Chapter Eleven
Cian
As I rode the train back to Boston, I pulled out my phone to check Caity’s cameras. I slipped my earbuds into my ears to drown out the background noise so I could concentrate on her.
I clicked through the cameras until I found her in Eamon’s office. I watched her brow furrow as she studied whatever she was looking at. She bit her lip and set the paper on the desk before dropping her head into her hands.
Sal hadn’t said anything about her being in Eamon’s office, which meant he still didn’t know. I should have told him, but I wanted to know what she’d found first.
The ringing of her phone made her head snap up. She shuffled the papers, looking for the source of the noise, and when she finally found it and looked at the number, her shoulders slumped.
“Hello?” she answered and then closed her eyes. “No.” She sat back in the chair with a look of defeat on her face. “I don’t know what you think I can tell you. I haven’t found anything about that.”
The way her eyes traveled to the filing cabinet told me she was lying to whomever she spoke to.
“I told you that if I found something, I would let you know.” Her frustration was rising, and despite promising not to dig into her phone, I didn’t have a choice. She was involved in something, and it was my job to protect her. The way I always had.
“Dinner? Why?” She listened as the caller gave her their reason for wanting to meet in person. “I told you; you can trust me. I won’t tell them.”
Fuck that. You will tell me everything, Caity.
I looked toward the front of the train, willing it to move faster along the track.
“Fine,” she relented. “Seven o’clock.” Caity disconnected the call and set the phone down with a heavy sigh. She stood up from her chair behind the desk and walked across the room. Standing in front of the filing cabinet, she hesitated.
She looked around the room, her eyes staring into mine for a brief moment before she shook her head and opened the drawer.
“I don’t know what you thought you were doing, Dad, but until I know, no one gets this information.”
Caity removed multiple file folders and left the office. I quickly clicked through each screen until I found her in the kitchen. She opened the pantry door and walked inside.
Eamon had never cooked a day in his life, but he enjoyed food, and he’d had a housekeeper who knew her way around the kitchen. He’d built this pantry for her. Not because she asked him to, but because he benefitted from it.
I’d almost neglected to put a camera in the pantry. The only reason I did was my need to see Caity anywhere. Any time of day. I watched as she pulled multiple plastic gallon-size bags from the shelf and rolled each folder, stuffing the information inside.
One file per bag.
She opened the large container of what I assumed was flour or sugar and shoved a bag deep inside, then did the same with another container. After leaving the pantry, she opened the freezer and pulled a frozen pizza out of it, carefully opening the box and shoving a bag inside.
She moved meticulously through the house, hiding each file in a different room. I wondered if she did this every time she left the house, or did she have a sense that her meeting was nefarious?
When there were no folders left, I clicked out of the camera app and called Liam.
“Hey, boss, what do you need?”
“Liam, I want you to sit on Caity’s house. Head over there now, and when she leaves, follow her. Don’t let her see you.”
“You want to know where she’s going?”
“I want to know where she’s going and who she’s meeting. And I want her to get home safely.”
“So if...” He let the question linger, and I smiled.
“If you have to interfere, then by all means do what needs to be done to protect Caity.”
“You got it, boss.” I heard the smile in his voice before the call cut off. Caity would be protected, and I could sneak into the house and retrieve the files.
“Whatever you’re hiding, banphrionsa, I’m about to find out.”
I sat outside Caity’s house waiting for her to leave and Liam to follow. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there. Liam McGuire had a knack for hiding in plain sight. And you’d never see him until he wanted you to. By then it would be too late.
Caity stepped out the front door and looked around. I slid down in my seat, not wanting to let her see me. Satisfied no one was watching her, she walked down the steps and climbed into her car. I waited until she turned the corner and drove out of sight before I reached for my car door.
Movement caught my eye as a man dressed in black walked by my car. Another was coming from the opposite direction, and two more were coming from a third direction.
They passed each other as if they weren’t connected, but the slight nod of the first man’s head told another story. They quickly pulled something from their back pockets and each slipped a balaclava over their heads.
I sat back in my car, slumped down, my eyes barely able to see over the dash as they climbed the steps to Eamon’s house and picked the lock.
Grabbing my phone, I quickly swiped through my apps to the camera and pulled the screens up. The men made quick work of the lock on Eamon’s office door, and despite their finesse in not drawing attention outside, here they had no such composure.
One man went directly to the desk and sat in Caity’s chair. Quickly, he pulled the drawers from their slots and spilled the contents onto the desk as he rummaged through everything.
