Chapter 44
Rhys
The temperature drops as we drive north to Westchester. Ashbourne is old money glorified by sprawling colonials with tall black iron gates that scream power. As soon as we cross the border into the county just north of Manhattan, Fallon goes quiet.
I hear her breathing turn ragged over the chimes of holiday music on the radio. She’s been smoothing her velvet dress over and over, the fabric crushed. Her lips move as she counts something under her breath.
One, two, three. On her fingers. The charms on her necklace. The buttons on her coat. Her knees knock together next, also in counts of three, watching the sign for the town of Ashbourne grow closer through the windshield.
“You okay, Fal?” I say, cringing because everything tells me she’s anything but okay.
“Sure,” she says, her voice wary.
Fuck. I don’t press because it’s up to her to communicate with me. If we’re going to have a shot at making this real relationship work, I need her to use her words. Or any other form of communication. I don’t care if she turns mute. I’ll learn ASL for her.
“Is Christmas tough for you without your mum?” I say, already breaking my rules. “Mom.”
“My mother died when I was young.” She looks down and then out the window. “I don’t have too many memories of her.”
I hope that’s from her grief and not from her father stuffing her with meds. Because if that’s the case…
I shift in the seat, angry at this man I haven’t met.
“My mum is excited to meet you after all this. She and Trace’s wife Shea-Lynne have a great relationship, too.
But Shea works a lot of nights, she’s a party planner.
” I nudge her. “And get this, she was really into gardening back home before she and Dad moved here. You’ll have that in common.
Maybe you can bring her to your garden when the weather gets warmer. ”
“I would love that.” She squeezes my hand, and I pull it into my lap.
“Oh, it’s the next driveway on the right.” Fallon’s voice goes tight and small.
As I turn up the long drive, a three-story mansion rises in the distance, surrounded by a snowy landscape, like a postcard. Only, a dark one.
Something immediately feels off. I’m suddenly very aware that I am walking into an unknown situation completely blind.
The house is a perfect colonial with grand white columns and a stone facade, completely trimmed out for the holidays.
Flickering candles encircled by wreaths hang in every one of the many windows.
White lights strung across the roof and window panes form a perfect line that screams professional installation.
While I appreciate the simple beauty, I’m a sucker for a chaotic mess of multi color lights and mismatched blinking bulbs. My father didn’t work directly for Fergus O’Rourke in Waterford like Uncle Aiden. As an electrician, Dad kept busy and got a few side gigs with my uncle to ‘fix’ things.
Christmases were always better those years. But Trace and I didn’t mind the simple life. All he cared about as a kid was Shea-Lynne O’Rourke. The dosser’s been in love with her since he was fucking nine and she was twelve.
I steer my Audi up a long curve of a brick-paved road, tires crunching on stray pebbles. Snow clings to the bare limbs of trees overhead, like brand new softballs.
My thoughts come crashing back when we crest the driveway and a guard booth appears beside a heavy iron gate. This town is littered with mansions and manicured everything, but it also has one of the strongest police forces in the state. Crime barely exists here.
So why the private guards? Who the hell is her father?
Trace said nothing suspicious came up. I’m not armed this exact second, but I’ve got a few weapons buried in my bag. Just in case.
I slow to a crawl and lower my window just as two men with assault rifles step out of the booth and block our path.
Oh shite.
And now I know exactly what I look like when I’m carrying my AR. Jaysus, what an eye opener.
I whip my head toward Fallon. “Do we have the right bleedin’ house?”
“Yeah.” She opens her window and waves like this is normal. “It’s me, guys.”
One guard advances to the driver’s side, the other to Fallon’s. My brain clocks every inch of the guy coming toward me. Then my gaze snags on his neck.
That skull and serpent tattoo.
My stomach drops. No fucking way.
Heat crawls up my spine as I force myself not to react. Maybe I shouldn’t have scrubbed off that temporary ink. It might be the only thing that keeps me from getting shot right now.
What the hell is Fallon’s father into if he’s hiring men like this?
I steady my voice and address the one sizing me up, “Mr. Nova is expecting us.”
“This is Mr. Black’s home.” He lifts his rifle a hair, enough to make a point.
Black.
My pulse spikes hard, every instinct roaring awake. That’s why Trace didn’t find anything unusual about Fallon Nova’s father. She’s using a different last name.
“Fallon, is your father Elias Black?”
She purses her lips and answers, “Yes. But it’s a secret.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
Elias Black is the ghostly private arms and security contractor who is selling his services to the highest bidder without bending the knee to any one crime family.
I unknowingly came to spend Christmas with the man who is the head of the murder-for-hire ring so dangerous, federal agents are visiting tattoo parlors looking for records of dudes getting inked with his insignia.
No… Branded.
All mafia is corrupt and dangerous, but contract killers operate on another level. They are murderers without a soul.
I clear my throat. “No problem, love.”
I am fucking dead.
They have my plates, which are masked. But if Elias Black’s hacking capabilities are as good as I suspect they are, he already knows who I am.
Someone supplying contract killers to mafia bosses will also know the Quinlans are aligned with Ares Zervas.
Black had to know that the wife of his dead mercenary David Sinclair works for Ares.
Heck, if David talked at all after his initial attack, Black knows that I was involved in his ultimate disappearance.
Lourdes Sinclair asked Ares outright if he had her husband killed, and Zervas admitted to it!
I might very well be gunned down any second.
“Daddy always has different guards,” Fallon casually explains. “They must not have recognized me.”
Daddy. I blink.
I’m about to meet Elias Black, pretending to be his daughter’s boyfriend. And we all know what happened to all the other eejits who crossed that threshold. They went missing right after.
Fucking great.
The armed guard in the booth gives me a short nod before pressing the button that lowers the spiked strip across the drive.
I consider gunning my Audi and go sailing across a snow bank on my right.
But I’d probably end up stuck in someone else’s backyard.
There is no way in hell that Elias Black doesn’t have the Ashbourne police in his pocket.
As long as I’m in this town, I can’t so much as go one mile over the speed limit.
I close my window and casually ask Fallon, “Why are you using a different last name?”
Fallon fiddles with her dress. “My father worries about things happening to me. Said if people didn’t connect me to him, I could live without guards trailing me around. Nova is my middle name.”
I wonder why a man so powerful would let his mentally unstable daughter…
As I say this, the idea is so crystal clear. It’s not for her protection. He obviously can provide that. He’s distancing himself from her. She’s an embarrassment to him.
Fuck.