Chapter 20 #2
Finally, two figures reappear in the main yard, silhouettes heavier now. One of them—Brodie—has shoulders that look like they’re carrying extra weight. There’s a second where he stops, bowed slightly, and Bran’s hand lands on his back, brief and hard.
They’re too far away for expression, but I know a posture like that when I see it.
Something is wrong.
The door code beeps on the other side of the wall. Cotton’s fingers tighten reflexively on Saoirse as the hidden door unlocks and swings inward.
Bran is the first through, face carved from stone. Brodie follows, jaw clenched, eyes sweeping over his wife and daughter like he needs to see them breathing before he can exhale.
Saoirse launches herself at him, arms out. “Daddy!”
He catches her, holding her tight, face burying in her hair for one long second. “Hey, a stór,” he murmurs. “Look at you, still in one piece. Good girl.”
Cotton rises, one hand braced on her belly. “What happened?” she asks, voice low. “Tell me you idiots didn’t go wrestling a bear or something.”
Brodie looks at Saoirse and then at his mother-in-law and Savvi. “Why don’t you go get some hot chocolate started in the kitchen?” he says carefully. “Savvi will help. Saoirse, you go with them, yeah? Extra marshmallows.”
Saoirse pulls back, suspicious. “Is Uncle Bran okay?”
Bran forces a small smile for her benefit. It’s not his usual half-smirk; it’s tight and wrong, but it does the job. “I’m fine, mo chroí,” he says. “Go on. Make mine extra marshmallows too. I want to see if you can sink them all.”
She nods solemnly, like he just gave her a mission. “Okay.” She wriggles down and takes Savvi’s hand. Cotton’s mom pats Brodie’s cheek, eyes shiny but composed, and follows them out.
The air changes.
“What happened?” I ask again. My voice comes out hoarse.
Brodie scrubs a hand over his face. His jaw is tight, eyes harder than I’ve seen them.
“One of the hands,” he says. “Miguel.”
My stomach drops. “The guy who exercised the horses? With the beard?”
Brodie nods once. The motion is short and brutal.
“Is he—” Cotton’s voice breaks. “Brodie.”
“He’s gone, macushla,” he says gently, stepping closer to her. His eyes are still hard, but his hands are careful when he reaches for her. “We found him in the barn. Door ajar, lights on. Looked like he rolled out of his bunk in a hurry. Maybe he heard something, went to check.”
He glances at Bran, something unspoken passing between them, and makes a slicing gesture.
“His throat?” I ask, before I can stop myself. “Like—”
“Enough, Twiggy,” Bran says quietly.
I swallow. “Sorry.”
Brodie nods once. “He didn’t suffer long,” he says, which is the kindest lie anyone ever tells in these scenarios. “But it was…clean. Deliberate.”
The room tilts.
Henry. It has to be Henry. He came onto this property, took a man out in the barn, and left without tripping anything but the alarm.
Guilt claws at my insides.
“If I hadn’t been here—” I start.
Bran cuts me off with a look I’ve only ever seen aimed at men he plans to hurt. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste iron.
Brodie pulls Cotton in, foreheads touching, his big hand splayed over the swell of her stomach. “We’ll call Miguel’s family in the morning,” he says. “Tell them what we can. Kael will take care of the rest on our end. He was under our umbrella. We’ll look after them.”
Under our umbrella. Mob language, not business-speak. Protection has a cost and a promise, and Brodie Gallagher keeps both.
Cotton nods against his chest, tears finally spilling over. “Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”
Bran turns to me.
The softness he had for Saoirse is gone. What’s left is all sharp edges and decision.
“Pack your bag,” he says.
My brain stutters. “What?”
“We’re leaving,” he says. “Tonight.”
“Where?” I ask, even as my body is already moving toward the door, heart hammering. “Brodie’s—”
“I’ve got a place,” Bran cuts in. “It’s safe, and no one outside Kael’s circle knows it’s mine. Jack and State will cover here; you’re done. You and I are getting off this property before the sun’s up.”
Cotton lifts her head. “She’s not the one who put the target on us,” she says fiercely.
“I know,” Bran says. His gaze flicks to her, then back to me. “But she’s the one he wants. And this—” he gestures toward the barn, the night, the house “—this is exactly what he does. He pushes. Sees who breaks. Sees who moves where.”
He steps closer, voice dropping. “He is not getting a second shot on Kael’s people under Kael’s roof. Or Brodie’s. Pack, Gentry.”
For once, I don’t argue.
I nod, throat too tight for words, and slip past him into the hall. My vision blurs as I move, the polished wood and framed photos smearing into streaks.
My presence did this, whether they want to say it out loud or not. If Henry hadn’t decided to come back for me, Miguel would still be asleep in his bunk with hay in his hair and a stupid country song as his alarm.
Silent tears spill over and track down my face, hot and useless.
As I reach the office door, I hear Brodie’s low voice behind me, meant for Cotton but echoing down the hall.
“Soon as Bran has her stashed safe, we take a break,” he murmurs. “Couple weeks away. Ireland, the coast, I don’t care. Somewhere Henry Thurston has never heard of. I’m not taking chances with you or our girl.”
Cotton makes a small, broken sound. “We can’t just run, Brodie.”
“We can,” he says. “We can and we will, if that’s what it takes. Let the Irish mob and the law tear strips off him. You and Saoirse don’t get to be in the middle of that. Not again.”
His words wrap around my guilt like barbed wire.
I close the office door gently behind me, lean my back against it for one long, shaking breath, then push off and go to pack the bag I should have kept ready.