Chapter 23
Aran
“This had better be life or death,” I growl into the phone, pulling my pants back on.
“Could be for your girl,” Granville’s smarmy voice replies.
I grip the phone tighter and turn my back on Aoife, striding out of the room. “If you even think about her again, I will slice you open like I should’ve done two years ago.”
“Promises, promises, Aran.”
“Fuck you and your girlfriend, Sean. We know all about this little set-up.”
He pauses. It’s loaded. He wasn’t sure, and that’s probably why he called. Now he knows.
Granville sighs. “Figured as much. Nessa can be obvious sometimes.”
“Look, I don’t particularly give a flying fuck about either of you. What I do care about is that you used an innocent to accomplish your goal.”
“No one is innocent, Aran. You should know that by now.”
“She is,” I grit out. “You and Nessa fucked up, and I’m coming for you.”
“Wait,” he says, almost desperately. Enough that I don’t hang up and throw my phone at the nearest wall. “I can give you Nessa if you forget I ever existed.”
“And why would I take a deal like that? You are the one who came after the O’Neill family, Sean. You targeted more than a handful of our assets. Blew them to smithereens if you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t,” he clips out. “But know this. It was all her.”
“Her?” I spit out, and suddenly things are starting to look a whole lot different in the cold light of day. “She’s known all along, hasn’t she? This is a revenge mission.”
“Not as dumb as you look.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’m done being useful to her,” he says. “And because if she finds out I’m talking to you, she’ll put a bullet in me.”
I go still.
That doesn’t track with the terrorist I locked up.
“I call bullshit, Sean.”
“Call it what you want. You are going to listen to what I have to say.”
That gets my attention in a way threats usually don’t.
“Talk, then.”
A beat.
Then, “You know about her mother?”
I say nothing.
He laughs once. Bitter as fuck. “Thought so. O’Neills know everything except the shit that matters.”
My jaw tightens. “Keep going.”
“Nessa’s mother didn’t just get knocked up and vanish into the mist. She was handled.”
The word lands wrong. Cold. Deliberate.
I grip the bannister so hard the wood bites into my palm. “Handled by who?”
“Her family.”
“The Doyles?” I ask, slightly confused. I’ve never heard of them.
“Doyle is a cover. Her mother’s name is O’Reilly.”
Now that is a name I recognize. Not Dublin based. Limerick, if I’m not mistaken.
“You’re getting up to speed.”
“You need evidence, or this is just another set-up.”
“I’ve got evidence,” Sean says. “Not enough to blow a court case open, but enough to make Connor O’Neill realize his long-lost daughter is out to kill him and his entire family.”
“Start with the mother.”
“Oonagh O’Reilly. Twenty-two when she got pregnant. Connor was already promised elsewhere, and her family had plans to use the child against a prominent Dublin family.”
“A takeover?”
“A hostile one.”
“So she has known all along, and Oonagh, Sinead, whatever her name is, was in on it.” I’m not asking. I’m stating it out loud because fuck. How did Connor get so careless?
“Pretty much.”
“So Oonagh’s phone call to Connor a couple of weeks ago was what? A warning? A giant fuck you?”
“That I can’t answer. But know that Oonagh is an O’Reilly through and through. She will slit your throat open in your sleep just to watch you bleed.”
“And where the fuck do you fit into all of this, Sean?”
“I’ve been with Nessa for a long time. She is… more into it than I am. I used it because I knew she would break me out. Eventually. Took her fucking time about it.”
“So you’re using her and now throwing her to the wolves.”
“Pretty much. For immunity.”
“Immunity, so you don’t get thrown back into O’Neill solitary confinement after that shit you pulled?”
“Exactly that.”
“And how do I know you aren’t going to reappear one day and blow us all out of existence?”
He chuckles. “You don’t. But to be fair, I’m not really looking to do that. I knew the risks. I got caught. I paid penance.”
“Christ,” I mutter, scrubbing my hand over my face. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Sean says, and I can hear the shrug in his voice. “I’m a selfish cunt. This isn’t news.”
I close my eyes for a second and listen to the blood pounding in my ears.
Behind me, Aoife is in my bed with my name cut into her skin and my cum still inside her. Granville is on the phone, asking for immunity like this is a business negotiation.
“What evidence?” I ask.
“A phone. Burner. Photos. Voice notes. One video.”
“Of?”
“Oonagh talking to Nessa. Names, dates, Connor, the lot. Enough that he won’t be able to pretend this is some tragic misunderstanding.”
“Where are you?”
A pause.
“Not doing this over the phone.”
“Then you’re more stupid than I thought.” I move downstairs, just to move. Aoife has heard all of my side of the conversation, so trying to be covert now is pointless. “You call me, threaten my woman, confess to setting up my family, and now you want a sit-down.”
“I want terms.”
“You’re in no position to ask for a fucking napkin, never mind terms.”
“Maybe. But you don’t know where Nessa is going next. I do.”
That gives me enough pause that he hears it. But that pause brings clarity.
“You,” I say. “She wants you to set up an explosive to take out Connor, doesn’t she?”
“You’re getting smarter. I must be rubbing off on you.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Are you going to do it?”
“Are you going to let me disappear?”
“Non-negotiable?”
“What do you think?”
“Where was this supposed to take place?”
“Immunity, Aran. Or you get nothing.”
“Evidence, Sean. Or you get nothing.”
“Give me ten minutes.” He hangs up, and I stand there wondering what the fuck just happened.
“Who was it?” Aoife asks, coming into the sitting room, dressed in my tee.
“Granville. Shit just got blown wide open.”
“Do I want to know?”
“No,” I say. “But you’re going to hear it anyway.”
She folds her arms, bare legs on show, hair wrecked, mouth swollen from me. The sight of her hits me wrong for the conversation I’m about to have. Too soft. Too fucking mine. Too exposed. I close the distance between us and move her away from the window.
I rake a hand through my hair. “Granville rang. He’s trying to cut a deal.”
She frowns in confusion. “With you?”
“With me. Because he thinks I can get him immunity.”
“Can you?”
I let out a short laugh. “No.”
“What has he got?”
“Nessa’s family is looking to wipe out the O’Neills, and has been for some time. They’re using Nessa to do it, who in turn is using Granville.”
“Is that the Dummies’ Guide version?”
I smirk. “Yes.”
“And he has decided he isn’t going to do it?”
“He wants out.”
“Out? Do you trust him?”
“No.”
“But?”
“But.”
“Yeah.”
I check the time. In less than ten minutes, something is going to happen, and I’m not sure I want Aoife anywhere near it.
“Go back up, get dressed, ready to run, and don’t come back down until I tell you it’s safe.
If something happens to me, there is a gun in the first drawer, back corner.
Use it to get yourself free. Can you do that? ”
She gulps, but nods slowly. “Yes, I can do that. I don’t know how to fire a gun, but I’ll figure it out if it’s them or me.”
I grasp the back of her neck gently and kiss the top of her head. “Good girl. Go.”
She hesitates for half a second.
I tighten my hand on her neck. “Aoife.”
“I’m going,” she says quickly, and then she moves, bare feet fast on the stairs before she disappears upstairs.
I wait until I hear the bedroom door shut.
Then I move.