Chapter 17
Aran
Idon’t sleep so much as shut my eyes and keep count.
Her breathing evens out against my chest. Mine doesn’t. My brain stays lit, moving from threat to threat, from Granville to Nessa to the nameless pair who came through my back door, then circling back to the one thing that now matters more than all of them.
Aoife.
I keep one arm around her waist and stare into the dark until the room starts to pale at the edges.
Dawn in Dublin. Gray first, then a dirty white pushing through the curtains.
She’s warm against me, soft in a way I don’t have words for and don’t particularly want to develop any for. I like facts better. Facts are useful.
Fact: someone knew I took her.
Fact: they moved fast.
Fact: Connor wants problems solved, not nurtured.
Fact: if he pushes me on this, we’re going to have a fucking issue.
Aoife shifts, face pressing into my chest, one leg sliding over mine. It nearly drags a groan out of me. I grit my teeth and look at the ceiling.
She’s a dangerous woman.
Not because she can shoot or stab or set up an ambush in a hotel. But because she makes me want things. Domestic, stupid things. Things that get men killed quicker, like keeping her in my bed, feeding her breakfast, buying her fucking underwear.
I hate that those thoughts don’t feel stupid at all.
Her hand slides over my stomach in her sleep and settles low, possessive in its own sleepy way. I look down at the top of her head. Blonde hair all over my chest, my pillow, my arm. She’s everywhere already.
Fuck.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand.
I move fast, grabbing it before the second buzz wakes her.
Connor.
I ease out from under her carefully. She makes a small noise and reaches for the heat I leave behind, half asleep. I pull the duvet back over her and stand, naked, already irritated.
I take the call in the en-suite and shut the door most of the way.
“What?”
“Good morning to you, too,” Connor says.
“It’s not good, and you know it. Why are you ringing this early?”
“Because two men went missing last night, and I’d like to know if they’re missing in a way that concerns me.”
I look at myself in the mirror. Hard face. Red marks on my neck from Aoife’s nails. Bite on my shoulder. Christ. “They came into my house.”
He goes quiet for a beat. “For her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And now they’re dead.”
“That was quick.”
“Not really considering how many people at that ambush saw me take her.”
Connor exhales, slow and measured. “That’s not ideal.”
“No shit.”
He lets that sit. “And the girl?”
I look through the crack in the bathroom door at the shape of Aoife under my duvet. “Alive.”
“Useful?”
There it is. Cold. Clinical. The bit of Connor that remembers people by their function first. “She told me about seeing Nessa. That’s useful enough.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
My jaw locks. “She’s not a fucking asset inventory, Connor.”
“No, she’s a witness in your house who now has men breaking in for her. That makes her a problem.”
“She’s my problem.”
“For now,” he says.
I nearly put my fist through the sink. “You keep saying that like you think I’ll hand her over when you click your fingers.”
“Don’t let this woman compromise you.”
Too late for that. Way too fucking late. “I’m not compromised,” I say, even as I look at the marks she left on me and know Connor would call bullshit to my face.
He does. “That tone says otherwise.”
“My tone says I’m tired.”
“Your tone says you’ve decided this one matters.”
I grip the edge of the sink. “She matters because she’s innocent.”
“You don’t sound like a man talking about innocence.”
I go still. Connor misses very little, which is why he’s such a pain in the ass. “Careful.”
He gives a low hum down the line. “There it is. Right. Listen to me very carefully, Aran. If this turns into you making sentimental decisions, I’ll take the choice out of your hands.”
My temper rises hard and fast. “You come near her, I’ll forget who I’m talking to.”
Silence.
Then Connor says, very quietly, “You’d threaten me over a woman you met yesterday.”
“I’d do worse than threaten.”
That sits between us. Ugly. True.
When he speaks again, his tone has changed. Not softer. Just more precise. “Then you’d better pray she keeps being useful.”
“She saw Nessa. She saw Granville. Men have already come for her. How much more useful do you want her to be?”
“I want her controlled.”
“She is.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
He exhales. “Fine. For now. But I want Nessa found and Granville back in our containment cell before this gets even uglier.”
He doesn’t need to give me details.
He hangs up, and I throw my phone with a clatter onto the counter before turning to the shower and flicking it on.
The water comes down hard and hot. I brace one hand on the tile and let it hit the back of my neck while I breathe through the urge to smash something expensive.
Connor can go fuck himself.
I scrub a hand over my face and stand there for another minute, forcing my breathing down before I wash myself. Anger makes men sloppy. Sloppy gets people dead. I’m not being sloppy. I’m being clear.
Aoife stays with me.
That’s the end of it.
When I kill the water and step out, the mirror is fogged. I drag a towel around my waist and wipe a clear patch with my palm. The marks on my neck are obvious now. Red crescents. Bite on my shoulder.
No regrets.
I head back into the bedroom, rubbing my hair dry with a second towel, and stop.
Aoife is awake, sitting up in bed with the duvet clutched to her chest, watching me like she’s trying to decide whether I’ve come back in one piece or not. “You left me again.”
“I was right here.”
“Who was on the phone?” she blurts out, and then her cheeks redden. “Sorry, that’s none of my business, and I am not that person.”
“You can ask me who was on the phone. You can go through my phone if it makes you feel better. I don’t give a fuck, and if it makes you feel more secure, go for it.”
“Why do you make a psycho action sound so reasonable?”
“I’m a reasonable guy.”
“Sure,” she snorts and chews her lip, clearly waiting without wanting to look like it.
