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Sean tenses, but I force myself to keep the smile on my face. “We’ve got a great story for you,” I say, pivoting fast.

“Don’t,” Sean hisses at me, but it’s too late.

“A story?” Da repeats. “Is that right?”

“Stop talking,” Sean growls at me before walking over to Da’s desk.

He doesn’t sit down, though. I have a feeling it’s because he wants to keep his height advantage. It’s what I would do in his place.

“Da,” he announces with a stiff upper lip, “I don’t have the money.”

Da merely raises his eyebrows. The effect is unnerving.

I don’t for the life of me know how his men do it. I’d piss my pants every fucking day I had to see and report to Ronan O’Sullivan. Especially if the news was bad, like it is tonight.

“Padraig Connelly is a middle-aged drunk and a layabout,” Da says in an icy, measured tone. “Explain to me why you didn’t get a simple collection errand completed.”

“It was my fault,” I say, stepping in despite Sean’s warning.

“Cillian!”

I ignore him.

“We went to the house and we cornered the fucker.” I push through, despite the glares I’m getting from both men. “But then his daughter showed up. She had blue eyes and red hair and… well, actually, her hair color is immaterial. Anyway, I grabbed her and took her outside—”

“Cil!”

“…and I was trying to keep her from running back inside and interrupting the shakedown,” I continue on recklessly. “And I didn’t see them coming. That fucker Brody Murtagh with two Kinahan goons. I’m pretty sure they were following us. Well, Murtagh thought he could take me, which of course he couldn’t. And—”

“Enough,” Da says.

He doesn’t even raise his voice. But I go silent immediately.

Another one of his many talents.

“You are excused,” he growls.

Sean glances at me. “Go, Cillian,” he says in a low voice. “I can handle this.”

“I should explain…”

“No,” Sean says, turning away from me. “I’m the one who has to explain. This was my task. None of it was your fault.”

“You don’t have to play the martyr all the time.”

“With a brother like you, what choice do I have?”

He gives me a smile—the ghost of one, at least—and I all I want to do is jump in front of him and take the brunt of Da’s rage.

But I know it’s pointless.

If I don’t leave, I’ll be removed forcefully.

So I just nod in Da’s direction and slip out of his study.

The moment the door shuts on me, I hear the muffled sound of conversation, but the words aren’t distinctive. The study was soundproofed for a reason.

Sighing, I walk upstairs to the second floor.


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