Chapter 28 #2
"Your father believed evidence possessed moral power of its own. It was one of his more dangerous misconceptions."
Something cold settled through me.
Across the table, Trigger's expression hardened.
Cipher stopped typing.
I said nothing.
Harrow continued.
"Declan was an intelligent man. Principled. Difficult. I respected him."
"You murdered him."
The words came without heat.
That mattered.
I wanted Harrow to hear exactly how little control his name had over me.
"Did I?"
"You watched my house."
"I knew people were watching it."
"Same difference."
"No. It rarely is."
Skye's grip tightened.
Harrow wanted uncertainty.
Not because he expected me to believe he was innocent.
Because if he could blur responsibility enough, he could make me chase the wrong target.
I looked toward Vale on the screen.
"Tell Vale his cloned plates need work."
For the first time, Harrow went completely silent.
Trigger's gaze snapped toward me.
Skye's eyes widened slightly.
I smiled without humor.
"Thought so."
When Harrow spoke again, the polish remained, but something beneath it had sharpened.
"You've surrounded yourself with capable people."
"Aye."
"Your father should have done the same."
The sentence hit exactly where he intended.
For one second, I saw Da at the kitchen table.
Saw the letter.
Saw his line about protecting the family.
I knew what Harrow was doing.
Knowing didn't make it painless.
"Your father's mistake," Harrow said, "was believing truth would protect his family."
Skye turned toward me fully.
I let the words settle.
Then something inside me became very still.
"No."
Harrow waited.
"His mistake was thinking he had to carry it alone."
The sentence felt like something I had been trying to learn since the moment Toxic looked at me over those ledgers and told me I wasn't crossing the Atlantic by myself.
Harrow didn't answer immediately.
I continued.
"I won't make the same one."
The line remained silent for another few seconds.
Then he said, "You already have."
I frowned as a new image appeared on Cipher's screen, this one pulled from a traffic camera and showing a dark sedan moving through an intersection I didn't immediately recognize.
My stomach tightened as Cipher began typing rapidly, working whatever connection he had just found while Harrow's voice remained infuriatingly calm through the speaker.
"Your Scottish companion has been exceptionally determined."
Every person in the vehicle went still.
I looked at Skye.
She had gone pale but hadn't moved her hand from mine.
"You leave her out of this."
The old instinct surfaced immediately because Harrow understood exactly where to press: threaten me, threaten the club, and finally threaten the woman I had started wanting enough to fear losing.
Harrow knew exactly where to push.
"I would prefer to," he said. "Unfortunately, Miss Fraser has already placed herself very firmly inside matters that do not concern her."
"They concern me," Skye said.
I turned sharply.
She leaned toward the phone before I could stop her.
Harrow paused.
"Miss Fraser."
Her expression hardened.
"Mr. Harrow."
"Your friend survived because Dr. Croft misunderstood the difference between discipline and excess."
My jaw tightened.
Skye didn't flinch.
"Isla survived because she was smarter than the people holding her."
A faint breath came through the line.
"Confidence can be dangerous."
"So can underestimating an interior designer."
Raze would have loved that.
Harrow didn't.
"Blackridge Hall should have been the end of your involvement."
Skye's voice remained perfectly even.
"It wasn't."
"No."
"And neither is Saint Brigid's."
That was too much information.
I squeezed her hand once.
She understood immediately and said nothing more.
Harrow did not take the bait.
Instead, he returned his attention to me.
"You have something that belongs to the Foundation."
"Da's records?"
"Materials obtained outside authorized channels."
"Funny. Murder usually ends authorization disputes."
Harrow exhaled.
"Irish—"
"No."
The use of the road name irritated me more than Rory would've.
He had no right to either.
"You don't know me."
"I know more than you think. You left Ireland after an argument with your father. You fled before the police had finished searching the house. You abandoned people who tried to help you and spent fifteen years persuading yourself distance was some noble form of protection."
The cruelty of it was precise because every fact was true.
The old shame still surfaced, but it no longer stood alone. Da's letter existed now, as did Eamon, Niamh and Orla, the club, and Skye's hand still resting against mine beneath the table.
"You've done your homework," I said.
"You made yourself predictable."
"Then predict this."
I looked at Trigger.
He understood before I spoke.
"We're keeping the evidence."
Harrow's voice cooled.
"Then more people will suffer for a dead man's obsession."
"No. They'll suffer because your people choose to hurt them."
