Always You (Adair Family 3)

There was no return address.

The evidence from Lucy’s trial was branded on my mind.

Lucy had Fergus do her dirty work, including writing the creepy notes left for Lachlan.

I knew those notes by heart.

Lachlan had received this very message. It was the first message they’d left for him.

Was this someone’s idea of a sick joke? The media had leaked all the evidence to the press, so it was easy enough for people to find out what Lucy had written in her stalker messages to Lachlan.

I felt nauseated, knowing after everything we’d all been through this past year, I couldn’t ignore this. I rummaged through my purse for my phone. The thought of Mac finding out made my pulse leap, but all I could do was make sure he wasn’t welcome in my life, no matter the circumstances.

It was something to worry about when the time came. For now, being alone in my house made me feel vulnerable, and I hated it. It pissed me off! Hurrying to the security box, I armed the windows and doors. Then I called my big brother.

“Arro,” Thane answered, “can I call you back? We’re about to sit down to dinner.”

I swallowed hard against the fluttering in my neck. “Thane.”

He hesitated and then practically barked, “What’s wrong?”

Trying to sound calm, I told him about the note.

“Call the police right now,” Thane ordered, fury—but not at me—in his words. “I’m on my way, sweetheart.”

7

Mac

Arro.

Her name roared in my head as I grabbed my keys off Dave, one of the estate chauffeurs, and jumped into my waiting SUV. After receiving an angry call from Thane that Arro had been sent a threatening note that mimicked Lucy’s, I’d barked a bunch of orders at my team and rushed from the castle.

All my training, everything I knew about keeping calm in a dangerous situation, fled me.

Because it was her.

Arro.

If anything happened to her …

My hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel as I tore down the estate driveway. Was this how she felt when she heard I’d been stabbed? As the gates to the estate opened to allow my exit, her face flashed before my eyes from that morning last year …

* * *

Whatever they were pumping into me helped with the pain, but there was more than a twinge of discomfort anytime I tried to move. I’d been in the hospital for a week, and I couldn’t be more desperate to leave. To get to Robyn. Thankfully, they were discharging me tomorrow. It couldn’t come soon enough. I’d let my daughter down again. Missed our dinner date. Aye, my excuse wasn’t a bad one, but I wondered what she’d thought sitting at the table, counting the minutes I didn’t show up. Had I hurt her again?

I winced, angrily. For that alone, the motherfucker who gutted me was going to wish he’d never been born, once I figured out who was behind the purple eyes I saw peeping through the ski mask.

Contacts. To disguise himself. The fucker had come out of nowhere as I stepped out of my house to go meet Robyn for our first dinner together since she was a child.

As Robyn and I had discussed, the contacts probably meant I knew him. I flinched, remembering the sensation of the knife going in. Three times. Renewed frustration filled me. How had I let that happen? I felt like a fool. A failure. All my training, and I’d let someone gut me.

But I couldn’t let it consume me. I had to shrug it off and concentrate on finding the bastard. Robyn was sticking around to help me do it, but the thought of any harm coming to her made me even more eager to get out of this hospital bed.

“You’re awake.”

The voice soothed something so deep inside, no one knew it existed. Something dark, twisted, and full of self-loathing. Like an angry beast, a dragon, buried in the pits of my soul. Only she had the power to quiet its fiery stirring.