Chapter Seven
You look tired.”
Aiden ignored Cillian’s pointed statement—and the implication behind it.
He’d known what he was doing when he told Charlie not to stifle her cries, though it wasn’t solely to make everyone believe that they were madly in love.
He’d liked hearing his name on her lips and being the reason she lost control again and again.
When he’d finished with her last night, she’d passed out before managing to give him that blow job she was so determined to deliver.
Knowing he was responsible for her being in his bed, exhausted from pleasure he’d given her, had satisfied a primal part of him he hadn’t even been aware of before last night.
I’m a goddamn savage in a three-thousand-dollar suit.
He drank down his coffee, though he was wired even before his first cup. Everything was finally falling into place. The end was in sight. He just had to hold it together long enough to see the plan through.
The next stage started now.
He pulled out his phone, earning a frustrated curse from his brother. Aiden spoke to Cillian without looking up, keeping his tone even and disinterested. “I’m ignoring you because you know damn well why I’m tired and you’re fishing for information that you won’t get. We have work to do.”
“Work that involves selling our baby sister to a monster.”
“If you want to look at it that way.” He hated the expression of betrayal on Cillian’s face, hated how little his brother trusted him. There was no help for it. He dialed Romanov.
The man himself answered the phone. “Da?”
“Before we do anything official regarding Keira, you need to understand that there will be negotiations required.”
Romanov sighed. “And you need to understand you have no rights to be making demands of me.”
“Oh, my mistake. I didn’t realize that you’d already dealt with the Eldridges and didn’t need my help.”
The silence stretched for a beat, and then two. “Explain these demands.”
Interesting. He’d expected more pushback. Romanov might need some assistance with the Eldridges, but he could have potentially called in favors with his extended family back in Russia. There were politics there, and he wouldn’t do it lightly, but it was an option.
He hadn’t. Instead, he’d come to the O’Malleys.
Because he wanted Keira.
Romanov wouldn’t still be pressing for a marriage alliance if he didn’t need it desperately.
Being spurned by Carrigan had hurt his reputation, a hurt that was only aggravated when his half sister, Olivia, fled the Romanov home and name, into the arms of the O’Malleys.
In his world, reputation was everything.
Demanding the only remaining O’Malley daughter would repair his damaged status and reinforce his power base.
Maybe he can’t ask for assistance from his extended family, because they think he’s weak. That would explain a lot.
“We will announce the engagement at a party.” A distraction in the carefully planned circus he had put into motion. He needed Romanov focused on Keira and everyone else focused on Charlie so he could make his next move.
The thought that he could be sentencing his sister to an actual marriage with that monster made him sick to his stomach.
Not real. I won’t let it get that far. Romanov gave his word, and she’d never choose him.
He didn’t let any of his inner feelings into his voice.
“I’ll put together something and issue the appropriate invitations. ”
“How considerate.” Romanov didn’t sound like he found it considerate in the least. “Don’t think to cross me, Aiden.” He hung up, his words ringing in Aiden’s head for several minutes afterward.
Aiden couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite his plan, he was playing right into Romanov’s hands.
He set down his phone and looked at Cillian. “If you have something to say, say it now. We’ll move forward as a single unit, so I won’t have you questioning me every step of the way.”
His brother gave him a long look and sank into the seat across the desk.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I don’t like it.
You’re putting our baby sister on the line, and if you don’t manage to do whatever it is you’re trying to do, she’ll be the one to pay the price.
” Cillian huffed out a breath. “I know the world we live in. I get that you’re doing what you think is best—truly, I do.
But how about we stop pretending that you fell so deeply in love with some stranger that you brought her in here and plan to marry her.
Maybe Teague and Carrigan—and even Keira—will fall for that.
They aren’t here, day in and day out. I am.
And I know you’d never let your heart get the best of you. ”
His brother was right, even if he’d never admit it. Aiden’s heart didn’t even come into the equation when the O’Malleys were on the line. He managed a brief smile. “Always damning me with faint praise.”
