And so life, as they say in the movies, goes back to normal. Mostly, at least. I still have a small army of guards shadowing Neve wherever she goes. But after three weeks locked up together in our penthouse, she starts to go back out into the world.
The emotions that brings up in me when I think about it are conflicted, to say the least.
On the one hand, logically, yes: it’s a relief to know the threat against her has effectively gone away. I’ve had my own people do some poking around, and Agent Dorsey was telling the truth: the US Justice Department has record of Seamus crossing the Mexican border and disappearing into Juarez.
The story with his escape checks out, too. As impenetrable and inescapable as Florence ADX is, Seamus and whoever he hired found one weak point: a flaw in the scheduled timing of guards watching over prisoners in ultra isolation. How they managed to get an explosive device into that isolation cell and blow some holes in a couple walls is still being investigated. But they used a ten-second “blackout” window to get things into place without being seen.
So yes, on one hand, I’m glad there’s a degree of safety with Neve being able to go out now. To visit her sister, and Callie. To go back to classes on campus. And most importantly, to live her life with a little less fear.
But on the other hand, not having her all to myself in the penthouse for weeks on end—just the two of us shut off from the rest of the world—fucking sucks.
There’s a chance I’ve gotten a bit too accustomed to having her effectively imprisoned with me, with nothing to do all day but see how many times I can make her come before she can’t walk.
That’s just my own selfishness talking, though. Overall, I know it’s a good thing that she’s going out again.
But that doesn’t mean for a second that I’ve let my guard down. Even if the FBI is sure Seamus is sipping gin and tonics on a beach in southeast Asia somewhere.
I nod as Hades and I step into Cillian’s office. Cillian and Owen Foley nod back. Neve—along with her small army of guards—is at class. Eilish and Callie are off running an errand somewhere, with Castle in tow.
Which is exactly why I’ve chosen now for this little meeting. Because Neve’s clearly enjoying her new freedom. She’s smiling more. She’s breathing easier, knowing that monster is gone.
Except I’m not so convinced he is, and neither is Cillian. But neither of us wants to worry her with that. Let her be happy.
Hades and I sit on the couch across from the two Irishmen as Cillian lights a cigarette.
“So?”
Cillian nods as he takes a slow drag.
“The devices were professionally made.”
He’s talking about the three bombs that allowed Seamus to escape solitary at Florence: one that smashed a hole in his cell wall, and two more that were intended to—and did—provoke chaos and carnage within gen-pop, causing a prison riot that covered his escape.
“Is that from Dorsey?”
Cillian shakes his head. “No. The FBI still thinks someone managed to make explosive devices within the prison itself. Because the bombs were deliberately built to look like that—all the parts were shit you can source on the inside, if you know what you’re doing.”
“But they weren’t?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
I frown. “Does Dorsey know this?”
“Shane’s a good asset to my organization. But there’s an unspoken rule that we don’t step on each other’s toes, professionally speaking. He doesn’t tell me how to run my business. I don’t tell him to hire better explosive experts who could see those devices were custom built to look homemade. But I’ve had my own people looking into this whole thing, because it smells like shit, and I want to know who shat it out. So to speak.”
Hades and I glance at each other.
“There’s something else,” Owen mutters, taking a sip of the whiskey in his hand. “Seamus isn’t the only one missing from Florence.”
My brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
“He had help.”
“Well, no shit,” Hades grunts. “But they ate shit on the way out when the guards came in.”
He’s referring to the five guards and ten prisoners who were killed during the riot Seamus engineered to mask his escape.
Owen shakes his head. “No. Someone else. It’s being kept quiet, even from us. Dorsey’s a good man, but there are things he can’t, or won’t, tell us.”
“You’re saying there’s more than one prisoner missing from the most secure prison in the country and no one’s talking about it?” I growl.
“Yes and no.” Owen takes another sip of his drink. “Originally, Florence had everyone accounted for, including the bodies. Except two of those bodies weren’t prisoners or guards there.”
My brother scowls. “Huh?”
Cillian nods. “A couple of nobodies. Low-level drug dealers. They were beaten and then killed; they were already dead before they wound up in Florence. Whoever planted those explosives also dropped them in there. The bodies were to cover the fact that two other prisoners escaped with Seamus, and to make sure the head count tallied after the dust settled.”
My teeth grind. “So he’s got two fucking guys out there with him?”
“No.”
I raise a brow. Cillian takes another slow drag on his cigarette.
“Had.” He exhales smoke. “At least, for about fifty miles. They were both found dead in the back of an old warehouse, alongside the torched prison laundry van they escaped in.”
