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Damn, he was even hotter when he was mad. The slight deepening of his native accent had my body shivering and my thighs clamping together beneath the table. Who knew I had a thing for accents?
“Actors wear it all the time.”
“Do I look like a fucking actor to you?”
“Of course not,” Ava admitted. Kiernan shot her a smug smile. “Actors are way better looking than your ugly mug.”
His smug smile dropped like a bomb.
Biting my lip, I did my best to hold back the laughter, hoping neither twin would notice with their attention fixed on their sister. Kiernan’s large hand squeezed my thigh under the table, telling me he hadn’t missed it.
“Enough, you three.”
“Three?” Seamus’s eyes widened at his father in mock disbelief. “What did I do? I was literally sitting here.”
“Reason enough.” Liam winked at his son. “Now, let’s get down to business.”
“To defeat the Huns…” Seamus finished the song. Everyone at the table shook with laughter, including me.
“The lord gave me idiots for sons.” Liam shook his head.
“We don’t need them both at the gala anymore.” Ava spoke up, graciously accepting a cup of coffee from one of the servers.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Bailey?” Ava asked, her brilliant green eyes finding mine.
“Yes, please,” I smiled at her gratefully. The server nodded at me before taking my plate and retreating to the kitchen.
“They make the best coffee here.” Ava smiled. “Nan says they get their coffee from a small farm in Guatemala that hand picks the beans to make sure that they roast just right.”
“Our sister is a coffee nut.”
Ava shrugged. “Just a little. But what I am really into is information. And you, Bailey, have all the information we need. Don’t you?” The sweet smile she’d adorned throughout lunch dropped faster than a guillotine. In its place stood the smile of a shark that smelled blood in the water. My blood.
“I don’t understand.” I glanced from one twin to the other, eyes wide, but they gave nothing away. Their faces were nothing more than stoic masks, unrelenting.
“Why are you so interested in interviewing the women at the port?” Ava tilted her head at me, mug pressed between both of her hands. The look in her eyes was calculating and cold. A far cry from the jovial, carefree woman that had been there just moments ago.
“Who wouldn’t want a scoop like that?” A shrug of my shoulder conveyed an innocence I didn’t feel. “That was one of the biggest human trafficking busts in years.”
Ava huffed mirthlessly, her head shaking slightly as she continued to eye me from across the table.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe what you want.” I frowned, no doubt giving away my air of nonchalance.
Tension in the room was strung tight, and I was walking a thin rope above a pool of hungry, hungry sharks that wouldn’t hesitate to devour me if I gave them a chance.
“I think you were looking for someone,” Matthias spoke up. “A Lina Davenport, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Monty has a big fucking mouth,” I growled, wincing slightly when Seamus’s hand tightened on my thigh in warning.
“Watch your language,” he warned. My nose flared as I met his hard stare with one of my own.
“I checked into her.” Matthias kept going, as if Seamus hadn’t reprimanded me. “No one but you seems to be worried about her being missing.”
“Lina and I were working on a sex trafficking story together. She said she’d found a weak link in Elias Ward’s organization. Someone who could get her in undetected.” I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Lina was supposed to check in with me three days later. She never did. When I went to her house, everything was cleared out. It was like she suddenly became a ghost. Tony, my boss, said she’d quit. Planned on moving to Texas to be with her parents.”
“And you didn’t believe him?”
