I lowered my weapon. “Text him. When you get a location for the meet, you text me. Understood?” I reached into my pocket for the number to my new burner cell and handed it to him.
“And if I don’t?” J.J. challenged, one last attempt at defiance. One more attempt to test me.
“You’ll find out.” I turned my back and started for the exit.
“You did good,” Sebastian said when we were in the back of his limo, and his driver, who was ex-Irish Special Forces, pulled away from the building.
“I don’t like that we have to let criminals stay on the streets.” My eyes went to the tinted windows, my stomach squeezing at the idea that arse would remain free if we got the name of the arms dealer.
“You need informants.” He was typing into his mobile now. Probably texting his wife. “We’ll turn J.J. into one.”
“In exchange, he gets to keep stealing cars?” How was that fair?
“It’s the way this works.” Sebastian pocketed his phone inside his jacket and looked my way. “I don’t like it, but this is how it’s done.”
“Maybe let the Garda handle this kind of policing?”
“They do what they can,” he offered in a low voice, “but for them to get their job done, it’s up to people like us to do our part.”
“And you don’t think this Ronan guy is connected to The Alliance, though?” The Alliance was the main reason I’d agreed to this role. I wanted to help dismantle their operation and take down every last son of a bitch in their organization.
“No.”
“And shouldn’t we be going after those connected with The Alliance?” I countered.
“We can’t go after them until we can get the crime in the city under control. And until we can convince everyone you’re in charge.”
The devil. The Deal Maker. Feared.
With adrenaline coursing through my veins, and my hands knotted at my sides, itching to throw a punch, maybe it was possible to become that man.
“You want to go back and hurt him, don’t you?”
How in the hell was he always reading my thoughts? “Yes.” And I hated how much it was true.
Chapter Two
Cole
“I destroyed this office.” Sebastian poured two glasses of bourbon, offered me one, then sat in the leather chair behind his desk in the office of his nightclub.
Holly had given him the desk as a wedding gift. Apparently, Sebastian had wanted to be a pirate when he was a kid, so Holly had purchased wood from a 19th-century pirate ship for its construction.
The pirate ship once belonged to a man in search of his long-lost love, and his sails had guided him to her.
It was romantic, I supposed.
In some strange way, fate, kismet, destiny . . . whatever you wanted to call it, led my cousin Holly to Sebastian, the brother of the woman I’d once lost.
“The bookshelves.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the two tall wooden shelves behind him, which housed knickknacks, ships in bottles, and books I doubted the man ever read. “The lamps. Chair. I destroyed everything in here out of rage when I’d come back from Paris after believing Alessia had died in that fire. I smashed every bottle of liquor out at the bar.”
How much bourbon had he consumed since we left the chop shop an hour ago? I had no idea what brought me to the club, but—
No, that was a lie.
I wanted to run into Alessia. Steal even five minutes of just looking at her.
I hadn’t seen her anywhere when I’d arrived, though.
I’d gone back to my flat after dealing with J.J., stared at the space filled with unopened boxes, and couldn’t handle being there, so I made my way to the club.
“I don’t blame you.” I’d shattered a glass wall in this very bar. I’d been in town for a board meeting at McGregor Enterprises when I’d learned two things that not only shocked the shite out of me but made me want to commit murder. The first, Sebastian Renaud, a man who’d bought enough shares of our family corporation to buy himself a seat on the board, was Alessia’s brother. The second, that Alessia was dead. I’d come at him swinging, and he’d thrown me through the wall.
“Betrayal is an ugly thing . . .” His knuckles whitened as he gripped the cut-glass tumbler, probably thinking about the ex-best friend who’d faked Alessia’s death.
Sebastian was all too familiar with betrayal. His first attempt to leave The League was marked by the duplicity of his best friend, Luca, though it was years before he found out. Sebastian originally left The League at Alessia’s request, and in some twisted way, Luca saw this as Alessia stealing Sebastian from him. It pushed Luca over the edge, even further into his insanity. It was then Luca chose to lock Alessia away in his own League prison and let everyone believe her to be dead, choosing not to violate a sacred League rule: Never kill an innocent woman.
The second time Sebastian left The League had been by force. He stepped down to protect Holly, as well as to cut a deal to make sure both Luca and The Alliance leader Luca had been working with would be placed in League prisons.
Luca was now rotting in a jail when he should have been rotting beneath the ground.
“Alessia forgives me for everything, and I don’t deserve it. I kept the truth from her about The League, pushed her away because I thought she’d be safer.” He lowered his eyes to his drink. “She says she’s okay, but I’m not so sure if she’s just hiding the truth to keep me from worrying.”
“Well, she’s barely spoken to me since we found her.” I once knew everything about her. Every scar. Every fallen tear. She always came to me, but I’d managed to push her away and into a dangerous world all because I didn’t tell her the truth.
“She needs time.”
When we learned Alessia was alive, well, I was busted up from having my arse kicked by Alliance assassins sent by Luca to kill me—but I didn’t give a damn about the pain, I had to get to her. Be with Sebastian when he rescued her.
