Page 26 of Twisted Secrets (The O’Malleys #3)

C illian slammed into wakefulness, Devlin’s name caught in his throat, his chest so tight it was a wonder he could draw a full breath, his entire body coated in sweat. He stared blindly at his ceiling for the space of a heartbeat, and then another, before his mind caught up with his instincts.

Home. In my bed. Safe.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to convince himself that it was okay. He’d gone to bed so damn happy last night, still riding high from how well the date with Olivia had gone, better than he could have dreamed. Stupid of him to think that would be enough to keep his nightmares at bay.

With a groan, he climbed out of bed and stripped the mattress of the sweat-covered sheets. No one said anything about the fact that he was changing his bedding several times a week, but he knew the staff noticed. And if they knew, it was highly likely that his parents and probably even Aiden knew.

He wasn’t sure if he appreciated their silence or resented it. No one talked about Devlin, and no one talked about the fact that everything was different now. It was a giant elephant in the room that only seemed to grow as time went on.

It took showering to finally shake the last of his nightmare and put him back on solid ground.

He scrubbed his body, letting his mind wander back to how things with Olivia had ended in the car.

It had been so fucking difficult not to bury himself between her legs, but she’d given him her trust—something he knew for a fact she didn’t do lightly—and he couldn’t betray that. He didn’t want to.

It didn’t matter. He had no intention of letting her walk out of his life and, as a result, there was plenty of time for them to work up to having sex again.

For now, he had the dazed look on her face after her second orgasm to keep his demons at bay.

He smiled and shut off the water. The things that woman did for him.

He walked back into his bedroom and froze when he realized he wasn’t alone. What the fuck? “You know, Aiden, sitting here silently in my room isn’t sexy. In fact, it’s downright creepy.”

“I need to talk to you. Since you apparently still don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself, I didn’t dare wake you from your beauty sleep.”

Not this again. Cillian walked into his closet and started pulling on clothes. “Last I checked, I haven’t dropped any balls in the last week, so what crawled up your ass and died?”

“Where were you yesterday?”

Yesterday ? He frowned. “I had a date.” After buttoning up his shirt, he moved back into his room to select a tie.

Aiden shook his head. “A date. So you missed out on the announcement that you’re about to become an uncle for a piece of ass.”

He held up his hand and gave his brother his full attention. “Hold on, what? Uncle?”

“Teague and Callie are expecting.” Aiden’s mouth twisted. “She’s due in March.”

The room took a slow turn while he processed that information. “Another generation of O’Malleys is starting.” He wasn’t sure why that was so weird to him, but it was.

“Sheridan-O’Malleys.”

“It might be the fact I was asleep like fifteen minutes ago, but you don’t sound too happy about this.”

Aiden sighed. “It’s a good thing. Or it would be if all signs weren’t pointing to us having an enemy—or multiple enemies—poking around Boston.

Callie’s going to be vulnerable, and Teague’s going to be focused on her instead of all the things that could go wrong.

It’ll be up to us to pick up the slack.”

“I don’t think Callie’s nearly as vulnerable as people might think.” She’d managed to step up and take over the Sheridan family without more than a few ripples.

Aiden pushed to his feet and started pacing. “You know what I mean. Things aren’t as stable as they should be. We still haven’t heard from Romanov after the Carrigan disaster, and there’s the three percent still missing.”

“I thought you were going to look into that.”

“I did. All the businesses claim that it was an accounting error made in innocence.” Aiden turned on his heel and started another circuit around the room. “They even used the same language.”

“You think they were coached.” It made sense.

If someone was crafty enough to slip in and steal from them, they had to be dangerous enough that the businesses affected wouldn’t think to cross them.

Considering how they felt about the O’Malleys, that made whoever it was a special kind of scary.

Seamus was downright ruthless when it came to getting full and timely payments.

It would start with a menacing visit, which was usually enough to bring people back in line—but if it wasn’t, things would escalate quickly.