Hades shakes his head. “So he killed them.”
“Very much so.”
My brother frowns. “But he didn’t torch the bodies with the van?”
“Nope.” Cillian arches a brow. “He bled them to death.”
A cold sensation drags over my skin. My mind flashes to the horrors I’ve heard about the monster who once wanted to do the same thing to a nine-year-old Neve.
“They were trussed up on makeshift crosses,” Cillian mutters quietly. “And cut: wrists, femoral artery, jugular. All slashed.”
Like he tried to do with Neve.
“Dorsey is aware of this?”
“I’d be amazed if he wasn’t,” Cillian grunts. “But again, our relationship is… multi-layered.”
“Have you dug into the two guys he got out with? Their affiliations?”
Cillian glances at Owen, who nods. “A bit.”
“And?” I growl.
“Well, we’re still looking into—”
“Look harder,” I snarl.
The older Irishman frowns and glances at Cillian. But Neve’s uncle just shrugs.
“You heard the Greek,” he growls. “Look harder. Do whatever it takes. Find out who the fuck they were and who the fuck they may have been affiliated with.”
Owen nods, polishing off his drink and standing. I turn to my brother.
“Does that Homeland Security deputy still owe you that favor?”
Hades smiles thinly. “He does.”
“Cash it in. I want to know what the Feds have on these two.”
“On it.”
My brother follows Owen out the door. When Cillian and I are alone again, he leans back against the couch, steepling his fingers.
“Neve told you, didn’t she. About Seamus, I mean.”
“She did,” I growl. “And thank you.”
“No one needs to be thanked for doing what they must for family. It’s just what you do.”
We sit in silence for a moment. “Do you really think we’re out from under this?” I ask him. “I mean, this theory that Seamus has fucked off to Vietnam or wherever?”
Cillian takes a slow breath.
“I think Owen and Dorsey are right. Seamus is a psychopath, but it’s not like he did what he did for the Irish out of fucking charity. He did it for the bloodlust, yeah. But he was also paid like a fucking king for his services. When he went down, that money moved real quick offshore, or into those other accounts Dorsey was talking about.”
Cillian shrugs, exhaling.
“The man was looking at dying alone in a windowless five-by-five foot cell. Now he’s out, sitting on a beach with close to thirty million in his pocket. He’s insane, but he’s not stupid.”
“What about angry, though?” I hiss. “What about vengeful against the woman who was told to lie on a witness stand at the age of nine?”
Cillian’s eyes narrow at the edge to my voice.
“I happen to know for a fact that Neve has no regrets about that. But even still—”
“She was fucking nine, Cillian,” I hiss.
“And that fucking lunatic almost killed her!” he snarls back. “You think I did what I did just to fuck him over?!” he spits. “Because I didn’t. I made that choice because if there was ever even a chance of that monster getting out, I knew she’d be in danger.”
I bark a cold laugh. “Well, here we fucking are!”
His eyes stab into mine in that unsettlingly psycho way he has sometimes.
“Do you know how I managed to find her, all those years ago?”
“Yeah, you beat it out of Seamus’ old buddies.”
Cillian smiles thinly.
“Do you know what hydrofluoric acid does to a man?”
My jaw tightens.
“I know it can…burn you.”
His lips stay pulled tight in a maniacal, off-putting smile as he regards his left forearm thoughtfully.
“It’ll melt your skin off. Then the muscle. Then the very bones.” He turns his gaze to me. “A man will tell you just about anything when he’s tied down and watching his jerk-off hand dissolve into nothing but sparkling water.”
I swallow a grimace.
“Or he’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want him to tell you,” I counter.
Cillian shrugs. “Yes. One might. When it’s ten of them, though? And they’re all telling the same tale?” He smiles. “Well…that’s a story you might start paying attention to.”
“Cillian tracked down anyone who’d ever been remotely associated with Seamus, and then tortured his way through them until he figured out where I was.”
Jesus. And here I was thinking he’d cracked some skulls or chopped off some fingers.
My jaw clenches as I stare at the utterly calm head of the Kildare family sitting across the table from me, still smiling that cold, calculating smile.
“If you think for one second I’m taking any of this or the safety concerns for my niece lightly, then I invite you to think fucking again,” he hisses. “Because there isn’t a method I won’t use, or a line I won’t cross, to protect my family.”
My eyes meet his.
“Nor is there for me.”
And there isn’t. There’s not one horror I wouldn’t hesitate to commit, or army I wouldn’t take on myself.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep the woman I realize I’ve fallen completely in love with from harm.