“It’s the truth.”
Cillian had always been too smart by half.
He’d covered it up when he was a kid with a reckless streak a mile wide and a string of shitty decisions, and these days he put that brilliant brain of his to use spinning numbers, doing the books for their operations, and managing anything that required the hacking skills he’d been developing since he took over the job.
He’d never bothered to analyze Aiden, though.
He met his brother’s gaze directly. This wasn’t the time for softness or kid gloves. He spoke to Cillian as leader of the O’Malleys to a subordinate. “I don’t care what you think of the situation—or of Charlie. You will fall in line.”
“Consider me the very picture of a loyal soldier.” Cillian rose. “But you had damn well keep Keira safe, Aiden. She stopped painting. Did you know that?”
Aiden sat back in his chair, the sheer weight of everything he carried threatening to drive him into the ground.
There were a million ways to kill a person that had nothing to do with stopping their heart.
He might have scared off his sister’s dealers, but it seemed like he’d been doing a shitty job taking care of her otherwise.
In the last few years, she’d gone from being a snarky, flourishing artist to a shell of the woman she was supposed to become. “This will all be over soon.”
Cillian shook his head. “Save the bullshit, Aiden. It will never be over. Even Sloan didn’t escape it, and she ran halfway across the world.”
She hadn’t escaped, but she’d carved out a little slice of happiness for herself, despite everything.
And the information her man provided had been instrumental in Aiden finding the right pressure points to bring Romanov to his knees.
He stared at the desk, the wood polished so thoroughly that it gleamed.
Knowing that Sloan’s relationship had strengthened the O’Malleys should have brought him satisfaction, even if she’d gone back into hiding to avoid living in their world.
There was no satisfaction to be had, though.
He couldn’t bring himself to admit it to anyone out loud, but he missed his little sister.
He missed all of his sisters.
Cillian watched him too closely. “She’s doing well, in case you were wondering. We have a nephew to go along with our nieces. They named him Grady.”
Named for Jude’s dead father, the same way Teague and Callie’s daughter was named for her mother. They were all haunted by the sins of the past and the losses they never got quite over.
It was up to him to ensure that they didn’t have any more names to be added to the list of beloved dead.
* * *
Charlie woke late, her body still aching from what Aiden had done to her through the early hours of the morning.
She rolled over and stretched, luxuriating in the feel of the silken sheets against her bare skin.
It would be too easy to let herself get used to this.
To forget that this was all a ruse to bring down their mutual enemy.
Aiden might want her body, but he was focused on the endgame. She’d be a fool to do anything else.
She sat up. Through all the plans he’d shared with her, he’d left one thing out—what she was supposed to do with her free time.
When she’d agreed to this, she hadn’t really thought about much beyond bringing Romanov to justice.
It never occurred to her that it would take time.
Charlie had never been much good with idle hands, and she didn’t imagine she’d learned that skill overnight.
She usually worked from nine to two at Jacques’s, and then woke late and hit the gym for an hour or two, where she went through her regular Krav Maga training, then worked with newbies, assisting as necessary.
There was always a need of sparring partners, and she was more than happy to help out.
Anything to make sure the person across from her had the skills necessary to ensure that they never ended up as helpless as she’d been when she was attacked.
But she hadn’t had time to research gyms in Boston—or talk to Aiden about what he expected of her while they played out this scenario.
After showering and throwing on a pair of ridiculously expensive jeans and a flowy tank top, she padded out of the room on bare feet. No guard stood outside the door, so she wandered down the hall, taking it all in.
Last night she’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted to really notice the space she moved through.
There was something strange about the hallway, but it wasn’t until she was halfway to the stairs that she realized what it was.
Charlie stopped and looked back the way she’d come.
No photos. There weren’t any in the rooms she’d been in downstairs, either, now that she thought about it.