Six
Aidan
"Eighty-eight, eighty-nine—" I chanted the numbers under my breath, breathing hard through my HIIT workout.
As I curled up, my abs bunched, and sweat dripped down my pecs and along my torso. It also beaded on my forehead, slipping into my eyes and making them sting.
Once I hit a hundred, I moved over to the elliptical, the only cardio machine in Conor’s home gym that didn’t fuck with my knee.
Conor’s building didn’t have an indoor pool, whereas I had one at my place. Over the many years of physio, I’d come to learn that the elliptical and swimming were my only options.
The second the withdrawals had begun to fade, instead of drowning in misery, I’d decided to burn off my frustrations in the gym.
Was I saying it was easy?
Hell, no.
I didn’t want to be in here. I wanted to be back in my goddamn blanket fort, but I didn’t have that option.
On the outside, and to the rest of the world, I might be one of New York’s most eligible bachelors, but I was the heir to a crime family. Nothing about that kind of life allowed a man to rest on his laurels.
I was lucky that my brothers were solid gold and that they’d pulled rank to save my ass from myself—and Da.
Six weeks of avoiding the office, Sunday dinner, and Thanksgiving?
Unheard of.
Da had blown up my phone from time to time, but Conor would answer and he’d do what he did best—confound our father with facts, figures, and information. Pertinent and otherwise. By the time Da was done with those calls, he’d forgotten he had an heir and probably needed a whiskey.
But in three days’ time, we’d be heading over to the family estate for Christmas Eve, and wouldn’t be leaving until Boxing Day.
Few in the States recognized the 26th as a holiday, but Aidan Sr. was a king of his own sovereign borough and did whatever the fuck he wanted, when he wanted.
Three days at home.
Three days without Oxy with my father in the vicinity.
Three days with him bitching at me for missing Thanksgiving all while driving me crazy.
Jesus Christ.
I upped the intensity level on the elliptical, seriously needing not to think about that.
The problem with living so high up?
Working out was boring.
You couldn’t people-watch, and I wasn’t the kind of guy who liked having the news on the TV while exercising. Workouts were depressing enough without having current events force fed into your fucking ears too. Audiobooks had lost their appeal since the Oxy as well.
Bored, I looked over the terrace ahead. There was a small dipping pool but it was too cold right now to use, and a nice seating area that I knew Con had probably never even noticed, never mind sat on.
As I stared, trying to focus on anything other than the goddamn excruciating agony in my knee and the gnawing ache in my gut, I saw a woman rushing down the staircase that led to the helipad above us.
Blinking, pretty fucking sure I was tripping, I stopped moving the elliptical pedals and carefully climbed off.
Moving over to the sliding door, unconcerned because the glass was bulletproof, I was more bewildered about what the hell was happening here.
Of course, just as my bewilderment grew, she went flying down the stairs, falling flat on her face in the process.
If I were a jackass, I’d have laughed. Before the drive-by shooting that had made mincemeat out of my knee, I’d been a jackass, but now? I winced because when she dropped, it was like a belly flop without a pool to break her fall.
I opened the door, and hobbled out with lights flaring into being as the motion sensors were triggered.
The cold hit me, the harsh chill of the December night colliding with my overheated flesh, making the perspiration feel like icicles that were clinging to my skin. I shoved those pansy ass thoughts away as I limped over to the stranger’s side, and looming above her, I managed to roll her onto her back.
She had a cut on her hairline that was already bleeding, scrapes on her chin and nose, a bad cut on her thigh, but as much as I noticed all her injuries, the one thing that resonated was her identity.
Savannah Daniels.
The one I’d pushed away.
While I knew she lived on the floor below the goddamn penthouse, seeing her flying down the stairs from the helipad was as much of a surprise as St. Nick tripping down them.
I tried to crouch lower to reach her but my fucking knee wouldn’t let me.
Concerned for her, I hobbled back to the gym, toward the door and hollered, "Conor? Get your ass out here right now!"
Eoghan was the best medic, thanks to his training, but I knew Conor was good at a lot of shit he kept from Da. He’d know what to do more than I would.
As I moved over to the box of fresh towels, I grabbed a couple, then retreated to her side once more.
Carefully covering her up with the terry cloth, I was about to lose my patience with my brother when, finally, I heard his, "What the hell’s wrong with you now? If you want to puke on me again to get back at me for—" He paused. "Who the fuck is that?"
I twisted around. "She came down from the helipad."
He peered up at the sky. "I really didn’t need to know that angels exist tonight, God."
Despite my concern, I snickered. "She’s no angel." More like a demon. A fucking menace to my dick. "She’s a journalist."
Conor’s frown eased. "A journalist? Should we throw her off the helipad?"
My lips curved. "Maybe another time."
He hummed. "I’ve always wanted to throw someone off there."
"Jesus," I muttered, recognizing his earnestness. "Why?"
"I want to see if they’re like toast."
"Why the fuck would you think there could be a similarity?"
"The science is there." He scowled at me. "Would they land face up or down from a building of this height?"
"I don’t want to know why that’s even a question, Con, but no, I don’t want her dead. I know her."
He stepped closer. "How do you know a reporter?"
"Remember that pain in the ass Da asked me to handle about five years ago?"
His frown puckered. "I don’t remember much about last week, Aid."
I heaved a sigh. "She was digging her heels in, talking to a lot of our associates, somehow managing to wheedle her way into conversations with people she wasn’t supposed to. Started sniffing around Paddy’s place in the Hole."
"Where those bodies are buried?"
I nodded grimly. "Exactly." Of course, that hadn't been what she was looking for.
Conor didn't need to know that, however.
"Oops." He clicked his fingers. "I remember. Da wanted you to shut her up."
I grimaced.
"What’s she doing here? Why isn't she 'shut up?'"
"I don’t know." I peered over at the helipad, answering the first question while ignoring the second. "How do you gain access to that?"
"Those stairs."
"There has to be another way. Unless she flew in, which we know she didn’t, or if she was waiting there since the last helicopter flight."
"I doubt it. The last time it was used, it was—" He paused. "Oh."