Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
RONAN
I don’t do well with being ignored. Kieran says it’s because I’m the oldest and was used to getting all the attention, and maybe he’s right. But my uncle’s silence is starting to worry me. So, I decide to take matters into my own hands and go straight to the source.
Brennan frowns. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m worried about him. He lost his brother, and now this with Finn. I have no idea if he even knows, but I have to at least check if he is okay. He’s family.” I knock on the front door of Lorcan’s sprawling mansion.
Brennan stands beside me on the porch, his arms crossed and his jaw tight. Cormac lingers a few feet behind us, checking his phone for what must be the tenth time in five minutes.
When there’s no answer, I ring the bell once, twice, and then a third time for good measure.
“I don’t think he’s home…”
“It’s weird that no one is answering. Not even his staff.” I ring the bell again.
“Everyone must be sleeping… It’s almost two in the morning.”
Cormac tries to peer into one of the windowpanes in the door. “Is it worth calling him again?”
“I’ve tried a dozen times and left multiple voicemails. He’s unreachable.”
Brennan takes a deep breath. “You think something might have happened to him?”
“How else would you explain his silence?”
I step away from the door and turn to look out at the perfectly manicured front lawn illuminated by the floodlights surrounding the property.
There’s not a blade of grass out of place. Even the gravel drive looks freshly raked.
I frown.
Brennan looks around, then focuses on me. “What?”
“I don’t think he’s been here in a while.”
He shrugs. “It’s not the only property he has.”
“No, but it’s his favorite… He would always choose to spend time here over being in the city. Cormac, can you see if you can run the plates of his cars? See where he’s been spotted for the past few days?”
Cormac’s phone buzzes again, and he glances at the screen.
He clears his throat. “Uh…actually, I need to check something. There’s a lead I need to chase.”
Brennan raises an eyebrow. “Now?”
“I’ll meet you guys back at the house when I’m done.” He’s already moving toward Brennan’s car, the keys dangling from his fingers.
I take a step toward him. “Hold up. A lead on what?”
Cormac freezes for a second. “Something that came through from a contact in Limerick.”
I stare at him, noticing the way his eyes are looking anywhere but mine. “What contact? What’s the name?”
Cormac opens his mouth to reply, but the sound of my phone ringing cuts him off.
I wave a hand. “Just…go. Do what you need to do.”
Cormac nods, looking slightly relieved as he jogs over to Brennan’s SUV and jumps behind the wheel.
I stare after him, frowning as the car kicks up a cloud of dust as he races down the drive toward the iron gates.
Brennan scoffs. “He seems in a hurry.”
My phone continues to ring, so I ignore Brennan and swipe my thumb across the screen and bark into the phone.
“What?”
There’s a pause, then a soft, uncertain voice sounds on the other end. “Ronan?”
I frown, pulling my phone back and glancing at the name. “Tamara?”
“Yeah…”
Stephen’s wife never calls me. Even though I’ve known her husband for well over a decade and have met her on multiple occasions, I wouldn’t say we’re friendly.
I don’t even remember giving her my personal contact number, but I guess I must have at some point, in case of an emergency, and the fact that it’s the middle of the night has my stomach turning to lead.
“What’s going on?”
Brennan glances at me, frowning.
“I-I’m sorry to bother you. It’s just… I’m worried about Stephen.”
Blood rushes to my ears.
“What do you mean worried? Has something happened?”
Right now, Stephen is meant to be protecting Ciara, so if he’s been compromised, it means she is as well.
Tamara exhales shakily, and I fight to stay calm.
“He hasn’t been home in days. I know that’s not unusual given his job, but something’s off.”
Seriously? This is what she’s calling me about?
“We have a situation here, Tamara. I’ve needed Stephen to head up my security team. Did he fail to inform you of that?”
Tamara knows that Stephen works long hours, but I make sure he gets compensated very well for it.
“I know, but it’s not just that. He jumps whenever the phone rings, as if he’s afraid of who might be calling.”
“Have you asked him about it?”
I really don’t have time for this, but then I think of Ciara and how I’d want someone to talk to her if things were the other way around, so I just clench my teeth and deal with it.
“He won’t talk to me about anything.” Her voice cracks.
“He’s legally not allowed to talk about work, you know that.” I make sure that every member of my security team signs NDAs, and Stephen is no different.
“I know, but…You don’t understand.”
“Tamara—”
“No, Ronan. You need to listen. I haven’t seen Stephen in about a week. Not once.”
I frown. “What are you talking about? He has his off time, same as the others, we rotate shifts, he should have gone home every day.”
“I know. But he’s not coming home. Not even coming when I know he’s not working.”
“Wait, what?”
“I don’t want to be the hysterical wife, but honestly, I’m starting to wonder if he’s having an affair…”
I barely hear the rest of her sentence as every muscle in my body goes rigid.
Is this the missing puzzle piece?
I close my eyes, praying I’m wrong.
“Tamara. I’ll call you back. Don’t talk to anyone about this, not even Stephen.”
“Ronan, what’s going on?”
“I’ll call you right back.” I hang up the call without another word and dial Kieran immediately.
