Chapter 14
“Wow.” I whistled as Cillian’s front door clicked shut behind me. “I’m in.”
“Don’t sound so impressed,” Erel grumbled in my earpiece.
With a chuckle, I knuckle-rolled the flat, keyless fob Franc had coded and Erel had printed for me.
I had to hand it to them. They were good.
They managed to copy Cillian’s phone from the receiver we’d planted under his car during one of our texting sessions over the last few days and gained access to the management application and system for his apartment.
It was one reason no one would ever convince me that new tech was always better.
“Now, be careful,” Erel warned. “You have an hour, max two, before they head back from their meeting at the boxing gym.”
“That’s plenty of time to put phase two into effect.”
“Try not to let your arrogance make your presence overly known.”
I gritted my teeth in a faux smile. Good thing he didn’t know about the bag of accessories I’d brought. My lack of rebuttal must have tipped him off because his sigh rang loud and clear.
“You have the subtlety of a rhinoceros when you want to make a point, you know that?” he groused.
“Sometimes that’s what’s needed to move things forward. Being delicate and polite only goes so far.”
“On n’attrape pas les mouches avec du vinaigre.” We don’t catch flies with vinegar.
“I disagree. Someone who takes charge is exactly what Cillian O’Leary needs in his life. Especially if the state of this place is anything to go by.”
One thing to say about husband dearest, he at least showed more personality than his condo. Just barely, but it was better than the practically blank slate his condo was. I had expected to find a gold mine of information about him in here. So far, all I knew was that he was a clean freak.
The condo sported an obnoxiously spacious floor plan, about a third larger than my apartment in Lyon, with an open kitchen, luxury amenities, panoramic window views, and marble tile flooring.
Up to that point, great. Except there were no curtains.
No artwork. No pictures. No colors. Everything was a blend of black and white, except for a lone burgundy rug in front of the black couch that drew the eye like a bad pimple.
No barstools around the kitchen island breakfast bar.
No gaming equipment. No pets. Not even a speck of dust anywhere.
I could literally see myself in the tiles.
It felt sterile in here, as if I’d walked into a poorly done showroom during an open house.
It was a wonder the downstairs security had been so difficult to circumvent to get into…
well, this. Honestly, were it not for his shoes lined up at the door and a stray water bottle on the kitchen island, I’d think I’d broken into the wrong penthouse condo.
This place badly needed some sprucing up and a generous woman’s touch.
Good thing I’d brought a picture of myself to hang up, but that was going in his bedroom. A little something for him to look at while in bed, preferably while touching himself.
His bedroom looked slightly more lived-in with its slate-gray wall paint, aged-wood furnishings, the thick wooden bed frame, a small pile of books on his nightstand, a tightly coiled phone charger beside a laptop, and a coat folded over the back of a chair.
Big plus, the mattress wrapped perfectly around my body—soft, plush, and wonderfully large.
His shirts, suits, pants, and gym shorts hung primly by type in his closet, and his boxers and socks were stacked perfectly.
It was all flawlessly arranged with barely any hiding room.
At first glance, at least. Dig a little deeper, and what do you know?
There was one pistol in his nightstand, ammo in shoe boxes, a shotgun within a coat, two semiautomatics hidden under his mattress, another one below the en suite bathroom sink, plus false bottoms in his dresser drawers concealing a stash of knives, all different sizes and shapes, and brass knuckles.
Considering his business, that part wasn’t even shocking.
The walls were still just as barren. Again, no art. No personal items. No photos…yet.
“You’d think I married a robot,” I said absently as I decided where to hang my picture. There, right over the dresser. It was the best spot in the room with a direct line of sight to his bed.
“Just plant the cameras and bugs, and get out.” Erel’s annoyance couldn’t be clearer if he stated it outright.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.”
Little did he know I had other plans, too, besides this little reconnaissance mission.
Cameras and bugs planted, I spread some superglue and nailed the picture frame to the wall over the dresser for good measure—that thing wasn’t coming down anytime soon—then twisted his few items on display a little bit clockwise just to mess with him.
Next I dropped off some necessities in the bathroom.
The way I saw it, I was well within my rights—legal binding document and all.
What wife didn’t have a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, tampons, soap, etc. , in their husband’s bathroom?
“There has to be more to him than this.”
There were three more rooms to visit. One was empty, completely devoid of life.
No furniture, nothing. The next was an explosion of everything the rest of the apartment was not.
Nearly twice as large as his bedroom, it was a maze of shelves and racks holding costumes, helmets, wetsuits, packed parachutes, wingsuits, life jackets, kayak paddles, diving equipment, rock-climbing gear, a cowboy hat of all things, a masquerade mask that shouldn’t be familiar but was…
and complete with even the front bumper of a rally car. That wasn’t even half of it.
“Purée,” Wow, I muttered.
“What?” Erel asked, suddenly alarmed. “What is it?”
