“Giving out visas and jobs is hardly the same as asking Dublin for guns, money, and soldiers,” Cian corrected. “We need a smarter way to beat them.”
“We need to do to them what the Russians have been doing to the US for the last two years,” Finn said. “We need a cyberwar.”
Liam watched Cian’s face as he considered Finn’s suggestion. “Explain what that would look like,” Cian demanded, finally taking a seat on the edge of a big leather armchair.
“We’re in a unique position right now. The perfect position to deal with the Russians. Like I said the other day, we have access to Lila and to everything at Rogue. We can attack them in entirely different ways than with guns and men.”
It was as though Liam could see the invisible ideas bouncing through the air between his brothers. Sometimes he hated that he wasn’t always as clear on what was coming as they seemed to be.
“Target their bank accounts?” Cian asked.
“For starters. Hack their phones, disrupt their internet, hide their money, screw with the electricity at their brothel. Basically be the housefly they can’t get rid of.”
“And eventually, you think they’ll come to us asking to negotiate a peace?”
Finn shrugged. “I think it’ll get some sort of reaction from them that’ll tell you what to do next.”
“And if the reaction is that they come into one of our clubs or warehouses firing AKs?” Liam asked. Because it was what he would do if he were the Russians and a housefly like the Dublin Devils was interfering with business.
“They won’t react that way,” Finn said confidently. “More likely they’ll go after our financials and records as well. But they don’t have Lila. She’s an international rock star in the hacking world. It’ll be a hell of a lot harder to get to us that way than they’d ever guess.”
Cian stood. “I’m not agreeing to anything yet, but I’ll talk to Lila about it. But in the meantime, no more visits to the brothel.” He pinned Liam with a glare.
Liam put his hands up, palms out. But he didn’t promise anything. Somewhere deep inside, he knew he might not keep the promise if it were made.
Because somewhere deep inside, Liam knew he’d have to go back for the girl Katya…and her friend.
In the quiet of the night, Lila sat in her small living room, three computer screens surrounding her as she tapped rapidly at a keyboard. She muttered to herself, reading bits and pieces of information that flew across the screens. On one, she had a list of Rogue personnel—the wizards who created the dark website, and the technicians who used it—on the third, she had the history of Xavier Rossi’s communications with the Russians, and on the middle display, she had one of seven bank accounts belonging to Robbie MacFarlane and housed in the Cayman Islands.
She tapped out a group communication to the Rogue staff, telling them to switch out all security codes at precisely five a.m. Central US time the next day. She debated for a moment, then signed it with her own name. She’d begun running Rogue after Xavier’s untimely death, and those first few weeks, she’d impersonated him, but slowly, one by one, those staff who seemed determined to speak directly to Xavier had either quit or been fired when they pressed too hard on the issue. Almost all of those who remained seemed not to care whether their orders came from Xavier or Lila or a piece of cheddar cheese, as long as the instructions were clear and the paycheck arrived on time.
After she sent the message to her staff—she still got a little giddy rush every time she thought of them that way, her staff—she bounced back over to the Cayman bank accounts. There was one in particular that caught her attention because it had never had a withdrawal, but deposits came regularly. She began the tedious process of cracking the encryption for the account, stopping only to take sips of the green tea she kept on hand when she worked late. And since taking over Rogue, Lila worked late nearly every night.
Forty minutes later, she finally got into the account. She began to scroll through the history, seeing nothing but a long string of deposits which she discovered had been regular and ongoing for more than two decades. Every five years or so, the amount would jump incrementally higher, but the deposits never ceased, not once in all those years, and the amount was now up to one hundred thousand dollars each time. The source, she saw as she looked more carefully, was the Bank of Ireland.
She examined the account number the deposit originated from. If Irish accounts followed the pattern of other European banks, it was a business account, not a personal one. She sighed, fatigue finally catching up to her. Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow, she’d dig into the Irish account. But for now, she’d be glad there was nothing new on the last screen, the one that showed Xavier’s communications with the Russians. Since she’d relayed the information about Cian being alone at the gym, she hadn’t heard a peep. And maybe she never would again.
“Wishful thinking, Lila,” she muttered, as she stretched and thought about how good the idea of going to bed sounded. The Russians would be back, but for tonight, she’d be grateful they were quiet. She pushed back her rolling chair, preparing to get on that great idea of sleeping in her comfortable bed, but then a chime sounded from screen number one. Her gaze shifted to the left.
Server C, the message read, Code Yellow. Lila took a deep breath, banishing thoughts of thousand-thread-count sheets and pillow-top mattresses. She clicked on the message and began to respond. Sleep wasn’t coming anytime soon. Lila was too important in too many ways for that sweet relief.
“Your brother’s been gone for weeks,” Don said as he leaned against the trunk of a dark late-model sedan provided by his employer.
“So he has,” Cian answered, hands on his hips as he stared at the lights of the adjacent airstrip. Cian’s heart soared almost as high as the private jet taking off when he thought about Connor in the new life they’d obtained for him.
“And so we need to move this along,” Don snapped. “I’m not getting any younger here, and I’ve played fair with you, Cian. I want the final piece, the piece that will not only put your father and brothers behind bars but also end the Devils for good.”
