Page 11 of Craving Sin

“Pay a visit to the store owner. Looks like he has a big mouth, and we’ll need to shut it for him. Also, keep an ear to the ground. I’ll watch my back. Maybe we should pay these Bellini brothers a visit too, and show them who they’re dealing with.”

“Let me know when and where you want me,” Conan says.

“I will.”

“Cillian seems good,” he says, changing the subject.

“He is,” I agree. “Better than me.” Though I guess that’s been true for a long time.

“Cut yourself some slack, Rian. You love that boy, and he loves you. You’ll fix what you messed up.”

It’s very much like Conan to be supportive, but also to not let me off the hook for my shit. I did fuck up. There’s no changing that.

“I’m trying.”

“Which is more than most of the men we know would do. It’s more than our fathers would have done. And those kids…they’re better than us. That’s all we can hope for sometimes—to be better than the generation before us—and they will be.”

“They will be,” I agree. They already are. The loyalty, the love, the respect.

The brotherhood. It is more than I ever could have had with my own brother.

“How are things at Paradise?” I ask Conan, changing the subject. If you’re in Boston and there’s something you want—sex, drugs, guns—everyone knows you can get it at Paradise. Conan is the perfect man to work around that much temptation. He doesn’t touch hard drugs. Hell, he doesn’t even fuck, that I know of. Need someone murdered? Conan is your guy. He’s silent and deadly, but any of the other sins most of us participate in from time to time—or more often for Finan—Conan doesn’t partake in.

“Good as always,” he replies, before we go into chatting business for a few minutes.

Not long later, we’re locking up and heading out to our vehicles together.

“You should have a bodyguard,” Conan tells me, not for the first time. Sloan had one—a driver, too, but that’s just not me.

“Because of the Bellini brothers?” I tease.

“Because you’re important to us and we need you,” Conan counters, and again, I feel lucky to have him. Despite his lie about Sloan, I know Conan always has my best interests at heart. “Your son needs you,” he adds.

“I’m not going anywhere, brother.” I’m too damn stubborn to die, but it’s as we stand here together that I realize I don’t want to. There had been a time—a lot of it—after Moira died where I did want to die, but I don’t feel that way anymore. I want…more. Maybe because I see my son having more.

Conan gives me a simple nod, then watches as I slide into my SUV. It’s bulletproof and about as safe as possible.

Conan doesn’t get into his own vehicle until I’ve pulled away.

CHAPTER FOUR

Rian

Since we lost Moira, I’ve been meticulous about health screenings. Bullets don’t scare me, but diseases do. We have a doctor on payroll, one who stitches us up when need be. He’s been with our family for as long as I can remember.

He’s trustworthy, but older, and the truth is, he won’t be around forever.

Also, while he can do a lot, there are some things he can’t do, which is why I’m at the hospital, late at night, getting a clean bill of health after having tests run.

This is one of the things I keep to myself. Sure, I drink, smoke sometimes, and don’t do the best job of taking care of myself, but I have an irrational fear of getting sick and dying—of leaving Cillian the same way his mother did.

“Everything looks good, Mr. O’Shea. You’re an incredibly healthy, forty-eight-year-old man,” the physician assures me.

“Had to remind me how close I am to fifty, did you?” I tease and earn myself a chuckle in return.

“You would be healthy for a thirty-eight-year-old man, too. Does that help?”

“It does,” I reply, even though it really doesn’t.