probably security he brought over from Dublin. Connor knew exactly where to meet him. Walked straight into the pub, no hesitation. This wasn’t a first-time thing for them.”
I lean against my desk, blood pounding between my temples. Connor Blake, the innocent victim who needs our protection, is having secret meetings with his father’s criminal lieutenant and a crew of Irish muscle.
“Send me photos. Everything you have.”
“Already did. Check your email.”
I hang up and open the messages. Clear photos of Connor sitting across from Liam O'Rourke, leaning in close, accepting what looks like a thick envelope. His body language is relaxed. The whole thing looks familiar. Like he’s done this plenty of times before.
Like he’s not the scared kid hiding from threats.
Like he’s part of the fucking operation.
I stare at the photos, pieces of a very fucking ugly puzzle clicking into place. Connor’s nerves. His vague answers about where he’d been. The way he keeps checking his phone and glancing at the door.
He’s not afraid of the Irish men hunting him.
He’s working with them.
And Tierney has no fucking clue.
I head back to the kitchen, my mind trying to wrap itself around what I just saw and heard. Connor and Tierney are laughing about their childhood days back in Ireland. She’s refilling his wine, he’s stealing food off her plate.
My wife trusts her brother completely. She’d die for the guy. Has already sacrificed everything for him.
And he’s been lying to her about everything.
What the hell part does Declan play in all of this?
“Are you okay?” Tierney asks when I sit back down.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Just some business stuff I have to handle later.”
Connor glances up at me, and for a split second, I see something flicker in his eyes. Fear? Guilt? The look of someone who knows he’s been caught?
“Nothing serious, I hope,” he says.
I lift an eyebrow and pick up my wine glass. “We’ll see.”
The rest of dinner passes in a blur. I can’t think about anything other than what I just found out about Connor. Conversation is forced at best.
Connor gradually relaxes as the wine hits his system, but I can’t stop staring at him. The tension creeps up my spine and grabs hold of my throat.
Fuck, how the hell could he do this to Tierney? To put her in danger like this? To betray her trust and play her for a damn fool for God only knows how long?
He’s a fucking criminal, and good at it too, because she has no idea.
The innocent act, the grateful brother routine. If I hadn’t seen those photos, I’d never suspect a thing.
But now I can’t unsee it.
The careful answers, the practiced gratitude, the way he deflects when he’s pressed for details about his reasons for being here. He’s been playing all of us from the beginning.
Including his sister.
After we finish eating, Connor helps clear the dishes, and Tierney starts loading the dishwasher. It should be a normal end to a normal family dinner. Except nothing about this is normal anymore.
“I should head back to my place,” Connor says, checking his watch again. “Early day tomorrow.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Just...university stuff. Paperwork.”
More lies.
Tierney hugs him, says goodbye, and I watch her face the whole time. There’s love there, protective instincts, the way she holds him like he’s still the little brother she’s always taken care of.
She has no idea she’s hugging a liar. And I’m the one who has to tell her.
After Connor leaves, Tierney starts putting away leftovers.
“That was nice,” she says. “We should do it more often.”
“Yeah.”
“He seemed better tonight. Less stressed.”
“Did he?”
She gives me a sharp look. “You don’t think so?”
I could tell her now. Show her the photos, explain what Connor’s really been doing. Watch her world collapse.
But she’s happy right now. Content. The walls between us have been coming down slowly, and tonight she looks at me like she’s starting to trust me with more than just her safety.
It can wait until tomorrow, after I figure out how to handle this, and decide what Connor’s involvement means for all of us. Because I’d rather hold onto this version of her for a little longer tonight.
The version that trusts me and doesn’t know I’m about to destroy her faith in the person she loves most.
“Come here,” I say, pulling her against me.
“What’s this for?”
“Can’t a husband hold his wife?”
She relaxes into my arms, and I breathe in the scent of her hair.
Tomorrow, everything changes. I’ll dig deeper and confront Connor about his lies. Make him tell me what his real agenda is.
And then I have to decide whether to tell Tierney the truth or protect her from it.
Either way, I’m fucked.
Because the evidence is clear: Connor Blake isn’t the victim in this story.
He’s been jerking us all around from the beginning.
And when Tierney finds out, she’s going to hate me for being the one to expose it.