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Cillian grit his teeth at the truth in her words. Alex, Bex, and I worked as contractors for a variety of local businessmen - politicians, mobsters, CEOs - and we didn’t have any true alliances with any of them. Cillian hadn’t hired us to search his name on the darknet or protect his daughter - hell, he’d never mentioned a daughter to any of us - which meant we could’ve seen the hit put out on Rory and ignored it, written it off as ‘not our responsibility,’ as Bex so aptly put it.
“We put resources toward your daughter when my girlfriend’s life was at risk, caring enough about the life of a stranger to split our attention when one of our own was in danger. So don’t for a second act as if our not informing you was malicious on our part. It would’ve been simpler, easier, to fill you in and pass the torch of her safety off to you.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because keeping that information from you put us at an advantage,” Alex smoothly cut in, catching the slight hitch in Bex’s voice as she spoke about Wren’s safety.
It was still a sore spot for her, the fact that we were forced to split our attention between Wren’s and Rory’s safety. Even if she didn’t hold any blame toward Rory or Cillian, I knew speaking about the threat against Wren - which ended with a gun to Bex’s head and a dead body we had to dispose of on Halloween night - brought up that old anger and resentment.
“If we had told you about the threat against Rory, what would you have done?”
Cillian frowned at Alex’s question, looking to Cormac, who oversaw security alongside his various other jobs. It waspartially why Alex and I were so familiar with him, since he was always present and an active participant in the security meetings we held with Cillian in the past.
“We would’ve pulled her back to the compound and upped her security detail.” Cormac paused for a second, as if weighing his words before admitting, “And then probably contacted you guys to help track down whoever put the hit out on her.”
“Exactly,” Alex said. “And as soon as you did that, they would’ve known you were onto them. They would’ve pulled the hit, taken some time, and made a better plan. And sure, maybe we’d get lucky and catch onto that next plan. Or maybe not. Maybe the next plan would be a better one, and they would have succeeded. Either way, the next time? Dev wouldn’t have been there.”
Andthatwas the problem. The reason I’d kept telling Alex and Bex that we needed to keep Rory here, with us. So that if there were a next time - and I felt in my gut that there would be - I’d be there.
I had always been a big believer in gut feelings. A worshiper at the altar of instinct. I largely attributed my success - and the preservation of all my limbs after years of dangerous work - to the devotion. My gut had told me to join the military after school, to focus on languages instead of rising the ranks, to join that first surveillance mission that snowballed into the black-ops team I was a part of for almost four years. It was the reason that I’d turned down the offers to join one of the mercenary groups that had reached out when I’d first come back home, taking shitty security jobs while I worked as a bodyguard-for-hire on the weekends.
It was my gut that had me calling out to Alex the first day we met, something about the look in his eyes that felt familiar. The coldness I was much better at covering than him, the willingness to do things others wouldn’t even think of. It was my gut thathad me buying a house a couple months ago, even if I was just starting to see the edges of why I felt the compulsion. I’d barely done anything there but sleep fitful hours in between watching Rory, and I was thankful for my friends, who had decorated and renovated the place with little input on my part.
But my gut had never screamed at me the way it had been for the past twenty-four hours. The push to keep Rory by my side, to keep her in my eyeline, because something told me that if she left my sight, I’d never see her again. So these next few moments, how convincing we were in our sincerity and how willing Cillian was to believe it, were important.
Cillian’s lips flattened, and I kept my body loose even as my nerves tightened, wondering if our reasoning - which was all true, but twisted to make us look much less self-serving than we were - would convince Cillian to forgive us. Or at the very least, bargain with us.
“While I appreciate and understand that keeping the hit toward my daughter a secret helped tactically, she is still mydaughter.” He said the word with venom, the sneer in his voice not aimed toward Rory but at those coming after her. “That type of oversight will not be forgiven in the future, do you understand?”
Alex tipped his chin in acknowledgment, but I knew all of us picked up on his lack of an affirmation.
Cillian smiled knowingly at Alex’s intentional silence. He’d always enjoyed Alex’s quirks, from the moment they first met. Cillian was the first person who saw Alex’s dark underbelly and wanted more of it. So much so that he tracked him down after an incident with our old boss, inviting him to perform some much-needed security updates to his compound. Alex invited me along, his new bestie, and the rest was history. Our business was built, more connections were made, and Cillian still smiledwhen Alex ignored all the traditional rules and respect often demanded by a mafia leader.
“I also assume you’ll continue to look after the threat against my daughter, while keeping me informed from this point forward?”
“Yes.” I felt Alex’s slight surprise as I responded to Cillian’s question. Or maybe it was the grit in my voice, the thought of the threat against Rory making my throat tight.
“What do you know so far?”
“Not much more than what we’ve already said,” Alex answered, tapping a few keys on his computer until Rory’s attacker was front and center on the wall-mounted screen. “This is Ivan Petrov, Rory’s attacker. Previous ties to Russian Bratva across the country, but he went solo a decade ago, mostly doing contract kills for whoever paid high enough. So far, I can’t find any connection to Rory other than his attack on her. I was able to backtrack and confirm that he was the one who answered the darknet ad.”
“Keep me updated.” Cillian brushed his palms together, as if wiping off the darkness of our previous conversation, He smiled as he relaxed back into his chair. “Now that we’ve settled all that, I owe you a life debt. So what is it you want?”
“Protection,” Alex answered immediately, not bothering with false surprise at Cillian’s offer. This was what we were after, after all. “My wife was kidnapped from her work this past summer, and Wren was targeted this past fall.”
“Wife? I didn’t realize you’d gotten married, Xander.” Cillian said, brow raised in subtle interest.
“Ames is my wife in every way that matters,” Alex responded, and I made a mental note to repeat that to Ames later. She’d eat that shit up.
“Our business has grown so fast,” Alex said when Cillian motioned for him to continue. “We hired Bex, and that shouldhave been enough. Would’ve been, if we didn’t keep having to take our time to protect our own from threats. Bex spent weeks by Wren’s side, and Dev has spent the past three months shadowing Rory. We can’t keep everyone safe and keep our business running the way it is.”
“And what exactly are you expecting from me? I assume it’s more than a couple of bodyguards?”
“We want an alliance. We want anyone who might think about coming after us knowing they’ll be going to war against you. A couple of bodyguards for our partners wouldn’t hurt, either. But we’re thinking just the concept of an alliance should be enough to keep them safe. And we want to maintain our autonomy within the alliance, as we have been.”
That was something we’d discussed this morning. An alliance with Cillian would be meaningless if he only allowed us to work for him. We needed to continue to operate independently, just under the protective umbrella of Cillian and his organization.
Cillian raised a brow in interest at the demand, but didn’t respond right away. “Anything else?”
