Dante drives me over to Riona’s law firm on East Wacker. He warned me that the Irish princess wasn’t exactly keen on having me as her bodyguard, but I was hoping we could get off on a slightly better footing than last time.
“Nice to see you again,” I say, holding out my hand to shake.
Riona looks me up and down like I’m a Bible salesman standing on her doorstep. Her green eyes look cool and frosty, like sea glass. “Is that what you’re planning to wear?” she says.
That surprises me, because I actually showered and put on clean clothes before I caught a flight across the Atlantic. I’m wearing boots, jeans, and a button-up flannel, which seems to me to be about the most normal outfit a guy could wear.
“What’s wrong with this?” I ask.
“Nothing.” Riona sniffs. “If I need somebody to chop wood for me.”
“Do you?” I ask her. “ ‘Cause I’m pretty handy with an ax. Gimme three hours and I’ll buck, split, and stack a cord for you.”
Riona shakes her head at me. “I hope to god I never find out what any of that means,” she says.
She turns around and marches away from me. I assume I’m supposed to follow, so I wave farewell to Dante and stroll along after her.
The law firm of Griffin, Briar, Weiss takes up several floors of the building. I’ve already been briefed by Dante that they handle all legal matters for the Griffin empire, and some of the work for the Gallos as well, as the two families’ interests have become entwined.
We’ve only gone about a dozen steps when we’re intercepted by a tall, trim man with iron-gray hair, a long, lean face, and a tweed suit. The suit, combined with his tortoiseshell glasses, makes him look like he’d be more at home in a Dublin pub than in a Chicago law firm.
Sure enough, when he speaks, he has a hint of an Irish accent—just a flavor, enough to know that he hasn’t spent all his life in America.
“Riona!” he says, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Fergus told me what happened. You didn’t have to come in today.”
Riona colors. I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed by the mention of the attack, or because she’s being hugged in the workplace. Possibly both.
“I’m fine, Uncle Oran,” she says.
“I assume you’re Raylan.” Oran releases Riona and holds out his hand to shake. He has slim, dry fingers and a firm grip.
“Raylan Boone,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’m glad you’re here to keep an eye on my niece,” he says. “She’s very valuable to us—to the firm, and to the family.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
I can tell Riona hates this even more—being talked about in the third person and being entrusted to me like a package. She must care about her uncle, because only that could keep her from firing off a sharp retort.
“Raylan can stay in my office,” she says to Oran. “Out of the way.”
“Oh, no need! Make yourself comfortable,” Oran tells me. “We’ve got a pretty good espresso machine. Of course I’m biased—I picked it out myself. Or there’s a cafe on the ground floor.”
He smiles, showing crowded teeth that definitely never had the benefit of American orthodontic care.
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll drink any kinda coffee as long as it’s brown.”
Oran laughs. “A true soldier!” he says. “I was the same way when I served in the IRA.”
He claps me on the shoulder in turn, then continues off down the hallway.
“Your uncle was in the IRA?” I ask Riona.
Riona shrugs. “That’s what he says. But Uncle Oran never lets facts get in the way of a good story.”
“He’s your father’s brother?”
“Half-brother. Different mothers. Actually, there’s a half-sister in Cork who’s even older. I guess my grandfather wasn’t too careful on his visits home. Or too concerned with Grandma’s feelings.”
I don’t think she particularly likes telling me this bit of messy family history, but Riona has a kind of brutal honesty. An interesting characteristic for a lawyer. I always thought of attorneys as silver-tongued devils who would try to convince you that black is white and wrong is right.
Riona is the opposite—she seems determined to state things exactly as they are, and damn the consequences. Or other people’s feelings.
“This is my office,” she says, pointing to a room that looks more like an art gallery. “Don’t touch anything. Don’t talk to anyone. Just . . . be quiet so I can work, please.”
Two bright spots of color burn on her pale cheeks. I think she’s embarrassed for anyone else to see me.
“It’s okay,” I say, grinning at her. “You can tell ‘em I’m your cousin if you like.”
