Twisting away, I reached up to rub the back of my neck.
I wasn’t a good guy.
I wasn’t.
And maybe, this morning, before I’d met her, I’d have done every single fucking one of those things so long as I ended up between her goddamn legs.
But one thing had saved her from me.
One goddamn thing.
Isardo.
Not because he’d died. The bastard had deserved that. All fucking Italians deserved to end up skewered at some point. But that she’d seen that? That she’d witnessed it and at twelve?
Even now, my jaw clenched down at the thought.
No little girl should have to see that.
For that matter, no little boy should have to either.
I’d done worse at twelve than see someone getting gutted, and I mourned for the kid I’d never had the chance to be as much as I mourned for Savannah.
Jesus, a mobster getting maudlin. Maybe someone should just hand me a Sig Sauer right now and I could end this fucking misery?
Grunting under my breath, I said, "You do know how foolish it would be to have this place stocked up with any recording equipment, don’t you?"
She tipped her head to the side. "You seem to misunderstand my intent here, Aidan."
"What intent is that?"
"I have no desire for anyone in the Irish Mob to go to jail."
My brow puckered at that. "Why? It’s not like we’re the good guys."
"Maybe not." She smiled. "But the Five Points handled Isardo’s killer for me. It was only when he died that I finally got any sleep at night." She blinked. "I suffered with night terrors for years after the incident."
I stared at her. "Are you being serious?"
"About the night terrors? Or the fact that I’m not against the Irish Mob?" She shrugged when I struggled to answer her. "There’s no need for me to lie."
Well, that could be a half-truth, but she appeared earnest. The best lies were founded in the truth though. I actually knew who’d taken out Isardo’s murderer—Eoghan. It had been one of his first kills. Even before he’d served in the Army, he’d been good with a rifle.
I could easily imagine how learning of the death of the guy wielding the knife that day would bring her peace. It was whether or not she wished to cause us shit that I doubted.
"Do you know who took him out?" she asked, her eagerness unfeigned.
I pursed my lips. "I do."
Her mouth parted and she betrayed her excitement with a slight shift in her position—she sat upright, jerking forward as if she needed to hear more. "He tried to kill my driver, do you know that? He started for the driver door when the cops arrived."
"Jesus," I rasped.
She didn’t bow her head, but I could see how those memories still took their toll on her. "I was pretty sure I was going to die. Then, he got away, and the cops hunted him down, my dad even got our private security firm involved but they never found him." Her smile made another appearance. "The Five Points, however, did."
"How do you know that?"
"I made it my business to find out."
My mouth firmed. "It wasn’t because of Isardo," I replied, needing to make sure she knew that.
"Why would I care? He was dead. He couldn’t come after me."
Her nostrils flared a second, and I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me about that day, but rather than prod an old wound, one that wasn’t healed no matter how she might think it was, in a stern voice, I asked, "You’re certain there’s no recording equipment in the apartment, Savannah?"
She blinked, then shook her head quickly. Responding like a dream to that faintest hint of authority in my voice.
Fuck, it was hard not to start panting.
Would she bend over the sofa just as politely if I asked her to?
Maybe over my knee?
Clearing my throat to dislodge those unhelpful imaginings, I asked, "If you switch them off now, I won’t be angry."
She swallowed. "I have voice recorders, but they’re not on," she whispered. "I need them for work, but I’m not recording our conversations."
That, I believed.
I’d scared her again.
Because I went out of my way to scare people every day of the fucking week, both men and women alike, I shouldn’t be as irritated with myself as I was.
How had Finn phrased it this afternoon?
That Ma would be proud of me?
Not.
There’d been a long while where Ma was scared of Da. Only as they got older, as we left adolescence behind, did she grow some balls. Even those were hard won, mostly through what she’d endured at the Aryans’ hands.
In apology, I admitted, "Jurkavic deserved worse than being run through with a sword for what he did to Paddy."
Her shoulders relaxed the faintest amount, and I knew she was relieved by my response. Not because of what I was saying, but because it meant I believed her. It was a leap of faith, but we had so many fucking officials in our pocket, I was pretty sure not even God himself would be able to worm his way out of letting any Five Pointer into heaven.
"Maybe before, but Jurkavic was innocent of killing your uncle. I’m pretty sure he was guilty of a whole lot of other stuff, but killing your Uncle Padraig, no."
Though she’d been as predictable as I’d anticipated, had strived to find the answers to this story before I took it away from her, I was mostly relieved that she’d figured this out so I didn’t have to get involved. I’d have taken over if I’d had to… I was just glad that wouldn’t be necessary.
Finn wasn’t wrong. Me and the written word weren’t the best of friends.
Audiobooks, sure. Just regular books? No.
Twisting around so I could stare at her, I asked, "What’s your proof?"
Her face lit up at my question. Literally. As in, she suddenly beamed with energy. Like this was her life’s blood. Like this was the reason she got up in the morning and went to bed way too late at night.
Her hair was a mess from running her hands through it too much, and I was pretty sure the toast she’d sent back this morning was smearing her mouth again, meaning she’d attempted another round of breakfast after I left the restaurant. Her clothes were no longer clean and wrinkle-free, but stained with coffee and rumpled, and she looked a thousand times hotter than this morning.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed could have described her at breakfast. Now she just looked like a wreck. A hot wreck. One I’d bend over the sofa, grab a handful of that thick hair just so I could make sure she never moved out of place.
"You have to be amenable to accepting the impossible."
Because my thoughts and hers were clearly on two different train tracks, one heading for Mexico and the other for Canada, I had to laugh.
Rubbing my chin, I moved closer to her, stepping around the various shit on the floor and perching my ass on the end of the ‘L’ part of the sectional.
Once I was seated, I murmured, "That sounds like you want me to suspend reality."
"That’s pretty much a big part of it, but I do have proof. Of sorts."
I squinted at her. "Circumstantial?"
She nodded quickly.
"Well, I’m not a court of law. Make your arguments, councilor, make them good and I’ll listen."