Chapter 5 #3
His eyes widen. “Are you fucking joking? We have an agreement with them, and with the FBI, that you would not publish anything, that we would not publicly discuss what happened on the mountain or the bank robbery, and that, in return, they would leave us and Lucky alone.”
“I know.”
He throws out a hand toward my bag on the couch. “Then why the fuck are you writing a story about them?”
It isn’t that I haven’t asked myself that very question dozens of times. But each time I do, only one answer arises in my mind and in my heart—because I have to.
I pace my small living room, shoving my hands back through my hair as I try to figure out how to explain it to him. “I know you won’t understand, but I don’t trust them. Not one fucking bit. I don’t believe for a second that we’re really safe up here, do you?”
His jaw tenses, but he doesn’t respond.
He doesn’t have to for me to know that he feels the same as I do.
“This ‘agreement’ that we made with them?” I shake my head. “It doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t stop them from coming after us again, does it?”
It’s more of a rhetorical question, since we all know it’s true.
“I’ve spent months since Lucky first revealed the truth to us about what she was running from looking into them.
Researching everything I could find about the crime family—their inner workings, who the players are, what they have their hands in—searching for any way that we might be able to take them down. ”
“Take them down?” He throws his hands up and shakes his head. “What the fuck are you even talking about? The FBI said they don’t have enough to prosecute them.”
“Yet.” I hold up a finger. “They don’t have enough yet.”
He scoffs. “And what, you think you can find something that’s going to make a difference that the FBI didn’t? They’ve been investigating them for decades.”
“I know, but I have sources.”
His back stiffens. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve spoken to several people who have never talked to the FBI, who have never revealed the information that they gave me to anyone else. And I truly think it can make a difference.”
“So direct them to the fucking FBI!”
I shake my head. “They won’t talk to them. They don’t trust law enforcement. And I don’t blame them, considering what I’ve found.”
“Which is what?”
I swallow thickly, my stomach churning thinking about everything I’ve learned over the past few months and especially today. “They have people in local law enforcement all over the Eastern United States and several FBI agents on their payroll.”
“Fuck.”
That revelation knocks Connor back a step. He rarely, if ever, shows his cards, but he just proved my point.
“The man I met with today? You have no idea how important he is. My key witness. What I need to corroborate what I’m going to put into my story.”
Connor issues a low growl. “There’s not going to be a story.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He takes a step closer. “It means you can’t publish a story about the Lorells.”
“Why the fuck not?”
His gaze burns with an intensity I’ve never seen there before, even during our most heated of arguments. “Because it will unleash holy Hell on us and McBride Mountain.”
“Holy Hell has already been here. You lived it at the hands of the Lorells. This is my job, Connor. To tell the stories no one else will. And this is the biggest story of my life. This affects my best friend, her family, you. If I can get this story out there, make these things public, if I can get a major paper to pick it up and print it because I have proven sources, maybe it will lead to something that could bring them down for good. Maybe the FBI can finally act and that could ensure our safety so that we could all sleep at night.”
He flinches as if I’ve struck him, and a feeling I never wanted to experience when it comes to Connor McBride washes over me.
Sympathy.
“You’re not the only one who has nightmares, Connor.”
I may not have been up on the homestead that night, but I witnessed the fallout and how it affected all the McBrides. Especially the one in front of me. I’ve felt everyone’s anxiety, their pain, I’ve experienced the aftermath enough to realize how awful living through it truly was.
He squeezes his eyes closed. A tense minute passes. Another. When he opens them, there’s a resolve there. “Pack a bag.”
“What?”
“Go pack a bag—a backpack if you have one. Clothes, hair brush, tooth brush and tooth paste, whatever the fuck you’re going to need.”
Panic starts to rise in my chest. “For what?”
Connor’s glare cuts right through me. “You’re coming with me.”
I recoil and retreat a step. “Like fucking hell I am!”
It’s bad enough this man followed me today—and that I was so wrapped up in my story that I somehow missed seeing him there—but now he expects me to go somewhere with him?
“I’m not about to let you sit here and write this story and put all of us in danger.”
I square my shoulders, as if that somehow will do something to stop the very determined man in front of me. “You can’t stop me.”
Another low growl slips from his lips, one that warns me not to try him. “I can and I will. You’re coming with me one way or another. I suggest you do it the easy way.”