Tomorrow, they would look for a house and settle in America. Deanna Caine would die a second death, her assets sold off and placed in an untraceable account for later retrieval by Niall’s accountants. A highly specialized cleaner had already removed any evidence of any violence in her home, which had oddly enough already been missing the body when he arrived to take care of it. She and Niall could only assume that the man who had retrieved the counterfeit had taken it with him before they could return.
As for the rest of the money, she’d returned it to where it belonged: the clans affected by the Maguire Clan over the years. The council would hold it in trust and dole it out as needed to help build their community and assist their members with rebuilding their shattered lives. The mystery of the locked box would remain just that, as the man hadn’t mentioned it and it was in the shoeboxes he took.
It had taken a few days to sort out how everything had come about, and some of it wasn’t completely clear still, but that was not unusual in the circles in which shifters traveled. Their world was always filled with secrets that only those who required the knowledge were made aware of. Much of it was as unexplained as the chip, and there was no reason to try to find the answers.
The Scouser had been compromised. It was Duncan who had recommended him in the first place. Duncan had been unaware that his services would include scraping finances from an old life and relocating them, along with their original owner since that portion of the agreement had been made by the McNallys.
Because Deidre and Trill were to be married, he’d set aside assets in her name without her knowledge. It wasn’t because he was so concerned that she be properly cared for, but rather one move among many to create a cloud of fog around his moving assets. At some point, he would have moved them back, but he’d died before that could happen, so those funds became hers and were scraped off into her new life.
At the same time, he had been laundering money for certain individuals in London. That money had also been scraped, the documents located in the safe-deposit boxes pulled and given to her under the guise of being from her father to cover their real origins. The only failure in the process had been that Duncan had become privy to it through his own contacts associated with the Scouser, who’d been forced into what he called a “renovation of his operation,” to purge bad actors.
With Duncan gone and the money belonging to those people in London, who also received compensation for the error and a guarantee that it was an error that would not be repeated again, she was free to return to her own life without the assumed identity the Scouser had created for her.
Unfortunately, her former life in Ireland seemed just as foreign to her as her new one had been in London, but now, she felt a new sense of purpose. She and Niall could move forward together, and she could do all the things she’d been planning in London here in the states. It had been a weird road to get to this point, but she was looking ahead to what she felt would be a bright future.
Now, here she stood at a private airport with the love of her life, ready to embark on the next part of her journey by his side. She smiled over at him as he and his brothers finished their conversation.
“Ready?” he asked her, extending his hand to take hers.
“More than I’ve ever been,” she replied, following him to the SUV waiting for them nearby.
His brothers drove them to a bar they frequented called Hannigan’s, where they found Ronan, already well on his way to being sideways.
“McNallys in the house,” he roared as they walked in the front door.
“Thanks for the warning,” the bartender called out. “I’ll go double my booze order for tomorrow.”
“Good idea,” Olcan replied. “Drinks on the house. This is a celebration!”
“What are we celebrating?” Ronan asked, obviously well past his pickle date.
“We’re celebrating replacing your ugly mug with this pretty little thing Niall has brought home with him. She’ll be much easier to look at and not nearly as annoying,” Fergus told him.
“Show a little respect,” Ronan slurred, holding up a beer. “You are talking to your Alpha.”
His brothers laughed. Olcan clapped him on the back, sending him lurching forward, but he caught his footing at the last moment, still holding his beer out ahead of him.
“Look at that. Didn’t even spill a drop,” he laughed.
“Come on, Alpha. Let’s get you sat down in a chair somewhere before you end up on your ass.”