Ten
Savannah
Five years earlier
Every day,I followed the same routine.
I got up at six, did yoga, showered and changed, headed downstairs for poached egg on toast and a chai latte, watched the world go by at the corner table which overlooked a corner of the street and then a good chunk of a pathway into Central Park, then got on with my work for a few hours.
In between jobs thanks to the last position I’d had at theRecordfalling through when I’d called my boss out for being a misogynistic jerk who spent more time trying to look down my blouse than read my editorials, I was dedicating my newly freed up schedule to my passion project—New York City’s crime families.
I wasn’t an idiot. I’d expected that my rummaging around the ancient history of NYC’s various groups of mobsters would ruffle some feathers.
I just never expected when I went down for my breakfast that particular morning that Aidan O’Donnelly Jr. would be sitting there, at my table, evidently waiting on me.
I wasn’t even looking at anything that recent. When I said ancient history, I meant it. I was looking back in the late eighties, early nineties. Stuff that should no longer be of interest to the O’Donnellys, yet the heir’s presence here told me otherwise. It informed me that where I’d been digging, I’d touched a nerve.
The thought thrilled me.
"Good morning, Ms. Daniels."
Christ, what a voice.
Deep. The smallest hint of a growl.
I arched a brow at him as I approached the table. "You’re in my seat."
"I think we both know I wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t gone hunting in all the wrong places."
Hunting.
That was the word for it.
I knew his presence was a warning, and I knew I should be scared, but this kind of thing was in my blood. I loved the chase. Loved thehuntfor a story, and when my instincts were triggered, I was worse than Dracula scouting for blood after a week-long fast.
I sank into the chair opposite the man I knew the family called ‘Junior.’
He wasn’t just a junior because he shared the same name as his psychotic father. In looks? They were like mirror images.
Rumor had it that before he’d wed Magdalena O’Shea, Aidan had been one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Back then, there’d been no hiding from his mobster ties, and still the women hadallegedlyflocked to him.
His sons and their links to the mob were a little different. A little more evolved.
I knew they were as dirty as their daddy, but that didn’t mean shit without proof. They hid behind dummy corps and all kinds of legitimate fronts that prevented people as good as me from finding them.
Damn their hides.
I knew I could play this one of two ways.
Be truthful. Show him I was no fool. Get nowhere fast because he’d stonewall me.
Or…
Play the fool, and lie, and maybe get a chance to dig deeper into his family history.
Well, when I put it like that—there was no choice, was there?
"I don’t know what you mean." I blinked at him. "Who are you?"