Page 8 of Twisted Secrets (The O’Malleys #3)

Now she turned in her seat to face him. “What’s going on?” He wasn’t there just so he could see her—he could come home any day of the week for that. That meant he had something he wanted to talk to her about that he couldn’t do in the O’Malley home.

“Relax.” He draped his arms over the back of the pew, looking for all the world like he was just in there for a friendly chat.

So why was her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest? She’d never feared her brothers before—though Aiden made her a little nervous these days—but the tang of bitterness on the back of her tongue was hard to ignore. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” He drummed his fingers on the dark wood. “Have you given any thoughts to your future?”

She simultaneously wanted to laugh and cry. “What future? You know better than anyone that I don’t have a choice. Father hasn’t moved on any marriage prospects, but no doubt he has a little niche he’d like to shove me into when it suits his purposes.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it, does it? There are no other options.”

He was silent for a long time, silent and still. Finally he said, “What if there were other options?”

Fear unlike anything she’d ever known rose up and clawed at her throat.

It was so easy for him to offer her options , and to talk about defying their father when he’d danced to Seamus O’Malley’s tune.

Despite his big talk while they were growing up, when push came to shove, he jumped when their father said jump.

He hadn’t taken any risks. He had done exactly as their father wanted and married Callie Sheridan.

And now he was asking her to…what? She shoved to her feet. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it. I’m not going to stick my neck out to make his guilt at leaving me behind more bearable .

But what if she did?

The thought brought her up short. She’d spent her entire life being tossed from one wave to the next, with about as much control as a rowboat in a hurricane.

All she had to do was look around to see her siblings taking control of their futures in whatever way they could.

Even if it was destructive, they were doing something, which was more than she could say for herself.

Sloan made herself sit back down and turn to face him, even though every muscle shook with the effort to keep still. “What other options?”

“What if…” He hesitated, searching her face. “What if I could get you out— really get you out? You could have that little house in a small town like you’ve always dreamed of. You could leave the politics and danger and Boston behind.”

It was almost too much to comprehend. She swallowed hard, a different kind of fear rising inside her.

She might hate so much about her life now, but she knew the ins and outs and the risks down to the tiniest detail.

To leave that all behind meant opening herself up to the greater unknown, which was scarier than she could have dreamed.

If I stay here, it’s only a matter of time before our father recovers from how things played out with Carrigan and tries to push me into an advantageous marriage.

When he did, she’d say yes. She always said yes.

It would be the beginning of the end for her.

She wasn’t naive enough to believe otherwise.

So she took a deep breath and forced herself to nod. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Teague looked like he was almost afraid to hope that he’d heard her right.

She nodded again, her voice so low it was barely a whisper. “Yes. Get me out.”

***

“That everything?” Olivia finished balancing out the till and stuck the extra money into the appropriate zippered bag.

It had been a good night. The businessmen bought enough alcohol to rival any frat boys, and they’d tipped well beyond that.

She peeked out the back office to find Benji wiping down the last of the tables.

Technically he should be the one closing the till, but he said he’d rather do just about any other job in the pub.

Since she didn’t mind the tedium in the least, she’d pretty much been doing this particular job since she started here.

The problem was that tonight the tedium had been her enemy. It gave her entirely too much time to think, which was the last thing she needed right now.

Benji stood up and wiped his brow. “Yeah, I got the rest of this covered. Your tips are on the bar.”

“Thanks.” She shouldered her purse and skirted around the boxes that would need to be taken out back. A quick count of the cash had her frowning. “Benji—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” He glared, though it was about as menacing as a teddy bear.

She’d seen him muscle grown-ass men out of the pub more than once over the last six months without breaking a sweat, but his moods didn’t faze her.

She knew all about being pissy to force people to keep their distance, and normally she respected his space when he turned that expression on her.

But the last few days had pushed her tolerance almost to the breaking level.

“Benji, this is nearly double what I actually earned tonight. Those guys tipped well, but not this well.” She made her hands unclench from around the cash and set it back onto the bar.

“I’m not looking for charity.” Someday she might have to get the hell out of town without a word to anyone, and she’d hate feeling like she left the scales unbalanced behind her.

Benji was too nice for her to take advantage of.

“Listen here, Olivia, because I’m only going to say this once. Are you listening?”

She sighed. “Yeah.”

“You bust your ass. You’re the hardest worker in this place, including myself.

Now, I’m a firm believer that a good work ethic should be rewarded, and that’s what I’m doing as your boss.

It’s not a handout, and don’t you dare insult me by saying it is.

I reward hard work in the way I see fit, and this is how I see fit. Got it?”

