was raised in this house by his mother, Shannon. He didn’t know our dad, never met him. Mike and I didn’t know about each other until Dad died.”
“How did you find out?”
“My dad named Mike’s mother as my legal guardian should something happen to him. I was fifteen when a lawyer showed up at my door and told me that my dad was gone, I had a brother, and this woman I didn’t know would be my guardian. I was uprooted from Chicago and sent to Dublin, and man, oh man, I was angry. I was an angry, grieving, rebellious teenager with a penchant for stealing. And suddenly, I was Shannon O’Sullivan’s problem. You know what she did?”
“She beat your ass?”
“No.” She laughed. “She loved me. That’s what she did. She loved me with every breath in her body. And so did her son. A brother I never knew I had. They took me into their humble home, made sure I had everything I needed, and they gave me love.”
“Where the hell did you all sleep?” He glanced around at the cramped space, the small kitchen, the couch, the single bedroom.
“Shannon and I slept in the bedroom. And this was Mike’s room.” She pointed at the couch. “After Shannon died, I demanded he sleep beside me. When we travel, he sleeps beside me. We have a unique relationship because we didn’t grow up together. We’re best friends. Siblings, too. But it’s our friendship that binds us.” She pulled in a guilt-ridden breath. “I know you thought we were fucking, and I let you believe it. It’s a ruse he and I employ to ward off unwanted attention.”
“Male attention.”
“Yes.”
“He’s protective of you.”
“That’s an understatement. When I met him, he was the biggest troublemaker in Dublin 22. The leader of the troublemakers. I was a thief when I arrived here, and he made me a better thief. I went from picking pockets to luring powerful businessmen back to their hotel rooms and scraping their phones while they were in the shower.”
“Scraping digital information?” His eyes darkened. “Information that, I assume, you sold on the black market?”
“Yep. I saved up a shitload of money from those jobs.”
“Did you fuck these men before you robbed them?”
“Sometimes. Look, Mike and I got mixed up in some dirty shit. We needed money. A lot of it. We’ve been planning our revenge for our father’s death for years. So we ran criminal schemes and robbed people to fund it. It was the only way we could afford to do this for as long as we have.”
“Why didn’t Mike meet your dad?”
“Dad was protecting him and Shannon. He kept their existence a secret. Something he couldn’t do with me because I didn’t have a mother.”
“Who was he?”
“Richard Pictam.”
“That’s your real name? Lydia Pictam?”
“Yeah.” She looked down at the table and picked at a deep scratch in the wood. “I loved him so much I idolized him. He was my entire world. My protector. He had this rugged rebelliousness about him, an air of danger, but he made me feel safe. Untouchable. Like I could do anything because he would always have my back. My own personal action hero.” She sucked in her cheeks. “I wanted to be just like him. So I ran the streets, got into trouble, picked fights, and acquired some bad habits. But he’s the one who taught me how to defend myself. Combat training, weaponry, tactical skills—he taught me everything I needed to know to protect myself.” She looked up and met Cole’s eyes. “He was an NSA agent, part of the Special Collection Service.”
“Ah.” He sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “An intelligence spy.”
“Yeah. He worked jointly with the CIA abroad to penetrate foreign communications networks.”
“That explains how you got access to those customized bugs. But how the hell did he hook up with a Russian sex spy?”
“No idea. He never talked about my mother. I don’t even know how she died.” She shrugged. “Shannon O’Sullivan held his heart, and he protected her and Mike until the day he was killed.”
“How did he die?”
“That’s a critical question.” A dull pain pressed behind her breastbone. “With a dangerous answer.”
“Come here.” He pushed back his chair and gripped her hand, pulling.
She went into his arms, her heart so swollen with years of grief and anger she didn’t know how her ribcage continued to contain it. He slid an arm behind her legs, and in one swift motion, he hoisted