The distinction mattered now.
Maybe it always had.
"You can stop today's transfers," he said. "Send me the O'Brien archive and the residents currently leaving Saint Brigid's remain unharmed."
Trigger shook his head immediately.
Cipher started tracing something through the call.
Blackmail.
Exactly what we expected.
I looked toward Skye.
She wasn't frightened for herself.
She was thinking about the women in those vans.
That was why Harrow's offer was dangerous.
Not because any of us trusted him.
Because good people could still be manipulated through someone else's suffering.
"Proof they're safe," I said.
Harrow paused.
"You aren't in a position to negotiate."
"Then you called the wrong man."
I ended the call.
Everyone stared at me.
Skye recovered first.
"You hung up on him."
"Aye."
"He was threatening the women."
"Aye."
"What if—"
"He was already moving them before he called."
The words came harder than I intended, and I forced myself to slow down.
"He doesn't need the archive to decide whether they get hurt. He wants us believing their safety depends on obedience."
Skye absorbed that.
Trigger nodded.
"He's trying to control the response."
Cipher's voice came from the laptop. "And while he was talking, Eli got a better trace. Call bounced through Dublin and Manchester, but the originating packet hit a private network registered to a Covenant shell near Galway."
I leaned closer.
"Current?"
"Within the last ten minutes."
Maverick looked toward the road map.
"Galway puts Harrow west of us."
"Or somebody carrying his device," Cipher warned.
"Still something."
Hawkeye's voice entered the radio.
"Vale moving."
Every head turned toward the screen.
Owen Vale walked from the chapel toward the black estate car.
Trigger reached for the radio.
"Eyes only."
Hawkeye answered.
"Copy."
Vale opened the driver's door, then paused.
Even through the long-range image, I saw him turn his head toward the north tree line.
Hawkeye's position.
My stomach tightened.
"Did he see him?"
"No movement," Trigger said.
Vale stood there for another second.
Then got in.
The estate car pulled away.
Maverick spoke into his phone.
"I have a secondary vehicle ready two junctions south."
Trigger looked at me.
"This is where you do exactly what we discussed."
I knew what he meant.
Don't chase.
Don't let Harrow turn grief into a bad tactical decision.
I nodded.
"Tell me where you need me."
Trigger held my gaze for a moment.
Then he pointed toward Skye and the Saint Brigid's plans.
"You two stay on the property. If we're going in, I want the lower route solved before anyone crosses the wall."
The order should have frustrated me.
Instead, I understood what he was giving me.
A job.
A place inside the operation that didn't require proving anything by hunting Owen Vale down a wet Irish road.
I turned toward Skye.
She had already opened the structural drawings.
"North retaining wall," she said. "If Eamon's father left the arch intact, I can estimate where the tunnel meets the lower level."
I sat beside her.
For the next twenty minutes, while men I trusted followed Vale and two separate vans carrying residents moved through County Clare under controlled surveillance, I did something the twenty-three-year-old version of me would've considered impossible.
I stayed where my team needed me.
I asked for updates instead of demanding control.
I let other men watch the roads I knew better than they did.
And when Skye shifted her chair closer so we could compare Declan's old plan against Hawkeye's current images, I didn't pretend her presence beside me was another weakness Harrow had discovered.
It was the opposite.
Harrow knew who mattered to me.
That didn't mean he owned the fact.
For fifteen years, I had responded to loss by making sure nobody could stand close enough to become leverage.
All that had accomplished was turning love into another form of fear.
Skye leaned across the map and pointed toward the chapel foundation.
"There. If the grade falls the way Brigid described, the tunnel should intersect beneath this stairwell."
I followed her reasoning.
"Which puts the hidden lower wing here."
"Yes."
"Back exit?"
"Possibly through the old infirmary service court."
I looked at her.
"Can you get us through?"
Her gaze met mine.
"If the building hasn't changed beyond recognition."
"That's not a yes."
"It's the best you're getting."
I almost smiled.
Then Hawkeye's voice came through again.
"Visual change. Rear entrance. More residents."
Trigger stepped toward the screen.
"Count."
"Six. Maybe seven."
My hand tightened on the edge of the table.
Skye's shoulder pressed against mine.
Not restraining.
Reminding.
I breathed once.
Then asked the question that mattered.
"What do you need from me?"
Trigger turned.
"Help us bring them home."
This time, I didn't need anyone to tell me I couldn't do it alone.