Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tate
I’m so angry I can barely see straight.
She’s going to try to deny it, I know she is, but there’s no getting away from it. I’m so fucking furious she played me for a fool like that. Did she think I wouldn’t have a clue? All this time, she was right under my fucking nose.
And the fucking gall of her to take me into the store, like I’m such a fool I wouldn’t see right through her lies?
Did she think it was funny I didn’t know it was her?
Has she played this little fucking stunt just to get closer to the Clan?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tate, or why you’ve gone all sober and angry,” she mutters. “You don’t think I’m the writer of the Chronicles, do you?”
“I don’t think fucking anything,” I mutter. “I know. And you’ll be coming back with me. Only there’ll be no staying in the front room this time. This time, you’ll come back as my prisoner. This time, you’re under my command.”
She blanches, as we leave the city and head to the mountains. The sky’s become starkly white, and snow’s imminent.
“Under your command?” she snorts. “Are you mad?”
“So you’re going to do this the hard way,” I say, and have to admit I feel more than a little eager that she’s gone this route. She isn’t the type to admit straight away, I’ll give her that.
I’ll have to draw it out of her.
Perfect.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, then hisses in a breath when I reach for her knee and squeeze.
“You’ve revealed things in those books that no one should know,” I begin. “You’ve given trade secrets that no one outside of the inner Clan circle would ever know. You’ve betrayed us.”
“Let go of me,” she says, her voice tremulous. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Tate. I’m not the bloody writer—”
“Then who fucking is!”
She starts at the thunderous sound of my voice in the small interior of the car. She swallows.
“Maybe I’ve given information to someone,” she says in a little voice. “Maybe I’m an assistant.”
“Tell me the fucking truth, Fran. I’ll find it out one way or another and if I catch you lying to me—”
“I’m not bloody lying!”
I nod slowly, and exhale as we drive up the mountain.
“Maybe I have nothing to do with the damn books.”
I squeeze her knee, and she gasps again.
“And maybe you have everything to do with them.”
She doesn’t respond at first. I’m furious that someone we trusted, someone right under our noses, has betrayed us like this.
“Do you have any idea what my brothers want to do to you?”
She doesn’t respond at first, then says in a little voice, “You mean to… the writer of the books?”
“Right. To you.”
“I’m not—”
“Shut it.”
I’m so angry I want to pull this car over, haul her over my lap, and whip her arse until she cries. I need her to bloody listen.
“I was ordered to find the writer.”
She’s quiet, the only sound the engine as we climb further uphill.
“I was told to find the writer so we could end them.”
She doesn’t respond, fuming at the road ahead of us.
“Do you know what that means?”
“If I were the writer of the Clan Chronicles, I’d fucking know what that meant, wouldn’t I?”
I don’t respond at first.
“Which one am I?”
“What?”
“Which fucking brother am I?”
I want to know. Has she kept us in the proper birth order?
Is the eldest my late brother Tavish, with his shaved head and blazing blue eyes?
The second eldest Leith, muscled and powerful, a natural leader and protector of all?
The third would be me, then… the one she describes as “the gentle giant.”
I’ll fucking show her how wrong she is.
I try a different angle. “Alright, then. Let’s pretend for a moment that you aren’t the writer. That you’re telling the truth, that it’s someone else. But you know the person, don’t you?”
She doesn’t respond at first, then says softly, “And what if I do?”
“I’ll have to question you to get the answers I need.”
“Why do you feel so threatened by romance novels?”
“I’ve told you that already.”
Silence. Then, “And what answers do you need?”
“Who the fucking writer is.”
“And when you find out, what will you do to them?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
We’re minutes away from home now, and the snow’s begun to fall in thick swaths. The wipers on the car move back and forth at a breakneck speed.
Back.
Forth.
Back.
Forth.
We watch them, as if this is the most fascinating thing in the world.
“We’ll go back to the main house first. Check in. We won’t say a word about the books, do you understand me?”
She nods silently, and her lower lip trembles. I almost feel bad for her.
Almost.
“Then when we’re done eating dinner, you’ll come back to my place with me. I’ll tell them I promised I’d keep an eye on you.”
“The girls will think we’re hooking up.”
“Let them think that.”
She opens her mouth to protest. “Why the hell would I let them think that?”
Sudden need flares in me, and I grip her knee punishingly. She flinches.
“Because maybe, love, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
She furrows her brow adorably as the large lodge comes into view.
“I should’ve known,” I mutter to myself. “You’re the only one that even knows how to bloody get here. Did you tell someone else?”
“Of course not.”