Another slid his hands along the wall, looking for a safe, I assumed. Or maybe a secret panel that hid what they were searching for. He would be disappointed. Eamon wasn’t that clever.
Sal had multiple panels in his office, as did the rest of us. But Eamon was old-school and a fool. He never believed anyone would be stupid enough to break into his home, let alone his office.
The third and fourth men went to the file cabinets that sat against the far wall.
Opening one drawer at a time, they pulled files individually and quickly scanned through them.
Once they realized they hadn’t found what they were looking for, they tossed the files over their shoulders onto the floor.
They continued this until the file cabinets were empty.
“There’s nothing here, boss,” the man who’d scanned the walls said.
“It has to be here somewhere. She said no one had been in here since the old man died. Not until his nosy fucking daughter moved in.” The man at the desk must have been the boss, as he was the one who answered.
“Bitch should have left well enough alone,” one of the other men grunted, and a growl crawled up my chest. They didn’t know I could hear them. Hell, they didn’t know I could see them.
“Now what?” the fourth man asked.
“Spread out and search the house. The files are here somewhere. Fucking find them!” the boss ordered.
They filed out of the office, not bothering to shut the door, let alone lock it again, and, well, it made sense. Caity would know as soon as she came home that someone had been there.
I clicked through the cameras trying to follow each of the men. If I’d been in my office or at home, I could watch multiple screens at once, but these cameras had been placed to watch one woman who couldn’t be in more than one room at a time.
I clicked through quickly, watching what I could. The men moved with precision, tossing anything that wasn’t nailed down. They moved from room to room, each doing the same as they had in the office. All Caity’s hard work in restoring this house into something beautiful was ruined.
It would have been more efficient and easier for me if they’d cleared one room at a time rather than switching places and searching the same spots the previous man did.
“There’s nothing here, boss.”
They all stood in the living room now, looking around the room.
“You checked every room?”
“Yes, boss,” the three men answered together.
“The bathroom? The fucking pantry?”
“Everywhere. There’s nothing here,” asshole number two confirmed.
“Maybe she hasn’t found anything?” asshole number three said.
“Or maybe she took it with her,” stated asshole number four.
The boss, or asshole number one as I referred to him now, pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
“There’s nothing here,” he spoke into the phone. “Ken thinks she might have them with her. Which means you’re closer to the files than we are.”
Asshole number one listened for a moment before he said, “You want us to wait here for her to come back?”
Fuck no, you won’t be waiting. I was on the verge of calling in Oscar when I heard asshole number one concede. “Okay, we’ll get out of here before she comes back. But she’ll know we were here.”
He looked at his men and circled his finger in the air, telling them it was time to go.
“No problem. If we need to come back, I have very effective ways of making her talk.”
Son of a bitch!
“Okay.” He ended the call and looked at his men.
“What does she want us to do?” asshole number three asked.
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s get to the restaurant. We’ll follow her home and make sure she tells us everything we need to know.”
I called Liam as the men walked out the front door of Eamon’s house. They looked up and down the street before taking off their masks, and I quickly snapped a picture of each man.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Get Caity and get out of there now. Don’t make a scene. Don’t draw attention, and don’t let anyone but her know there is a problem.”
“You want me to bring her home?”
“No, take her to my place,” I told him. “And, Liam...”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Not a fuckin’ word to anyone.”
“You got it.”
I cut the call and waited for the men to disappear. I quickly climbed out of my car and rushed to Caity’s door. The sons of bitches didn’t even bother locking the front door.
I slipped inside and quickly moved to the pantry, retrieving the files she’d hidden there, then moved to each spot she thought would be safe. By the time I was done, I had six files in my hands.
I considered looking through them but decided to wait until I got home. I couldn’t take the risk of them coming back when they couldn’t find Caity. I stacked them together and made my way back to my car.
“What the fuck did you do, Caity?”
I started the car and drove home. Pulling into the garage under my apartment, I took the elevator to the top floor. Duncan and Sal both had brownstones. Mac and I lived in penthouse apartments close to the center of town.
When the elevator doors opened into my living room, I went directly to the kitchen and spread the files out on the island in the middle of the room. Opening the first file, I tilted my head, not believing what my eyes were looking at.
I had just opened the fifth file when the elevator door dinged and opened to a very angry Caity being hauled in by Liam.
“Liam McGuire, I swear to Christ if you don’t let go of my arm right now...” Her words trailed off when she saw me. “Cian, what the fuck is going on?”
I strolled toward the woman I’d loved for nearly forty years and snarled, “Why don’t you fuckin’ tell me?!”