“It was Connor.”
“Oh. Are you going to kill me now?”
“No,” I say lightly. “But can I say something?”
“You’re going to anyway, so just say it.”
“Think, Aoife. Give me something, anything.” It’s the act of a desperate man.
Her face pales. “Like what? I told you everything I know.”
“Not like that,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I just need you to go over it again. Different details. Anything your brain skipped because there was a gun and a giant lunatic dragging you into a trunk.”
“That description is rude on multiple levels.”
I almost smile. “Still me, though.”
She pulls the duvet tighter around herself and stares at her knees. Her hair is wild, cheeks flushed from sleep, sex and stress. There are marks on her skin that I put there. Possession rolls through me again, hot and ugly.
“The corridor,” I say. “Start there. Before the commotion. What did you hear?”
She shuts her eyes. “My cart squeaking.”
“Aoife.”
“I’m serious. One wheel sticks.” She rubs at her temple. “The air con. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Sights. What did you see?”
Her fingers worry the duvet. “I saw the two men by the ice machine already there when I came out of 408. One of them looked at me like…” She grimaces. “Like I was part of the furniture, only with tits. He reached for an ice bucket as an afterthought when he saw me.”
“Good. Keep going.”
“I skipped 410 and 412 because they weren’t on the docket. Went to 414 instead.” Her eyes flick up to mine. “Found a ten euro note in the wardrobe.”
I stare at her.
She lifts her chin. “I kept it.”
“Don’t blame you.”
She blows out a breath. “I finished 414. Came back out. Then I saw the woman. I looked up, saw her, didn’t think anything of it and looked down again. That’s when I heard the commotion and froze. That Granville guy ran out of 412, saw me, and ran for the stairs.”
“Anything else about the woman? Did she look hurt? Angry? Relieved?”
She shakes her head slowly. “No. Not hurt. Not relieved either. She just looked… normal.”
My jaw tightens. Normal. The least useful description and somehow the most telling.
“I know that’s not helpful,” she mutters, reading my expression.
“It is,” I say. “Normal is useful.”
“How?”
“Because people who’ve just escaped don’t usually stroll to an elevator like they’re late for a meeting.”
She swallows. “Right.”
I study her for another second, watching the way she holds herself. Tense, but trying. “What else?”
She drags in a breath, her eyes unfocusing slightly. I recognize that look—she’s forcing herself back there. “Her hair was down. Blonde, same color as mine.” She squints, and I can almost see her trying to pull the image into focus.
I nod once. “Height?”
“About mine.”
“Any marks? Bruises? Blood?”
“No.”
“Her leather jacket was black. Fitted. Not cheap-looking.”
“Did she see you?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Or at least I was there, she must’ve noticed me, like I noticed her.”
“Her name is Nessa Doyle,” I say carefully. “She’s dangerous, I think she is the one who set this entire thing up and put you in the firing line. I think you were set up.”
“What?” she asks, with a frown. “How? Why? I’m a nobody.”
“That’s why,” I say, not unkindly, just matter of fact.
She blinks. “Do you think that Granville guy thought I was her? Did she mean for that to happen?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I’m not giving you enough, am I? I’m not giving you enough to convince Connor to keep me alive.” Her eyes flood with tears.
“Hey,” I say, sharper than I mean to, and I catch her face in my hand before the tears can properly fall. “Stop.”
She blinks at me, trying to hold it together, which somehow makes it worse.
“You are not a fucking bargaining chip,” I tell her. “You are not here performing for Connor, and you are not going to sit in my bed thinking you need to earn the right to stay alive.”
Her breath hitches. “That’s exactly what it feels like.”
I know. I fucking know.
I move fully onto the bed and take the duvet with her, dragging her into my lap before she can argue. She comes because she’s upset enough not to fight me for once. I wrap one arm around her waist and force her to look at me.
“Listen to me carefully, Aoife. Connor doesn’t decide whether you live.”
Her eyes search mine. “You said—”
“I know what I said.” My jaw tightens. “And I’m correcting it. He can want what he wants. It doesn’t mean he gets it.”
“That sounds like a really bad idea for you.”
“Probably.”
“You say that like you don’t care.”
“I don’t. Not when it comes to this.”
She stares at me for a long second, then she says, “Take me back there. Let me relive it.”
“What?” I snap. “Are you fucking insane?”
“It’s not like they’re going to be lying in wait expecting me to go back there.”
“You work there, of course, they are expecting you to go back.”
“Well, maybe that’s not a bad thing! Maybe you will catch them and end this!”
“Aoife. I’m not taking you into danger.”
“Not even if I say it might help?”
We lock gazes. Mine furious, hers demanding. I know I’m going to fold like a cheap tent, and she is going to win.
“There is another way,” I grit out.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I know I can get you something else. I just need to go back there and think.”
We sit in a simmering silence.
Then, she cups my face. “I trust you, Aran. I can do this with you next to me.”
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “Fine. But we do this my way, and if I say jump, you ask how high and in which direction. If that is out of a four-story window, you go. Got it?”
“That would likely kill me,” she says dryly.
“Got. It?” I grit out.
“All right, all right,” she says, holding her hands up. “I’ll jump. Besides, I’ll have to if I don’t get anything else, or your uncle is going to come for me, and you won’t be able to stop him.”
“Watch me,” I say, depositing her back on the bed and standing up. “I told you, no one touches you.” I move to the closet and start pulling out clothes.