Treasure Lane Dragons: Complete Series (BBW Paranormal Dragon Shapeshifter Romance) (18 page)

No, he wanted more. All his life, he’d wanted more. Whatever that elusive ‘more’ was, though, he wasn’t yet completely sure, but he knew that he would recognize it when he saw it. So, it was no wonder that a dragon like Cillian would get himself tangled in just enough trouble to make life worth living again.

He sighed slightly, leaning against the red brick wall of a nameless back alley, waiting for a ragged black and gray door to open and grant him entrance to a popular club by the name of Bear It All
– surprisingly, not a strip club. He’d been staring at it for the past forty minutes, and knowing the people he was waiting for, he’d wait another forty, easy.

Plenty of time to muse over the twists and turns that had brought him here, serving someone like a common errand boy. His face contorted in a pained grimace, and he breathed out a breath of pure smoke, the gray, wispy tendrils wafting up in the cool night air. It was the next best thing to smoking – letting his fire warm his belly and the smoke curl out in those tantalizing puffs.

How did you get yourself here, Cillian? Father would be mighty pissed,
he thought to himself, grinning slightly.

That might have been half the victory – pissing off his long lost father – or at least a sizeable side-bonus.

One thing was for sure, no dragon was supposed to
wait
on someone. Yet, Cillian had found himself doing just that more and more often as of late. It came with the job. Of course, that was another thing no dragon was really supposed to do – have a job. Unless that job included hoarding up more gold and lording over its estates.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and while Cillian Greenmeadow couldn’t be considered a beggar by any stretch of the human imagination, he may as well have been one as far as dragons went. Just the thought of his half-empty hoard made him snort with annoyance, sending choice words to his beloved forefathers for their ‘excellent’ money management skills. Cillian thrust his hands into his pockets, the laughter seeping out of his eyes.

There were few things he couldn’t make light of, but his family’s precarious state was certainly one of them. The coffers that held their fortune had been in decline for generations now, and it had become a tradition to hide the severity of the situation from the next in line. So, when Cillian’s father Cedric Greenmeadow passed, Cillian, as the eldest of the four brothers left behind, got the chance to truly know what desperation felt. After seeing the hoard, his father’s declining mood and bouts of undragonlike depression made a lot more sense.

Thankfully for Cillian, he wasn’t the type to just mope around until the world started making sense again. He was a doer, not a thinker, which smoothly led back to why it was so god damn frustrating to just stand around and do nothing. His declining wealth was not the only thing clamoring for his attention, and frankly the less time he spent on thinking about his issues, the better. The door finally opened just when he was seconds from calling it quits and stalking off to find some nice aged bourbon. He didn’t bother hiding the relieved smile that perched on his lips as he pushed himself off the wall and walked into the building, the door closing right behind him without anyone to man it.

Must be electrical,
he mused absently, taking in his surroundings with pointed efficiency as he strolled down the barely lit corridor towards a larger room in the back.

When he emerged from the dark tunnel, he found himself under an awning in a crowded nightclub, just on the right side of the VIP gate.

Putting on his best smile, he nodded to the bouncer (a werebear, no doubt) and hopped up the few flights of stairs that led to a balcony overlooking the hot, crowded dance floor.

“Cillian! My brother!” a gruff voice called, a big, meaty paw of a hand waving at him from a booth further in the back.

Cillian crossed over to the familiar voice, and when he came to the table, he was immediately grabbed in what could only be described as a bear hug from the biggest man in the world. His own 6’6’’ frame seemed almost small next to the lumbering barrel of a man
.

“
Здравствуйте!
Как поживаешь?“ the man greeted, patting him on the back so hard that Cillian had to put considerable effort into not tumbling face-first into the table.

“
Неплохо,“ he managed in his passable Russian.

As far as he was concerned, things really ever were ’not bad’. Keeping expectations low made for a happier existence these days.

„Sit down, sit down! Dima, vodka for Cillian!“ the Siberian bear roared, sending a man skittering off for the drink.

Cillian dropped onto the cushioned seat, considering the situation he had managed to land himself in. Sergei, to his right, was an old friend by now and one of his most consistent clients. One would never guess by the looks of the large, joyous man, but that exterior hid a ruthless businessman and an even more dangerous criminal.

Cillian didn’t mind that too much. As long as they didn’t mess with him, he couldn’t care less what any of his clientele did for a living, as long as his sizeable bills were paid on time. The other man, though, was no one he knew. He was a short man with carefully coiffed black hair and alert brown eyes, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

A man with a problem
, Cillian noted, grinning inwardly. His favorite kind of person.

The vodka appeared before him, and as soon as he had downed the first of three shots, business could begin. No Russian discussion was complete without ample drinking.

„Cillian is the fixer I’ve been telling you about, Antonio. There isn’t an issue he can’t make go away,“ Sergei boasted, slamming his fist on the table so hard that the whole thing shook and shuddered, spilling alcohol from several glasses.

The Russian didn’t care, as he never seemed to. He was a werebear shifter, a true Siberian brown bear, and he had made his fortune in lumber and then slowly begun to take over the underground shipping business through Chicago and all the way down to Texas. A man like that often had problems that needed to disappear, and Cillian was just the man for the job.

„But he is a dragon...“ the smaller man commented, looking less than impressed. Cillian detected a slight accent, Italian probably. He pursed his lips slightly, smirking.

„That’s why no one ever sees it coming... And when they do, well, as you said, I’m a
dragon
,“ Cillian noted, relaxing his shoulders. This part was easy. He’d always been good at selling himself.