She swallowed past her suddenly dry throat—and the powerful urge to hug the big man. “I got it.”

“Good. I don’t want to hear any of this nonsense again.” He started to turn away. “Do you need a ride?”

“No, I got it.” There was another half hour before she had to be down at Charles Station to catch the last red line home. She managed a smile. “Thanks, though. For everything.”

“Don’t go getting all mushy on me.” He jerked his chin at the boxes. “Take those out back before you lock up.”

This was more like the Benji she was used to.

She’d never have thought it when she walked in here, determined to argue her way into a job, and saw the hulking owner behind the bar nearly making some poor guy piss his pants in fear, but she really liked working here with him.

She grabbed the boxes and headed out back.

Attachments are dangerous, and you damn well know it .

Yeah, she did. Any relationship she formed was one that could be used against her if Dmitri ever decided to come calling.

Which is exactly what he’s apparently decided to do .

It was enough to make her want to pack Hadley and their few important items and catch the first train out of town.

I can’t live my life in fear . Though some days, it seemed the smartest thing to do.

If she kept moving, maybe she could outrun the shadow of his influence.

The only thing that stopped her was the fact that it was no kind of life for Hadley.

Her daughter was barely fourteen months old, and Olivia could see the strain their abrupt move from NYC had caused her, even though she’d been eight months old at the time.

She wouldn’t do that any more than necessary.

The money…

He should be goddamn pleased that she didn’t want it.

She grabbed a box cutter and started collapsing the boxes, putting a little more violence into it than strictly necessary.

Dmitri didn’t want her to have the money his father had put aside for her any more than she wanted to have it.

But if he didn’t get her to take it and return to the Romanov fold, he’d be going against Andrei’s dying wishes.

As Andrei had been so fond of saying when he was alive, a man didn’t get by in their kind of life without having his own code of honor.

While that didn’t require him to be faithful to his wife or keep him from murdering the opposition or delving into the kind of illegal things that kept Olivia up at night, it did mean that his word was something he’ d never break.

And that code was one Dmitri had inherited from their father.

So far Dmitri hadn’t moved to force the issue, but if Sergei showing up last night was any indication, it was only a matter of time before he truly insisted she return to the family.

The boxes thoroughly demolished, she stuck the box cutter into her back pocket and gathered up the cardboard.

It would take all of fifteen minutes to get rid of these and finish closing up, and then she’d be headed home to cuddle her daughter.

Shutting a door between themselves and the rest of the world sounded like heaven right now.

But when she took the boxes into the back alley, she froze.

There were three men in the alley. Couldn’t they find another damn place to do a drug deal?

She started to back into the pub, but raised voices caught her attention.

Two of them backed the third into the brick wall, their stance aggressive and reeking of promised pain.

Go back inside, Olivia. This isn’t your fight. Just call 911 and lock the damn door .

One of the men punched the third, sending him spinning to the ground.

She gripped the doorframe, torn between the need to run and the need to intervene.

The second man stepped forward, his intention to kick the guy while he was down in every line of his body.

Damn it . A boot could do fatal damage to the soft parts of a stomach. “Stop!”

“Stay out of this, bitch.”

I wish I could . But she was already moving, ducking back through the door to grab the shotgun Benji kept hidden in the gap between counters.

The first night she’d closed alone, he’d shown it to her and walked her through using it until he was satisfied she wouldn’t shoot her foot off trying to defend herself.

She could have told him that she was no stranger to using guns, but it was just easier to go along with it.

Olivia walked through the door, cracked the barrel to make sure it was loaded, and snapped it shut in a sound that only a fool wouldn’t recognize. She lifted it, bracing the stock against her shoulder so it wouldn’t knock her on her ass if she had to pull the trigger. “I said stop.”

The two standing men exchanged a look, clearly weighing their options.

She waited, though the shotgun was already getting heavy, the stock slick in her clammy hands.

Are they O’Malley men collecting payment?

A part of her didn’t want to believe it.

The rest of her knew exactly how families like that—like the Romanovs—functioned.

She widened her stance, ready to do whatever it took to get them away from the guy on the ground.

“I already called 911. They should be here any second.”

The man on the left cursed long and hard and turned to the one on the ground. “Don’t think that we’ll forget Ricky, you piece of shit.” Then he grabbed the other guy’s arm and hauled him away.

Olivia waited for them to turn the corner…and then waited another twenty seconds to make sure they weren’t going to change their minds. Only when the coast was a hundred percent clear did she rush to the fallen man’s side. “Are you okay?”

“Aw, sweetheart, I didn’t know you cared.”

Cillian .