Jaded Soul: A Standalone Irish Mafia Romance

by Fox, Nicole

  It feels intimate. Personal. Like a little secret we now share.

  And that intimacy terrifies me immediately.

  I look away from him at once and resume walking.

  “Oi! Earth to Saoirse. You gonna explain what that was about?” he asks, quickly falling into step beside me.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I demur. “Just… my mother believed that, too. She used to say it all the time.”

  “Used to, huh?” Cillian says, picking up on my phrasing. “When did you lose her?”

  “A long time ago.” I look down and away. Anything to avoid meeting his gaze.

  “And it’s been you and your pa ever since?”

  I glance up at him, brows furrowed. “Why are you so interested in my life?”

  He shrugs. “I’m a people watcher,” he replies. “In addition to being a people person.”

  I roll my eyes. “Is that right?”

  “Big time. People love me.”

  “Well, I’m people,” I retort. “And I don’t love you.”

  “You will.”

  A burst of laughter escapes my lips. It’s so sudden that it takes me by surprise.

  Cillian’s smile gets wider as he looks at me.

  When he does, I finally understand what people mean when they use the term “piercing gaze.”

  I’m skewered by those emerald eyes.

  Except that with Cillian, it doesn’t feel invasive or unwelcome.

  It feels like he’s been looking at me that way for all our lives.

  “What?” I ask when he doesn’t avert his gaze.

  “You should laugh more often,” he says quietly. “I can tell you don’t do it enough.”

  “You can tell that, can you?” I fire back. “How?”

  He opens his mouth, but I cut him off quickly.

  “And don’t say it’s in the eyes!”

  He laughs. “Damn it.”

  “Well?” I press. “Don’t tell me some corny shit either. Like, ‘A magician doesn’t reveal his secrets,’ or any garbage like that.”

  “Your resting face,” he tells me seriously. “It’s sad. Melancholy. I can tell you’re a daydreamer.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Daydreamers want to escape,” he says in a solemn rasp. “They’re trapped, so they allow their imaginations to take them to all the places they want to go but can’t.”

  I feel the laugh inside me fizzle out slowly.

  How is it possible that this stranger can know so much about me?

  Why does it feel like he can see through my façade to the person I am underneath?

  “What are you trying to figure out?” he asks.

  There it is again.

  Skewered.

  I turn away from him uncomfortably and keep walking. Our conversation keeps pulling us to sudden stops and I realize we’re still only a few feet away from the hospital.

  “Maybe I’m trying to figure you out,” I suggest.

  “Me?” he laughs. “There’s nothing to figure out. I’m an open book.”

  “Open, huh?” I ask, eyeing him with scrutiny. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  He smirks. “Because you seem like an intrinsically distrustful person.”

  “I’ve had to be.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” he chuckles. “Okay, I’ll prove it. Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

  My eyes go wide. “Really?” I ask. “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  “Something’s changed about you,” I observe, going with the first thing that pops into my head. “Since we last saw each other, something’s changed. Is it my imagination?”

  He gives me an odd expression, one that makes me think I’m right.

  And for a second, I see him the way it seems he’s seeing me.

  Past the surface.

  Past the shimmering eyes and the easy laugh.

  To the man underneath.

  “No,” he replies quietly. “It’s not.”

  Wow.

  I really didn’t expect him to own up to that.

  “Okay,” I say, spying gardens up ahead and veering towards them instinctively. “Well, then that’s question number one. What happened?”

  “Jesus,” he breathes. “I kinda thought you’d start off with a simple question. Like, ‘Have you ever murdered anyone? What’s your darkest secret? Do you love your ma?’ That kind of thing.”

  I give him a sheepish smile. “Are you going to answer me or not?”

  Cillian picks up his pace suddenly and vaults over the low brick wall that separates the street from the gardens. He grins at me from the other side and offers me his hand.

  I give him a glare, ignore his hand, and mimic his jump.

  When my feet land on the other side of the brick wall opposite him, I give him a smug smile.

  “Damn,” he whistles. “That was sexy.”

  I roll my eyes to hide the blush that races up my cheeks. Then I walk deeper into the perfectly pruned garden, forcing Cillian to follow behind me.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “I can hear water,” I tell him over my shoulder. “Come on.”

  I was right. The trickle of water is coming from a circular pond in the center of the garden. It’s manmade but I’ll take what I can get.

  Three benches encircle the water feature in a sort of inverted triangle. I take a seat on one of them and Cillian sits down next to me.

  The benches aren’t particularly long, so it leaves only about half a foot of space between us. Every time either one of us moves, our shoulders inevitably make contact.

  Cillian doesn’t seem in the least affected by it.

  So I pretend the same is true for me.

  “The floor is yours, y’know,” I say, making sure he knows I haven’t forgotten that he has a question to answer.

  Cillian sighs. “Alright. I’ll tell you,” he says. “You remember my brother from the other day?”

  “The one that shot my father?” I snap.

