Page 35 of Twisted Secrets (The O’Malleys #3)

T he house was seriously surreal. It had all the modern amenities—especially in the kitchen—but the wooden floors and railing leading downstairs looked downright ancient.

Olivia fully intended to explore tomorrow when things were a little more settled, because unless she missed her guess, this place had at least ten bedrooms and another half a dozen rooms. It looked like something out of a time warp.

She found Cillian sitting on a screened-in porch, his feet propped up.

Her conviction from earlier that he was at home here was only cemented at the sight of him in a T-shirt and jeans.

It was like he’d removed a few pieces of key armor and let her in, just a little.

The way his face changed when she walked into the room made her heart skip a beat.

He smiled, a wry grin that told her he knew how strange this situation was but he didn’t really care because he was here with her.

Or maybe she was just projecting.

Olivia moved through the doorway. No, she wasn’t projecting. She had to stop doubting her instincts, especially when every part of her was clamoring that Cillian was here for her and her alone. His family couldn’t be happy about this, but he’d shown up anyway.

For her .

He stood. “Hey.”

“Hey.” God, he looked good. Before, she’d wanted nothing more than for him to pin her against the nearest available surface—and, to be fair, she still wanted that—but there was a new layer there.

Now she wanted to just walk into his arms and have him hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

If he did, she might actually believe him.

You’re staring at him.

He didn’t seem to mind, though. He turned his attention to Hadley and smiled. “Hey there, cutie.”

Hadley gripped Olivia’s tank top, but she peered out at him while ducking her head. Cillian didn’t seem bothered by it. He reclaimed the seat he’d been in and picked up a plate from the table next to it. “If your mama says it’s okay, I have a chocolate chip cookie with your name on it.”

Instantly, all shyness disappeared. She shot a pleading look at Olivia, who laughed. “Yes, but remember your manners.”

She set Hadley on the tile floor and watched as she toddled over to him. He solemnly offered her daughter a cookie and it was taken just as solemnly. Then she rushed back to hide behind Olivia’s legs. She laughed. “Sorry, she can’t quite say ‘thank you’ yet.”

“It’s good.” With one last grin at Hadley, he sat back. “I have a cookie with your name on it, too.”

“I just bet you do.” She took the seat next to him. This room was really nice. Better than nice. She’d lived in a city for her entire life, and the sheer amount of unrelenting darkness outside the screen should have been completely overwhelming. But it was so…full of life .

There was a pair of some kind of bird singing back and forth not too far away, and a buzz of some kind of insect in the background.

It was peaceful. She checked to make sure Hadley wasn’t getting into anything, but her daughter seemed content to peer out the screen at the country beyond, munching on the remains of her cookie.

She’d been on her best behavior today, but it wouldn’t last. Olivia just needed to keep an eye on her so when the indications of a full-on meltdown showed up, she could take Hadley upstairs.

Cillian was being a borderline saint, but that didn’t mean she’d be awful enough to subject him to her daughter’s tantrums. If they were any indication of what kind of emotional roller coaster that the teen years were going to be, she was in for a world of trouble.

“What’s got that look on your face?”

She twined a lock of her hair around a finger. “Just thinking that Hadley’s going to drive me to drink when she hits thirteen.”

“That little angel? No way.” He held up the plate again. “Now eat your cookie.”

“Yes way.” She laughed and accepted the cookie. “Trust me, she might be all sugar and sweetness right now, but she’s capable of shattering glass with her shrieks when she doesn’t get her way.”

“My baby sister used to do that.” He stretched in his seat, drawing her eye to the long line of his body.

There was so much strength there—strength to lift her against an alley wall and drive her out of her mind, strength to keep going after he’d seen unfathomable loss, strength to stand between her and Dmitri and all of his men.

She got the feeling from some of his throwaway comments that he didn’t see it, but it’d never been more clear to her than it was right now.

Cillian was a good man. The best kind of man.

He kept going. “Truth be told, I’m surprised she got through her teen years without my mom sending her off to a convent. I think the subject was actually on the table for a while.”