“You have to see this to get it.”
Photos covered the walls, not framed but tacked on with pushpins.
A man street-luging. Cillian surfing. A man motorbiking.
A photo of a trimaran cutting through the open sea.
Cillian flyboarding. A man speed skiing.
Cillian slacklining. Cillian cage-diving with a shark.
Him bungee jumping. Him canyoning. They were all of him, I realized.
Things he’d done—not a single one like the others—and they covered the walls in an eerie display.
I’d asked for personality, and here was certainly a lot of it, though I wasn’t sure what it really said about him.
Indecisive? Restless? Lack of restraint?
Thrill seeker? Adrenaline junkie—that one, absolutely.
The other night proved that. Only a madman took on seven armed men without backup, almost as if he had a death wish.
Yet sometimes he was uncannily calm, self-possessed, and ruthless.
Husband dearest was shaping up to be a conundrum.
The last door in his apartment was locked. His office, I assumed. I’d planned to skip it, not remotely interested in how he ran his business, but after perusing his room of memorabilia, my curiosity was thoroughly awakened.
Sadly, it was exactly what I expected of a mob boss’ office. There was a large desk with typical office supplies and equipment, a bar cart, a couple of pictures with politicians, but not much more. My eyes snagged on a photograph buried behind others.
“No way.”
Brows up to my hairline, I picked up the five-by-seven frame.
“What? What?” Erel’s voice was distant, almost nonexistent.
In the photo, Cillian wore that same mask I’d seen displayed in his expo room—the one I’d vaguely remembered—and it covered two-thirds of his face.
He was among a group of seven, with his arm around a woman in a dark silver-and-gold gown that matched her mask.
My mask. The one I kept in the back of a drawer in my bedroom in Lyon since that night almost twelve years ago.
The night I lost my virginity on a whim to a masked man at a ball in New York, where I pretended not to be a De Villier heiress or a traumatized eighteen-year-old who’d caused her best friend’s death.
It had been one of the most memorable nights of my life, spent with a stranger I’d never been able to get out of my head, who’d taken my pain and helped me redirect it.
That was the night I started to heal. Because of that stranger, I started to put myself first, and I never forgot him, even though he made it clear he could only ever give me that one night.
I scoffed and flicked the picture. My nail made a satisfying thwack against the glass.
“Unbelievable.”
“What?”
Nope, I was not letting the Cillian I now knew ruin that memory.
“Nothing.”
“Well, then get moving.”
I skimmed his desk for an agenda. His type was more likely to avoid putting their details online in case someone like Franc hacked their information. Paper could be burned. The internet, not so much.
“It’s a wonder Maeve ever lets you close with an attitude like that.”
“This I reserve just for you.”
“Oh yay, lucky me.”
I fiddled a pair of lockpicks into the keyhole of a locked drawer and listened for the soft click. There it was.
Inside the drawer lay a small leather journal, tied shut with a thin leather strap.
Bingo. I leafed through the pages for the upcoming week.
He didn’t seem to list his regular activities, such as his bi-weekly trips to the boxing gym, but there was a list of several business meetings, business notations, and contacts to call.
I skipped over those, not remotely interested.
However, there was also a note that popped out at me.
“Erel, look up ‘Car sideshow Stoughton,’ scheduled two days from now. Any idea what that might be?”
I sifted for clues through the other items in the drawer but found no new information.
“I have it,” Erel said. “It’s an illegal drag race on a street off the Fall River Expressway, about a half hour from the city, two days from now.”
Something else Cillian probably had an outfit for in that showroom of his.
“Fun.”
This drag race was a golden opportunity to hook and reel him in once and for all. No more of his ridiculous avoidance tactics. A man who kissed like he was about to devour a woman whole had to be ravenous for a good tumble in the sheets. I just needed to push past his defenses a little further.
“I want in, and I want every detail. Time. Place. His car. Make. Model. Everything you can get me.”
“You sure you want to risk getting noticed by the cops?”
“I’m sure I want to mess with his head, and that’s good enough for me.”
Maeve’s voice joined in from the background. “Find anything interesting?”
“Mon ange, we talked about this.” Erel switched to English, his voice a little muffled as if he’d pulled his microphone away.
“I still don’t get what the big deal is. One of you will tell me anyway.”
“We shouldn’t.”
“But you will.”
I could do without the kissing sounds across the line.
“My apartment, my rules, hot stuff. You either share, or you get out. Sure you want to play that game?”
I shook my head and scoffed at how Erel blubbered over his response to her. That girl had the toughest French hitman and second-in-command of the C?té d’Azur milieu wrapped tight around her little finger. One day, hopefully soon, I’d have someone like that too.
I reset everything in its place as they mock-fought, locked the drawer and then the office, before leaving the apartment almost as I’d found it, minus my few additions.
Tonight, the real game with husband dearest began.