I was three hours into the evening’s investigation on Syllie—he’d just finished having dinner with his family, during which he and his wife had discussed the riveting subject of matching Christmas sweaters—when I heard the three knocks on my door.
I put my crackers down, frowning. If it was Cillian with one of his devil’s pep talks, we were going to exchange some fists, not words. But no. Cillian should’ve been on a plane on his way to Maine by now. I went to the door, throwing it open.
And there she stood.
Aingeal dian.
Holding a bag of takeout food. Grease trickled from the edges of the brown bag. Sailor and junk food. My mouth watered, and my balls tightened.
Am I dead? Is this heaven?
“This is not a let’s-have-sex offering, Hunt. It’s not even a peace offering.” She raised one palm in warning. “But I come bearing gifts and an offer. You helped me nail Lana. Let me help you nail Syllie.”
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply through my nose.
“Can you say nail again, please? Specifically, nail me, Hunter. You practically already said all the words, just not in sequence.”
She burst out laughing as I hooked a finger into her jacket and pulled her in, not giving a fuck about being broke and unemployed and neck-deep in trouble.
“What’d you get?” I threw my arm over her shoulder, kissing the crown of her head as we walked toward the living room. And just like that, it felt like she was never gone. Just another blissful night with my girl.
“I thought we’d try the new Cypriot place. It got rad reviews.”
I bit my fist again. I’d made the right choice.
Fuck the money.
I knew, in a subconscious way, that the only shot I had at catching Syllie was if he made a mistake. But Syllie was a careful bastard, so when I found out I’d been the one to throw him off-kilter, I nearly jizzed my pants.
It was right after Sailor and I polished off our souvlaki and halloumi cheese wraps. We listened to him as he got the call in which he was informed that I hadn’t boarded the commercial plane to Maine with my father and brother.
“What do you mean he is not on the plane?” he seethed to the person on the other line. I couldn’t listen to what the other party was saying. Sylvester had used another burner phone. “How could he not be on the plane?”
Sailor and I exchanged glances, our backs hunched over the laptop, listening to the live recording.
“The whole plan is pointless without him there! No, don’t tell me to calm down. Months of planning, all down the drain. You might as well cancel the entire operation if he’s not there. The idiot will take over once they’re done and dealt with, and my troubles will triple.”
“Done and dealt with?” Sailor whisper-shouted, her eyes widening. “Did he just say that?”
A few things happened in that moment. Maybe because Sailor looked at me like I was an intelligent, capable human being and not a moneyed gigolo. She looked at me like I could crack this riddle.
And I realized…well, that I could.
I did a quick math:
Syllie sent my father and brother to a refinery that’d been dealing with health and safety issues.
The machinery was faulty. Three of them, at least. That’s why we were scheduled to visit there in the first place.
Syllie could and probably planned to stage an accident in which all three of us—Da, Cillian and I—would die. All he needed was one orchestrated explosion. Mom and Aisling, while they’d inherit the majority of shares, wouldn’t run the company in a million years. Which put the position in Syllie’s capable hands.
Holy shit. He wanted to kill us. And I’d just fucked up his plan big time. Now the question was—would he go through with it still, or was he postponing because my ass wasn’t en route to Maine?
Sailor seemed to read my mind, shoving my phone into my hand. “You have to call them.”
I called Cillian five times. I tried another three times to reach my father. I also texted them a thousand times. They were either on the plane or somewhere with zero reception. I remembered Cillian complaining about the lack of reception in that part of Maine. I was sure Syllie took this into consideration when he’d planned all this.
“What do I do now?” I stood, pacing back and forth. “What do I do to save my asshole family?”
“Now,” Sailor said simply, “you do what Fitzpatricks do best: you go to war, and you win.”
I borrowed Sailor’s car, drove her back to her parents’ house (I didn’t take any chances in case Syllie had hired muscle to come to my apartment and finish me off), then drove straight to his house, hoping he was still there. I was glad for Knox’s investigative skills. He knew where Syllie lived, worked out, took shits, and all his favorite call girls.