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“Come on, Arnold,” Connor says with a huff of laughter. “I was only joking.”
“You think I enjoy watching you piss around with my money?”
This sobers him up a little. “Don’t be unreasonable, ey? I’m hardly pissing around over here.”
“You sent me into the field with incomplete information and are laughing about the death of a cultural icon, yet I’m the one being unreasonable,” I counter.
Connor rolls his eyes. “It worked out fine.”
“It was a gamble!”
“That paid off.”
“That may be,” I conceded. “But you didn’t just gamble with my money. You gambled withme.”
“What do you want from me, an apology?” Connor squares his shoulders. “Because of me, we took out one of Jack Duffy’s biggest allies and benefactors.”
“I don’t give two shits about who he is to Jack fucking Duffy. I care about our professional relationship.”
Connor’s dry laugh sounds uncannily like his sister’s.
“Professional? Welcome to the mob,ragazzo,”he says, butchering the pronunciation. “If we don’t take risks, we don’t get rewards.”
I merely slump into the chair in disbelief. Connor may be loyal and tenacious, but there’s an ego to him that comes out in times like this that I can’t stand. It’s best to shut my mouth until he starts being reasonable again.
“You done chucking your toys out?” he says as he takes his own seat. “I actually want a debrief at some point today.”
I close my eyes and regulate my breathing. “Fine.”
“So?” Connor presses, leaning in expectantly. “You find anything?”
Your sister.
“Nothing,” I respond with a shake of my head.
“Nothing?” Connor echoes.
“Nothing.”
“Shit,” Connor says as he leans back in his chair. “Well, at least we cut off one of the hands feeding Jack Duffy.”
The image of Roisin crumpled on the floor in agony fills my mind. Her screams were painful, each piercing through me in more ways than one. I’ve never seen anyone look so absolutely wrecked.
Not since I found her brother in that mansion all those months ago. Seriously, what is with these Maguires?
But whatever Roisin is working through right now, whatever answers she needs…
I look at Connor, already shuffling through his files to attack the next problem on his to-do list. His bluntness, his ego, his joy over the death of a man his sister is mourning. I can’t help but think she’s not ready to stand here before him. Not yet.
What was it Angus said?
“I would hate for anything to compromise her while she’s in such a fragile state.”
Connor would surely be that kind of compromise.
In a way, it would be protecting them both. Roisin gets another day. Another couple of days to recover, and Connor gets to see the version of his sister that he remembers. Not the broken woman I saw not an hour ago.
… Who am I kidding? Even thinking about it that way makes me feel selfish.
