Chapter 44
“You’re sure I don’t need to talk to him?” my wife asked from the kitchen as I crossed through our bedroom. “If Erel hurt you, I swear I’ll—”
“He didn’t. I’m fine, I swear.” Even the plummy edge to Maeve’s Bostonian accent irked me. “I was just…worried about you.”
“Oh, ma belle. There’s no need, but you’re always welcome here.”
“Who’s welcome?” I asked, because I sure as hell didn’t want this woman showing up at my condo at any hour of the day.
I walked in on the two of them hugging at the edge of my kitchen.
From the way the strawberry blonde clung to Alizé, you’d think she was the one who went through the traumatic experience, not my wife.
She grimaced at me over my wife’s shoulder, hazel-blue eyes on the attack, her grip tightening around Alizé’s shoulders.
I groaned internally. This was going to be an experience.
“Whoa, eh, I need to breathe.” Alizé extracted herself from her demanding friend.
Now it was my turn, and I swept my woman into a kiss that made it clear exactly who she belonged to.
It wasn’t the gremlin in paint-covered overalls over a crop-top, who had her hair rolled up inside an upside-down bandana, lips fire-hydrant red.
It was hard to believe the woman owned a construction company, looking like she’d popped straight out of a 1950s TV show.
“Oh, wonderful, you’re here. Let’s make introductions.”
The friend gave a tight wave, no handshake in sight. “Maeve Hackett.”
I returned the gesture. “Cillian O’Leary.”
“I know,” the woman snubbed, her mouth pursed in distaste.
My teeth ground together.
Alizé rose on her tiptoes and kissed the edge of my jaw. “I made you coffee.”
“Where’s yours?”
“Maeve and I already drank one each. She, um, brought one for me.”
“And for the two men at the door,” Maeve snarked.
“Be nice,” my wife grumbled at her friend over her shoulder.
I spotted the empty four-flap coffee holder and sneered, unimpressed at our interloper’s lack of hospitality. That was strike two.
Alizé tapped my arm in a placating gesture and turned around to face her friend.
“Alright. I’m going to go get dressed and deal with my hair. You two…mingle. Be good. Get to know each other. Discover why you are both my favorite people.”
The level of tension in the room soared through the roof the instant Alizé disappeared inside the master bedroom and shut the door. Ms. Hackett hogged the kitchen island, and I stood between the living room and kitchen, a guardian of my space against this unfortunate fixture in my wife’s life.
“Your coffee?” she said with a raspy edge of indifference.
I forced a smile and picked the sole mug off the counter. Not once did I break eye contact. She glanced away first, dropping her head to twist her rings around her fingers, and my lips tweaked up. Gotcha.
With nothing else to do, I downed my coffee.
“So…you’ve known Alizé for years?” There, an honest attempt at civility.
She crossed her arms. “Longer than you.”
I withered her down with my stare. “That’s not exactly true, and we both know it.”
They only met months after the masquerade ball, where I deflowered my wife. Whether I knew who Alizé was at the time was irrelevant.
“She deserves better than you.”
“Yet I’ll make sure no other man has her.”
“You’ll only hurt her. That’s what your family does.”
My mug clanked loudly against the kitchen counter as I set it down. “You know nothing about my family.”
“You sure about that?”
Her defiance and lack of fear were infuriating, and I sucked in deep breaths to keep myself from ripping her to shreds. It was Alizé’s devastated face I pictured, and it calmed me enough to take a step back.
I groaned inwardly when the whir of the hair dryer kicked on. She always took so long to get ready.
I leaned against the backrest of an accent chair Alizé picked out at a design store a few weeks ago and twirled my trusted knife around my finger. Maeve slapped her balled fists in a steady rhythm along the kitchen counter.
“Why are you here so early?”
She looked at me as if I’d just strangled her cat, not that she had one.
“Didn’t realize I was accountable to you.”
“Watch your tone,” I warned.
“Is that a threat?”
I swore my teeth were about to crack with how hard I clenched them. If Alizé didn’t hurry up, at best, she was going to find her friend kicked out. At worst…I hoped we didn’t find out.
I made one last attempt at politeness, which was already a record at this point, and jerked my chin toward the droopy duffel bag lying against a counter stool.
“What’s in the bag?”
“None of your business.”
“As long as you’re not moving in,” I grumbled under my breath as my phone rang in my pocket. Saved by the ringtone.
