“Remind me never to leave you two in a room together. Okay, I admit Bella would be capable of that, but how does that tie into Byrne’s master plan?” He ponders more to himself than us, and Cian sucks in a sharp breath. “He’s been in contact with the Mackenzies. I don’t know who, but he made a call.”
“What?” Siobhan tenses, her head whipping up, and I wince as she bumps my abused hands. Regret instantly shimmers in her eyes, but she’s quick to look back at her brother. “When did you learn that?”
“Just before I went to get Sorcha. Maybe that’s what this is all about. If he initiates an investigation into our family, he’ll get the bluff he needs to rally the lower families and maybe even turn some major families to his side. What if the whole point of this isn’t even to get the families on his side, but just make them doubt me?” Sitting up sharply, Cian casts me a curious look. “You said it yourself—when you plot a coup, you need someone to replace the person you’re trying to overthrow. What if his goal is to replace me with someone else, because it doesn’t matter who, only that it happens? Bella might be a stretch, but Byrne supposedly has a ‘once in a lifetime deal’ he’s using to try to entice the family heads. What if that deal is Boston?”
“I did it,” I mutter through my dry tongue and clenched teeth. It’s getting harder to think, and I shake my head viciously, trying to stay awake. Cautious eyes settle on me as Siobhan reaches my knuckles and ever so carefully spreads my fingers. “I did it all. I knew it. I took down Marrin. I won’t let Bella get away. I’ll keep going. That ‘why me?’ . . . because I made it happen. And when I’m done . . . I’ll get her.”
“I’ll go get more bandages from downstairs.” Siobhan says before standing up to scurry out of the room. The waft of air from the door opening and closing batters my weak body, and I lean against Cian without even thinking about it. I’m safe with him here, so why wouldn’t I do this? He’s warm, and sturdy. I’m cold and shriveling, minus the burning sensation along my hands. Holding my shoulder firmly, he cups my cheek with his free hand, his heart beating loudly in the quiet.
“Her . . . you mean that Lisa woman you were muttering about yesterday morning? The one that made you look like an easy target to Marrin,” Cian asks, and I whimper in affirmation, unable to conjure the energy to nod. “I’ll help you with her when this is over. But I still have a question, Sorcha. If Byrne thinks you’re psychotically in love with him, why did he promise to set you free if you helped take me down?”
“Risk versus reward. Byrne said he’d let me go as an added incentive. He never said he’d set me free; he said he’d let me go,” I reply tiredly, my voice stumbling clumsily down my tongue. Cian tenses against me, and I sigh as his warmth eases the strain on my soul. “You don’t pay attention to wording enough. If he lets me go, and I choose to stay with him, accomplishing what he wants will make him see me as a person, not a thing. Or at least, that’s what I think.”
Chapter Ten
Cian
Siobhan’s wrong. Something’s missing, and it isn’t on this piece of paper. The notions bring a wry, tight smirk to my lips as I stare at my marriage contract to Bella. “Maybe, I should ask Sorcha to look at this and tell me what she sees.”
Our conversation whirls in my mind like a carousel spinning out of control. Bella was desperate enough to get pregnant? But that’s inconsequential, I’m not stupid enough to touch her with a ten-foot pole.
Byrne’s trying to launch an investigation into me. It’d be his best way to bring down my family if enough doubt were cast. He doesn’t need to do anything concrete if he can shake things up enough. But the call to Ireland? Stupid. The Mackenzies are my cousins. They’re the head honchos of the Irish mob. No way would they ever cross their own family.
And yet, knowing this turmoil, my father had accepted Bella’s bid to marry into the O’Dea family. Is Bella working with her father somehow? Is this another thing I simply couldn’t see?
“God,” I mutter, slapping the comparably thin contract on my desk to cup my chin thoughtfully. “I wish things weren’t so mangled. I’d do much better with a head-on confrontation.”
Standing up, I leave my office and head to Sorcha’s room down the hallway. Glancing down on either side, my suspicion wafts through the air. Bella has been scarce since the other day when she saw Sorcha; she hasn’t left her room even to eat. More questions that don’t have answers.
