Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
T he morning light poured through the curtains, casting a soft glow across the room, yet an uneasy feeling lingered. As I stirred awake, the rhythmic sounds of Fire's distressed neighing penetrated my consciousness. An immediate sense of urgency settled over me, intensified by the absence of Walsh. The covers lay undisturbed, suggesting he hadn't returned to bed last night.
Shit, where did he say he was going? To his office? I shot out of bed, on a mission to find him as Fire continued to neigh in the barn. I was a novice horse owner, but this noise seemed very different.
I peeped my head out the window for a minute before trying to open it, but it was sealed shut.
"Bulletproof glass," I whispered. Why I hadn’t realized that until now was beyond me. "I am coming, Fire."
The caretaker had fed her and taken her out a few times a day, so she wasn’t starving, maybe she somehow sensed that I was home.
"Who am I?" I asked as I pulled on one of Walsh’s plain black T-shirts and slowly turned the handle to head downstairs to check on Walsh. The material was thin enough it pulled against my sensitive nipples. It was Christmas, but when I got into the hallway, the house felt otherwise quiet. Ms. Luchesse wasn’t mixing something downstairs. No guards fussed about outside, which was evident by the lack of boots crunching on the snow. It all felt…odd, and yet I couldn’t put a finger on what was wrong about anything, I just knew it wasn’t right. Christmas morning should have been filled with warmth and festive cheer, but instead, an unsettling quietude gripped the house, casting a shadow over the holiday.
Driven by an increasing sense of urgency and the need for answers, I decided to head toward Walsh's upstairs office first. The palm reader recognized me just as it had last time, and the door silently slid open. The sleek, modern room looked exactly as it had when I first discovered it.
However, as I entered, a disconcerting sight greeted me. The usually active surveillance monitors displayed only static. Every camera feed seemed to have been deliberately turned off. It was an eerie sight, the absence of those watchful eyes that had tracked my every move, leaving me with an unsettling sense of vulnerability.
To rationalize the sudden lapse in security, I reasoned that perhaps it was the holiday spirit that had temporarily muted the usually omnipresent surveillance system. The idea that, maybe since I’d returned from Isles, there was no need for the cameras to scrutinize my every action felt oddly comforting. After all, Walsh had won me over, and I was here willingly this time.
As I sifted through the contents of Walsh's office, my gaze fell upon a neatly arranged desk, the computer screen reflecting nothing but a dark void. The air in the room hung heavy with the anticipation of discovering some hidden truth.
I scrutinized every inch of the room, searching for any clues that might shed light on Walsh's whereabouts or the peculiar circumstances. Drawers opened and closed, papers were shuffled, but no answers presented themselves.
Frustration and worry intensified as I realized that the more I searched, the less I seemed to know, but I wasn’t going to panic. He was probably downstairs, still working. There would always be that piece in Walsh, the hard-working leader who never wanted to be, but was molded into the role he was in.
As I descended the staircase, a palpable sense of unease settled in the pit of my stomach. My footsteps echoed through the grand hallway, and the emptiness of the mansion intensified the eerie atmosphere that hung in the air.
I cautiously peered outside, half expecting to see the usual presence of guards patrolling the grounds. To my astonishment, not a single figure stood watch. With trepidation, I continued down the hallway toward Walsh's primary office. The dimly lit corridor seemed to stretch endlessly, and each step I took echoed louder in the silence.
As I approached his office, the door was open, and my breath caught in my lungs when I realized he wasn't there either. Panic gnawed at the edges of my consciousness, and my mind raced with unsettling thoughts. This had to have been some terrible television show where someone would tell me I was being punked, because the solitude was deafening.
I entered Walsh's office, and my gaze fell upon the scattered papers on his usually impeccable desk. This room, reserved for important meetings, appeared disheveled and chaotic. The meticulously organized space now betrayed by signs of a disturbance.
Fixated on the scattered documents, I hesitated for a moment. Approaching the desk, I began sifting through the papers. Each document held a piece of the puzzle, yet the full picture eluded me.
I paused only to peer out the window as Fire's distressed neighing echoed through the quiet home. Then I noticed a paper face down on the desk. I didn't know what it was, but my hand hovered over it, as if it was beckoning me. Although it felt like an intense breach of security, I turned it over.
I paused, scanning it over and realizing it was a resume of sorts—the woman he was supposed to marry for his business, for the Mafia, or whatever weird traditions they had claimed.
Recognition dawned on me as I scrutinized the face on the paper. Walsh had shown me this once before, and the name or face triggered a sense of familiarity I couldn't immediately place. I racked my brain, attempting to pinpoint where I had seen this woman before.
In my mental search, a chilling realization struck me like a bolt of lightning. The woman in the photo before me was Cagen's younger sister. Panic coursed through my veins, freezing me in place. The implications were horrifying.
Holy shit.
Cagens’ sister was supposed to marry Walsh.
I wondered if he knew the connection. They had different last names, but I knew this was her. I had met her once before, and there was no mistaking it.
The gravity of the situation hit me as panic bubbled in my chest, but I needed to figure out what happened last night.
Holy Shit , I repeated over and over in my head while trying to focus on any clues of why or where they took him.
Walsh potentially had no idea this woman was Cagen’s sister. The only reason I knew was because I had been there to help Cagen move into Isles back when her sister was still in high school. Now, she had to be eighteen.
A sense of terror overwhelmed me as I grappled with the potential fallout from this revelation. The panic intensified, creating a suffocating atmosphere in the quiet house. I needed to find him and address this before it spiraled out of control. Fire neighed again, and it dawned on me that the reason the guards weren’t patrolling was because the Irish mob must be here, too.