Chapter 18 #3
We had members of the crew watching his place and his ex-wife’s, just to be sure. His ex went to work and occasionally had dinner with her daughter, a local nurse. But that was it. Rank was nowhere to be seen.
Grave and Plank had returned to work, claiming they didn’t know where Rank was. And I believed them—after some extensive questioning and surveillance. They knew what would happen if they lied to me, and if they’d been behind any of this, they wouldn’t have dared show their faces again.
I’d thought he was too dumb to make a move against me. I couldn’t imagine him ratting me out—my father would haunt him from the grave, and Rank knew it. But I couldn’t figure out who else would risk coming after me or who they would’ve talked to.
Eventually, I had to admit I was probably wrong about Rank. Even though he was still dumb as fuck for betraying me.
I wanted to search for him myself, but Rhys had put me on bed rest. Hack had a few leads, and a small crew had been tracking him all over Jersey and New York. They’d get him eventually. I was sure of it.
But I knew Rank wasn’t the one who’d shot me—the guy had been too tall, and his hand had been too steady. He had to have talked, and once we caught him, I’d deal with him myself.
With the Bonnams decimated and most of their crew scattered after the family was wiped out, we couldn’t be sure who was waiting in the wings to take over.
After playing darts with Mads and Jeremy, I grabbed some food before returning to my apartment.
When I walked in, Devlin was standing in the kitchen, staring out the cracked window over the sink.
Birds chirped. A breeze ruffled his hair.
The sun shone on his face as he turned to greet me, his green eyes crinkling with a smile.
My breath caught. I coughed. Needed water.
As I filled a glass, Devlin leaned a hip against the counter.
He wore nothing but a pair of my athletic shorts that hung loose on his hips, grazing the tops of his knees.
He’d started eating properly in the past few weeks since the warehouse and had gained some much-needed weight.
For the first time since I’d met him, Devlin looked almost healthy.
Even though his bruises had mostly faded, he still held himself stiff from the pain.
I wasn’t over my anger from his beat down yet.
Sometimes, I found myself wondering who’d put certain bruises on him, like the distinct boot print I’d found on his back.
I’d stare at some of my men a little too long, until Rhys pulled me out of my thoughts with an elbow to the ribs.
Devlin had been right—my men had made the right call—but that didn’t make seeing his injuries any easier.
I ran the backs of my fingers over his stomach. He was mostly hairless, except for the small trail of red hair leading from his belly button into his boxers that drove me insane.
“Got a text a few minutes ago,” I said as I forced myself to stop touching him. “Starla’s on her way.”
Devlin frowned, scrunching his brows together. “Why?”
I glanced at my watch just as footsteps stopped outside my apartment. Bags rustled, followed by a loud knock. “Clothes,” I said simply.
“Clothes…?” Devlin echoed behind me as I opened the door.
Starla shuffled inside, weighted down by three colorful shopping bags on each arm. She dropped them on the couch with a grunt and blew the loose strands escaping her messy bun from her face.
I’d given her my credit card yesterday with instructions to buy Devlin some clothes—a whole wardrobe. All he had now were the clothes I’d stolen from Jace, who thankfully hadn’t noticed yet.
Still wearing nothing but my shorts, Devlin rummaged through one of the bags until Starla smacked his hands away.
“I spent all day shopping for you. My feet hurt, and my arms are sore. So you’re going to give me a fashion show.
” She flopped onto the couch beside the bags, sliding one onto her lap.
She pulled out a few folded items and handed them to Devlin. “Try these ones first.”
He turned and lifted an eyebrow at me, and I just shrugged. Maybe I wanted a fashion show, too.
As Devlin pulled on a green track suit, Starla explained her vision. “So, to me, you have more of a European look.”
I didn’t know what the fuck a “European look” was, but I let her keep talking anyway.
“The idea was to dress you like I imagined Tommy Shelby would dress if he lived in New Jersey in 2026.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and bit back a groan as Devlin paused with one leg inside the pants.
Starla romanticized the lead character of Peaky Blinders, played by Cillian Murphy, so much that she’d held a theme night for the show at O’Shea’s last year.