“No thank you,” Riona says coolly. “I know how you treat your cousins where you come from.”
I can’t help giving a little snort. I’ve heard plenty of cousin-fucking jokes before, but the way Riona says it, with her particular edge of disdain, tickles me all the same.
She’s a tough nut to crack.
And I’ve always liked a challenge.
Honestly, if she liked me right off the bat, I’d think she had terrible taste.
I settle down in a cushy armchair in the corner of her office, and I watch her work.
I’m not watching her all the time, of course—I’m also checking the ingress and egress points of the building, making a mental map of the office, looking over the rest of the staff, and watching their interactions. Checking to see who’s friendly with who, who’s got a rivalry going on, and who looks particularly interested in Ms. Riona.
I notice one guy eyeing the pair of us every time he walks down the hall. He’s got sandy blond hair styled up in a quiff, and a skin-tight blue suit with a bright yellow pocket square. Kinda dandy for my tastes, but he seems pretty proud of himself about the whole ensemble.
“Who’s that?” I ask Riona.
She takes those pale green eyes off her work for just a moment, so she can glance up and check who I’m talking about.
“Oh,” she says flatly. “That’s Josh Hale. He’s a sneaky little fucker who’s vying for the same job as me. That’s why he keeps trying to spy on us.”
“How much does he want that job?” I ask her.
“A lot,” Riona says.
“Enough to want you out of the way?”
“Maybe. But I don’t know if he’d have the balls to make that happen. He’s not from a mafia family. He’s just your average cutthroat promotion-chaser. The toughest thing about him is the fact that he was on the fencing team at Notre Dame. Which he’ll be sure to tell you within ten minutes of meeting you.”
Once Josh is done staring at us, I see him head into a messy office at the end of the hall. He pops out again only a minute later, looking red-faced and irritated.
Meanwhile, a pretty girl in an orange dress has scooted her chair several feet the left so she can peer through our window, too.
“What about her?” I ask.
“That’s my paralegal, Lucy. I would guess she’s looking in here because she thinks you’re attractive. She’s been single a while.”
Riona says the word “attractive” with a note of disbelief. Still, I can’t help grinning that she basically admitted I’m cute.
“What’re you working on?” I ask her.
“Purchase agreements for the South Shore Development,” she says curtly.
“Is that all you’re doing?”
She sets down her pen, looking up at me with annoyance. “Why?” she says.
“Well,” I reply patiently, “somebody tried to kill you last night. I assume they had a reason. Seems like it might have something to do with one of your current projects . . . ”
“It’s possible,” Riona says. “This is a two-billion-dollar development. That’s enough money to kill somebody over. But it doesn’t make much sense that they’d try to kill me. Drown me in the pool, and my family will just hire someone else to do the paperwork.”
She says it calmly, without emotion. But I think I hear an edge of bitterness in her voice. Like she really thinks the Griffins would just carry on with their project, barely missing her at all.
“I don’t think you get an office like this just by filling out paperwork,” I say.
“I think you know as much about lawyers as I do about chopping wood.” Riona sniffs.
“Fair enough.” I smile at her.
Riona goes back to her work.
I sit back in my chair and think.
The Griffins have a hundred enemies. Rival Irish families. Rival Italian families. Bratva. Polish Mafia . . .
Why try to kill Riona Griffin, though? And why try to make the drowning look accidental?
Most times when a mafia boss orders a killing, he wants to send a message. If the intent were to threaten the Griffins, or to revenge a past wrong, the hitman would have just shot Riona in the street. Or something much worse . . .
When you kill someone secretly, that’s personal.
The hit was directed at Riona, and Riona alone.
Because of something she did. Or something she knows . . .
Riona works all day long without taking a break for lunch. My stomach is growling, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of begging for food.
Around six p.m., she finally starts packing up the papers on her desk.
“Chow time?” I say.
Riona checks her watch. “I’m meeting Dean for dinner,” she says.
“Who’s Dean?” I ask her.
“My boyfriend,” she says primly.
“Can’t wait to meet him.”
She frowns. “You’re not coming.”
