Page 30 of The Chief
“Can’t get her to shut up half the time,” Keir replied flatly.
The hard gaze of the Clan Boss settled on me again. “Which clan are you working for?”
“I don’t,” I told him, my tone and words direct.
Finnan leaned back in his chair, studying me with his hawk-like eyes. “Where’d you get the bullet from then?”
Chewing on my bottom lip, I considered how much to say, quickly realizing I didn’t have a choice in how much information to share. I had to give him all of it.
“From a man named Grady Nolan.”
“And this Nolan.” Finnan picked up a dagger that was sitting on his desk. “He gave you a bullet and said what exactly?”
“He told me to deliver it to the Mac Tíre Clan Boss.”
His brows rose. “Me … He told you to deliver it to me.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t think to ask why you needed to deliver it?”
I frowned. “No, I knew what it meant. It’s a declaration of war.”
“Then why you? Why didyouhave to play messenger?”
I glanced toward Keir, but before our eyes could meet, Finnan barked loudly, “Don’t fucking look to him for the answer! Why you? Why did Nolan pick you? What’s the fucking connection?”
Even though I wanted to shift in my seat, I stayed still. I was not backing down. I’d faced down too many men like Finnan in my life and him being a Clan Boss didn’t change a damn thing.
“We have a past.”
“What kind of past?”
“One I have no intention of sharing with you.”
Finnan’s mouth curled into a mockery of a grin. “Be careful, bitch. Unlike Keir, I’m not patient. Tell me what I want to know, and you might walk out of here without being fucked to within an inch of your life.”
I let out a deep breath. “We had a relationship in the past.”
He glanced at Keir. “Does she have a magic pussy or something?”
Outraged, I spun to find Keir shrugging his shoulder, a cruel smile tilting his lips. His dark gaze flickered to me in challenge.
“No, I don’t have a ‘magic pussy’,” I put my words in air quotes. “We had an intense relationship.”
Finnan picked up the dagger again and picked at the dirt under his fingernails. “Why did it end?”
Raising my chin, I returned his stare as I announced, “Because the next time he beat me, he would have killed me.”
“So, he smacked you around a little, so what? Doesn’t explain why he thought of you when he wanted to deliver a message to a Clan Boss?” Finnan’s tone was flippant, but his eyes were sharp and calculating.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I replied. “Maybe he believed because I lived in Galway, I had access to the clan.”
“You don’t, though,” Finnan countered, slamming the knife down onto the desk. “You don’t have any association with the clan except for bouncing on—” Picking the dagger back up, he jabbed it in Keir’s direction. “—his dick.”
“She’s also friends with Fallon,” Keir added, not disputing the crude description of how we knew each other.
“Orin’s woman? Fuck, Keir, there better not be anyone else out there that you’ve stuck your dick into who is going to haunt us.”
