12. Declan
DECLAN
Victor Walsh.
It takes my people twenty minutes to find him. An off-the-books lender, the kind who doesn’t file paperwork and doesn’t need to, because his collection department carries guns.
Ties to half the ugliness in this city. His model is simple: he lends to people who can’t go to the police, and when they can’t pay, he squeezes whoever is on the paperwork until someone with money makes it stop.
He doesn’t care who signs the paperwork.
He cares who will pay to make him go away.
Not a man whose name should be anywhere near Leah’s.
I close the laptop and look at her. She’s on the far end of my couch with her arms wrapped around her knees, and she hasn’t said much since Rowan brought her up here.
“Her finances are clean,” I say to my brothers. “I went through everything when I untangled the apartment. No debt. No liens. Nothing she could owe anyone.” I stop. “Unless it’s not her debt.”
Rowan’s head comes up.
“Kian,” I say.
The name tastes like something gone bad. Emmett lets out a long breath. Rowan is already on his feet.
“I’m going to drag that asshole up here by his collar and—”
“That’s not how you get the truth out of him,” Emmett says. “You know that. Let me go. He talks to me. I’m the one he doesn’t feel judged by.”
Rowan doesn’t sit down. His jaw works. I understand the feeling; I’d like five minutes alone with Kian myself. But Emmett’s right. Kian confesses to exactly nothing when he’s cornered, and Rowan is a corner.
“Go,” I tell Emmett. “Call me the second you’re done.”
He grabs his jacket and leaves. Rowan stands there a moment longer, then heads for the door without a word. He needs to cool off before he does something to our brother that I can’t clean up.
Leah unfolds from the couch and reaches for her bag.
“Stay here tonight,” I say.
It comes out before I’ve decided to say it, and it comes out wrong, too honest. She tilts her head.
“As a precaution,” I add. “Nothing’s getting to you in this building. But I’d rather have you where I can see you. Just for tonight.”
I wait for the argument. She’s told me more than once that she can take care of herself. It doesn’t come. Whatever happened on that sidewalk is still on her mind.
“Okay.” She sets the bag back down. “Thanks.”
I pour two glasses of wine and bring her one. Outside, the rain has started, streaking the windows and blurring the city into smears of light. She curls back into the corner of the couch and watches it. I take the other end and don’t crowd her.
For a while, we talk about nothing. Not today, not the fake relationship with Rowan, not who’s saying her name on the street. Just talk.
“Tell me about your work,” I say. “Do you like it?”
“I do.” She turns the glass in her hands. “I’m lucky. I have a lot of graphic design clients, but I really love making book covers. And I love making my own art, although lately I haven’t had time for my own projects.”
I’m not surprised. She’s been carrying a fake relationship on top of a real job, and even the fake ones take something out of you.
“What are your own projects?”
My phone rings. Emmett.
I pick up the phone.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” he says. “He denies everything. Never heard of Walsh, doesn’t know any man in a suit, has no idea why anyone would be following Leah.”
“Of course he denied everything.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Our brother could be standing next to an empty vault holding a bag of cash and swear he’d never seen a bank.”
Emmett laughs, but it isn’t a happy sound. We’re both tired of Kian. Tired in a way that’s starting to feel permanent. But without proof, there’s nothing to push on.
“Thanks for trying.”
“Yep.” A pause. “She staying with you?”
I look over. Leah has her cheek against the back of the couch, watching the rain.
“Yeah,” I tell my brother.
“Good.”
I hang up and drag a hand through my hair. I’m failing her. How do I protect someone from a thing I don’t understand? How do I fix a problem when I can’t find where it starts?
“That was Emmett?” she asks. “Did he get anything?”
“No.” I hate saying it. “Kian’s denying all of it. We still don’t know what Walsh wants or why he wants it from you. But I’m not going to stop until I do. I’ll keep you safe, Leah.”
“I know you will,” she says, and smiles.
That smile makes me want to hand her the world, yet she asks for nothing. I don’t know how she does that.
“Can I ask you something?” She sets down her glass. “Why do you constantly fix Kian’s mistakes? You’re the oldest, but that doesn’t make you his father.”
“No.” I let out a breath. “But I’ve been standing in for one since I was a teenager. After our mother died, our father just stopped. Stopped parenting, stopped noticing. Somebody had to hold the four of us together, and there wasn’t anyone else.”
“So you decided it was your job.”
“Not my job. My purpose.” I look down at my hands. “Keep the family intact. Keep the name clean. Keep anything else from affecting my brothers. And I was wrong to do it the way I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I covered for Kian. Every time. We all let him slide, but I’m the one who cleaned up after him, paid off the problems, made them disappear. I built the man he turned into. If I’d held him to account even once, maybe he would’ve turned out differently.”
“No.” She says it quietly, but she means it. “Everything Kian did was a choice. He’s a grown man, and he keeps choosing to hurt people, including you. You didn’t make him do that. Your mother dying didn’t make him do that. Your father checking out didn’t make him do that. He did.”
I’ve said versions of that to myself. But I never believed it. Coming from her, I do.
For the first time since my mother died, the weight shifts. Not gone. But shifted, like someone’s taken hold of the other side.
“Why are you being kind to me?” I ask. “After everything my family has done to you.”
She shrugs. “Do I need a reason to care about you, Declan?”
The room gets warmer.
“You’ve been the parent since you were a kid,” she says. “Maybe you’re allowed to put it down for a while. Let somebody take care of you for once.”
I lean toward her, close enough to breathe her in.
“And how would somebody do that?” I ask. “Take care of me.”
She bites down on her lower lip. “Let me show you.”