Deklan

“Because you rescued me instead.”

“Yes.”

“So how did Fergus Foley know where I was?”

Deklan stops pacing and looks over to me, shaking his head slowly.

“I’m not sure yet. There’s a connection, but I don’t know where. Charles Grange had to have been passing information between someone in the Foley organization and your father, but I can’t figure out who that is, and he’s not saying.”

“So, he’s really is still alive?”

“Yeah.” Deklan doesn’t elaborate, and I wonder if Charles Grange might be wishing he were dead right now. “Whoever his contact is, they must be holding something big over his head. He won’t talk to save his life, but I’m not going to stop until I know who he’s been talking to in Foley’s outfit.”

“What if…what if it’s Sean?” I can’t look a

t Deklan when I say the words. I don’t want to see his reaction. Instead, I stare at my hands and wait.

“I know Sean can be a little…trying,” Deklan says, “but he was only a kid when this started and far more interested in tallying up as many notches on his bedpost as possible. Willing girls were plentiful. I can’t see him bothering to take the time to kidnap you, and he can’t stand your father. He wouldn’t have done business with him, not even back then.”

I can’t argue with Deklan’s logic.

“It has to be someone close in the organization,” Deklan says. “There really aren’t that many of us. I’m having a hard time coming up with any of them that would consider having my wife followed. I didn’t think any of them would dare.”

“But one of them is working with my dad,” I say quietly. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all, and it’s causing my temples to throb.

I don’t want to think about any of this.

“He’s getting information from one of them,” Deklan says. “Maybe not directly. Maybe he’s paying someone to get information from someone else. I don’t know. I’m going to have to have Mac look into it.”

“What if it’s him?”

“Can’t be Mac…” Deklan cuts himself off and grimaces. He looks at me grimly. “All right, Brian then. He’s someone I know I can trust.”

“He’s like a brother.”

“Very much so.”

“Lucky for you, he’s not like a father.” I can’t stop the venom in my voice.

Deklan reaches over and pulls me against his chest. I press my cheek against his shirt and inhale, trying to concentrate on his smell instead of all the revelations in my head.

“You will never see him again,” Deklan says softly.

A cold feeling starts at the back of my head, creeps over my shoulders and down my spine. I don’t have to ask Deklan what he means by that statement—I know exactly what he’s planning.

My initial reaction is to tell him not to do it. I can’t sit back while he says “I’ll be back in a few minutes” and goes off to kill my father.

Can I?

“What about my mom?”

“What about her?”

“If…if Dad is gone, what’s going to happen to my mother?”

“If she had anything to do with it or even knows about it, I don’t give a fuck.”

I swallow hard. I don’t want Mom dragged into any of this. She was never a great parent, but she was a victim of her circumstances, just like I was. She had to go along with whatever Dad wanted her to do.