My jaw clenched at the sight of my middle brother’s name on the caller ID, but I’d take on the Love Knot Killer right now if it meant not dealing with the woman across from me.
“Excuse me, I have to take this. Enjoy the”—I waved my hand around at the accent pieces and furnishings in the living room—“décor. Alizé picked it.” Then I mumbled, “Argue about that.”
I strode into my office but left the door slightly open to keep the woman within eyesight, considering I trusted her as far as I could spit.
From the bar cart, I poured myself a finger of whiskey. This day required it.
“What do you want, Brody?” I answered.
“How is she?” The bland delivery about Alizé’s well-being revealed everything I needed to know about his true feelings.
“Do you care?”
“No.”
I released a heavy sigh. ’Course he didn’t.
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait, you’ll want to hear this.”
“You have ten seconds and counting.”
“You’re usually more patient.”
“And you’re usually more to the point.”
“I wasn’t wrong about your wife.”
I rolled my eyes. “Goodbye, Brody.”
The call ended with a brief tone, only to ring again with his face and name popping up on caller ID once more. I gazed down into my glass, the ripples along the liquor going fuzzy. I blinked hard, shook my head, and set the glass down. Jaysus, I was more tired than I thought.
“What?” I barked as I rubbed at the fatigue prickling my vision.
“Don’t hang up.”
“Then don’t insult my wife.”
Through the gap in my office door, Maeve peeked in, her rabid glare still pinned in place. For Alizé, I reminded myself. I forced a smile and waved, then gave her my back.
“This isn’t the time. I have a guest.”
“This is more important than your guest. Didn’t you hear me? Alizé’s involved, even if she doesn’t know she is.”
My stomach violently protested his words with a cramp that had me bending in half.
“What are you going on about now?” I gritted out.
I pulled at the collar of my shirt, suffocating under the ache. Between him and the best friend, I might need to get checked for an ulcer after today.
“That photo Liam sent me. I was looking at it all wrong.”
Blinding white spots flared across my eyes, and a glow settled around reflective surfaces.
I squinted to block them out. Nausea bubbled up my throat and into my mouth.
I staggered against my desk, tripping on the feet of my chair, and fumbled around for a tissue to wipe the corners of my lips as I swallowed the vomit back.
The floor loomed up at me while my desktop drifted in and out of focus.
“I recognized your wife,” Brody kept on, completely oblivious, “and I jumped on that when I should have been looking at the bigger picture.”
“Get to the point.”
Lightheaded, I collapsed in my chair with my fist to my mouth.
“The other woman. Liam said you both felt you’d seen her before. You were right. You had. I did too, and it took me a while to figure out where. Years ago, I tried cross-referencing her image in the police database and through everything Cranwell had. I got no hits. Not until—”
“Brody,” I groused through his palpable excitement.
What the hell was wrong with me? The ceiling shifted from hazy to a streaked blur. My skin turned unnaturally pale. I placed the call on speaker and set the phone down just as my arms slumped lifelessly to my sides.
“Eight years ago, you stabbed LK.”
I grunted my agreement. Even that sounded feeble.
“She got away, and we tried to find clues to her identity.”
Pain squeezed over my heart and knocked the air from my lungs.
“Brody…” I wheezed, clutching my chest. “Call…doctor.”
The word was barely a whisper as I panted for air, but he was too lost in his head to hear me. Was this what a heart attack felt like?
“We combed through hundreds of hours of camera footage in a square block around your penthouse.”
The room swam around me, and I laid my head on my desk, muttering for my brother. He heard none of it. I slipped my hand beneath my desk to the panic button, programmed to send a message to my four bodyguards and both of my brothers.
“We never got a visual on LK’s face because of that floppy hat she wore up your condo’s elevator and her sunglasses, and then later the balaclava. But there’d been another woman in her late teens, early twenties, with a plain beanie, remember?”
The soft tapping of the door hitting against my office wall pulled my sluggish gaze. A shadow pushed into my office, and I reached a hand out for my wife, breathing hard. She was here. Everything would be fine. She’d get me the help I needed.
“That woman walked into your complex carrying a duffel bag like she belonged and took the elevator to the thirty-eighth floor, one down from yours. She got out, stopped, then rushed to the fire escape, only to suddenly reenter the floor, take the elevator back down, and leave. We didn’t think too much of it at first, but we checked with your neighbors. No one knew her.”
The blurred shadow sharpened and took shape. It wasn’t mo síbhean.