  His face falls. “He was aiming for Murtagh.”

  “I know,” I tell him. “That’s the only reason I’m sitting here with you right now.”

  “Noted.”

  A stale, difficult silence unfolds for a few tough seconds.

  “Anyway, go on,” I encourage.

  “Sean’s the heir,” he explains. “Um… he’s basically going to take over for my father when—”

  “I know what ‘heir’ means,” I interrupt “You don’t have to mansplain the term.”

  He chuckles under his breath. “Fuck. That is what I was doing, huh? My bad.”

  “I’ll let it slide this one time.”

  “I appreciate that,” Cillian says graciously. “Well, anyway, long story short, Sean left.”

  “Left?”

  “Left town, left the O’Sullivan clan, left the family. Left everything, basically.”

  Oh.

  Well, shit.

  “Wow,” I breathe.

  “Yeah,” Cillian murmurs. He looks relieved that I seem to have understood just how big a deal this is for him. And for his entire family.

  “Why did he leave?”

  Cillian hesitates for a moment. “Jesus, how much time do we have?”

  I smile sadly. “Complicated, huh?”

  He glances at me, probably contemplating just how much he should reveal. How much he should keep secret.

  “Can I trust you?” he ventures finally.

  “Really? You’re asking me that?”

  He cocks his head to the side and waits with an arched eyebrow.

  “You can trust me,” I assure him.

  He nods like that’s all he needed.

  Then he clears his throat and continues. “Sean has… Well, he’s always been a little different. I actually thought that he was the perfect heir to the throne because of those differences. He’s stoic and thoughtful and… super fucking serious.”

  I nod, remembering the difference b
etween the two brothers the day they’d barged into my life.

  Sean had been stony-faced. Darkened with internal shadows.

  Cillian was cocky and arrogant and bright. Making things up as he went along.

  The two couldn’t have been more different.

  “But now, I realize that’s exactly why he can’t do this. He doesn’t want to be the don. He never has.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “To my parents, it’s the worst thing. You don’t just walk out on your birthright like that. You don’t just turn your back on your family.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly. “We were you close with him?”

  “He was my brother,” Cillian says simply, looking down at his hands.

  His shoulders hunch under the weight of his pain. I have to resist the urge to reach out and touch him.

  “You’ll see him again,” I offer.

  I have no idea if that’s true or not. But I say it anyway.

  It’s what I wish someone had been able to say to me when Mama died.

  In Cillian’s case, there’s at least a sliver of hope.

  I had none.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think Da would let him come back.”

  “Really?”

  Cillian glances at me, and I can tell by his smile that I’ve just said something he considers naïve.

  “We’re not like other families, Saoirse,” he says. “We don’t forgive so easily.”

  “Do you?”

  He considers that for a moment. “A part of me hates him for leaving,” he admits. “But another part of me admires him for it.”

  “It’s always brave to leave everything you know and love,” I say.

  “Yes, exactly,” Cillian replies. “I had to tell Kian myself.”

  “Kian?”

  “My younger brother. He’s ten.”

  The lines of his face seem to relax into unease.

  “It didn’t go so well, did it?”

  “He yelled and threw things,” Cillian tells me. “He cursed Sean out and then he cursed me out.”

  “At ten, huh?”

  Cillian’s smile twitches. “You grow up fast in my family.”

  “So it seems.”

  He adjusts his position. Now, even without moving, our shoulders are pressed together. I don’t want to move away and give him the satisfaction of knowing that I’m aware of his proximity.

  So I ignore it.

  Heat races up and down my arm, but I ignore that, too.

  “Have you murdered anyone?” I ask abruptly.

  “Fuck,” he groans. “I knew I shouldn’t have put that in your head.”

  “Well?”

  He closes his eyes for a moment and his body goes still. “Would you judge me if I said I have?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Damn it,” he growls through gritted teeth.

  “You really have killed someone?” I gasp.

  He meets my eyes levelly. I find myself transfixed and confused in equal measure.

  How can a man with such beautiful eyes be capable of doing such horrific things?

  “I have,” Cillian says quietly. “But would it help you to know that the person in question was a horrible man? That he deserved to die?”

  “You don’t get to make that call.”

  “Why not?” Cillian counters. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have lived free. He would have sold more children, destroyed more lives.”

  I freeze. “He was a human trafficker?”

  “That, and more.”

  I glare at him, searching for flaws in his story. “And you’re not just making this up to justify the fact that you’re a murderer?”

  “No,” he says with a wide-open expression. “I told you—I’m not a liar.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I believe you.”

  His smile is so bright that it puts the moon to shame.

  Then it falters.

  Just a little, but enough for me to take notice.

  “It still wasn’t easy,” he admits. “Killing him. I knew everything he’d done. I knew the kind of man he was. But killing him wasn’t easy.”

  “Good,” I say. “Killing another person should never be so easy. No matter what they’ve done.”