Biting back a sigh, I shake my head before entering Sorcha’s bedroom, cloaked in darkness and gloom. Pausing in surprise when I find her on the bed, I clench my jaw firmly. Sympathy tightens my chest, and I shut the door quietly behind me. The sheet wrapped around her is dark with sweat, clinging to her soft lines and capped in damp, blonde waves. A little gasp floats up from the head of the bed, and she curls up tighter.
“Sorcha,” I murmur, sitting on the edge of her bed to touch her shoulder. She jerks awake, twisting to stare at me with red-rimmed, bleary eyes. Her face contorts in irritation, but she doesn’t push me away as she wiggles onto her back. Even now, the sheet hung over her head like a hood, and I move to peel back the fabric from her cheek. “How are your hands? And the pain?”
She turns her face from mine, still hazy from her uneasy sleep, and I pull back the damp sheet to reveal her hands. Her bandages are crusted over, discolored, and disapproval furrows my brow. The faintest whiff of them isn’t so bad, but definitely noticeable. “I’ll change them for you. Are you sure you don’t want anything for the pain?”
“I’m sure,” Sorcha croaks, and I reach for the kit on the nightstand before helping her sit. She slumps heavily forward with a long, tortured groan, and icy prickles surge up my sternum when she rasps and wheezes. “What d-do you want?”
I don’t answer immediately, gingerly unwrapping Sorcha’s hands. Her bandages are stiff, and my heart leaps into my throat. Twitching uncontrollably, her fingers don’t hide how painful it is, and anger floods the empty space in my chest.
“You don’t have to let this happen. There’s less drastic ways, Sorcha,” I say hotly, and she shakes her head dully. “Why go through this pain just to convince someone else? I’m not saying you’re not right for wanting revenge, but there has to be a less painful way. Even if you just start screaming and didn’t hit your hands, or—”
“Shut up,” She interrupts a bare whisper, hardly more than two sounds and a clicking of her teeth. I clamp my mouth shut, not wanting to push Sorcha, and roll up the bandages as they pop from the crusted gel gluing them to her skin. “I don’t need you. I can handle it. I p-planned for years, and none of th-that included you.”
“You’re lying,” Cupping her gaunt, cold cheek, I lift Sorcha’s face, and her eyes glow, intensified by her tears. “Don’t lie anymore. Tell me everything, Sorcha. Even if every person in this world betrays you, intentionally or not, I will try my best not to. If everyone ignores you, I won’t . . . but I need you to tell me the truth. You knew enough about me from Byrne to try this with no guarantee that I would let you live, because you’re a spy. What else is there?”
“W- why?” Why? Isn’t that the question of the moment? Sorcha’s croak ripples up my arm, and she bites her bottom lip as the first of her tears start to fall. “Why is there more? There’s not. This is all it is.”
“You do need me, because I have the power to obliterate that sack of shit,” I say, conviction sharpening my tone, and Sorcha’s eyelids pop in surprise. For the first time, it occurs to me that she has no idea about anything. She was Byrne’s sex slave, abused horrifically, and always ignored. Everything she knows, she learned from Byrne. Licking my lips heavily, I hold up her hands by her elbows gently. “Let me fix you up, and I’ll prove to you that trusting me isn’t a mistake, Sorcha.”
“I don’t trust you. Why are you so hung up on that?” Her voice wobbles, but isn’t so tense now, and satisfaction blossoms in my chest. Questioning my intentions is better than outright fighting me. I’ll take that. I don’t answer immediately as I reach Sorcha’s
knuckles, and she whimpers a cry behind tightly clenched teeth.
Now, I’m not a medical professional in any sense, but Sorcha’s hand doesn’t look too bad. The blisters are almost completely flat and aren’t weeping. The bright, angry red had faded some. Granted, it’d be better if she didn’t do more than half the living room before I stopped her.
“I want to be,” I sit back to drop the bandages in a heap on the floor, and she hiccups shortly in surprise. She’s so tiny and weak-looking, fragile even, but she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Sorcha’s terrifying and terrified. One or the other, but never both. “I bet, when you convinced yourself this was the best way to go about your revenge, you never expected me to actually enjoy your company and scheming . . . and your long, golden hair, Sorcha.”
Alarm clears the clouds from her eyes, and I tense when she leans in uncomfortably close to me. Prickles assault the bridge of my nose, and she wheezes a shallow breath in my face. So close, I can hear the tail end of her exhale and see the individual blood lines of her puffy eyelids.
