Page 97 of The Apprentice
“You’re mean, Daddy Daire.” He smiled anyway.
“Now that I have you here with no way to escape, talk to me. How are you feeling about the entire Lor thing?” I studied his face, watching the way his eye twitched and his mouth pinched.
“What do you want me to say?” His knuckles turned white. The speed he was driving at went up and down, as if he was struggling to focus.
“Start with the truth on how you’re feeling. You’ve been so wrapped up in figuring out Diaz’s notebook that you’re ignoring the other issue, and as your Daddy, I’m not going to let you do that anymore.” I gave him a pointed look. “Talk.”
“Are we doing therapy?” he teased, but I saw this for what it was—a distraction.
I narrowed my eyes at him, and he sighed.
“There’s nothing to say. He’s my cousin. Even if Sloan doesn’t give the Company to him, who sayshewon’t want to fight me for it in the future?” His eyebrows furrowed in frustration.
“Who says your brothers won’t do the same?” I asked.
He frowned at me. “Because they’ve had nothing to do with the business.”
I grinned. “And neither has Lor. If anything, he’s averse to the idea of criminal life. He studies it with Vail, but has he ever done anything illegal?”
“No, but . . . .” Fionn sighed, and I laughed.
“Boy, you can’t argue your way out of this. Like with Conall, your hatred for Lor comes from your own insecurities.”
He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Sure thing, Dr. Phil.”
“You’ll get a spanking for that later. Merge into the next lane.”
He glanced in his mirror and did as I instructed, so distracted by our conversation that he drove with a confidence I’d only seen in people who’d been behind the wheel for years. “What I’m saying is that I don’t trust him.”
“You didn’t trust Conall, either, and now you two are besties.”
He snorted. “We arenot. I respect him a little now, that’s all. Can we not do this, Daddy?”
“Why? Is it making you uncomfortable?” I asked.
“No, but I don’t see the point. Lor is my cousin. I can’t change that, but it doesn’t mean I have to be nice to him.” His jaw twitched, a visible sign he was gritting his teeth.
I sighed. “He doesn’t know that, boy. He’s as innocent as you are in this. Your problem with him isn’t because he’s related, but because you think Sloan pays more attention to him.”
“That isn’t true.” The words left him too quickly, and the sharp bite to them told me everything I needed to know.
“You’ve said it yourself, so you can’t deny it. You think Sloan cares more for Lor than you.”
“Uncle doesn’t know him,” he snapped. “Lor could betray us. His father’s not exactly trustworthy, is he? He’s supposed to be Sloan’s advisor, but he’s never around, too busy flaunting money around the city in the local whore houses. Who says he’s not the rat?”
“He might be,” I agreed. Lorcan had always been on my list of potential traitors because Fionn was right. The man was slimy, and there was no love lost between him and Sloan. The only reason Lorcan was on the board was because Sloan’s father asked Sloan to put him there. “But Lor isn’t his father. Are you Eoin?”
“That isn’t fair.” He sent me a glare.
“Exactly, so why are you treating Lor like shit, boy?”
He braked a little too hard, and there weren’t any cars in front of us, so I assumed I’d pissed him off, but I was happy to leave the conversation like that. Fionn was the kind of person who needed to ruminate over the information before he came to a reasonable conclusion because, despite being a young man who acted like a brat at the best of times, he was also incredibly intelligent. The problem was that his emotions always got the best of him and didn’t give him a chance to reflect on himself.
Soon we were heading toward the exit to Sloan’s house, and I directed Fionn, all his nervousness about driving gone as he focused on doing what I told him. When he pulled the Mercedes to a stop and put it into Park, I grinned widely at him.
“Well done, Fifi.”
He stared outside the window at Sloan’s house, and his eyes widened. “Fuck. I drove here.”
