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Six
Aidan
"Eighty-eight,eighty-nine—" I chanted the numbers under my breath, breathing hard through my HIIT workout.
As I curled up, my abs bunched, and sweat dripped down my pecs and along my torso. It also beaded on my forehead, slipping into my eyes and making them sting.
Once I hit a hundred, I moved over to the elliptical, the only cardio machine in Conor’s home gym that didn’t fuck with my knee.
Conor’s building didn’t have an indoor pool, whereas I had one at my place. Over the many years of physio, I’d come to learn that the elliptical and swimming were my only options.
The second the withdrawals had begun to fade, instead of drowning in misery, I’d decided to burn off my frustrations in the gym.
Was I saying it was easy?
Hell, no.
I didn’t want to be in here. I wanted to be back in my goddamn blanket fort, but I didn’t have that option.
On the outside, and to the rest of the world, I might be one of New York’s most eligible bachelors, but I was the heir to a crime family. Nothing about that kind of life allowed a man to rest on his laurels.
I was lucky that my brothers were solid gold and that they’d pulled rank to save my ass from myself—and Da.
Six weeks of avoiding the office, Sunday dinner,andThanksgiving?
Unheard of.
Da had blown up my phone from time to time, but Conor would answer and he’d do what he did best—confound our father with facts, figures, and information. Pertinent and otherwise. By the time Da was done with those calls, he’d forgotten he had an heir and probably needed a whiskey.
But in three days’ time, we’d be heading over to the family estate for Christmas Eve, and wouldn’t be leaving until Boxing Day.
Few in the States recognized the 26th as a holiday, but Aidan Sr. was a king of his own sovereign borough and did whatever the fuck he wanted, when he wanted.
Three days at home.
Three days without Oxy with my father in the vicinity.
Three days with him bitching at me for missing Thanksgiving all while driving me crazy.
Jesus Christ.
I upped the intensity level on the elliptical, seriously needing not to think about that.
The problem with living so high up?
Working out was boring.
You couldn’t people-watch, and I wasn’t the kind of guy who liked having the news on the TV while exercising. Workouts were depressing enough without having current events force fed into your fucking ears too. Audiobooks had lost their appeal since the Oxy as well.
Bored, I looked over the terrace ahead. There was a small dipping pool but it was too cold right now to use, and a nice seating area that I knew Con had probably never even noticed, never mind sat on.
As I stared, trying to focus on anything other than the goddamn excruciating agony in my knee and the gnawing ache in my gut, I saw a woman rushing down the staircase that led to the helipad above us.
Blinking, pretty fucking sure I was tripping, I stopped moving the elliptical pedals and carefully climbed off.
Moving over to the sliding door, unconcerned because the glass was bulletproof, I was more bewildered about what the hell was happening here.
Of course, just as my bewilderment grew, she went flying down the stairs, falling flat on her face in the process.