I’d buried the shock, the tears, every other emotion, until after she’d been freed from the prison run by Luca, a top-tier fixer of The League. He happened to be the only man who knew the location of the prison aside from the Russian guards paid a lot of money to work there.
Sebastian had been on the verge of taking Luca’s life before Luca sputtered his desperate admission that Alessia was alive, shocking us all.
After we’d rescued Alessia and were safely on our way to the private jet Sebastian and I arrived in, I’d removed the Celtic cross necklace from my pocket, and with shaky hands, clasped it around her neck. I’d given it to her for her eighteenth birthday, and Sebastian had said she’d never been without it until the day of the fire in Paris. He’d found her necklace in the rubble, amongst the ashes, believing Alessia had died.
Alessia’s silence since we found her wasn’t just about what had happened in that prison, it was also about her feelings of guilt. She didn’t think she deserved forgiveness for leaving me, and she said as much at Sebastian and Holly’s wedding. But I did forgive her.
She was alive and okay, and I needed to focus on that. We were living in what felt like a parallel universe, but we were living in the same city for the first time in six years.
“Then maybe she needs time to open up to you about what’s on her mind, too,” I offered. “Has she, um, talked about her time there?”
Sebastian finished the rest of his drink and stared into the empty glass. “Aside from asking me to help out the families of the two guards she witnessed Luca kill and to make sure no one else innocent had been imprisoned . . . no.”
“Any plans on how to help her heal? The League has to have a therapist, right? I know she can’t see an outsider, but after everything she’s been through, we’ve got to help her somehow.”
“There is someone, and Alessia doesn’t want help. Believe me, I’ve been trying. Holly has, too.”
“Well, we can’t give up.” I stood and started for the door.
“Of course not.”
&nb
sp; I paused in front of the door and hung my head. “Did Alessia know?”
A quietness moved through the room before Sebastian asked, “Know what?”
I glanced back. “That I spent years looking for her. That I scoured the globe trying to find her, and you did everything you could to make certain I never found her?”
He set his glass down and rose, hands dipping into his trouser pockets. “What answer would make you feel better?”
Neither. The truth would hurt either way. If Alessia had known, it was a knife to the heart. If Sebastian had lied to her about me looking for her, it was a dagger just the same.
“Send Holly in if you see her, please,” he said instead, and I nodded.
I opened the door, and my breath froze in my lungs at the sight of Alessia standing on the other side with her fist hanging in the air prepared to knock.
God, she was beautiful.
Wavy brownish-black hair that stopped shy of her breasts. Full lips painted in soft pink. High cheekbones. Golden skin from her Italian ancestry. An oval face. Straight nose, not broad or thin. Just perfect. Long lashes that, when lifted, revealed the most stunning dark brown, almond-shaped eyes.
Her eyes were the only part of her that’d really changed since I’d seen her in New York. It was as if she’d buried her soul from view, keeping her true self hidden.
Sebastian was right. She was putting on an act for us. She didn’t want to worry anyone, but she was hurting on the inside.
The desire to fight struck me so fast I nearly stumbled back a step. I wanted to take my anger out on that chop shop owner.
Alessia was my trigger. My overwhelming need to keep her safe, and the fear of something happening to her, set me off. I could easily become someone else, a man I didn’t have to try all that hard to be. Someone like The Deal Maker. I could already feel it happening. The claws of darkness sinking into me.
“Alessia,” I said, my voice hoarse and unrecognizable. I reached for her shoulder, but she flinched and stepped back.
Her recoil wasn’t rejection, and I wasn’t shallow enough to think everything was about me. She needed time, and I’d give her that time even if it pained me to be away from her for much longer.
She held my eyes for one long second, her lips parted. A flush of pink moved up her neck before she forced her attention on her brother. “Some prick at the bar is hitting on Holly, and I think Declan might swing at the guy before she does.”
I glanced back to see Sebastian already on his feet.
Declan was a new-hire, an eighteen-year-old kid that Sebastian had taken under his wing when the boy’s mother nearly overdosed last year. He’d probably seen some of himself in that kid.
“This shouldn’t be happening.” Sebastian’s eyes landed on mine, and I got the message. He brushed past me and left without another word.
I tracked Sebastian’s movements until the door to the club swung closed, and he was out of sight. Alessia remained standing in the hall, unmoving. Close enough I could smell her perfume. It wasn’t the flowery type she used to wear. A hint of dark notes, of coffee and a touch of vanilla. Leather, even. It shouldn’t have turned me on so much to breathe her in, but it did. I’d always been one second away from coming undone whenever I was near her, but . . . she hadn’t been ready for me then. Would she be ready for me now?
Her fingers feathered over her chest where the black silk of her blouse dipped low enough to offer a hint of cleavage. Her shirt was tucked into a pair of black wide-legged trousers with a red leather belt around her waist. Her red pumps brought her a touch closer to my height, but I still had to look down to find her eyes.
When she was eighteen, I’d finally allowed myself to notice and appreciate her body, to let my fantasies run free.
But by the time she turned twenty, I couldn’t bring myself to act upon my thoughts, too worried she wasn’t ready for me, and so, I lost her.
“I didn’t see you when I came in.” I shoved my hands into my pockets in an attempt to control my urge to reach out for her, to make sure she was truly standing before me.