He answers on the third ring. “Yeah?”
“I need a status update.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Nothing to report on our end.” His tone is a little clipped.
“Are you sure?”
“Ronan, what’s going on?”
I exhale as I run a hand over my face.
“I need you to keep an eye on Stephen. There’s no time for me to explain everything, but I need you to promise me that you won’t leave him alone with Ciara or Mila until further notice.”
“What the hell are you talking about? He’s the head of your security team. Why wouldn’t I leave the girls with him?”
“Just do it, Kieran, and if you get the chance to unarm him, I need you to take it.”
Kieran curses under his breath.
I frown. “What?”
“Ronan, I think I might have, huh…fucked up.”
“What do you mean, you fucked up?”
“Ciara’s on her way to the hospital…with Stephen.”
My heart slams into my ribs.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Why is she going to the hospital?”
Brennan’s eyes widen as I start sprinting toward the car. He follows behind me, his boots crunching against the gravel as he climbs into the passenger seat.
I’m about to climb behind the wheel when Kieran finally answers. “Ciara’s pregnant.”
I forget to breathe. I brace my hand against the car, cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck.
Brennan looks at me. “Ronan?”
I shake my head.
“There has to be some mistake,” I choke out.
“It’s not. Stephen offered to take her to the hospital, and I stayed behind with Mila—”
“Fuck! Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I only just found out! She begged me not to tell you, saying she wanted to tell you herself.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, she was in a lot of pain.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I feel the rug being pulled out from beneath me.
Finding out that Ciara is pregnant should have me yelling with joy from the rooftops. There is nothing I want more than to have a family with her.
Instead, I’m left wondering if the one man I trusted to keep her safe could actually be the one putting her life—and the life of our child—in danger.
“I have to go.” I hang up the call and climb behind the wheel.
Brennan frowns. “What’s going on?”
But I don’t answer him as I pull up my tracking app on my phone.
The seconds it takes to load are endless.
When it finally shows me a location, I see red.
I growl. “She’s not at the fucking hospital.”
“What? Who’s at the hospital?”
When I don’t answer again, too busy loading Ciara’s location on the GPS, Brennan slams his hand against the dashboard.
“Ronan, you better tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Stephen’s the leak, that’s what’s going on! He’s the mole, not Finn.”
Brennan goes deathly still. “Are you sure?”
“His wife just called me, saying that he hasn’t been himself in weeks, hasn’t even been home in a week.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anythin—”
I shoot him a look.
“It makes perfect sense that it’s him.” I turn on the engine and slam my foot on the gas, kicking up a cloud of dust behind me as I speed down the driveway. “He’s been playing me this entire time, and now he’s taken off with Ciara in the middle of the night.”
“What? I thought she was with Kieran?”
I grit my teeth. “So did I.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We go after them. But I need you to find me everything you can on Stephen. Call Connell if you must and have him hack into his messages because I really need to be wrong about this.”
Brennan’s already on his phone, his fingers tapping away at the screen as I speed toward Ciara’s location.
Every muscle in my body is tense as I race against the clock, knowing that there’s a possibility I could already be too late.
The life I thought I was building with Ciara is slipping through my fingers, but I refuse to give it up without a fight, and this one is going to be bloody.
“Anything?” I demand as we hit the main road.
Ciara’s location pings again on the GPS as it continues to head north in the completely opposite direction from the hospital.
“Got something. Stephen’s phone connected with a number tied to a known Walsh associate two nights ago. Before that, text messages were exchanged with a burner registered in Cork, which is also—”
“Walsh territory.”
“Yeah.”
Fuck.
I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white.
I growl. “He’s been feeding them information this entire time.”
“But why now? He’s worked for us for almost a decade and has shown us nothing but loyalty. It makes no sense.”
“Maybe he got in too deep, and Declan threatened his family.”
“Sounds like you’re making excuses for him, brother.”
Maybe I am trying to make excuses because it’s easier than facing the reality that one of the men I trusted most could turn his back on me without a second thought.
There has to be a reason. A good reason.
“Even still, it doesn’t explain why he would take Ciara. Unless he hopes you’ll bail him out of whatever hole he’s dug himself into with Declan Walsh.”
A knot forms in my stomach at the thought. “I swear to God, if he’s sold her out, there won’t be enough of him left for an autopsy.”
Brennan glances at me. “Ronan—”
“I mean it. I don’t care that we were friends. He lost my allegiance the second he decided to kidnap my pregnant wife.”
Brennan’s jaw goes slack as he stares at me, but he says nothing, the silence stretching on as the highway flies past us on either side.
The GPS says I’m ten minutes away from Ciara’s location, but that’s not good enough. Ten minutes is more than enough time for Stephen to make a move. So, I push my foot to the floor and hope that time is on my side.
Ciara is pregnant with my child, and I didn’t see it, I didn’t know.
How many times has she been alone in that house, wondering if I would ever come home because I was out chasing the mole that was right under my nose the entire time?
Maybe the signs were there, and I ignored them, too blinded by trust to see Stephen for who he really was.
A traitor.