When she headed off to get his order, he turned back to me and I murmured, "Didn’t think chai latte would be your thing."
"I’m a big fan of cardamom."
A laugh escaped me. "Seriously?"
He quirked a brow. "Seriously. Not all..." His lips twitched. "Irishmen are ‘meat and potatoes’ kind of guys."
"No? Just most of them?"
"I feel stereotyped," he retorted.
I frowned at him, because I’d been about to say that men in his position couldn’t be anything other than stereotyped, but he was here to help me, wasn’t he? Not to kill me. Like he said would happen if I didn’t listen?
Any amusement at a mobster appreciating chai having died, I rasped, "What are you doing here?"
"You’ve come to my father’s attention, Ms. Daniels... May I call you Savannah?"
Unease unfurled inside me. "If you want."
He hummed. "Well, Savannah, no one wants to come to Aidan Sr.’s attention, do they? As I’m sure you’ll know from your research."
Slowly, I shook my head.
I was a bulldog where a story was concerned, had known I might piss people off, but could never have anticipated that the Five Points’ heir would be the one to come to threaten me.
That was taking things up to so high of a notch, I couldn’t even see it overhead.
"How have I?" I rasped, my hand tightening about my cup. "I don’t understand. I also don’t understand what you’re doing here? You’re trying to help me?"
He rubbed his chin. "My brother’s a massive fan of your father. I’m not altogether sure he’d be happy if Dagger’s daughter were to end up on life support because of something that happened in our family’s history."
I tensed. "You’re doing this because of your brother?"
"That, and..." He shrugged. "My father’s very annoyed at what you’re doing."
"Isn’t that more reason to comply?"
"I’m not a yes-man," he countered softly. "I don’t jump when he tells me to—"
"But do you ask how high?" I retorted.
He smirked. "No. When he told me about you, and I did my research, I learned a few things. You’re not a person who wastes time. You go after a story with all the zeal of a bloodhound who’s caught the scent of blood.
"I read the fluff and the heavy-hitting stories and came across a strong voice. One who doesn’t dissemble. Who cuts through the bullshit." He wafted a hand at me. "That was how I knew you were all act when you came in. I saw you calculating the odds of what would let you manipulate me the easiest the second our eyes met." His smirk deepened. "You might be accustomed to dealing with morons, but we raise them smart in my line of work."
"Kill or be killed," I rasped.
"Pretty much." His gaze darted from me to Suzy, and I saw she’d brought a tray over. My small plate of toast was on there as well as Aidan’s order.
Jesus, I wasn’t hungry.
I was nervous.
Nerves made the gnawing ache in my belly have different connotations.
How, in less than five minutes with me, had he managed to figure out that I tended to play a role?
Was it just dumb luck or had he really read through the many and varied editorials and articles I’d written over the years? Not even my mom had that level of dedication.
The second Suzy darted away, her cheeks just as pink as before, I questioned, "Exactly how much of my editorial portfolio have you read?"
He raised his cup to his lips and with a measured glance at me, took a deep sip. After he swallowed, he murmured, "Every piece I could get my hands on. Including the articles you wrote in college." He hitched a shoulder. "I’m thorough."
"Why?" I muttered, aghast and bewildered at the extent of his research into me.
That level of investigation would have taken weeks. Surely? I’d written a lot of pieces in my time. So much that I probably couldn’t even remember half of them.
"Because I wanted to understand you," he stated calmly.
My brow furrowed as I shoved my toast away and leaned deeper into the table. The marble surface dug into my belly, but the cold seeped through my shirt and actually made me feel better because I was burning up as if I had a fever.
"What’s to understand?" I whispered, trying to figure out his true game here. "I’m so confused," I admitted. "I don’t understand why what I’m researching has led to this."
"If you’re going to darken the mafia’s door, then you should be prepared for the fallout," was all he said.
"I’m looking into your family ties. That’s it," I spat. "Nothing about your business."
"I spoke with a friend of yours from college too," he mused, his finger moving around the rim of his cup. "She said you were obsessed with the mafia in the city."
I blinked. "Everyone has a hobby. Which friend?"
"It doesn’t matter. What matters is if you have the mafia as a hobby, then it’s bullshit that you don’t know the repercussions of messing with things you should leave well alone." He arched a brow. "You know the Five Points’ rep, and I’m sure you know what family means to my old man. Family is all," he intoned grimly. "You mess with the family, you mess with the Firm."
My stomach twisted into knots as I cut through the bullshit entirely. "Your uncle’s dead." Padraig O’Donnelly had purportedly died at the hands of an Albanian mobster. "How is that a threat? I was trying to figure out what happened to him. That’s all."
"And that, as you can imagine, is incredibly delicate ground," Aidan pointed out. "My father loved his brothers. To the point where he barely talks about them with us, never mind in public. You start messing with their memories, then that’s just inviting a ton of bricks to fall down on you."
I flinched at the imagery, and as much as I hated to admit it, I was scared.
Scared.
Me.
Something about Aidan O’Donnelly Jr. set my nerves on edge.
Maybe it was his calmness? His acceptance of the situation? His ease with discussing death and an in-depth stalking into my past? I didn’t know, but this was serious.
So serious that, fangirling aside, I could feel the ticking of a clock in my head that was warning me my time on this planet was running out…
"If I tell you something, will you listen?"
A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. "If I wasn’t here to listen, Savannah, then I wouldn’t be sitting opposite you. I’d just have ordered—" His lips twisted. "Well, I’m sure you understand."
I knew he’d paused on purpose, deliberately evading those two words that my heart heard regardless of whether or not he’d uttered them.
The hit.
Jesus.
"My intention wasn’t to piss off your father," I admitted. "It was to curry favor with him."
That shocked him.
His reaction was stark. He sat back, his eyes wide, his mouth slack. Flummoxed was the word, one my mother would use and which few Americans would ever understand. Stunned, bewildered... that pretty much defined flummoxed.