Chapter 13 #3
Frances turned around and smiled warmly back at him. Then her gaze slid over to me and lingered. She cocked her head like she found me curious before turning back around without a word.
I squinted at the stained menu board overhead that likely hadn’t changed since the nineties.
There were too many fucking choices, and I was way too fucking hungry to decide what I wanted.
Not that it mattered, because Cian didn’t ask.
He ordered two chicken parm subs with extra sauce and a basket of breaded cauliflower.
The food was ready before I’d even taken my first few sips of my water.
We sat at a table that was way too small for Cian, and his knees kept bumping the underside as we ate.
My water bottle fell over at least three times, and I got sauce on my pants that I had to attack with napkins no better than tissue paper.
But the chicken parm was incredible. Clearly, they spent their money on ingredients, not ambiance.
Before we left the restaurant, Frances handed Cian a takeout container full of cannoli and two loaves of bread. He placed the food in the back of the car—carefully enough that I noticed—before settling into the driver’s seat. “Last stop,” he murmured before pulling back out onto the road.
We drove past rundown houses until we entered a section of the city where large industrial buildings rose up around us instead.
All concrete, cinderblock, and cracked windows.
Cian drove down a few alleys before parking the car near the brick wall of a large warehouse.
He grabbed another bag from the backseat, then motioned for me to get out of the car.
It looked like every other abandoned building, complete with broken glass windows and crumbling brick exterior.
Even the door seemed one good kick away from caving in.
Cian knelt beside it and removed a brick from the wall about a foot off the ground, revealing a hidden keypad.
He typed in a few numbers and the lock released with a click.
The flimsy wooden door swung open to reveal a reinforced steel door behind it, which Cian pushed open.
I followed him inside, then spun in a slow circle to take in my surroundings.
The run-down exterior had been a front, and I appreciated the deception.
The walls were stripped down to exposed metal studs, and the floor was cold concrete.
While the windows outside were broken, extra panes had been added on the inside.
They sat a couple stories up, making them undetectable from the street.
The warehouse itself was maybe four stories tall, and covered about a hundred thousand square feet.
There were two rusted shipping containers along one wall, their doors chained and padlocked.
I had owned a lot of properties in Detroit, mainly to store guns, drugs, and other contraband.
But I’d never taken the time to fortify a building like this.
I’d never kept enough product in one place.
I’d benefitted from the luxury of multiple locations, but in a small city with a small crew, this was likely one of only a few storage facilities the O'Sheas owned.
I hadn’t dealt with Patrick much, and I didn’t know how his business had run. At the time, I’d delegated all East Coast gun trades to Mick Saltner, one of my men.
“How long have you had this?” I asked.
“Years,” Cian said as he strode across the dusty floor.
He swung open a door near the shipping containers, revealing a small office.
It had been drywalled and painted, with thick hardwood planks covering the floor.
He switched on the fluorescent light overhead, and it flickered before brightening with a buzz.
A fake plant sat in the corner, a layer of dust covering its forest green leaves.
On the desk sat a laptop that looked about twenty years old—a thick black monstrosity that probably still ran Windows 98.
Beside it were a few cheap pens from a nearby credit union and a stained Chinese takeout menu.
A ratty, ugly rug covered the floor under the desk.
I pointed to the computer. “Can that thing even connect to the internet?”
He stopped near the desk and dropped the bag at his feet, then pulled out his phone and started to type. He didn’t acknowledge my question.
“I’m assuming the stuff in that bag is going in the shipping containers out there?”
Cian finally looked at me. “That’s what I want people to think if they break in.”
“Okaaay,” I said slowly, drawing out the word.
He peeled the rug back from behind the desk, exposing more wooden planks.
Hooking a finger into a narrow groove, he lifted a foot-wide plank, revealing a crawlspace underneath.
He repeated the process until there was enough room for him to drop into the cavity beneath the floor.
It was only about five feet deep, and nearly half his body still stuck out until he kneeled.
I lay on my stomach and watched him type a code into a safe door tucked into the side of the space.
He peered up at me, eyes glowing eerily in the fluorescent light. “Hand me the bag.”
I grabbed one of the nylon handles and dragged the bag toward me before tipping it over the edge. Cian unzipped it and began loading bundles of cash into the safe.
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “So is there even anything in the shipping containers?”
“Yeah. Decoys. Someone breaks in, they’ll think they found our stash.”
“So this entire fucking warehouse is just a front to hide this safe full of cash?”
He closed the safe, and it beeped once before locking. “Pretty much.”
“Where do you keep everything else?”
He hauled himself out of the crawlspace with a grunt, dragging the now-empty duffel with him. “We have two other properties.” He replaced the wooden planks and pulled the rug back into place.
“Who built this?” Though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
Cian got to his feet. “Patrick bought the warehouse. The office was my idea.” Then he turned off the light and ushered me out of the office before shutting the door behind him. “The crawlspace is the size of this office, so the floor doesn’t sound different when you walk on it.”
As he crossed the warehouse floor, I called after him. “You know who Mick is, right?”
He turned to face me. “Yeah. He used to be our contact.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“A few times.”
I cocked my head. “How come he never mentioned you to me?”
Cian sighed and ran his hand over his buzzed hair. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I wasn’t allowed to speak to him.”
“Ah. Patrick’s orders?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You think anyone else could tell me what to do?”
My laugh was dry. “Good point.”
“Mick probably didn’t realize I was Patrick’s son. I’m not even sure Patrick ever introduced me.”
“Your father was an idiot.” Cian glared at me, and I threw my hands up. “What? Are you going to argue with me?”
“He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t an idiot.”
“Well, agree to disagree.” I moved to walk past him, but his next question stopped me short as our shoulders brushed.
“Why’d you kill him?”
I turned my head and looked up. Cian was so much taller than I was, and while he sometimes used his size to intimidate me, now wasn’t one of those times. He’d pinned me in place using only four words.
I scrambled to think of something. “I told you. He was an idiot. I found out he was taking more than his cut. No one lied to me and got away with it.”
Cian was quiet. Pensive.
Nerves worked their way under my skin. “What, don’t believe me?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Well. There you go. He was an idiot, and I put a bullet between his eyes because of it.”
Something in Cian’s expression suddenly shifted. I expected anger. I got hard thinking about how he’d punish me for talking about his father that way. But he didn’t lash out. He didn’t even tell me to shut up. Instead, he shifted closer, and his icy blue eyes bored into mine.
“Between his eyes?”
My gut churned. That was how he died, wasn’t it? Shit. I remembered Mick reporting his death to me, but…
“Did you shoot him yourself?” There was a calm to Cian’s voice that was worse than his anger. Much worse. An unsettling coldness that sent a chill down my spine. I was normally pretty good at lying, but Cian had a way of seeing through my flimsy facade.
I swallowed hard. This was my out. “No. I didn’t like to get my hands dirty. One of my men did it.”
“But you were there?”
“Y-yes.” Or maybe I should’ve said no? Fuck. I hadn’t thought this through. As long as Cian believed I’d killed his father, that was all that mattered. If he hated me, he’d keep me close until he killed me.
Cian inched closer until the toes of his boots touched mine as he inched closer. One hand settled on my shoulder, resting there at first, but his fingers slowly curled until they dug into my skin. I bit back a cry of pain.
“You’re fucking lying to me, devil. My father was found dead with two bullet holes in his back.”