„That’s right!“ Sergei hollered, patting Cillian on the back again in a way that made the dragon brace himself against the table to keep from headbutting the polished wood. „Who do you want making sure that all of your affairs are in order? Some mongrel wolf or a pampered lion? No! A dragon is what you need. If he can’t fix it, he’ll just wipe it from the face of the earth,“ Sergei said confidently.

While it had never quite come to that, Cillian could mostly agree. Even purely size wise, a shifted dragon was not someone to be trifled with.

„Well, wolves
could
be the problem, currently,“ Antonio noted, nursing an imported beer in his hands.

A sadness fell over the man, so obvious that Cillian could almost taste it. Cillian cocked his head slightly, considering the quiet, thoughtful man before him. This wasn’t just a problem. It was a big problem.

Even better.

„Tell the man,“ Sergei urged, the boisterousness leaving his voice and the giant man falling quiet, one hand stroking his plentiful grayish-brown beard.

Antonio looked up and met Cillian’s gaze. It was easy to tell that the Italian was a proud man, a strong man, and it was taking more than one could put into words for him to come to someone for help. Cillian quieted, giving the man a moment to explain before he made any more assumptions.

„It is my daughter, Ruby,“ he started, fishing for his phone and looking at its lock screen while he spoke. „She has always been... rebellious. Has her own mind. She’s brilliant. A doctor – just like I always wanted. But I don’t think she approves of what it is that I do. I’ve tried to keep her away from it all, safe, but… She’s been looking for the wrong crowd and I’m worried that she’s found it.”

Antonio shared a quick, knowing look with Sergei and Cillian didn’t have to waste any time on guessing. Men who hung around Sergei were not the kind to spend their Sundays watching football and cooking steaks. He was sure that there was plenty to disapprove of, but that was none of his business, and he intended to keep it that way.

“Now, I don’t know where she is. She disappeared without a trace almost a month ago. My Ruby would never do that. She knows her mother’s heart is breaking and crumbling with each day we don’t hear from her.“

„Is there anyone, who might want to harm her?“ Cillian asked.

To his bemusement, both of the men broke into joyless laughter, exchanging glances before Sergei turned to Cillian.

„Antonio here is Antonio Accardo. You might have heard of him...“ Cillian’s expression cleared, and he looked at the diminutive man in front of him with a whole new understanding.

That glint in his eyes that he’d thought to be nervousness was the sign of a killer. The Butcher of Chicago. Yes, Cillian had heard of him, and his crew. It was nigh impossible to not know of the biggest mob family in Chicago.

„So that is a yes, then,“ Cillian offered with a mild smile, downing his second shot. „Allow me to rephrase it, then. Do you have a top five?“

„I do, but we have checked them all. My boys have shaken all of them down and none of them know anything about Ruby’s whereabouts. I think it might be someone not related to me at all... She has been getting in with some bad crowds lately.“

What kind of crowd does it have to be for Antonio Accardo to think it a bad influence?!

„Shifters, I think. Werewolves,“ Antonio rushed to add, after getting a look from Sergei that could make an army pack up and leave. „She was spending time with some... gangs. I don’t know which ones. And I don’t know where they could be or what they would want with her, or she with them. But it’s not something I can handle myself. I think she was dating someone, a werewolf biker. I just want her back, safe. So after I told Sergei about my... predicament, he suggested I get some outside help.“

„So you need me to find her. I’ll see what I can do. Do you have a picture?“ Cillian asked, filing away his questions for later.

It seemed like an easy enough job – bring home a petulant, sharp mob princess, receive countless treasures in return. Easy-peasy.

„I do,“ Antonio said, turning the phone around.

For a moment, Cillian’s world ground to a halt. The face that stared back at him from the photograph was positively mesmerizing. Long auburn hair that fell in soft curls, bright hazel eyes with a hint of trouble to them, sexy curves that needed to be discovered and pampered, and the plushest, most delicious lips he had ever seen, just begging to be kissed until they couldn’t be kissed anymore. His dragon stirred immediately, growling its approval.

Yes, this was a special woman, all right. Any shifter would be willing to kill to have her. Cillian cleared his throat, pressing down the almost violent reaction he had had to the picture, and nodded.

„Find and bring home Ruby Accardo. Got it.“

„If you do this, Cillian, I can make all your troubles go away. You understand?“ Sergei asked, resting his hand on Cillian’s shoulder after exchanging a glance with Antonio.

Cillian knew what that meant. He also knew what Sergei hadn’t said – fail and face the consequences.

“I understand,” Cillian confirmed, downing the last shot.

The only problem was, Cillian wasn’t entirely sure he could let her go once he did find her.
 

CHAPTER TWO

Ruby

Ruby Accardo was pissed off. Really,
really
pissed off. Like a storm that wouldn’t stop, she’d just got angrier and angrier with each day that passed. And with each day, her anger seemed to rattle less and less people. Ruby pouted to herself, her legs crossed and her stiletto shoe dangling absently from her toes. In the faint, musty light of the seedy bar she had been trapped in for the past month, the silver sparkles on it seemed a lot duller than they actually were.

Trapped is an awfully big word, Ruby,
she told herself, trying to find the silver lining and failing miserably.
Oh, who are you kidding. Yes, you’re trapped. Congratulations. You went from a father, who wouldn’t let you do anything, to a boyfriend, who is just as bad. Ex-boyfriend,
she corrected herself, taking a sip of her Tequila Sunrise.

And who do you have to blame for all of it? Yourself. Excellent work, Ruby. Way to show everyone how good you are at controlling your own life.