“Are you going to pop another movie reference?” I ask awkwardly, and slender eyebrows twitch in surprise. “I haven’t been graced with second hand Al Pacino wisdom, yet. I thought that’d be most appropriate given the situation.”
“I don’t have any. You?” She asks breathily. I grab her shoulders when the sound of her own voice sends Sorcha tumbling down into my lap. Shivering a jerk, she doesn’t have the energy to do anything but sink down. Not only had she burned herself, but she hand scrubbed the floor for almost two hours straight. It was right to leave her alone for a few days.
“I know I told you that you can watch movies, but the TV is never on. Did you want to watch something now? Distract yourself from the pain a little?” I trail off, but Sorcha doesn’t answer me. A small smile tilts my lips as realization washes over me, and I put the first-aid kit on the bed to rest her head in my lap. Peeling back her damp hair, I sigh through my nose at the almost peaceful, perfect ‘o’ of her deep unconsciousness.
Chapter Eleven
Sorcha
Holding a hard-bristle brush, I pause my scraping to sit back on my knees and bluster a sigh. The smell of flowers sticks to the roof of my mouth, so thick that my eyes water and my nose clogs. I’m not allergic to pollen, but there’s so much of the stuff in this enclosed space. Glancing around blearily, I wipe my eyes with my free hand.
Sunlight streams gently through the high glass walls from every direction and sweat trails down my back. Big, beautiful, well-tended roses hug to my left, and I sit back on the cobblestone to stretch my legs. The quiet is only broken by the occasional chirp of birds beyond the glass. Glancing over my shoulder at the stretch of path I’d already meticulously cleaned, my scowl is the ugliest thing in this garden.
Kaitlyn’s a nasty bitch, but I’ll show her. I’m way more stubborn. My childish notion darkens my expression, and I drop my brush. Laying down on the warm stones, I cover my face with my arm. At least my hands don’t hurt anymore. That stuff Cian put on them really helped a lot.
Lifting my arm, I stare at my pinked, ruined hands poking out under shoddily wrapped bandages. The gel had kept my skin from boiling, but now, flakes peeled off, and my nails seeped at their anchors. And still, despite Cian’s warning, I’m here, doing this horrible dredge work that I shouldn’t be doing. Turning my hand down, my palm blistered under my knuckles, I close my eyes to hide my face in the crook of my arm.
I purse my lips thinly as a dense, floral scent threatens to choke me. Soft footfalls echo through the greenhouse, and I crack open my eyes to tilt my head. Surprise flickers in my chest, but I quickly stomp it down under Cian’s dark, shrewd gaze. Supreme unhappiness tilts his mouth, and he sits leisurely on the bench nearby and pats the spot next to him. My fingers tingle uncertainly, spreading fire up my arms, as I drop my brush. My heart leaps into my throat, and his presence looms evermore ferocious as I get closer.
“Your hands look good for only being a week,” Cian says, gesturing me with a flick of his wrist. His image clashes with the one behind my eyelids, so tender and gentle, and I hold my breath as I raise my hands. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle, my wince rippling down my neck when the air cuts into my sensitive skin. So gingerly, he touches my pointer fingernail, the unstable anchor digging deep into my skin, and I stiffen. “Not good enough, I guess. I want to talk to you about what Siobhan said the other day. Something doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Your sister?” I probe, and he nods as trouble knits his brows. Siobhan’s the one who had bandaged my hands, and I look down at my bare palms to exhale a sigh of relief. Thank God he doesn’t wanna talk about me. “She didn’t do a very good job, but I can’t—”
“I’ll do it after we talk. Sit.” He interrupts swiftly, and goosebumps sweep across my chest. My knees refuse to bend and crack in resistance, the bench cold and hostile to me. Cian leans back, stretching his legs and throwing his arms over the back to sprawl out in the sun filtering through the high, glass ceiling. It’s hard to believe we’re in a Boston suburb. “Did you tell Siobhan anything? Did you even speak to her before last week? She didn’t come into your room or anything?”
