Chapter 19 #2
“Good girl. Such a very good girl,” I say teasingly, moving my fingers between her slick folds, back and forth, until her bottom lifts straight off the bed. “Why don’t you come for me?”
She soars into her release within seconds, writhing and moaning as the climax overpowers her.
“Good girl,” I say softly. “That’s my good girl.”
I straddle her, unfastening my trousers and taking out my stiff, aching cock. I give myself a quick pump, my eyes on hers. She bites her lip and gives me a seductive glance.
“I love you,” I tell her, as I glide into her heated, slick entrance, her pussy hugging my cock in utter perfection.
“And I love you,” she breathes, as her voice hitches on a moan. “Oh God, babe, I love you so much.”
I thrust in and out, relishing this moment, even as my body protests. I sustained injuries, but I’m healing, and I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I needed this. We both did.
We work a rhythm of perfection, both chasing our surrender, and when it finally crashes over us, I put my forehead to hers, our fingers woven together as she arches her back and climaxes at the same moment my own release shudders through me.
Utter perfection.
I roll over on my side and drag her back to my chest. I kiss her fiercely, branding her, so she knows exactly who she belongs to.
“That was amazing,” I say softly, stroking my fingers along her hair. “Fuckin’ amazing.”
“It was,” she says with a sigh. “Didn’t think we’d get back to that so soon. When I talked with Megan earlier today, she said that sometimes recovery is—” She suddenly sits up. “Oh, God. Oh my God.”
I blink at her in surprise.
“You alright?”
She throws off the blanket and gets to her feet, utterly naked as she crosses the room to her phone.
“Yes, yes, I think so…” Her voice trails off. “I think I know the next piece to the puzzle, Tate. I think something just clicked into place.”
I watch her, mesmerized by the way her mind works, the way she unravels bits and pieces to reveal the whole.
She’s on the phone again. “And what do we know about the Interpol involvement?” Her brows furrow together like she’s a detective or something, and while I think she’s adorable, I can’t help but admire her tenacity.
“Right,” she says. “Right. Okay, then. I know who I have to call, thanks.”
She hangs up the phone and gives me a triumphant look. “Tate Cowen, I fucked your Clan over, but I’m about to make everything alright again.”
“How will you do that, love?”
“You’ll see,” she says cryptically, reaching for a pair of pants. “But first, get some bloody clothes on.”
I shake my head as I tug on trousers and nick a T-shirt from my luggage. “Where are we going?”
She worries her lip and thinks it over. “The Welsh burnt down the warehouse, right?”
“Aye.”
“And they had you go to my publisher.”
“Right.”
“They used the books as a setup. A distraction. They wanted you all to think that they were getting information from them to feed to others. They used Islan as a conduit.”
“Okay.” So far, I follow.
“And they burnt the warehouse down. No one would return to the warehouse, right? Not if it was burnt down. Not if none of the books were published anymore. Why would they?”
I nod, still following.
“But that doesn’t mean they didn’t leave traces of evidence behind.”
Now, I don’t follow, but I trust her. So, a few minutes later, I’ve got a borrowed car and we’re driving to the warehouse.
It’s taped off when we get there, but she manages to sweet-talk her way around a young guard who doesn’t seem too dedicated to keeping her away.
She jerks her chin over at me, making scary faces with wide eyes.
He looks like he’s going to piss his trousers, nods, and he lets me in.
“What did you tell him?” I mutter.
“That you were a high-ranking official within the McCarthy Clan, and that you’d just as soon cut him up into little pieces and toss him in the Irish Sea as you would look at him.”
I shrug. “Swimming with the fishes again?”
“Exactly.”
“I know you’ve been recovering from what happened,” she says. “So I haven’t told you much. And I didn’t want to really plant false hope, or worse, make accusations that could hurt anyone.” She winces. “Especially after all that I’ve done to all of you.”
I nod. “Go on.”
“Sooo,” she begins, as we walk over the charred remains of the entryway door, “I had to really, really dig deep. I’ve spent so much time thinking this over, talking with my contacts, researching online. And I have a few suspicions now, but I still don’t want to plant false hope.”
She winces.
False hope?
“Turns out… well, quite a few things. But I’ll show you first,” she says, leading the way.
When we enter the large room, I can’t imagine what she’s looking for. There’s nothing but piles of boxes of destroyed books, some burnt beyond recognition and some half burned but soaked in flame retardant and water. She takes one large box that’s still half intact and tosses it onto a table.