Was that an admission?
“What if the girls ask questions?” she asks.
I pull to a stop right outside the main house. “You’re a writer,” I tell her, because I haven’t bloody let her get away with that lie. “Make something up.” I shut off the car. “Stay there until I come and get you.”
She’s so angry, which makes no sense. I’m not the one that wrote the fucking books and tricked the whole bloody Clan.
Maybe she doesn’t like that I found her out. Maybe she doesn’t like that the ruse is up.
She sure as hell won’t like what has to happen next.
She’s a good girl, though, and at least this once she does as she’s told. She waits for me, sitting there pertly, her hands flat on her legs.
I crook a finger at her. “C’mere.”
She slides out of the car and takes my hand but doesn’t meet my eyes. I slide her hand through my arm and we walk, with my hand covering hers, toward the main house. I speak in a low voice. I don’t want anyone to hear what I’m about to say.
“I can’t tell anyone what I’ve found out today.”
“You haven’t found out bloody anything.”
“I fucking have and you know it.”
Again, silent fuming.
“So we’ll go up there and be cordial. I’m angry about what you’ve done, but not so angry that I’m about to turn you over to my brothers. They’ll show no mercy.”
“Is this your version of good cop/bad cop?”
“No, love. This is my version of bad cop and criminal.”
Love.
Oh, God.
A brisk breeze picks up as we reach the main entrance, and she shivers. I throw a protective arm around her shoulders. I want everyone to believe we’re getting romantic, that I have feelings for her. It will make what I have to do so much easier.
So this makes it look legit, like she’s really sidling up to me and I’m into her. I want my father, especially, to know this.
When we reach the door, I wrap my fingers around the back of her neck and bring my mouth to her ear.
“You’re in so much fucking trouble when I get you alone. The only mercy I’ll show at all is not to do what my brothers expect me to. You’ve gotten way too free around here, Fran. You’ll behave yourself in here. Am I understood?”
She gives me a little salute. “Loud and clear, captain,” she says. I give her a firm little smack to the rear.
“Hey!” Her cheeks flush red.
There’ll be so much more where that came from.
“Be a good girl.”
“Are you doing some sort of role-play thing?”
I snort as I open the door. “There’s absolutely no playing going on.”
I’m dead serious, and that gets her quiet. She winces. I remember her injuries.
“You’ve got pain meds?”
“Some, but you know they make me loopy.”
Is it my imagination, or does her lower lip pout a bit when she says that?
Why does it make me want to hold her to me until she feels a little better? Poor wee lassie.
I can’t let myself grow weak. I can’t let myself forget what she did and why I have to keep her prisoner.
I can’t let myself be tempted by the thought of punishing her.
But I can’t get it out of my mind.
When we enter the house, there’s something going on. Voices are raised in the kitchen, and it takes a few seconds for me to realize there’s smoke billowing into the main living area.
“Bloody hell!” someone yells. Mum’s trotting down the stairs as we come in.
“What’s happening?” she asks.
“No idea, just came in.”
Cairstina comes stumbling out of the kitchen, flapping a dish towel like mad. “So sorry!” she chokes, gasping. “Paisley and I were trying a new recipe—”
“Flambé?” Fran mutters, and Mum snorts with laughter as the fire alarms blare.
The study door opens, and Dad comes out, stumbling. He’s been fucking drinking again. I can see it in his bleary eyes and smell it from here.
“What the bloody hell’s going on?” he thunders. Mum’s eyes grow wide, and she gets a look of panic on her face. I hate that look. I’ll do bloody anything to keep it off her. She’s a strong woman who’s withstood so many things, I hate to see her quake with the fear of what he might do.
“Nothing, Dad,” I say, stepping in front of Cairstina. “The girls burnt something in the kitchen, we’ve got it under control.” I lower my voice. “Go back to the study.”
“Get out of my way.”
I take him firmly by the arm and guide him back to the study.
He snaps. He turns his fury on me and raises his hand and the instant memory of how he treated us as children rises in my memory.
But I’m not a child, and I haven’t cowered in fucking years.
I don’t flinch. I grab his wrist and pull his arm down. I step in front of him, my back blocking the two of us from view. I don’t want my mother to see.
I step into his space, intimidating him. His eyes widen, and he takes a wobbly step back. He stumbles, but I right him, leading him back into the office. I kick the door closed with a resounding bang.
“You don’t raise your hand to me, old man,” I say in his ear. “You don’t raise your hand to fucking anyone anymore, do you understand me?”
I plunk him in a chair.
“Stay right there, I’ll get this sorted.”