Page 17 of Heated Rivals
Before.
With Devlin’s death, Cillian’s entire life devolved into Before and After. He barely recognized the man he was now, the hard son of a bitch he was turning into. A wall of ice had started around his heart, and it only seemed to get thicker with each passing day, freezing him from the inside out.
“Is this seat taken?”
He barely glanced at the man. “Nope.”None of the seats at the bar were. There’d been a rowdy group in here earlier, but this close to last call, the place was damn near deserted. Which didn’t explain why the hell this guy felt the need to sit directly next to him.
“Buy you a drink?”
It took a second for him to place the accent. Russian, but a little different. Maybe somewhere eastern European, like the Ukraine. He wasn’t going to ask—it would just mean opening up a conversation that he didn’t want in the first place. Cillian motioned at the full drink in front of him. “I have one.”
“You’ve been staring at it for three hours. It’s no longer drinkable.” The man leaned forward and caught the bartender’s eye. “Two vodka.” His accent turned thevinto aw.
Since the man obviously wasn’t going anywhere, Cillian finally gave him his full attention. He was in his mid-thirties and had one of the best suits Cillian had ever seen. There was nothing extravagant or loud about it, but it managed to scream money nonetheless. It was more than that, though.Cillianhad expensive suits in his closet. Fuck, he was wearing one right now. But he was conscious of the cloth against his skin and the pull of the fabric every time he moved.
This man wore his suit like he’d been born to it.
Cillian frowned. This didn’t feel like a pickup, though. There was no interest in this guy’s dark eyes—or at least no interest that had anything to do with sex. In a way, it was a relief—it saved him from having to explain that he didn’t swing that way—but it also opened up the question: What the fuck was this guy doing?
When the bartender, Benji, dropped the vodka off, the man lifted his. “I’m Dmitri.”
“Cillian.” The exchange of names was soautomatic, his was out of his mouth before he had a chance to think better of it. Then again, he highly suspected this Dmitri knew exactly who he was. Nothing about this indicated it was anything but planned. The knowledge sat like a burr in the back of his throat. “What do you want?”
“Direct. I like that.” Dmitri took his shot without flinching. “We spend too much of our days wasting time making small talk. You and I, well, we know there is nothing guaranteed in this world.”
He didn’t like this guy lumping them in together, especially when he still had no fucking idea what his game was. “For the second and final time—what do you want?”
Dmitri seemed to be considering him. “It’s bad luck to turn down a drink.”
“I don’t drink anymore.” It didn’t matter if his hand itched for the glass. He wasn’t touching the damn thing. Cillian had been weak too much of his life. It stopped now.
He nodded like Cillian had admitted to something entirely different. “I understand. As for what I want… perhaps I want a friend.”
“A friend.” He put every ounce of his derision and disbelief into the last word.
“Is that so hard to believe? Men like us don’t have many friends. We have pawns and enemies and family—and sometimes those circles even overlap.”
That was true enough, but that still didn’t answer the question. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. “Trust issues go with the territory.”
Dmitri laughed, a deep rolling sound that instantly made him want to join in. That laugh was a weapon, and one he’d bet the man had honed to perfection. He shook his head. “Let’s be frankthen, shall we?”
Somehow, he doubted there was anything about this conversation that would be frank. The man talked in circles, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was giving Cillian enough rope to hang himself with. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t done anything or agreed to anything to merit the feeling. It was there nonetheless. “Let’s.”
Dmitri ignored the sarcastic tone. “Your father is keen to marry off your oldest sister.”
He knew that. Hell, everyone knew that. “I’m aware.”
“I’m one of the men in the running, such as it is.” Dmitri shrugged, as nonchalant as if he was talking about the weather. “If I’m going to become family, it wouldn’t hurt to get to know her brothers. And you’re a kindred soul of sorts.”
He blinked. This guy had a set of steel balls to come in here and chat him up like his sister was a sure thing. He sat back. If Carrigan had settled on someone, he would have heard about it. Most likely. He hadn’t exactly been playing dutiful O’Malley minion recently. It was possible he’d missed the announcement.
But Cillian didn’t think so.
There would be no reason for this guy to come cozy up to him if he thought Carrigan was a sure thing. No, this was something else altogether. He turned the shot glass, eyeing the writing on the side. It was the bar logo, one he’d seen a million times. He watched Dmitri out of the corner of his eye. The man didn’t seem impatient or worried or scheming—which meant he was even more dangerous than Cillian had originally guessed. Dmitri was a player in this game of power, and it would be stupid to underestimate him.
So he didn’t tell him to get lost. “Sure,I get that.” If this man had his eye on Carrigan, Cillian had to figure out what his game was. He didn’t seem like the normal power-grabbing sort their father liked to string along by their noses. Dmitri practicallyreekedof power.
Not to mention, Cillian had never seen him before. If he was someone of note in the Boston scene, he would have before now. All of which added up to the conclusion that the man was from out of town.