Hurling questions at me unabashed, Cian steals my attention from the beautiful atmosphere. I reach to rub my head before pausing, my fingertips prickling fiercely in denial. He casts me an expectant look, and I shake my head mutely. His lips thin in irritation, hazel eyes flashing dark brown for a fraction of a second. “Then how did she know you conned Byrne into thinking you were in love with him?”
My eyes boggle a little in shock, and I suck in a sharp breath as my one and only conversation with Siobhan trills in my ears. Cian was there, yet neither of us had caught what she said. Calloused fingers slip through my hair to scratch my scalp when I can’t, but my mind works too furiously to care.
“She immediately threw Bella under the bus, saying she was trying to get pregnant to trap you. Do you think she was listening to us?” I ask, urgency heightening my tone. “Why, though?”
“I don’t know,” Cian comments casually, shooting me a pointed look. “That’s why I came to you. I’m not an idiot, but I acknowledge when someone’s smarter than me. You were going to be a criminal psychologist, Sorcha. You see criminals as criminals even though I see them as partners and businessmen, and sometimes even my own family.”
“O-okay . . . let me think on it for a couple minutes,” Mumbling more to myself than Cian, I close my eyes before remembering his hand is in mine. I’m running out of ways to combat this uncharted discomfort, and it only intensifies as he shuffles beyond the darkness. His head lands in my lap, his hair tickling my bare thighs under shorts that still don’t cover me properly. My mouth dries as he lowers his arm, caressing my jaw along the way. “Wha- do- don’t do that.”
“Do what? I’ve seen you naked, but even if you’re a little fucked up . . . aren’t we all? I bet, despite the past few years, you’d like being held,” He replies gruffly, and I shake my head without opening my eyes. I can’t. No, instead, I squeeze them tighter, and he chuffs a hollow laugh. “Besides, when I brought you here, you had that disgusting thing in your mouth. I know it cut you. How’s that going?”
“Fine,” I squeak, stiffening when Cian reaches to bop the tip of my nose. The shock of it blows open my eyes, and I gasp as I cover my nose and mouth with my hands. “Stop that!”
“Now that you’ve got clothes on and aren’t bruised up and bloody, you’re pretty cute,” He grins broadly, teasing lilting his tone, and flames lick up my neck. Amusement twinkles in his eyes, and my chest tightens as my heart throbs painfully. “I’m not that much of a fucking disgrace of a man, but I think your body is almost as attractive as your brain.”
“Why—” I croak, clearing my throat roughly as Cian arches a brow. “Why are you acting like this? You weren’t like this before.”
“Before,” He echoes smoothly, his eyes glimmering with earnestness that captured me in its iron grip.
“I was shaken. I’m not gonna lie, Sorcha, and I’d appreciate the same from you, but the truth is, I was very disturbed by what happened at my birthday party. I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way you’re not fucked up beyond repair,’ so I tried to be gentle and considerate of your feelings. But then, a few days ago, you fell asleep in my arms.”
My breath hitches loudly, the blood draining from my face as dread coils deep in my gut. Cian’s grin whittles down into a fond smile, barely cresting his mouth before continuing. “I liked it. You do trust me, even if you won’t admit it, Sorcha. Even before my birthday, realizing I couldn’t just kill Byrne has been a . . . an issue. I’m not a deep thinker, even if I have my moments. Are you proud of me for thinking up something you didn’t catch?”
Fiery heat rolls up my sternum even as ice lodges in my chest at his teasing, and I tear my eyes off Cian to hug myself tightly. His heat seeps through my clothes and crawls along my skin, and I resort to childishly not looking at him. Powerful shoulders writhe as he reaches for my face, cupping my chin firmly to force my eyes to his. They gleam with desire, for what I’ve stricken with fear to find out, and my heart stutters dangerously.
“Sleep with me. You deserve to be safe, and I would never do something so despicable as to touch someone that’s unwilling. We’ll talk more about my sister tomorrow,” Cian demands, but his tone is almost questioning when it caresses my mind. Instantly, I open my mouth to deny him, but the word sticks to the roof. Tightening my arms around myself, my fingers prickle with stabbing pain, and he strokes my chin with his thumb. “You hesitate because you want to, even if experience dictates you shouldn’t. Trust me, Sorcha. I’m not dangerous unless you piss me off, and I highly doubt you will.”
Callous King (The O'Dea Crime Family Book 1) Page 6