The obvious love he held for his little sister made her smile even as her heart ached a little. “Your family is very Catholic, aren’t they?”

“The most Catholic. My oldest sister actually put off the whole marriage conversation for years because she pretended that she was seriously considering becoming a nun. I think my father was so supportive because he figured that a nun in the family might somehow balance out our karma.”

Unless she’d gotten her facts confused about his siblings, that would be the sister who was supposed to marry Dmitri. “I didn’t think Catholics believed in karma.”

“Karma. The Golden Rule. Tomato-tomahto.” He shrugged.

“But, yeah, Keira was a holy terror. Hell, she still is.” Something crossed his face that she had no name for.

“She used to want to go to art school. She’s an amazing painter, though I’ve seen her do things with crayons that would blow you away.

It seems like anything she gets her hands on, she turns into these stunning pieces that don’t look like anything, but somehow you can stare at one and it dawns on you that you’re seeing joy, or happiness, or some other emotion. ”

He couldn’t have sounded prouder, but she frowned. “Used to?”

“She was supposed to start school last fall, but she dropped out of all her classes.”

“You’re worried about her.” It shouldn’t be such a novel thing—he was her brother, so of course he was worried about her—but it kind of blew Olivia’s mind.

Dmitri didn’t care about her mental health as long as she was doing what he wanted.

What would it have been like if he was a brother more like Cillian?

I never would have left New York. It would be me and him against the world.

But that wasn’t her reality.

Cillian shrugged. “I’m hoping it’s a phase she’s going through. Keira’s always been one to take her own path—and tell anyone who doesn’t like it where they can stick it.”

There was something he wasn’t saying. “But?”

“But after our brother died…” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “It changed all of us.”

She couldn’t begin to imagine. She reached over and touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He put his hand over hers, his gaze a million miles away. “No, actually it’s not. He was a good kid. My brother Teague used to say Devlin was the best of us all, and he wasn’t wrong. He was brilliant and sweet without being a pushover, and he had the world at his feet.”

She squeezed his arm. “We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”

“It’s just…this life has costs. Growing up, I knew that—we all knew that.

Some of my siblings fought against it, but I always found it kind of comforting to know exactly what my future held.

I was a cocky little shit, to be honest. And then one night it all went sideways.

Everything changed and nothing at all changed, and sometimes wrapping my mind around that is damn near impossible. ”

He looked at her, his dark eyes stark. “The world should change if someone like my brother dies. It should mourn and cry, and the face of it should be altered. Except none of that happened. It kept on spinning and we were expected to do the same. So we’re all in our private little hells and no one talks to anyone else and it’s just this giant clusterfuck that I’m sure a shrink would have a heyday with. ”

There was nothing she could say to heal the pain lurking inside him.

Hell, even if there was some easy fix, he was right—it took away from his brother’s death to just slap a Band-Aid on it and keep moving like nothing had happened.

Even Andrei’s death had affected her, so she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go through the death of someone she actually loved.

Hadley chose that moment to plop down and start wailing, preventing her from having the chance to figure out what the right thing to say was. Olivia checked the clock on the wall behind her—sure enough, bedtime was fast approaching. “Duty calls. Give me a few?”

“Of course. Take as long as you need.”

***

Cillian could really use a cigarette. Or a beer.

Or both. It didn’t matter that he’d quit smoking right around the time he’d quit drinking.

Night finished falling as he waited for Olivia, but the peace he’d glimpsed when he’d first stepped out of the car was nowhere to be found.

Too many things circled around in his head.

He had to tell his family where he was. And he had to tell them about Olivia and her connection to Romanov.

It was a risk, and they needed to be aware of it.

But first he’d get her permission.

She’d been pushed and pulled even more growing up than he had.

He wasn’t going to be yet another person who tried to make decisions about her life without talking to her.

And if she says no? Well, then, he’d deal with that problem when he came to it.

He didn’t want to have to choose between her and his family, because he wasn’t sure what choice he’d make.

Either way it’d be the wrong one.

His phone chirped and he sighed. Aiden. It had only taken him a few hours to figure out Cillian was gone. “Hey.”