Chapter 36
Nuala
My stomach knots as Logan navigates through Dublin’s winding streets toward Landry territory. Everything is moving too fast, spiraling beyond anything I could have imagined when I walked into work just days ago.
“What if we’re wrong?” I ask, staring out of the window. “What if Stacey isn’t working with her uncle? What if she’s running from him, too?”
Logan’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Then we’ll find out soon enough.”
The Landry estate sits on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by high walls and iron gates that scream old money and older secrets. As we approach, I can see security cameras tracking our movement, and my skin prickles with unease.
“I don’t like this,” I mutter.
“Neither do I, but we need answers.” Logan slows the SUV as we reach the gates. “And Stacey called you for a reason.”
“She used me.”
A guard emerges from a small booth, his hand resting casually on the weapon at his hip. Logan rolls down the window.
“Logan O’Neill and Nuala Quinn to see Thomas Landry,” Logan says, his voice carrying the weight of authority that comes with the O’Neill name.
The guard’s expression shifts from casual alertness to something more respectful, though wariness remains in his eyes. He nods once and disappears back into the booth. I watch him make a phone call, his lips moving rapidly as he speaks to someone inside.
After what feels like an eternity, the iron gates swing open with a mechanical groan.
“Here we go,” Logan mutters, guiding the SUV up a long, tree-lined drive.
The mansion that comes into view is exactly like Connor’s estate.
I stare up at the enormous house. “How the hell did Stacey end up in dodgy debt?”
“Maybe she didn’t, and this is all part of… whatever the fuck this is.”
“Helpful,” I mutter.
Logan parks in front of the main entrance, and I notice more security cameras and more guards positioned strategically around the property.
My hands shake as I check my reflection in the side mirror. The expensive clothes Logan bought me help, but I still feel like an imposter about to walk into a world I don’t belong in.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper.
“Yes, you can.” Logan’s voice cuts through my panic, firm and steady. “You survived a massacre. You held a gun to Connor O’Neill’s face. You shot at Lisa and her man. You just let me fuck you in a boutique changing room. You can handle Thomas Landry.”
I take a shaky breath, his words grounding me. He’s right. I’ve done things in the past few days that the old Nuala would never have imagined.
“Okay,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
Logan comes around to open my door, offering his arm as I step out. The heels click against the stone steps as we approach the massive front doors. Before we can knock, one of them swings open.
The man standing there is Thomas Landry. He’s tall, distinguished, with silver hair and the kind of presence that commands attention without effort. But up close, I can see the strain around his eyes, the tension in his jaw.
“Mr. O’Neill,” he says, extending his hand. “I was wondering when you’d come calling.”
Logan shakes his hand, his grip firm. “Mr. Landry. This is Nuala Quinn.”
Landry’s eyes shift to me, and I feel like he’s taking my measure in a single glance. His gaze lingers on the diamond ring on my finger for a beat longer than necessary, and something unreadable flickers across his features.
“Ms. Quinn,” he says, his voice neutral but carrying undertones I can’t quite decipher. “Please, come in.”
The interior of the mansion is as opulent as Connor’s, but with a different energy. Where Connor’s estate feels like a fortress, this place feels like a museum—beautiful but cold, full of history that might be better left buried.
Landry leads us through a grand foyer into what appears to be his study. Dark wood paneling lines the walls, and leather-bound books stretch from floor to ceiling.
“Drink?” Landry asks, moving to a crystal decanter on a side table.
“We’re fine,” Logan says, his hand finding the small of my back. “We’re here about Stacey.”
“My niece is dead,” he states, not turning back to us. “Killed in that massacre at the Sailing Club along with fifty-two others.”
“No, she isn’t,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “She called me this morning, and I think you know that, perhaps was even part of it.”
Landry turns slowly. The silence stretches long enough that I can hear the grandfather clock in the corner ticking. His face transforms into something harder, more calculating.
“Is that so?” he says, his voice deceptively mild.
“She put a burner phone in my bag along with the notebook,” I continue, my pulse hammering in my throat. “Is she here?”
“You are quite bold for a nobody,” he says, eyes narrowed.
I don’t take offense. I am a nobody. “A nobody who has been dragged into this mess thanks to your niece. Where. Is. She?”
Logan raises an eyebrow as I take a step forward, but he follows my move. I am done fucking about. I want to know who set me up and why.
Landry’s smile turns predatory. “A nobody who’s wearing a quarter-million-euro engagement ring and walking into my home making demands.”
I glance down at the diamond, suddenly hyperaware of its weight on my finger. Quarter of a million. Jesus Christ.
“The ring doesn’t change what I am,” I say, forcing myself to meet his gaze. “Just like your fancy house doesn’t change what you are.”
“And what am I, Ms. Quinn?”
“A man who is trying to make a move that he knows will likely end him up in hot water.”
Something flickers across Landry’s face—approval, maybe, or recognition that I’m not as stupid as he assumed.
“Where is she?” Logan’s voice carries a warning that makes the air in the room thicken.
Landry takes a slow sip of what looks like very expensive whiskey. “Safe. For now.”
“For now?” I repeat, ice sliding down my spine.
“Ms. Quinn, you’ve stumbled into something much larger than a simple investment scheme gone wrong.” He moves to the window, gazing out at his manicured grounds.
“Something to do with Cathal Brennan,” I prompt, trying to get this moving because my nerves can’t take another second of this.
“Everything to do with Cathal Brennan. That fucker needs to go down, and he needs to do so painfully and permanently.”
Logan and I glance at each other.
“What did he do to you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“What hasn’t he done? To every family in Dublin?”
“You tell me,” I say, but then shake my head. “You know what? I don’t care. What I do care about is ending this. I want my life back. Brennan, I assume, has been hunting me down, firing shots at me through windows, sending his deranged niece after me. Why did he shoot up the Sailing Club?”
