Page 68 of A Love Most Fatal
He stops at my side and tsks as he looks down at the bodies. It’s four from the Morellis and one of his. The Donovanns don’t usually work warehouse shifts, it’s unfortunate that there had to be deaths from both of our families tonight.
“Fucking Garzas.” He spits the name. “Nothing but trash on the city’s streets.”
I meet Mary’s eyes, both of us noting his lack of notice. Cillian needs little prompting to go off about the Garzas—hehates them as much as his father did and is a total prick when it comes to them.
The Garzas have a say in most drug movement in this city and they expand to other states too. It’s a big fish operation, and Cillian hates to think there are fish bigger than him.
“What are you wearing?” Cillian asks Mary, who glares at him. I hadn’t noticed her black mini skirt and cropped tank. And her hair is down instead of pinned or braided out of her face like it typically is. She looks hot. Is this how she goes out when she sneaks out at night? “You have a date or something?”
“None of your business, asshole.” Mary flips Cillian off before stomping off to follow Willa around the warehouse as she counts materials.
“What I love most about Mary is her charm,” Cillian says. He crouches down next to one of his men and does the sign of the cross. The corpse is a young guy, probably in his early twenties. I can’t remember his name.
“When do we attack, then?” Cillian asks.
“We don’t,” I say. He stands too quickly to his feet, a whole head taller than me, and I already know he’s about to fight me. “Listen, we have no proof, and now is not the time to start a turf war.”
“What more proof do you need?” Cillian waves an arm at the bodies.
“It wasn’t them,” Leo says, reentering from the office. Cillian puffs up his chest and fumes, ready to tell my cousin just how wrong he is.
I place a hand on Cillian’s forearm. “Look at the cuts.”
Cillian closes his mouth and does as I say, walking in a circle around the men. His eyes turn to slits as he glares down at them.
“A hack job,” Cillian agrees.
At his side, I see his thumb playing with one of his rings, circling the metal around his finger, one of his thinking ticks.Ever the calm man, Cillian paces away from me and flips a table, the contents on top clattering and rolling with the loud bang of the metal table hitting the concrete floor.
I sigh and wait for his tantrum to be over.
“We can’t do nothing,” Cillian says. He kicks a water bottle that rolls towards him after his display.
“I know that, but whoever did this wants us to retaliate. They want us to start burning the city down, making enemies in the process,” I say. Cillian jerks his head towards me and studies me with those icy eyes, there’s such ire there that I think they just might ignite. “We need to be deliberate about this.”
“You look like a coward.”
I don’t flinch at his words, but I feel a muscle in my jaw jump. “Going up against the Garzas when it’s clear they didn’t do this will make us look like trigger happy fools. Which would you prefer?”
Cillian props his hands on his hips. “What do you suggest then?”
“The Mayor’s Gala—” Cillian dramatically throws his head back with a groan before I can finish. “You have to be there, Cillian. Everyone does.”
“I hate that fucking party,” he spits.
One might think that Cillian would take any chance to show off his expensive clothes, shiny shoes, and diamond watches, but if it means rubbing elbows with the city’s more. . . conventionally rich and powerful, he wants nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, though, that’s not how this business works.
“You’re going. Stop acting like a baby,” I say. “You know we don’t get to have the life we do without some level of cooperation. We’re all going to show up, make small talk, and try to sniff out whatever rat has been getting into places it doesn’t belong.”
Cillian knows he has to go, he just hates the reminder. We get away with literal murder in this city because those people he terribly resents want the same things we do: power, security, stability, and protection. We provide all of that for them for what I consider to be a small cost (idealist Nate might call that cost their souls, I call it their attention). They look the other way, open doors that we don’t have keys to, and in return, we keep them on a list.
Practically part of the family.
The Mayor’s Gala is the one night of the year when everyone plays nice. It doesn’t matter which family you’re a part of nor which business you’re in, you show up, you pretend your empire is above board, you drink fancy wine and dance to the live band. It is what it is.
“Someone will talk if we ask the right questions,” I say, more confident than I feel.
He stares hard at my face for a moment, a battle of wills, but I haven’t once backed down to Cillian Donovann since my father died, and I don’t plan on starting now. It’s what keeps us on common ground.