Thirteen
Aidan
By the timeI’d showered and changed, the pain hadn’t abated all that much, but I knew this was my new normal. I was going to have to accept it and find a way to move past it.
Easier said than done, but the warmth from the shower made it a little easier on me.
As I’d cleaned up, I’d thought about how Savannah and I had first met, about the secrets only she and I knew regarding the family, and I had to admit that it felt like fate that we were crossing paths again when I’d gone out of my way to avoid her.
How crazy was it that of all the people Lodestar, Conor’s hacker friend, knew, it was her.
I mean, if I’d known Lodestar was Star Sullivan, Gerard Sullivan’s daughter, I’d have figured it out faster. But that was news to me. Not Conor though. He truly was a sneaky pain in the ass. As much as I knew his mind was a tangled Gordian knot, not unlike the code he lived in, I also knew that there was way more going on with him than my brothers realized.
Feeling like a fool, as I stepped by the bedroom I’d put Savannah in, I carefully opened the door.
It was a breach of privacy, but the urge to make sure she was okay was too strong to ignore.
The lights were off, but she’d kept the curtains open. Beyond her French doors, there was a soft, muted glow from an outdoor lamp that lit up the patio, and it enabled me to see the small hump she made in bed.
This was as close as I’d ever gotten her horizontal on a mattress and for the first time in what felt like forever, my dick actually twitched. Through the detoxing process, my sex drive had gone into hibernation. I’d been more focused on actually getting through the day and surviving than getting off.
Trust my dick to come back online for her.
I heaved a sigh as I closed the door.
To this day, I wasn’t sure if that meal together had been wise or foolish. As we ate, I knew she was that rarest of gems—a woman with conversation. A woman with understanding of the world around her, with a voice and opinions and dreams and desires she wasn’t afraid to discuss. With her knowing that I was well aware her airhead act was exactly that, it let down her barriers, made her open up in a way that I thought few ever accessed.
I liked that. I had at the time and to this day, I still did.
Our evening had been cut short by work. I’d gotten a call, and I’d had to leave before we could finish dessert.
When I’d arrived at Da’s warehouse, the one where he did some of his nastier work, and had found him elbow-deep in corpses that he was hacking apart with a saw, as well as some other shit that had gone down that night, I’d decided that ghosting Savannah was the safest bet all round.
For me, but mostly for her.
I should have known that getting her a job at TVGM wouldn’t be enough to stop her from popping into my world once more. Should have recognized that we were destin—
Christ.
I didn’t need to go there.
I really fucking didn’t.
I wasn’t a nice man. I wasn’t a good one either. She deserved better.
She didn’t deserve this life.
Me.
Leaving her to rest—not running from desires I had no business having—I sucked in a breath as I passed Conor’s office and peeped in through the door. His workspace took up the entire length of his penthouse because he had several desks, each with six or more monitors running at the same time.
Finding him with his feet propped up on one of his desks, a phone tucked between his shoulder and ear, I left him to it, then limped over to the elevators.
As I did, my cell buzzed. Peering down at it, spying Finn’s name, I arched a brow and connected the call.
"What?"
"Crazy coincidence, don’t you think?"