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“I would if it wasn’t dictating your actions right now,” Noah bit out. “You’re thinking with your dick, and you need to fucking stop.”
There was some movement, but I didn’t dare peek inside the room. “You’re talking to me like I’m new in town, Noah,” Declan said. “I know that Keavy’s not trustworthy. I know that her background is a problem. I know that it’s not normal for a woman to kill the way that she does. You’re not telling me anything that I already don’t know.”
“Then what’s the fucking problem?” Noah asked. “Put her down like you would any other fucking witness to anything that we had going on, then call it a goddamn day.”
“When, Noah?” Declan drawled out. “Before or after she confirms our alibis with the police for tonight?”
After a few seconds of silence, Noah hissed, “Fuck.”
With blood rushing through my ears, I turned from the door, then as quietly as I could, I hurried back upstairs to grab my purse. Whatever I felt for Declan O’Brien, it wasn’t strong enough to turn me into a sitting duck. With Noah pushing to get rid of me, there was no way that Declan was going to keep me alive after I served his purpose.
The ironic thing was that Noah wasn’t wrong. I did have secrets, I did only look out for myself, and I had no problem killing someone if it meant saving myself. Still, it was clear that I had developed enough feelings for Declan to make things complicated, and there was only one way to un-complicate the situation at this point.
After grabbing my purse, I made my way back downstairs, and then doing my best not to make any noise, I headed through the kitchen, quietly sneaking through the backdoor to the garage. When we’d gotten here earlier, Declan had parked in the garage, and with my eyes taking in everything the way that Cian had taught me, I had noticed another door that could only lead to the yard.
With no alarms blaring, I made my way out the side door, and when I saw nothing but manicured grass in front of me, I knew that there was only one way out of here, and with cameras everywhere, it was going to be a race to see how far I could make it to the gate before Declan was alerted that I was leaving. I wasn’t sure if his guards cared at this point or not, but the electric fence wasn’t an option.
Knowing that my purse would only hinder me, I took out my phone and wallet, stuffed them in my pockets, then dropped the bag on the ground. I also debated if I should run or walk away confidently. If I ran, then the guards might think that I was an escaping prisoner, which I supposed I kind of was. However, if I walked out of here confidently, they might just think that Declan had sent me on my way.
Finally deciding on productivity over practicality, I took off running, thankful that Cian had taught me to be observant at all times. While I didn’t have a photographic memory, I could remember a lot when my life depended on it, so I knew the exact pathway back to the front gate. From there, the countryside was dark enough that I could get lost in the houses along the way, which probably belonged to more O’Briens since I couldn’t see Declan O’Brien being the neighborly sort.
As soon as I saw the gate, I risked the skin on my hands to climb over the wrought-iron bars, and when I landed on the other side, I took off running as fast as I could, glad that it was a moonless night. I also knew that there was only one place that I could go since Declan knew where I worked and lived. The cabin wasn’t under my name, so that was the only safe haven that I had.
An hour later, I was back in town, and with Declan still in possession of my car, I had to find another way to get to the cabin. Now, I wasn’t afraid to walk since Cian had taught me stamina during all those hunting and hiking trips together, but that fatigue was coming back, and I knew that I was going to crash soon. So, with little choice, I ordered an Uber, then told him that I’d give him a thousand-dollar tip if he started driving and didn’t stop until I told him to.
Chapter 27
Declan~
Keavy was gone, and I had no one to blame but myself. While I’d been telling Noah that I didn’t care about her sketchy past, or how she killed without consequence, or how I didn’t have a thing for Kasen Sartori, Keavy had been sneaking out of my house, proving how wrong and right I’d been about her. Luckily, Noah had been gracious enough not to rub my nose in my mistakes, but the facts didn’t change anything. I was keeping Keavy, and her little disappearing act didn’t factor into a decision that I’d made way before she had even agreed to kill Donaldson for us.
The only problem was that I couldn’t find her on my own, and I knew it. As Noah and Kevin were doing their best to find out more about her, I was developing a new kind of respect for Aurelio Provenza. Now that I was faced with having to ask the enemy for help, I knew exactly how Aurelio had felt last year when he’d had to ask my permission to go after his lassie. While men like us dined on pride, pride was nothing when a man was actually in love with a woman and not just addicted to her pussy.
So, with karma laughing at me from the corner of my mind, I dialed Nero Sartori, and while this was a bad idea for lots of reasons, I had no other choice. The O’Briens and Sartoris weren’t friends, but it’d be so easy to argue that fact if Avgust Kotov knew just how friendly we were these days.
Luckily for me, Nero answered on the third ring. “O’Brien,” he greeted frostily, and the man really needed to get it into his head that I wasn’t after his wife.
“Trust me when I tell you that this pains me more than it pains you,” I drawled out.
“Well, then this should be interesting.”
“I need a background check, and it needs to be a deep background check,” I told him, hating every second of this conversation.
To his credit, he didn’t draw out the torture. “On who?”
“Her name is Keavy Collins,” I answered. “I have where she works, where she lives, and that she owns her car, but that’s all there is to the background check that we’d done on her so far. Her father is listed on her birth certificate as Cian O’Connell, but there’s nothing on her mother.”
“They don’t share the same last name?”
“No, they don’t.”
Nero was silent for a few seconds before finally asking, “And why do you need a deep dive on her?”
Killing two birds with one stone, I said, “I’m in love with her, but she doesn’t seem to feel the same way. She took off in the middle of the night, and I need to find her.”
Silence.
“Sartori?”
