Tate (Mountain Men 3)

“...and?”

He shakes his head as he starts the car.

“And more. Like the way she knows our code of conduct,” he says, accelerating as we pull onto the main road. “Like she knows we’ve got sources in Paris, and friends in Ireland. She mentions our hierarchy in vivid detail, and even seems to know that the year before the eldest brother assumed a position of leadership, we made a deal not to trade arms on any of the coasts, in agreement with our friends in Ireland.”

Thanks for the facts, Aisla. Why didn’t I muddy them around a bit more?

“Ah, interesting. And some of that was true, was it?”

I’m starting to get nervous. He’s driving faster. Those gorgeous, deadly hands of his grip the steering wheel tightly, and he’s lost the laid-back approach from earlier. I swallow hard, looking out the window at the way the trees whip by.

“Some of it was true?” he asks. “You ought to know, Fran.”

Still scowling he smacks the locks on the door. My heart does a little skip.

“Why me?”

“All of it’s fucking true.”

We sit in silence, because I don’t know what to say and I’m not sure what he’ll say next. I twist the strap of my bag in between my fingers, suddenly nervous.

I was playing with fire, I fucking know I was. And something tells me I'm about to get burned.

“Do me a favor?” he asks.

“Aye?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s distant and hollow, betraying the fear that’s begun to grip me.

“What?”

“Turn on my phone.”

He jerks his chin at the mobile on the dash. With shaking fingers, I reach for it.

He slides his finger over the home button, opening it with the fingerprint I.D. He places it on my lap, and my stomach drops to my toes.

Instagram.

He’s followed the Clan Chronicles account.

And there’s my picture, my hands, holding the signed paperback. Just a plain pair of nondescript feminine hands, but in the background, the light blue hue of the temporary sling I’m wearing shows.

Did I think he wouldn’t see it?

Did I really think it was anonymous enough?

“Poor writer of the Clan Chronicles,” he says with a forced sigh. “She’ll have to take a sabbatical, won’t she?”

Chapter 7

Tate

I’m so angry I can barely see straight.

She’s going to try to deny it, I know she is, but there’s no getting away from it. I’m so fucking furious she played me for a fool like that. Did she think I wouldn’t have a clue? All this time, she was right under my fucking nose.

And the fucking gall of her to take me into the store, like I’m such a fool I wouldn’t see right through her lies?

Did she think it was funny I didn’t know it was her?

Has she played this little fucking stunt just to get closer to the Clan?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tate, or why you’ve gone all sober and angry,” she mutters. “You don’t think I’m the writer of the Chronicles, do you?”

“I don’t think fucking anything,” I mutter. “I know. And you’ll be coming back with me. Only there’ll be no staying in the front room this time. This time, you’ll come back as my prisoner. This time, you’re under my command.”

She blanches, as we leave the city and head to the mountains. The sky’s become starkly white, and snow’s imminent.

“Under your command?” she snorts. “Are you mad?”

“So you’re going to do this the hard way,” I say, and have to admit I feel more than a little eager that she’s gone this route. She isn’t the type to admit straight away, I’ll give her that.

I’ll have to draw it out of her.

Perfect.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, then hisses in a breath when I reach for her knee and squeeze.

“You’ve revealed things in those books that no one should know,” I begin. “You’ve given trade secrets that no one outside of the inner Clan circle would ever know. You’ve betrayed us.”

“Let go of me,” she says, her voice tremulous. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Tate. I’m not the bloody writer—”

“Then who fucking is!”

She starts at the thunderous sound of my voice in the small interior of the car. She swallows.

“Maybe I’ve given information to someone,” she says in a little voice. “Maybe I’m an assistant.”

“Tell me the fucking truth, Fran. I’ll find it out one way or another and if I catch you lying to me—”

“I’m not bloody lying!”

I nod slowly, and exhale as we drive up the mountain.

“Maybe I have nothing to do with the damn books.”

I squeeze her knee, and she gasps again.

“And maybe you have everything to do with them.”

She doesn’t respond at first. I’m furious that someone we trusted, someone right under our noses, has betrayed us like this.

“Do you have any idea what my brothers want to do to you?”