When I’d refused to dress up as Tommy, she’d convinced Rhys to do it instead.
Then she’d convinced Jace to go as his younger brother, John—a role he’s unsurprisingly been very into.
Starla was incredibly loyal and a hard worker, so I let her get away with her shenanigans.
“Starla…” I sighed.
“Look. You know me, Cian. You give me a job, and I give it my all. Always.” She made a shooing motion toward Devlin before crossing her arms over her chest. “Keep going.”
By the time he stood before us in green jogger pants and a matching zip-up jacket, a white T-shirt, and bright white sneakers, I had to admit Starla’s vision was pretty damn good. Somehow, she’d managed to turn Devlin into a modern-day Shelby.
Devlin tried on more clothes while Starla sat on the couch with a satisfied smirk—more tracksuits, jeans that hugged his ass a little too well, two more pairs of sneakers, and a pair of boots.
With a healthy glow to his skin, and a few extra pounds on his frame, Devlin made my mouth go dry. As he disappeared into the bathroom, I stared at the closed door.
On the couch, Starla clipped tags off the clothes Devlin planned to keep. Which turned out to be all of them. I had to admit, she was an excellent personal shopper. She cleared her throat, and I dropped my eyes to my hands.
“Did it start before the night you brought him to the bar?” she asked.
“Did what start?”
“The way you feel about him.”
Starla didn’t know Devlin’s past. While she knew the O’Sheas weren’t exactly law-abiding citizens, she worked for our legitimate business side. She had no idea she’d just shopped for the Detroit Devil. She’d never asked questions, because she’d worked for us long enough to know better.
We’d also never had many private conversations. But what I’d asked her to do lately—coming to my apartment to cut Devlin’s hair and shop for him—had pushed us into unfamiliar territory. Apparently, her curiosity had finally outweighed her fear of getting personal with me.
I rubbed my hands together. “What do you think?”
She was quiet for a moment before answering. I glanced over to find her carefully folding clothes on the coffee table. “I think…” She hesitated. “I think he looks at you in a way I’d kill for someone to look at me.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if she was talking about Jace. She’d been crushing on him for a while, but I’d shot that idea down immediately. Jace had one rule regarding his dick: no picking up women at O’Shea’s, whether they were employees or customers.
Starla finally met my gaze. “You see that, right? The way he looks at you?”
I did. It was the first thing I’d noticed about him. “Yes.”
“You seem calmer today.” She finished folding and leaned back on the couch. “I’m assuming it has everything to do with his presence and not mine.”
I just stared at her. The answer was obvious.
Her lips tilted in a grin. “Well, good for you, then. Good for both of you.”
Once Devlin had emerged from the bathroom, he thanked Starla for the clothes, and they chatted for a bit before she left.
To Starla, it was all so simple. And it was simple, just not to Devlin.
I watched him take his pile of new clothes into the closet before carefully placing them in the drawers I’d left empty for him.
Then he strolled over to the fridge and pulled out a bag of the sour cherries he loved, something I’d never bought in my life before him.
He sat on the couch in the spot he’d claimed as his own, the corner farthest from the door.
He pulled a pillow onto his lap, and his fingers automatically found the frayed edge he’d picked at while watching TV.
Devlin belonged here. In this apartment. In my life. And yet I couldn’t get his plea out of my head, the desperate way he’d asked me to keep a promise I had no intention of keeping.
I must have been staring too long, because he looked away from the TV to frown at me. “You okay?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”
He picked at the edge of the pillow. “Thank you for the clothes.”
“You needed stuff to wear.”
“Yeah, but you knew what you were doing when you asked her. She didn’t just throw a few things in a cart at Walmart and call it good.”
I shrugged. He wasn’t wrong.
“It won’t go to waste,” he said, plucking at the new T-shirt he was wearing. “When I’m gone, Jace can wear this size. Hack too.”
He went back to watching TV like it was nothing, like he hadn’t just lit a fuse between us.
I curled my fingers into fists on my lap and forced myself to remain calm.
I needed a plan. A solid one. Something to make Devlin see what I saw.
To make him believe. To make him want a future with me the way I wanted one with him.