“Sorry, darlin.’ I’m your bodyguard. That means anywhere you go, I go too.”
She narrows her eyes at me, and I can tell she’s trying to decide whether this is worth arguing. On the one hand, I think Riona hates not getting her way. On the other, I’m fixing her with a look that makes it plain that I’m planning to stick to her like honey on a bear paw. She’s not getting rid of me till this job is done.
“Fine,” she snaps at last. “But I don’t think Dean is going to like this.”
“He might.” I shrug. “I’m a pretty likable guy.”
I grab my jacket and follow her over to the elevator.
“You got a car?” I ask her.
“No,” she says. “I don’t need one. I only live a few blocks from the office. And it’s easy to get a cab or an Uber if I want to go anywhere else.”
“Easy for someone to pretend to be a cab driver, too,” I tell her, eyebrow raised.
“Well that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” she says. “In case of murderous, phony cab drivers.”
I can tell she’s already chafing under the inconvenience of having her plans and routines challenged. And this is only day one. We’ve barely gotten started.
Riona strides out to the curb, holding up her hand to hail the nearest cab. As it pulls up, I reach out to open her door for her.
“I can do it,” she snaps. She pulls the handle herself and slides into the backseat. I follow after her, sitting directly behind the driver.
“Where to?” he asks us.
“Amuse Bouche,” Riona says.
“Great seafood at that place,” the cabbie says cheerfully.
Riona ignores him, and me as well, looking out the window as we cross over the river.
“So tell me about Dean,” I say to Riona.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know about everyone in your life. Everyone you’ve been interacting with.”
“Dean doesn’t have anything to do with . . . ” she glances up at the cab driver, who’s listening to a country song, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “Anything to do with what happened,” she finishes.
“We don’t know that. Because we don’t know what happened, or why.”
“That’s ridiculous. Dean’s a surgeon. He’s not—”
“What kind of surgeon?” I say.
Riona takes a slow breath, clearly annoyed with me. “He’s a thoracic surgeon,” she says.
“And how long have you two been dating?”
“Three months.”
“How did you meet?”
“Is this really—”
“Just answer the questions. It’s easier than arguing.”
Riona tosses her head, throwing her long, flame-colored ponytail back over her shoulder. Her hair is the most vivid I’ve ever seen—not orange or strawberry-blonde. A true bright red. Her eyebrows and lashes are much darker, like the black points on a fox’s ears and nose.
There’s nothing delicate or girlish about Riona. She’s a woman through and through. She has a long, straight nose, wide mouth, strong cheekbones, and poker-straight posture. Tall, and not afraid to wear heels to make herself taller.
“Do you think I do anything because it’s easier?” she says.
“Sure you do,” I say. “Smart people don’t do things the hard way.”
“Know a few smart people, do you?” she says mockingly.
“Why you tryin’ so hard to fight with me? We’re not enemies.”
“We’re not friends either.” She sniffs.
I just chuckle and shake my head at her, which annoys her more than if I’d gotten angry.
Riona may look like a fox, but she’s got the temperament of a thoroughbred—haughty and high-strung. I don’t think she’s bad-tempered. She just doesn’t trust easily.
I know how to handle thoroughbreds. I grew up on a horse ranch, after all.
“Come on,” I say gently. “Tell me where you met this Dean guy. Was it on Tinder? You can tell me if it was Tinder.”
“No,” Riona says, refusing to smile. “It wasn’t Tinder.”
“Where, then?”
“It was a friend’s birthday party. I was opening a bottle of wine. The stopper slipped. I cut my finger. He helped bandage it.”
“And he didn’t send you a bill after, so you knew it was true love.”
“No. He just asked to take me out for coffee the next day.”
“Who was your mutual friend?”
“Her name’s Amanda. We went to law school together.”
“How did Dean know her?”
“He plays racquetball with her fiancé Greg.”
We’re pulling up in front of the restaurant now. Riona says, “Satisfied? You’re not going to interrogate him, too, I hope.”
“Nah, of course not.” I grin. “I’ll be quiet as a mouse. You’ll barely even know I’m there.”