Cian’s blood turned cold. It didn’t matter how many times they said it, when the words “brothers” and “prison” were spoken in the same sentence, it always stole a piece of his soul.
“How about something even more fun?” he asked, propping his foot on the bumper of Don’s ugly-ass car and reaching for his untied bootlace. No matter what was going on inside, he’d die before he let Don see it. His movements were spare, casual, relaxed.
Finn’s original idea for handling the Russian problem had been a good one, but he didn’t know that Cian was already informing as the feds dug for information to shut down his family’s organization. And while Cian didn’t give a damn if the business went under, he cared immensely if his brothers ended up dead or in prison.
“Don’t do this,” Don warned. “We had a deal, and if you don’t honor it I’ll just take you in right now. I have plenty to put you away for a few years, and with you gone, management of the family will go to Liam. We both know he’s not smart enough to stay alive.”
Cian finished retying his bootlace, then propped an elbow on his bent knee. What he really wanted to do was send his fist into Don’s pasty face for disparaging Liam’s competence yet again. Liam wasn’t like Cian and Finn. He wasn’t even like Connor. He approached things differently, but the idea that Liam wasn’t a survivor was very wrong and very shortsighted.
“You could,” he answered. “You’re forgetting Liam would still have Finn as backup, but be that as it may, you’d be missing out on something bigger than my family’s business. Big Apple big. You’ll be a superstar with what I have to tell you.”
Don tried to look bored, but Cian could sense the man’s hunger for a score. Something big enough to get him the dreamed-of promotion he was angling after.
Don shrugged in nonchalant agreement.
“Bratva,” Cian said, letting the word hang in the night ai
r around them as another plane taxied down the adjacent runway, its engines roaring, the smell of jet fuel permeating the air around them.
“Continue, but this doesn’t mean you won’t still owe me the info on your family.”
Cian ignored the warning.
“They’ve decided they want to take over Chicago, and they’ve set up a slave shop.”
“Fuck.” Don’s jaw tensed.
“Yeah,” Cian concurred. “From what we know, they’re bringing in girls from Russia, warehousing them at a place over on East Twenty-Third.”
“Goddamn Russians. They keep getting guys inside ICE. I’ve heard of at least four other times in the last six months, they’ve slipped women into the country illegally in Denver and New York.”
“But now you know exactly where they are. Do what you do and bust ’em, Officer.” Cian grinned obnoxiously at the fed.
Don’s lip curled before his phone chimed, and he pulled it from his pocket, looking at it quickly.
“I have to go. This conversation isn’t over,” he warned, pointing a finger at Cian.
Cian knew it wasn’t, but he was damn happy to be done with it for now.
“I’ll be in touch, and I’ll want all the information you have on them,” Don said, striding to the driver’s side of the car.
Yeah, Cian thought, the Russians ought to keep Don and company busy and out of the way for a while. Even Cian knew he was running out of things to distract the FBI with, though, and that meant his brothers were in greater danger every day.
He still had his biggest ace in the hole—Rogue. The dark website’s business would be solid gold to the feds. The only problem? Lila was the de facto head of Rogue. While he’d thought to sacrifice her and Rogue to save his brothers, each day that went by made that outcome harder and harder to imagine. Could he betray the woman he was beginning to fall for in order to save his family? Cian was afraid he didn’t know the answer anymore.
The next night, the front door to his penthouse opened, and Danny said, “Lila’s here, Mr. Mac.”
Cian walked out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “Thanks.”
Danny nodded and left. Cian looked at Lila. She was dressed in her usual skinny jeans—faded and threadbare this time—paired with a black V-neck T-shirt, but she’d added a pair of dangling silver earrings, and it looked like she’d had the deep purple and blue streaks in her black hair redone. There were only a few of them, alongside one cheek, but once you’d seen them, it was as if she had a secret only you were privy to. His mind flashed to the way those stripes had looked splayed across the white pillow in his bed.
He grinned like an idiot and reached out to take her messenger bag. “Hi. Why don’t I put this away?” He opened the foyer closet and set the bag inside.
“Come help?” he asked, holding a hand out toward the kitchen. She gave him a tight smile and followed.
Once in the kitchen, he pointed to some vegetables he’d been chopping. “You think you can handle those?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not completely incompetent in the kitchen,” she retorted.
He stirred the pasta sauce he’d put together when he’d gotten home forty-five minutes earlier and put the pasta into boiling water.
“How’s your mom?” he asked, looking at Lila over his shoulder. She was a quiet person, but he could tell this wasn’t her normal quiet.
“She’s better. Was awake a lot today and wants to go home.”
“That must be a good sign, right?” He turned, leaning back against the countertop.
Lila continued chopping the carrots on the cutting board.
“Yeah. The doctors say it’s going as it should.”
His jaw tightened in frustration. “Lila?”
“Hmm?” She kept chopping.
“Can you put the knife down for a minute?”
She did as he asked but didn’t lift her gaze.
“Are we going to talk about it?” He made his voice as gentle as he could with the need and the questions that were racing through him.
