“You’re a waste of time, Darren. A massive fucking waste of time. If I wanted, I could put a bullet in your head right now, go through everything you have in here, and still have more than a few people willing to come take your place. The reputation of the O’Sullivan family stretches wide and I won’t have you or anyone else fucking it up because you can’t keep to a timetable.”
“Please! I’ve done what I’ve been told. I have a family. Please.” Darren begs, his breathing erratic as he grips the edge of his desk, trying to take some of the pressure away.
“Family is important to you? I wonder if they’ll blame you when you lose everything because you decided to go against us.”
“Never. I’d never go against you.” He nearly shouts.
I grab hold of his hair and yank him back up into a seated position. A bruise is already starting to form on his cheek under his eye.
“Then show me what I want to see. Where is the rest of the correspondence? Why have our shipments been late?” I stare down at him, waiting and almost wanting him to try and deny what I already know.
“Here… it’s here.” He reaches down to a small drawer and I have to let go of him so he can open it up. There is a special latch that he has to unhook before the drawer pops open.
Secret compartments are never good. I ready myself in case Darren is feeling a little brave and decides to pull out a weapon instead of paperwork.
He’s a smart man. He pulls out another folder and hands it to me. I look over the items inside. Flight plans changed while in the air. New pickup times given out.
“Who made these changes?” I flick my eyes back to him. His face is drained of color.
“Mr. O’Sullivan, I swear to you, we all assumed each and every one of these changes came from your people. It wasn’t until shit started to go bad that we realized someone else must have done it. I don’t know who is behind it. I swear.” He puts his hands up in a surrendering motion.
The more I look at the paperwork, the more I realize that whoever is making these changes must have had direct access to information only people in my family would know. Could it be my father? Killian? Declan can’t do much from jail, but what would be the point of him trying to sabotage this? It’s not making sense, but I know it’s something that we have to look into.
I frown before I fold the papers up and stick them in my back pocket. I need to do more research. “From now on, any changes to the schedules or the pickup clientele will come directly from me.”
Darren nods quickly.
I turn and gesture for Brenna to get up and go to the door. I turn once to look at Darren, who finally has a bit of color coming back to his face.
“If I find out you are lying or hiding something away from me again, they won’t find enough of your body to bury. Don’t make me turn your wife into a widow.”
He nods again, this time slower.
I walk out the door knowing I got my point across.
Brenna walks next to me, but not close enough that I’ll be able to touch her. It’s almost as if she’s trying to put a wall up between us. As if that’ll work.
It’s not like she’s not used to seeing brutality. Her father’s reputation is almost as extensive as my own. He’s known for losing his temper and making others pay in blood and pain.
The driver opens up the back door of the truck for the both of us to slide in. Brenna goes in first and I follow.
The stress brewing between us is still at a high and now I have to deal with the long drive back to the mansion.
Now I’m cursing my decision to bring her along with me.
It’s at least two hours back, and that’s if there’s no traffic. It’s getting to be midday, so I’m sure there will be some.
Twenty minutes of silence. I check my phone, read over the paperwork I’ve taken from Darren’s office, but I can’t focus. Not truly. Not with Brenna sitting there in silence.
She has taken her sunglasses off, but she still doesn’t look at me. It feels like the drive we took the first night after getting married.Despite what happened last night, she feels more like a stranger right now than before.
It pisses me off that I’m feeling this way. If we hadn’t fucked, I doubt I’d give two shits about how quiet she was being. If I hadn’t gotten it in my head that I was duty-bound to take care of her, I wouldn’t care if she was uncomfortable.
Out of nowhere she starts to speak. In fact, it’s such a shock I have to ask her to repeat herself.
“What?”
“I said, that was intense.”