“I went home, but I didn’t . . .”
Want to be alone?
“I decided to come back,” she sputtered as if nervous. Nervous to be around me?
“Your driver brought you, right?” Until the criminals in Dublin accepted me as The League leader, no one was safe, especially not Alessia.
“Of course.” She offered a fake smile, one she used to give me when we were younger and I’d done something to irritate her.
Did Sebastian tell her about the chop shop?
“Do you think maybe we could get dinner sometime?” Valentine’s Day was next Friday, and what would I give to spend it with her?
Her hands went to her arms as if chasing away a chill. “Maybe.”
Her “maybe” took me by surprise. It gave me hope.
But Chop Shop Guy began crowding my thoughts and had me remembering whom I needed to be to keep this amazing woman safe.
“I’m gonna head back out there.” She motioned toward the exit with her head.
“Yeah, okay.”
She gave me another fake smile, then turned back toward the club.
My eyes clung to her arse in those fitted trousers as she retreated, which was pretty much what she’d done.
She’d fled. Run from me. She hadn’t always run from me, and if I ever wanted Alessia to stop running, I’d need to do things differently.
But first I had to convince everyone to accept me as the bloody League leader of Ireland.
Chapter Three
Alessia
I needed tequila. Lots and lots of it. I wasn’t on as a manager tonight, and even though tequila packed a brutal next-day-punch, I didn’t give a shit.
I hurried behind the bar and searched for a bottle since Sebastian and Holly were now nowhere in sight, and neither was the guy who’d been harassing her.
“Hey, you okay?” The hand on my shoulder had me flinching and nearly dropping the bottle I’d procured from the shelf.
I turned to see Declan, worry evident in his light blue gaze despite the wisps of hair falling over one eye.
This eighteen-year-old had enough on his plate and didn’t need to worry about me. He had a young brother to care for and a mother just out of rehab. Besides, I could take care of myself. I’d survived hell, hadn’t I?
My stomach squeezed, and my skin grew cold and clammy as memories from my captivity surged to mind.
Cole was back in my life like I’d always wanted. But I could barely stay in the same room with him for more than five minutes. I was afraid he would discover I was wearing a mask, and then he’d try and remove it to see what was beneath.
So, yeah, tequila.
“I’m good. I just need a drink.” It would have felt better if my lies had first been drenched in alcohol.
“You sure?” Declan raised a brow before his attention shifted, and I turned to follow his gaze.
Cole. My Cole.
He’d always be the man I foolishly left behind and the man I still loved with all my heart, even though my heart was all kinds of messed up right now. Scattered in so many pieces that if it ever mended, it’d probably be Frankenstein-ish.
Cole’s eyes locked with mine as he advanced closer to the bar. Had he always been so sexy? So strong and confident? Powerful?
This man would not have treated me like a friend or made me wait.
This man would have taken me into his arms and made love to me back then. He would have pinned me to the wall and buried his face in the crook of my neck. Kissed every inch of my body.
This man was harder than the Cole I knew back in New York. Steely. Unrelenting. And Sebastian was making that happen, turning Cole into a man as fierce as him. A warrior who would put others above himself for the greater good.
But he was still Cole. Even with the new persona he was forced to wear, I knew his secret. I knew this man was still kind, sensitive, and compassionate beneath his cover. He wo
uld always do what was right, no matter how much it hurt him.
He wore a mask, the same as me. Only difference? He’d take his off for me. Could I do the same?
An unexpected flutter in my chest had me gripping the tequila bottle tighter, and I forced my attention away from him and back to Declan. “Where are Sebastian and Holly?”
“Sebastian escorted that bloke outside who’d been hitting on Holly, and they’re now upstairs in one of those soundproof rooms.” He pointed to the second level and grinned.
Sex? Yeah, my brother was probably banging his wife. And why wouldn’t he? He deserved to be happy and loved.
I kept my back to Cole and poured myself a shot. And then another.
Two more shots later, I faced the bar area again to see that Cole had moved to a booth off to the side of the dance floor. One of the servers, Mindy, stood next to his table, and I pounded back another shot when she set her hand on his shoulder in a flirtatious manner.
How many times had I witnessed women flirting with him back in New York, and I’d been powerless to do anything about it?
Of course, Cole was careful not to flirt when I was around, but there’d been times he hadn’t known I was there.
Barcelona. Watching Jasmine’s sister and Cole kiss. Of course, she’d kissed him, and he’d rejected her. But it’d still been brutal to see.
I shook away the weird sense of jealousy that still clung to me after all these years.
That youthful innocence of my childhood and teenage years was gone, buried beneath a sea of guilt and anger.
I shouldn’t have left you.
Mindy walked away from Cole’s table, and he caught me looking at him. My cheeks warmed. A product of the alcohol and his heated stare.
“You gettin’ hammered?” Declan asked as he made a customer’s lemon drop martini.
“Yes,” I said around a hiccup and downed another shot.
Go to him. Just do it, damn it. I collected two shot glasses, the bottle, and began making my way across the room. Nothing like tequila to light a fire under my ass.
The Inside Man: A Dublin Nights Novel Page 4