Sniggering, and pleased because this was the Aidan I remembered, playful, I murmured, "Well, I can’t deny they’re lazy. They want to get into reality TV so they can consider that a job. Daddy’s trying, but he can only do so much. They’re boring. All they do is shop." My brow puckered. "Who’d want to watch people do that?"
"I think the Kardashians have made a pretty good living out of it," he said wryly.
"You know who they are?"
"I’m a mobster, Savannah, not dead," he retorted with a short laugh.
"True."
He stopped rubbing my lip. I wanted him to carry on. Damn.
"I’m surprised the cameras don’t just want to follow your dad around."
"They do. That’s the problem. Dad’s not interested in that shit anymore. He just wants to play his concerts and live as much of a quiet life as he possibly can." I shrugged. "I was in a position to make change. I’m Dagger Daniels’ daughter. I had standing with the station, and a platform in which to disseminate the truth. What should I have done? Let countless innocent women be hurt?"
Slowly, he shook his head, his eyes darkening as he murmured, "No. You did the right thing. Sometimes doing that isn’t enough. Sometimes, not even that will instigate change, but if you didn’t try, you’d never know, would you?"
"No, I wouldn’t know," I confirmed softly, uncertain what his response would be. "As it stands, at least they lost a lot of ad revenue."
His grin was like quicksilver. "That’s the best way to hurt anyone—their pocket." I hummed, then stifled a disappointed sigh when he pulled back, rasping, "I have to go out, Savannah. But you’ll be safe here while I’m gone. Conor will have changed the access code to the helipad by now, and will probably be shoring it up like it’s the Pentagon."
I snagged my fingers around his wrist. "Where are you going?"
"I want answers about who’s targeting you. Just a vague belief that it’s the Sparrows isn’t enough."
I bit my lip.
Now he was trying to keep me safe.
Funny how this hero was about to go and help torture someone, no?
Not exactly what romance was made of, but I’d take it.
"I want you to get your ass into bed and rest. If I find out you didn’t sleep, well, there’ll be consequences."
"Consequences?" I tipped my head to the side. Conor had already threatened me with those, but it sounded far more interesting coming from Aidan. "What kind of consequences?"
"You don’t want to find out."
With that, he began limping away, but I couldn’t let him go, not without saying, "Be safe, Aidan."
It was either say that or tell him I really, really, really, really wanted to find out.
A journalist’s most fatal flaw was their incessant need to understand. To find answers to the questions that few dared ask.
Well, I dared. I dared, all right.
Even if Aidan had gotten that rumbly vibration in his throat, that soft snag that made a shiver rush down my spine.
When had he become so masterful? Before, he’d dominated. There was a distinct difference.
Had the years apart strengthened him? Changed him and made him adapt to the current situation in the city?
I had to figure it did.
Had to figure that I’d changed just as much as he had. The years apart had forged us into the people standing here today.
And Aidan?
Well, he’d been forged into an even sexier bastard than before.
God help me and my ovaries. Especially where consequences were concerned.
Ten
Savannah
Five years earlier
Every day, I followed the same routine.
I got up at six, did yoga, showered and changed, headed downstairs for poached egg on toast and a chai latte, watched the world go by at the corner table which overlooked a corner of the street and then a good chunk of a pathway into Central Park, then got on with my work for a few hours.
In between jobs thanks to the last position I’d had at the Record falling through when I’d called my boss out for being a misogynistic jerk who spent more time trying to look down my blouse than read my editorials, I was dedicating my newly freed up schedule to my passion project—New York City’s crime families.
I wasn’t an idiot. I’d expected that my rummaging around the ancient history of NYC’s various groups of mobsters would ruffle some feathers.
I just never expected when I went down for my breakfast that particular morning that Aidan O’Donnelly Jr. would be sitting there, at my table, evidently waiting on me.
I wasn’t even looking at anything that recent. When I said ancient history, I meant it. I was looking back in the late eighties, early nineties. Stuff that should no longer be of interest to the O’Donnellys, yet the heir’s presence here told me otherwise. It informed me that where I’d been digging, I’d touched a nerve.
The thought thrilled me.
"Good morning, Ms. Daniels."
Christ, what a voice.
Deep. The smallest hint of a growl.
I arched a brow at him as I approached the table. "You’re in my seat."
"I think we both know I wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t gone hunting in all the wrong places."
Hunting.
That was the word for it.
I knew his presence was a warning, and I knew I should be scared, but this kind of thing was in my blood. I loved the chase. Loved the hunt for a story, and when my instincts were triggered, I was worse than Dracula scouting for blood after a week-long fast.
I sank into the chair opposite the man I knew the family called ‘Junior.’
He wasn’t just a junior because he shared the same name as his psychotic father. In looks? They were like mirror images.
Rumor had it that before he’d wed Magdalena O’Shea, Aidan had been one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Back then, there’d been no hiding from his mobster ties, and still the women had allegedly flocked to him.
His sons and their links to the mob were a little different. A little more evolved.
I knew they were as dirty as their daddy, but that didn’t mean shit without proof. They hid behind dummy corps and all kinds of legitimate fronts that prevented people as good as me from finding them.
Damn their hides.
I knew I could play this one of two ways.
Be truthful. Show him I was no fool. Get nowhere fast because he’d stonewall me.
Or…
Play the fool, and lie, and maybe get a chance to dig deeper into his family history.
Well, when I put it like that—there was no choice, was there?
"I don’t know what you mean." I blinked at him. "Who are you?"
A hard glint appeared in his eyes. "Is that the way you want to play this?"
Oh, man, I loved that his verbiage tied up to my thought processes.
Not that I was supposed to love it, of course.
"Play, what?" I countered. "I reserve this table every day." Twisting around, I pretended to look for a server. "Maybe I’ll just call the management over here so they can be the ones to clear things up."