Damage to the property. Damage to the property owner.

He hadn’t had to kill anyone since Cillian could remember, but when the O’Malleys first took over the territory, there had been more than a few people who tried to hold out.

If someone was managing to undermine them with that kind of fear present in their people, they were a threat—one that couldn’t be ignored.

Suddenly, he was right on the same page as Aiden.

They needed that information, and they needed it yesterday. “We need that name.”

“You think I don’t know that? I don’t have a lot of options available to me.” Aiden ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “Father wants to make an example of one of them.”

Cillian shuddered. He knew exactly what that entailed.

“Isn’t that a little extreme? We’ve worked fucking hard to get these businesses to the point where they’re cooperating with us instead of obeying out of sheer terror.

” They weren’t exactly on the same page as the Sheridans, but the O’Malleys were still worlds better than the Hallorans.

Or they had been before James took over.

He had a softer touch than his father, and from what Cillian could tell, his territory had been benefiting from it.

“That’s the point—they aren’t working with us if they’re slipping money away to someone else.” Aiden stopped short. “He says it’s a good time of year for a fire.”

And suddenly it all made sense. His brother had been stepping up more and more as time went on, taking over the day-to-day operations and phasing their father out.

But, as far as Cillian could tell, that had mostly been the legal business.

Now it looked like Father was handing over the other side of things.

He wasn’t sure whether to comfort his brother or tell him to man the fuck up.

They were O’Malleys. That meant that sometimes they had to get their hands dirty and do things that would have them waking up in the middle of the night, breathless and haunted, with demons still riding them.

Then again, easy enough for him to say when he wasn’t the one required to set fire to someone’s property. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s the price of doing business. That poor schmuck who’s going to lose his shop knows that as well as I do.” His face went stony. “He better give me the fucking information after that.”

Or he’d have to work the guy over…and maybe worse. There’s nothing to help in this situation. You just power through it and try to make it out the other side without too much damage . “What can I do?”

Aiden turned to look out his window to the street below. “If I bring you their information and books, can you find the money trail?”

He was nowhere near the computer whiz that Devlin had been, but he wasn’t a total disgrace. And he was learning fast. “Unless they’re some sort of tech genius, I should be able to.”

“Good.” Aiden moved toward the door. “Keep your phone on you. I’m going to need you here as soon as I have it.”

“I will.” He watched his oldest brother leave, closing the door softly behind him, and couldn’t shake the feeling that he was seeing what remained of Aiden’s moral code ground to dust. It had been a long time in coming, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.

Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d do it, even if there was.

The sad truth was that a certain level of ruthlessness and willingness to get their hands dirty was required of any leader who wanted to stay a leader.

Cillian had never been so glad that he wasn’t the heir—or even next in line to the heir.

Guilt rose. He shouldn’t be happy one of his siblings was shouldering the burden so he didn’t have to.

He’d never avoided his duty to the O’Malleys, but then, he’d never been asked to do the things that were going to be a common thing for his brother as the one in charge.

He fucking hoped that Aiden had it in him to do what was necessary.

If he didn’t, then they were all in serious trouble.

***

Olivia managed to sneak two hours of sleep after her shift before Hadley woke up.

Then it was time to throw together some food for both of them and figure out what they were doing with their day.

She pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “What do you think, baby girl? Pancakes?” She usually saved them for a special occasion, but after last night, today was feeling pretty damn special.

Things had been so unbelievably good with Cillian, and then she’d gone to work and had one of the best shifts since she started at Jameson’s.

There were two bachelor parties getting started there, and they’d tipped her well—all while ribbing the grooms they were with.

She smiled to remember the way the one groom-to-be had blushed.

Whoever he was marrying was a lucky woman. That guy was a serious winner.

Hadley hustled into the kitchen. “Cakes?”

“Yep. We’re doing pancakes. Maybe I’ll even try my hand at Minnie Mouse.” She swept her daughter up and propped her on her hip. “Want to help Mommy?”

“Help!”