Destroy Me - Ella Sheridan Page 0,24
need to his gut, twisting with the guilt until he wasn’t certain he’d be able to eat. One thing was certain, though—if he wanted to be thinking about anything but those nipples, the way they pushed against his palm, his chest, then yeah, fresh clothes were a grand idea.
Christ, he was all over the map this morn.
Lyse disappeared around the corner. Fionn met his mam’s eyes as he sat at the table, her knowing look making his cheeks go hot. “So…” He picked up his coffee. Shifted in his seat. Took a drink. “What’s the plan?”
Mack entered the room, hair wet and a fresh uniform in place. “We’re headin’ to the station. I need to do some checkin’, talk to my sergeant. I want more than two men protecting you, acushla.”
A fist squeezed around Fionn’s heart at the endearment. Pulse of my heart, it meant. The softness in Mack’s eyes as he stared at Siobhan said he meant the word.
Fionn managed a rough, “I agree,” around the lump in his throat. A whole team wasn’t enough to be watching out for his mam. Which reminded him, he needed to check in at work. He could do that while Mack did his thing.
Mack gave him a nod. “Let me eat and then we’ll be headin’ on.”
Siobhan gathered her dishes. “We can stop at Lyse’s apartment to get her things on the way.”
Speaking about Lyse’s setup… “Mack.”
“Yeah?” Mack set his food on the table, then took a chair.
“Lyse…” He lowered his voice as his mam left the room, not wanting to hurt her. “She’s been watching Mam for a while, likely since she arrived. She’s only here because she found out where my mam was hiding.”
“Siobhan hasn’t been in hiding for a long time.”
Fionn scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his cheek. “That’s something I can’t get through my head yet.”
“Because you haven’t been here,” Mack said around a bite of beans, his tone neutral. “Our minds get stuck on something until we have to face the reality of it changin’. Like you and Lyse.”
“The way I see Lyse is reality, more than any of you realize,” Fionn bit out. Mack might’ve known her for two months, but Fionn had been knowing her for years.
“Is it?” Mack shook his head. “Tell me what tipped you off on Ferrina.”
Fionn went over what Lyse had shown him in greater detail than they’d managed the night before. “While we’re gatherin’ her things, we can grab her intel from the apartment.”
“So she’s really some kind of hacker genius?”
That’s when the nagging at the back of his brain clicked into place. He eyed Mack carefully. “You’re not surprised at all.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mack said. “I knew that girl is smarter than she ever let on. She said her business was computers, but I’d no idea it was underground stuff.”
“She’s fierce when it comes to tech,” Fionn said. “You’d do good to be making use of her.”
“You admit she tried to blow you up, but you want me trusting her with your mam’s life?”
Last night he’d have given Mack a feck no. This morn… He glanced down at his empty plate. “I…”
Mack chuckled and reached over to slap him on the back. “That’s pretty much how all of us react to our wan.”
Except Lyse wasn’t his woman, not in that sense.
That’s not what your cock was saying last night.
Christ. He stood up before the traitor part of his anatomy did too much rememberin’. “Let’s head on.”
The four of them were mostly silent on the return trip into town. Fionn could sense Mack’s caution as much as his own, and he was guessing the women felt it as well. The air felt different when you knew there was a threat. Mack pulled up to the gate at Lyse’s apartment and rolled down his window, but his cell interrupted before he could enter the code Lyse gave him. “Yeah?”
Fionn could barely hear a male voice on the other end of the line. After a minute Mack swore. “All right. I’m here now; I’ll be taking care of it. No worries. Yeah. I’ll be in to the office after. Yeah.” He thumbed off the call. “We got trouble.”
Alarm jerked through Fionn as Mack opened the gate. “Ferrina?”
But Mack shook his head. “Not that kind of trouble.”
The trouble was waiting outside the open door of Lyse’s apartment, a worn-thin T-shirt and flannel pants on his tall frame, pacing back and forth on the tiny patio. Fionn took in Sean’s frazzled appearance