“You said it yourself,” she answered. “Neither of us planned on me being here at this point. I am for now, but it doesn’t really change anything.”
He rubbed a hand through his hair, his heart pounding a fierce rhythm as he watched her. “I wish it changed things, though.”
“How would you change things?” she asked, finally looking at him. Her eyes were filled with pain, and it was all he could do to keep from dragging her to his bed just to erase that look.
He stepped closer, laying a hand on her hip and hoping she didn’t decide to make him move it. “I’d want to fall asleep beside you at night. I’d want to wake inside you in the morning.” She made a small gasping sound as he skimmed his hand up the curve of her waist, then onto her arm, her shoulder, finally cupping her jaw.
“I want you,” he whispered, leaning in to brush his lips against her cheek. Her breath shook as she exhaled, frozen under his touch. “I know I shouldn’t. It’s selfish and dangerous, but dammit, Lila, I can’t stop.”
He felt the moment when she melted beneath him. Her curves arched toward him, her head tipped up, her gaze found his, and then her lips.
“It can’t last,” she told him as she reached for the hem of his T-shirt.
“I know.” His heart raced in anticipation of her touch.
“One of us could end up dead. One of us probably will end up in prison.”
He knew that too. Planned on it, in fact. Cian had given up on his own future long ago. He wanted Lila to have one, but as long as she insisted on staying to care for her mother, his hands were tied. As soon as she was ready, he had a beautiful beachside condo waiting for her on an island that didn’t honor extradition and would be happy to have her and the ten-million-dollar bank account he’d put in her name. Assuming he wasn’t forced to hand Rogue to the feds in the meantime, of course.
Then her fingertips skated across his abs, and he lost the ability to consider a future or a past or much of anything beyond the feel of her skin on his, the rasp of her breath, the heat of her most sensitive parts under his.
As he hoisted her onto the kitchen counter and devoured her mouth, he murmured things to her in Gaelic. How beautiful she was, how much he needed her, that she was the most valuable thing in his world.
“What does all that mean?” she asked, voice hoarse with need.
“That I’m falling for you Lila from Rogue.” He pulled her T-shirt over her head, careful not to catch her dangling earrings.
She stopped him after he removed it, gazing at him with her dark eyes so serious.
“Don’t promise me anything.” She traced his lips with one finger. “Don’t tell me we can be together, or that we’re going to survive this. My whole life, my father broke promises to me, I’d rather not hear anything than broken promises.”
He swallowed and caressed her cheek. “Okay,” he whispered. “No promises. Just today. One kiss.” He kissed her softly. “One touch.” He cupped her breast, feeling her nipple harden beneath his palm. “One moment.”
Their tongues and breath and skin tangled and strained and mixed, like a wild, totally unique dance. Denim hissed as it slid to the floor, lace and cotton whispered against the marble counters. Then he was inside her, and his world burst with a flare of light so bright, he was afraid he’d be blinded—blinded to what his brothers needed, blinded to his plans and schemes, blinded to everything but Lila. Her taste, her touch, her scent. He drove into her as she clutched him like a life raft, and the light exploded into colors, music, a universe of possibilities.
“I love you,” he gasped as everything inside him tightened and she squeezed him to within an inch of his life.
“I know,” she replied, desperation in each word. “I know.”
Then they were both lost, and Cian made sure that even if it was only for one moment, they forgot all the bad in the world—his and hers.
Lila woke to the sound of men’s voices in the living room.
She blinked her eyes in the muted sunlight that suffused Cian’s bedroom. Damn. She’d given in. Folded like a bad hand in one of her father’s poker games.
She sighed, rolling to one side as she listened to the muted voices of Cian and one of his guys. With the Russians setting up shop, there was no telling what crisis they might be trying to avert now. They’d never gotten around to talking about the Russians last night, but Lila knew it was coming. The world still didn’t know Xavier was gone and she was operating in his place. That meant the Russians didn’t know it either, and they’d be making contact eventually. Cian was going to need her for whatever he decided to do about them. She just wasn’t sure what that was going to look like yet.
She climbed out of bed, tugging down the tank top she’d slept in, and put on a pair of Cian’s sweats that were draped over an armchair. They were so long and baggy, she had to roll the waistband several times to keep them up. But they were fuzzy and warm, and they made her feel almost like she was still in his embrace. After grabbing her laptop off the dresser, she hopped back on the bed and opened it up, bringing up a file of videos and clicking on the most recent one, taken nearly twenty-four hours ago.
The footage showed a man—Danny—entering Robbie MacFarlane’s house, then exiting fifteen minutes later. Lila looked at the time stamp. There wasn’t any rational reason Danny visiting the MacFarlane patriarch at seven thirty-two on a Tuesday morning should set off warning chimes for her, but it did. And really, since when had she ever been rational when it came to the MacFarlanes?
It had been laughably easy hacking into the security system at Robbie MacFarlane’s large compound. For the most part, there was little to see. The neighborhood women coming to organize church sales with Cian’s mother, the guards who were assigned to Robbie changing shifts, the three MacFarlane sons who remained in Chicago coming for weekly dinners with their parents.
Brush of Despair (Dublin Devils Book 2) Page 5