Landry turns to face me. “The Sailing Club was a very profitable illegitimate business venture. Stacey was adept at running laundered money through it for me. But someone was moving in. Someone bigger. She went undercover and discovered a can of worms that blew this whole thing up. I’m sorry to say, Ms. Quinn, you were merely caught in the crossfire. ”
“And this someone bigger is Brennan?” Logan asks.
“Quite. Who knew? What Stacey uncovered was major league corruption at the highest level. Double-crossing of the families from the Garda we thought were on our side, that we’ve been paying off for decades.”
“So she wasn’t in debt? She was faking it?” I ask.
Landry nods. “We needed to get a handle on who was pulling the strings. Aisling was the only one who knew. Well, apart from Lisa, apparently. Lisa, by the way, is not who you think she is.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. “She’s my cousin.”
He snorts. “Oh, uhm… what?” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Apart from that, she is on our side. She is CSB.”
I frown as Logan moves closer. “CSB? Garda Crime & Security Branch?”
Landry nods. “She has been trying to take Cathal down for years. His ties to the IRA hold personal trauma for her. She joined the CSB and made it her life’s mission to take him out.”
“You’re fucking joking?” I blurt out.
Landry glares at me. “I never joke, Ms. Quinn.”
“So we are all on the same side?” Logan asks to clarify this bizarre conversation.
“We are, it seems.”
“How do we take down Cathal? I assume he found out Stacey was digging into him, and that’s why he shot up the Sailing Club. It was about Stacey after all, right?”
“Yes. She got shot and pretended to be dead. My contact at the morgue, a man who hasn’t been corrupted by Brennan, kept the ruse going after he released her to me. But he knows now she is alive. He knows you have the notebook. He knows his house of cards is falling down.”
“What was on Stacey’s computer that Lisa wanted so bad?” Logan asks.
“Ask her yourself,” he says and gestures behind us.
I spin around so fast I nearly lose my balance in these heels.
Lisa stands in the doorway, but she looks completely different than she did in the office at the Sailing Club.
Gone is the desperate, wild-eyed woman who held a gun on me.
This Lisa is composed, professional, wearing a dark suit that screams law enforcement.
“Sorry for the dramatic entrance,” she says, stepping into the room. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t going to shoot me on sight.”
Logan’s hand moves instinctively toward his gun, but I catch his wrist. “Wait.”
Lisa raises her hands, showing she’s unarmed. “I’m not here to fight. We need to talk.”
“You held a gun to my head,” I snap, anger flooding through me. “You tried to kill us.”
“I was maintaining my cover,” she replies calmly. “Cathal couldn’t know I was working with Landry and Stacey. The whole thing at the Sailing Club was an act.”
“An act that nearly got us killed,” Logan growls.
“But it didn’t. And now we have what we need to end this.
” Lisa moves closer, and I can see the family resemblance more clearly now.
The same bone structure, the same green eyes.
It’s unsettling, like looking at a distorted mirror.
“Cathal is cornered,” she finishes. “And a cornered rat bites hard.”
I stare at her left wrist. A rigid black brace peeks out from the cuff of her jacket. “You let Logan snap your bone just to sell a lie?”
“Pain is convincing,” she says, lifting the injured arm slightly. “Cathal thinks I failed because I was overpowered, not because I turned. If I walked away without a scratch, he’d have put a bullet in my head himself.”
Logan steps in front of me, shielding me from her. “You fired rounds at us. That wasn’t acting.”
“I fired into the desk and the doorframe,” Lisa counters, her voice sharp. “If I wanted you dead, O’Neill, I wouldn’t have missed from ten feet away. I needed you to run. I needed you to take the heat so I could report back that the target was hostile and armed.”
“You’re mad,” I whisper, clutching the back of Logan’s jacket. “The whole lot of you are absolutely fucking mad.”
“We’re desperate,” Landry corrects. “Cathal has insulated himself with layers of bureaucracy and fear. The notebook offers names, but the video files on that USB? That’s the nail in the coffin. Visual proof of him meeting with Lisa.”
“To talk about what? There is no audio! You could have been discussing the family brunch,” I point out.
“The audio was stripped and kept in a separate folder,” Lisa clips out. “Guess your tech guy didn’t get to it yet.”
I glance at Logan. He already has his phone in his hand, calling Connor. He holds the phone to his ear, his gaze locked on Lisa. “There’s a separate folder for audio.” He pauses, listening to Connor on the other end.
I stare at Lisa. She stands straight, ignoring the brace on her wrist. She let Logan snap her bone. She took a beating to sell a lie. That kind of commitment isn’t brave. It’s psychotic.
“Stop staring,” she says, her voice flat.
“It’s creepy,” I reply. “You have my face.”
“You have mine. I had it first.”
Logan lowers the phone. “Dave found it. Buried under a dummy system file.” He looks at Landry. “The audio is clear. Brennan discusses the payout. He orders the hit on the Sailing Club explicitly.”
Landry claps his hands together. “Excellent. That connects the dots. The notebook gives us the network. The video gives us the intent. The audio gives us the order.”
“It gives us a warrant,” Lisa says. “But a warrant takes time. Cathal owns judges. If we file this through normal channels, it disappears before it hits a desk.”
“So we don’t use normal channels,” I say. Everyone looks at me. “We skip the judges. We go straight to the execution.”
Logan smiles. It’s a dark, dangerous expression that makes my pulse spike. “Now you’re talking like an O’Neill.”
“We trigger the meet,” Lisa says. “We tell him I have the drive. We tell him I’m ready to trade it for my life.”
“And then we kill him,” I state.
“No,” Logan says, stepping to my side. His hand settles on my waist, heavy and possessive. “Then I kill him.”