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She shrugged. “He isn’t like you or me.”
“Truants?” I teased, happy when she laughed.
“Yeah. Straight as an arrow. I’m not sure how it happened.”
“I am. You did a good job.”
Her nose crinkled. “You won’t be saying that when he’s DA.”
I blinked. “Fuck. It’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
Her lips twisted. “It’s messed up enough for it to be a possibility.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Shay grumbled, making me snort.
Even though we hadn’t reached that point yet, I clapped his back, then ran my hand over his hair. If the move stunned him, it stunned me. I hadn’t meant to do it, not really. I certainly didn’t mean to run my hand over his hair and muss up the messy tumble. But he didn’t pull back. Didn’t pull away or shove me aside.
If anything, he bit his lip.
I gulped, feeling oddly vulnerable, and when I looked at Aela and saw she’d gone all watery on me, it was weird to accept that she saw it too.
Seamus, even though he had a real attitude right now,hadn’trejected me.
And that made me feel like I was on cloud nine.
Before I got ahead of myself, ahead of where Seamus was really at, I headed to my room where I showered, shaved, and got dressed. My usual outfit consisted of jeans, a leather jacket, a tee, and boots because I worked in the warehouse. Brennan and I had the lackey jobs, not because we were dumbfucks, but because we just weren’t built for office work, even if a large percentage of our job was administrative.
I ran the trafficking ops, he ran the bookies and loan shark operations, with both of us handling drugs if needs be though it was mostly my scene. That meant we needed a pair of shit-kickers more than we needed some hand-crafted Italian loafers.
But when it came to meeting Da, we had to change into suits or he’d get pissy. And pissing Aidan Sr. off was never at the top of anyone’s agenda. Sure, I’d stopped being scared of him when I was a teenager, but that didn’t mean I wanted to deal with his sniping about me looking like a degenerate, so I wore a suit to keep the peace.
I really wanted to head back into the kitchen, kiss Aela farewell and hug her, but I could hear them talking. I was tempted to listen in, especially when I heard Shay prodding his ma for more info on how rich they were, as well as her views on how to schmooze, but I had other things that needed my attention.
Things like a blackmailer who was due to be paid soon. Things like a father who was running out of patience. Things like a war with way too many people ratting us out.
We were used to having moles, but recently, we’d had a handful of men turn to theFamiglia,and trust me, a handful was four too many.
As I headed into the elevator, I almost wasn’t surprised when I found Conor sitting in it.
Kid was a weird fuck. I didn’t even know how long he’d been there, ass on the floor, legs out as he worked on whatever he was working on. With his ability to get comfortable anywhere? He could have been here ten minutes or ten hours.
I scowled at him, demanding, “What the hell’s going on?”
He blinked up at me. “Knew you were going out today, thought I’d make sure your security was tuned up.” Conor’s pride had been pricked when, over the last few years, two people had managed to get through his code. That was the height of hubris.
I didn’t doubt that Conor was one of the best hackers around, but he was a cocky shit. Sometimes, he needed to fail to realize he was human too.
“How’d you know I was heading out?”
“Spoke with Da. Knew he was going to email you.” The doors closed, and with a flourish of his fingers over the keys, like a concert pianist adding a decorative flair to his performance, he tapped a few more times and then stopped. “Done.”
“Everything good?”
“Yep. Yours is tight, and I tuned it up with the next upgrade I’ve been developing.” He squinted at me. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“Not surprising. Takes a lot of time to get over what you went through.”
