“What am I supposed to do now? I’ve been such a bastard to them and all this time, they didn’t even know.”
“You keep going. You chose your path, so walk it.”
“Why? What’s the point of it all?”
I pulled her closer and wrapped my arms around her body, hugging her tight as she cried. “You’re here with me now,” I whispered in her ear. “We’re doing this together. We’re not turning back.”
She buried her face in my chest and sobbed like she was releasing a lifetime of anguish in a single night.
Possibilities spun but I tried not to get distracted. Her mother wasn’t her mother—then who was? I had no clue she was only half a Servant, and the other half was something else entirely.
It was fascinating, and I felt horrible for her.
It was like her entire world view, the foundation on which she’d based her sense of self, was shattered into a million pieces and she was unable to put them all back together. What was left was jagged and wrong, not quite cohesive enough.
But it didn’t matter who her mother was. It didn’t matter what blood flowed in her veins. She was my Erin, and I was going to give her the empire she craved. There was no turning back—we’d come too far.
I’d give her everything.
Which meant I had a lawyer to snatch.
Chapter 21
Erin
At some point, I fell asleep in Redmond’s arms, and woke up dazed beside him. I rubbed my face and tried to make sense of the night before—his tongue between my legs, the orgasm, and the tear-filled confession—but it was all a blur.
He hadn’t judged me. He had every right to call me a monster. I was a monster for selling Penny to Kaspar and for so many other things. But Redmond didn’t judge me, and hadn’t even asked who my real mother was.
Not that I’d tell him. I wasn’t ready for him to know yet.
Everything seemed different in the morning. He showered and dressed and kissed me before ordering breakfast. I ate in the living room while he spoke with Palmira and his soldiers about their next move. I killed the afternoon, flitting between self-hatred and denial, until Redmond fetched me after sundown.
“We’re kidnapping the lawyer.”
I stood and pulled my hair into a tight bun. “Works for me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not going to try to convince me we shouldn’t do it?”
“Nope.”
“Even though we failed the first time?”
“That was a fluke.” I crossed my arms and nodded. “Let’s get going.”
He laughed and shook his head, genuinely delighted. I grinned back, putting on a show of bravery.
Truth was, my insides were twisted into knots.
I didn’t know if I was worthy of running Maeve’s empire. I was beginning to think Cosima would be better suited to the task. I could go back to running my small crew and keep my head down for the rest of my life. Maybe Penny would forgive me and Darren would bring me back into the family, and I could go back to being Erin Servant.
But that was a fantasy. There was no more Erin Servant. I was Erin Orchard now—or at least I would be.
Redmond wasn’t going to let me go, and I might as well accept it.
Not that I wanted to leave. In the car ride out to the suburbs, I couldn’t help but watch him studying the landscape as the tightly packed streets of Chicago turned into wide-open streets and lane of the exurbs. Houses grew bigger and populations grew less dense, and Redmond seemed to glare at it all with scorn.
I couldn’t read him. I didn’t know why he’d look out at the mansions and single-family homes with such disdain when he’d grown up in the richest compound in all the Midwest. He was a powerful Oligarch and the people out living in the comfort and quiet of their peaceful little communities were more akin to him than the city dwellers in their apartments and their squalor.
The Range Rover parked outside of a modest and comfortable Colonial-style house set back from a shady street. There was a BMW in the driveway and the lights were on. The lawn was trimmed and the bushes were pruned, and it looked like someone took pride in the flowers.
“The lawyer’s house,” Redmond said after a few seconds of quiet. Palmira’s Rover parked behind ours. “I thought this would be better than attempting to meet him in his office again.”
“Does he have a family?”
“Wife and kids, but they’re not home. Soccer practice.” His lips curled. “We have him all to ourselves.”
“And what do you expect to find once we get in there?”
“Answers.” He steeled his face and pushed open his door.
I followed him to the house. Palmira stepped out of the second car and trailed after, looking bored. She winked at me, her hair in a messy bun. She wore a tight black outfit with a gun holstered at her hip in plain view.