Before I know what she’s doing, she’s up on the table and prying at the water sprinklers embedded in the ceiling.
Wait a minute. Water sprinklers?
“See?” she says. “They didn’t activate, did they?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“The only water in here was after the fire brigade showed up, right?”
“Aye.”
“And you’d have thought that was because the Welsh were planning to set the fire.
I’d have thought the same,” she says. “In fact, at first, I did. But after I put a few more things together, I came up with another hypothesis.” She sticks her tongue out, still digging through the charred remains of the ceiling.
A moment later, her face lights up and her eyes go wide. “Ta-da!”
She pulls out a broken piece of equipment. “See?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t bloody see.”
She hops straight down off the table and runs to me. “It’s recording equipment. Someone put that here. Now riddle me this. If the Welsh were merely planning to attack you, why would they record it?”
I shake my head.
“They wouldn’t,” she supplies. “And furthermore, someone would have disabled the water sprinklers perhaps so they could set the fire more efficiently, or perhaps for another reason altogether.”
“So they wouldn’t destroy their equipment,” I mutter.
“Precisely.”
“So who put this here?”
“The Welsh were here,” she says, mulling it all over. “We know they were here a few days before anything happened, at least according to Islan. She was here with her man.”
“Was she?” What the bloody hell is that all about? “I can’t believe she did that.”
“Tate,” Fran says, blowing out an impatient breath. “I can. And for a while, I thought she was just infatuated with the bloke, and even when he had her in here restrained, I thought that he merely deceived her. But your sister’s no fool, is she?”
“Of course not. She’s bloody brilliant, but love can make people blind.”
“Or,” she continues. “Love can make people see things that others are blind to. Hope when all seems lost. Promise, when someone’s given up. Redemption in an otherwise irredeemable character.”
I nod, still not quite putting it together.
“I’ve done some deep diving, and while I’ve found evidence of her man’s induction into his Clan, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye…
We need to get back to Keenan,” she says.
“After we arm ourselves with this evidence. You need to make sure he doesn’t…
” she winces. “Allow Islan’s lover boy to be injured. ”
I nod, as she continues.
“It wasn’t the Welsh that were the ones who set these up.
They have a spy among them, and I know exactly who it is.
I reached out to two of my contacts in the investigation and asked at length about the typical induction into a Clan.
It isn’t like it is with all of you, the vetting and the like.
Sometimes, it’s to pay off a debt, and the history of this man leaves a vague trail of unanswered questions. ”
It all comes crashing down with vivid clarity.
“He isn’t Welsh at all, is he?”
She shakes her head. “No. And I know how we’ll get him to confess to all.
But there’s more than that, even. Why this warehouse?
What a strange place to bring us, isn’t it?
With such a high probability of a fire hazard, the rooms are stacked floor to ceiling with flammable print books…
a few things don’t add up. Took me some time to figure that one out. ”
I don’t bloody know how she does it, I truly don’t, and I wish to hell I could get into her mind sometimes.
We head back to the McCarthy family home. She’s on the phone again, asking difficult questions, probing and pushing for more answers. I’m on the phone with Leith, telling him what we found.
“Bloody hell,” he says. “You think he’s an Interpol rat?”
“I do, and Fran’s going to work her magic, see what she can find out.”
“Jesus, brother, I wish I was there with you.”
“Soon, Leith. Soon.”
I hang up the phone, as we make it back to the McCarthys. Children are running around on the front lawn, playing with balloons and bubbles with their nannies. It’s one of the most whimsical, carefree visions I’ve ever seen.
I take her hand. “You know, lassie. If you have my baby…”
“It’s the greatest insurance for my health and well-being you can give me,” she supplies, giving me a grin.
“I have studied up a bit on the way Clan law works, you know. Seems marrying me was the first insurance, though that didn’t stop some dumbasses.
But after that, we can take another precaution, eh? By knockin’ me up, as it were?”
“Aye,” I say with a chuckle. I pat her wee belly. “Looking forward to that.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, as we walk the large stone steps to the house. “So the wedding wasn’t just a farce? Meant to throw people off, keep me temporarily safe?”
I shake my head. “Not if you’ll have me, Fran.”
She stops on the step just ahead of me and places her hands on my shoulders. “There,” she says vehemently. “Much better. Now we’re actually eyeball to eyeball.”