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He watched me for a long while, not speaking or moving. “You’re delaying something inevitable,” he finally said. “All you’re doing is giving him something to hold over your head until you give in. And Kieran and I aren’t any closer to finding this ghost. If you were there . . .”
He didn’t need to finish. I knew what he wasn’t saying.
I might be able to spy on the mob boss.
I nodded absentmindedly and backed away. Before I could get far, I mumbled, “Beckham, tell me something.”
One of his eyebrows ticked up as he waited.
“This, my mom, Mickey, all of it . . . has it been one giant fuck-you to get back at me for not giving you what you wanted? Is it because of Kieran?”
“Never, Jessica.”
I let his honesty wash through me and turned to leave.
“But, why him? Why Kieran and not me?”
I looked over my shoulder, and answered simply, “He understands my demons, and he hasn’t betrayed me for the last ten years.”
His face creased with pain. “And what do you think he’ll do when he finds out you’re working for Mickey? When he finds out you’ve betrayed him?”
My gaze drifted as guilt and grief washed through me, and then that old, familiar need rose up in their place.
“Maybe he’ll put an end to everything.”
To the darkness.
To the madness.
Make it go away.
I lifted my head and pulled my shoulders back. “I belong to no man,” I reminded him. “I do not beg. And I do not give in to them. Remind your boss of that if he asks about me. I’ll be working my street if he wants to find me.”
I stepped into Mickey’s high-rise office that housed O’Sullivan Financial that night, my expression a practiced mixture of calm and furious.
So practiced it was natural. I hated it.
Because it was how he wanted me.
How he and my dad had trained me since I could walk.
I rapped my knuckles on the wall as I moved deeper into the large office, my steps unhurried as I got closer and closer to my number three.
Bailey, Finn, Mickey, Da—
No.
Bailey, Finn, Mickey.
Ghost, Mickey, nameless man.
Mickey barked out a laugh as he turned to look at me. “Fuck me, just the guy I wanted to see.”
I lifted a brow. “You called.”
“Doesn’t mean my day didn’t get a hell of a lot better now that you’re here.”
I studied his excited expression as I listened to everything else around us. Waiting to see if there was anyone with us that shouldn’t be.
