“What I’m about to tell you … I need it to stay between us.”
Lachlan’s brows pinched. “Should I be worried?”
“First, I need you to promise.”
“Of course. I promise.”
I sighed. “I’ve been getting these emails. They come from different addresses every few months.”
Concern strained my brother’s features. “What kind of emails?”
“Strange emails. Usually just one or two lines. I thought they were from some random arsehole pranking my email address, but then I got another one this week, and with Ery …”
“What do the emails say?”
“All along the similar line. That this person hasn’t forgotten me. But there’s … it’s hard to explain, but there’s a threatening edge to them. I don’t know. I’ve stupidly been deleting them, but I kept the one I got this week.”
My brother nodded. “Okay, I’ll have my team trace it. They’ll need access to your email.”
I stared at him, gratitude filling me. He didn’t even question if I was overreacting. He trusted my gut. “All right.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea who might be behind them?”
“None at all.”
Lachlan scrubbed a hand over his face. “We’ve already had one copycat of Lucy’s case. I hope we’re not dealing with someone who’s become obsessed with us and that whole thing.”
Lucy’s obsession with my brother may have kicked into high gear two years ago, but the high-profile trial was only last year. While talk and speculation still circulated about it, it hadn’t affected Brodan’s career in Hollywood.
“Fuck.” Lachlan sighed. “And I just got word from one of the club members that there’s a script circulating about Lucy’s life, including her stalking me.”
Disgust filled me. “Someone wants to make a movie about one of the worst things that’s ever happened to you?”
“Looks like.” He seemed suddenly exhausted. “Everything’s fodder in Hollywood. No one’s safe from it.”
“I’m sorry.” I clamped a hand on his shoulder. “I wish they’d just let you move on.”
“Och, it could be worse. We live here. We can still have a life, normality here. That’s something.”
I nodded, because it was true. Ardnoch was a strange beast. It didn’t offer complete privacy, but it offered more than most places. Its remoteness and the security on the estate are what drew members in the first place.
“It doesn’t feel like the emails are related to Lucy. I think if they were, the sender would’ve alluded to it, you know?”
“Can I see the one you have?”
I pulled my phone out of the wet back pocket of my jeans and found the email for him.
He bent his head to look, his jaw muscles ticking with anger. “Fuck.” He looked up at me, annoyed. “I really wish you hadn’t deleted the others.”
I shrugged. “I thought it was just someone being a prick. But if any more come in, I’ll keep them. And like I said, this is just between us.”
“Aye, agreed. No use worrying everybody about something that might mean nothing.”
“We do seem to be danger magnets.”
Lachlan’s focus drifted by me to the grim day beyond his windowpanes. “Sometimes I think there’s some grand fate out there obsessed with the balance of things.”
“How do you mean?”
He looked at me. “Our mother dies before her time, then Aunt Imogen, our father, then Thane’s wife. But we’re blessed with wealth and some fame … more than that, someone sent me Robyn.” A depth of emotion I was only beginning to understand burned in Lachlan’s eyes. “I’d live in hell if it was the only place I could be with her. And Thane feels the same about Regan, Arro for Mac … maybe one day you for …” A small smile played on his lips.
“It’s an anomaly. To have a family where so many of us are lucky to have found that one person who gives life meaning. Maybe that’s why bad things keep happening to us because we have more than our fair share of bounty. Balance.” He shrugged.
I contemplated his words and asked quietly, “Do you really believe that?”
“I’d rather believe that than what I used to believe.”
Understanding dawned. “That the Adair men are cursed to lose the women they love.”
A bleakness filled my brother’s expression for a second before determination replaced it. “I refuse to go back to that fear. It infects everything. If I let it, it would take me from Robyn, anyway.”
“We’re not cursed, Lachlan,” I assured him. “And I don’t know if I believe in some grander fate and balance … Bad things happen to people every day, and some people never get a fighting chance. Life is shit from the moment they’re born, and it doesn’t let up until they die. That hasn’t been the way for us. We’ve had bad times, but so much good too. I think that’s normal.”
My brother snorted. “You think stalkers, murderers, and psychotic exes are normal?”
I chuckled. “So we attract some crazies.”