  Cillian nods thoughtfully. Lost in horrible memories.

  “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen,” he answers. “I was never meant to be part of the infiltration mission. But Da wanted me to join at the last minute. He said it was about time I became a man.”

  Jesus. His father sounds like a real piece of work.

  “I’m too… light-hearted for his taste. I make too many jokes. I never take things seriously enough. I think that was his way of forcing me to grow up.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Please,” Cillian snorts. “My sense of humor is my superpower. I refuse to lose it. Sometimes, I think it’s what keeps me from going insane.”

  I can’t help it—I lean in closer.

  There’s something about this boy, with his light blue eyes and his blond curls.

  He looks like he should be on the covers of magazines. But there’s depth to him. A whole labyrinth of secrets left to be uncovered.

  And I realize with a start that I want to be the one to uncover them.

  “What?”

  “What?” I ask, realizing his blue eyes are trained on me with amusement.

  “You’re staring.”

  “I am not.”

  He sighs dramatically. “It’s my fault. I’m spellbinding you with my fatal charm. It’s inevitable, really. Strike what I just told you—humor isn’t my superpower. This is.” He gestures between us to prove his point.

  I promptly slide as far away from him on the bench as I can.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” I scoff.

  “No, no. I don’t blame you,” he laments. “After all, you’re only human.”

  I start laughing. That helps keep the blush from my cheeks.

  Because the honest truth is that he’s not that far off.

  “Stop it.”

  “What?” Cillian asks honestly. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “You can see what in my eyes?” I demand.

  “You want to kiss me,” he says with a long-suffering sigh. “I guess that’s my lot in life. Women look at me and all they see is a piece of meat. They don’t care about what’s on the inside.”

  I punch his arm and get off the bench.

  “Hey, where are you going?” he asks, following behind me.

  “Away from you and your suffocating ego,” I retort, though I can’t keep the laugh out of my voice.

  I walk around the edge of the pond, but I can feel Cillian at my back.

  I stop and turn around so abruptly that he walks into me. The collision sends me stumbling backwards.

  I’m about to trip over a low hedge and go ass over teakettle into the pond…

  Until he reaches out and grabs me.

  He pulls me upright. The heat of his hands seeping into my skin and racing throughout the rest of me.

  I giggle, God help me.

  He’s right. I don’t usually laugh this much. I never have a reason to.

  Our hands are still entwined, but I have no real desire to let go of him.

  I don’t know why I feel so comfortable with this stranger. This lunatic. This killer.

  I choose not to question it.

  “I’ve been taking care of my father my entire life,” I blurt without warning.

  Cillian’s expression irons out a little and he listens.

  “When Mama died, it felt like a part of Pa did, too,” I continue. “Like he checked out that day and never really checked back in.”

  “Is that when the gambling started?” Cillian asks.

  “He used to gamble before he met her,” I admit. “But she made him stop and he was happy to give it up for her. Then she died and it was like…”


  “All his strength came from her,” Cillian says softly.

  I nod. “Exactly.”

  He stays quiet and still. Giving me space to say things I’ve never said out loud before.

  “It didn’t used to be this bad,” I tell him. “He was careful. Well, more careful. But as I got older, he got worse.”

  “Have you helped him pay his debts in the past?” Cillian asks.

  I frown. “Sometimes.”

  Cillian nods as though he expected the answer.

  “You were just being there for your father, and I understand that. I respect it. But he’s a gambler, Saoirse. You were enabling him more than helping.”

  The words feel harsh. I want to rail against them. I want to defend myself.

  But what can I say?

  He’s right.

  Then I feel pressure on my fingers and I look down to find that my hand is still intertwined with Cillian’s.

  “If I didn’t help, he’d have been killed a long time ago,” I say. “He owes you. He owes the Kinahans.”

  “Actually, he just owes the Kinahans,” Cillian tells me.

  I frown. “What are you talking about?”

  “The two thousand euro debt he owes the O’Sullivan clan has been… taken care of.”

  I stare at him in shock for a moment. “Are you serious?”

  “Almost never. But in this case, yes.”

  “You’re forgiving his debt?”

  Cillian snorts. “We don’t ‘forgive’ anything,” he replies. “In any case, it’s not up to me to wipe out a debt owed to the Family. That power resides with the don alone.”

  “Your father has no reason to forgive the debt,” I say slowly.

  “Right. But like I said, the debt wasn’t forgiven,” he tells me. “It was… taken care of.”

  I can see the truth in his eyes, but I can’t quite comprehend it.

  I can’t let it go, either.

  “You paid my father’s debt?” I say in a near-whisper.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Sean did,” he admits finally. “He wired me the money with a message the day after he left.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathe. “That’s…”

  “My brother’s a good man, Saoirse. Too good for this life. It’s why he left.”

  I glance at him. “But you’re still here.”

  He smiles, the kind of devil-may-care smile that could make a woman weak in the knees. That’s making me weak in the knees.