I closed my eyes and breathed deeply through my nose.
“Can you say nail again, please? Specifically, nail me, Hunter. You practically already said all the words, just not in sequence.”
She burst out laughing as I hooked a finger into her jacket and pulled her in, not giving a fuck about being broke and unemployed and neck-deep in trouble.
“What’d you get?” I threw my arm over her shoulder, kissing the crown of her head as we walked toward the living room. And just like that, it felt like she was never gone. Just another blissful night with my girl.
“I thought we’d try the new Cypriot place. It got rad reviews.”
I bit my fist again. I’d made the right choice.
Fuck the money.
I knew, in a subconscious way, that the only shot I had at catching Syllie was if he made a mistake. But Syllie was a careful bastard, so when I found out I’d been the one to throw him off-kilter, I nearly jizzed my pants.
It was right after Sailor and I polished off our souvlaki and halloumi cheese wraps. We listened to him as he got the call in which he was informed that I hadn’t boarded the commercial plane to Maine with my father and brother.
“What do you mean he is not on the plane?” he seethed to the person on the other line. I couldn’t listen to what the other party was saying. Sylvester had used another burner phone. “How could he not be on the plane?”
Sailor and I exchanged glances, our backs hunched over the laptop, listening to the live recording.
“The whole plan is pointless without him there! No, don’t tell me to calm down. Months of planning, all down the drain. You might as well cancel the entire operation if he’s not there. The idiot will take over once they’re done and dealt with, and my troubles will triple.”
“Done and dealt with?” Sailor whisper-shouted, her eyes widening. “Did he just say that?”
A few things happened in that moment. Maybe because Sailor looked at me like I was an intelligent, capable human being and not a moneyed gigolo. She looked at me like I could crack this riddle.
And I realized…well, that I could.
I did a quick math:
Syllie sent my father and brother to a refinery that’d been dealing with health and safety issues.
The machinery was faulty. Three of them, at least. That’s why we were scheduled to visit there in the first place.
Syllie could and probably planned to stage an accident in which all three of us—Da, Cillian and I—would die. All he needed was one orchestrated explosion. Mom and Aisling, while they’d inherit the majority of shares, wouldn’t run the company in a million years. Which put the position in Syllie’s capable hands.
Holy shit. He wanted to kill us. And I’d just fucked up his plan big time. Now the question was—would he go through with it still, or was he postponing because my ass wasn’t en route to Maine?
Sailor seemed to read my mind, shoving my phone into my hand. “You have to call them.”
I called Cillian five times. I tried another three times to reach my father. I also texted them a thousand times. They were either on the plane or somewhere with zero reception. I remembered Cillian complaining about the lack of reception in that part of Maine. I was sure Syllie took this into consideration when he’d planned all this.
“What do I do now?” I stood, pacing back and forth. “What do I do to save my asshole family?”
“Now,” Sailor said simply, “you do what Fitzpatricks do best: you go to war, and you win.”
I borrowed Sailor’s car, drove her back to her parents’ house (I didn’t take any chances in case Syllie had hired muscle to come to my apartment and finish me off), then drove straight to his house, hoping he was still there. I was glad for Knox’s investigative skills. He knew where Syllie lived, worked out, took shits, and all his favorite call girls.
The entire drive there, I tried calling Da and Cillian. Finally, I called Mom and told her to try to reach them and not stop until she found them and told them not to go to the refinery.
“But why?” she asked for the millionth time.
“Because fucking stop asking questions, Mom. Just do it!”
I parked in front of Syllie’s place in Charlestown, a ten-bedroom Jacobian-style mansion, stark white over black windows, with a lush front yard I currently wanted to set on fire. I slammed the driver’s door shut and tromped my way to the entrance, banging on the door, then punching the bell five times for good measure. It was way past visiting hours, but if I wasn’t going to get some sleep tonight, fuck if anyone in his family would.
Syllie opened the door with a scowl, wearing a purple burgundy house robe. I swear my libido bled to death the second I saw him.
His face turned from deadly to pleasant in an instant.
“Hunter, what a lovely surprise. I thought you were supposed to be on your way to Maine?” he asked innocently.
“God, terrible acting. I’m talking Harrison Ford in The Frisco Kid. Just terrible. We need to talk.”
“Something happened?” He grimaced.
I wanted to punch his teeth in. I smiled instead. I’d asked Aisling to work on Mom and convince her to give me the private plane to get to Maine—not that my mother wouldn’t give me a limb if I asked for it, but I didn’t want to talk to her if I could help it.
“Just playing catch-up.” I shrugged.
“At midnight?” His eyes nearly bulged.
I inclined my head, buying time. “What can I say? I missed you so.”
He invited me in, hesitantly, and motioned for me to follow him to his office on the third floor. He opened the door to the balcony after pouring us two timbers of whiskey. I knew better than to put my lips to any drink Syllie gave me, but swirled the golden liquid in its tumbler for show.
“I know about your plan.” I let the drink slosh over the rim. “And I know who’s helping you execute it.”
That part was a lie, but if there was one thing I was good at, it was having a poker face. It had saved my ass countless times.
“Of course I studied for the test.”
“Of course you’re the only girl I thought about this week.”
“Of course I’m not too intoxicated to operate this heavy machinery.”
“I have no idea what you mean.” He leaned on the bannister, taking a sip of his drink. It was the little things that gave him away: the beads of sweat gathering at his temples, the way his lips twitched, how deeply he leaned against a high balcony. He was nervous.
I leaned against the doorframe, far from the bannister, studying him. “I hope you have a better line of defense when you get arrested, Mr. Lewis. Because trying to blow up a refinery with dozens of people inside, including the three major shareholders of Royal Pipelines, is no kiddie game.”
None of those things were confirmed, but his face twisted in horror as the words left my mouth, and I knew I was spot-on. He quickly rearranged his features, placing his timber of whiskey on the marble railing.
“Who fed you this nonsense, Sonny-boy?”
“Your partner in crime,” I replied. Another lie.
“I have no such thing.”
“Would you continue singing this tune if I told you every single time you used burner phones to call him, he recorded both of you?” I quirked an eyebrow.