THE VERANDA OUTSIDE KIAN’S OFFICE—A LITTLE WHILE LATER
A light breeze dances across the private patio just outside my office space. The clouds above me unfurl like moody ghosts, but they’re moving fast. The rain might bypass us completely.
I stare at the pair of handcuffs on the table in front of me without a single thought crossing the blank canvas of my mind.
“Kian?”
“What? Sorry,” I say, forcing myself back to the conversation I’m in the middle of. “What was that again?”
“Am I just talking to myself?” Cillian asks on the phone.
“For a few minutes there, you were.”
“Do you have to be such a dick all the time?”
“I learned from the best.”
Cillian grumbles into the phone. I laugh. Strange—usually, it’s the other way around. “I was just telling you that Saoirse’s fucking rooster has woken me up at the crack of dawn for the third straight morning in a row.”
“She has a rooster?”
“Jesus. Yes, because she decided she wanted a farmyard vibe here, remember?”
I snort with laughter. “That’s just perfect. The don turned farmer.”
“Keep it up, mate. I will fly down to New York just to kick your ass.”
“I’d like to see you try, old man,” I counter.
“If I weren’t so fucking sleep deprived, I would.”
I chuckle, but my eyes keep moving to the handcuffs. Drago is still contained in the cell in the basement. He’s been restrained, but the question remains: what is my next move?
“Does the reason you’re distracted have anything to do with this Lombardi girl you seem so, shall we say, concerned about?”
“Who said I was concerned?” I ask defensively.
“You do, every time you talk about her. It’s in your tone.”
“Jesus—”
“Scoff all you want. You know I’m right,” Cillian insists.
I shake my head. The older he gets, the more like Da he becomes.
“Well, am I right?”
“It’s not her,” I snap. “It’s her brother.”
“He wouldn’t even be a problem if you didn’t care for the girl,” Cillian says. “Admit it: the only reason he’s alive is because of her.”
I’m too damn proud to cop to that, so I deflect instead. “The Lombardis have more support than I anticipated. Now that they’re strengthened by the Greek alliance, I have to be cautious.”
“If you need a few men deployed—”
“No,” I say, before he can even finish the sentence. “I can handle this.”
“We’re on the same team, Kian.”