Maeve Hackett stood over me, a cruel twist to her lips, eyes glinting with mirth.
What the fuck was going on? Where the fuck were Arthur and Big Charlie? What had she done to me? Just inching my head up drained me completely.
“You obsessed over that footage,” Brody continued.
“You had me analyze it over and over to try and find something on the woman, but she didn’t fit the profile.
Blonde hair compared to brown, much too young, and she hadn’t been the one in your apartment.
Well, that woman is your wife’s friend. What are the chances? We need to bring her in.”
Maeve rolled her eyes at me with a huff of amusement as she mouthed, “Silly O’Learys.”
My chest heaved for every tiny breath of air, and heartburn seared me from the inside.
“Oi,” my brother broke off. “Why’s the alarm from your panic button going off? Killy? What’s going—”
Maeve pushed the End Call button, and that little toned click ramped up my blood pressure enough for me to finally feel my heart pump. It was slow, almost nonexistent, but still there.
“Oh, you’ve been a naughty boy,” she said.
“Why are—?” I muttered out between pants.
“Why what? Why am I doing this? I get that one a lot. So boring and predictable. Why am I here? Well, you invited me. Or Alizé did, but that counts, doesn’t it? Or were you asking why I was spying on your call? Simple. It amused me. Seeing you struggle has always been a fun distraction.”
She crouched down beside me. I tried taking a swing at her, but she caught my feeble punch and set my arm back down with a little pat.
“Sadly, all good things must come to an end. We could’ve gone on forever in this purgatory. But you had to force my hand. You had to make her love you. You had to try to take her from me.”
A slap across my cheek came out of nowhere.
“How could you?”
The sting meant nothing. It was her words I locked onto. Her. Alizé.
My fight renewed. A push of adrenaline dampened the pain and sickness. I managed to lift my head and close a shaky fist around the knife in my pocket.
“What…you…do…my wife?”
Round eyes met that question. “Why would I ever do anything to her?”
That sudden guileless attitude caught me off guard and bled me dry of energy. My head flopped down with a thunk against the hardwood desk.
“What…give…me?”
“Same as I always do. You didn’t even taste the hellebore and foxglove tea mixed in your coffee. Have to say I’m surprised the effects came on this quickly. Must have been the caffeine.”
She picked up my untouched glass of whiskey and swirled it around.
“Good thing you didn’t drink this, or you’d be a goner.” She tapped my cheek. “And we wouldn’t want that. Well, not yet.”
She sniffed my untouched glass of whiskey and licked her lips.
“Ooh, the good stuff.” She walked to the bar cart and examined the bottle. “Yep, that’s what I thought. You know, my mam used to treat herself to a bottle of this exact same whiskey once a year, and here you’ve got a three-thousand-dollar bottle open for everyday consumption. Don’t mind if I do.”
She threw back the whiskey and hummed her delight.
“That hit the spot. Okay, time to get to work.”
She dragged something along the floor around the edge of my desk.
Her duffel bag. From it, she pulled out rope.
Then she shoved my torso off the desk and backward against my chair as though I were a bendable, life-size figurine.
My head slumped to my shoulder under the spell of wooziness that promised to haul me away.
I blinked, and somehow she’d already looped the rope several times around me.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think strategy. The world spun so slowly. It took everything I had to force my eyes to stay open against the need for sleep and the suffocating pressure crushing my chest from the inside.
“What…what are…?” I tried, but she clamped my chin in her hand and shushed me.
“You just work on staying awake. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I stared at the blurred ceiling, black-and-white spots plopping left and right, and blinked to keep focus. Not because she told me to, but because I hoped the effects of whatever I’d ingested would dissipate soon. I just needed to stay alert as long as possible.
Something clattered and tumbled. Other things clanked and jangled under her hums and whistling.
The smell of heated metal singed my nostrils.
I had no idea how much time went by, but when my fairy’s voice trickled through my lethargy, panic like I’d never known surged through my body.
Suddenly I was wide awake again, and I swung in the chair from left to right against the pull of the rope.
“Cillian? Maeve?” Alizé called out.
“Here she comes,” Maeve chirped with a couple of quick, giddy claps.
“Stay away,” I begged, my voice raspy and thin. “Run. Go.”
I shifted and twisted violently, but the rope didn’t loosen. Instead the chair tipped over, taking me with it, and my head smacked against the floor. The last thing I heard was the clap of Alizé’s heels rushing closer before the world went black.