Chapter 29
CATRIONA
“Isee you started the family reunion without us, sweetheart.”
Everything inside me screams to get Mary and Aiden out of here—shield them, hide them, kill the man stepping onto the gravel path in front of us—but one glance at Cian’s eyes locks my knees into place.
He’s got two armed men at his side because of course he does.
Aiden may be ruthless and a trained killer, but going against three armed men? I wouldn’t want him to risk it.
“Cian,” Mary says, her eyes growing duller with each passing second. She pulls her arm out of mine. Her calm seems unnatural. How can she face him without cowering in his presence? Especially after all this time as the recipient of his brutality?
Cian’s mouth curves, but on him it’s not a smile. It contains no warmth. No emotion. Just the threat of teeth.
As though by wordless instruction, Mary leaves us to go to Cian’s side. Her movements are careful—is she hurt?—and her breathing is even more measured. She tilts her cheek to him, her lips pressed into a line, and he presses a perfunctory kiss to her brow.
But his gaze never strays from me.
Aiden shifts closer, instinctively sliding an arm around my waist. It’s a claiming I’m not certain is altogether wise, but Cian only grunts, the cold blue chips of his eyes raking over us. They glimmer with anticipation.
“Well,” he says, his voice smooth as oil. “Let’s not keep everyone waiting.”
He spins, taking Mary along with him, and it takes everything in me to keep from ripping her from his grasp. She seems so fragile compared to his formidable presence. Like he could swallow her up. Or maybe that he already has.
My temples throb, and the only thing keeping me upright is the grip Aiden has around my waist. A sense of foreboding turns my muscles to jelly.
We shouldn’t have come here. We should have figured something else out.
They’re going to kill us. I know with an innate sense of certainty.
Cian wanted Aiden humiliated and broken.
Ready to walk into his death on a false mission to save his mother.
I forget how to breathe.
How are we going to get out of this?
We never should have gotten on the plane.
I try to think of a play, something to get the three of us out of here alive, but I come up with nothing. Aiden’s hand tightens around me, and it grounds me, but only a little. Nothing is going to save us from bullets if they decide to put a few in our brains.
Finally, we end up at a pair of double doors after a long march through labyrinthine hallways.
Cian pushes them open to a dining room that feels more like a tribunal than anything else.
The table stretches the length of the room and is filled with harsh, cruel faces.
The heads of each Clan and their bodyguards?
I don’t know. I try to remember the names of each of them, but draw a blank.
Then I recognize the ones who’d been in the room.
Who’d watched us. Fear crests through me. There are so many of them.
We’re never going to get out of here.
Their eyes snap up to us as we enter. My lungs constrict even further, and my head spins. “Breathe,” Aiden says in my ear. Or maybe I’m imagining it. More armed men file in to block the exits with guns at their ribs.
Cian gestures to the table to a seat at his right.
Mary takes her place at his left. With a steady hand, Aiden leads me to a chair.
I fall into it, grateful to be off my nerveless legs.
I try to catch Mary’s eye, but she won’t look up from her ruined hands.
The sweet, happy woman I’d met seems to have disappeared.
More than anything, it makes me want to cry.
She deserves so much more than this.
Everyone sits but Cian, who strolls behind the chairs of everyone in attendance, calling out names I don’t remember. I stay unnaturally still as he circles, my senses tracking him like a prey animal scenting a predator. Aiden’s hand finds my thigh. The grounding touch provides a little comfort.
Cian stops behind me. “Life is full of surprises, isn’t it? And no one knows that more than Aiden.”
Muffled chuckles ripple around us, but not everyone laughs. Some men shift, their expressions tightening as they remember their own families, wives, children. It’s easy to forget that evil is at your door when it’s terrorizing someone else a continent away or a woman hidden behind closed doors.
“Speaking of, Mary, why don’t you pour us some wine so Aiden can see how well trained you’ve become. Almost as good of a dog as your son.” There’s a general shifting of the men at the table. A few laugh, but many less than before.
My muscles are solid stone as I imagine all the ways I’d kill this monster if I could.
Mary doesn’t seem to acknowledge Cian’s instructions at all.
I wouldn’t even think she heard him because her face doesn’t lose its serene mask.
Instead, she crosses to a sideboard where there are bottles of wine and glasses.
She busies herself with her task, and I quickly peer up at Aiden to gauge his reaction.
Cian is doing the same as if anticipating Aiden to blow a fuse. He doesn’t. Cian falters for a moment. Then Mary returns with two glasses of wine. She hands one to Aiden and takes one for herself. Servants provide the rest, who shift uncomfortably.
“We’re gathered here to celebrate the marriage of Catriona Gallagher and Aiden O’Connor. With our blessing, they will join our organization, and their union will bless us for many years to come. If you’ll join me in a toast to the happy couple?”
Reluctantly, we raise our glasses. I hold mine to my lips, but I don’t drink. Aiden lifts his for a second before placing it back down. Some drink a sip, some more than one. Mary downs hers faster than anyone else at the table, and Cian isn’t far behind.
I glance at Aiden, who is watching his mother with a frown carved into his face.
“To the Clans!” Cian jeers, distracting me, and they chant it back to him.
“And now, for the evening’s entertainment,” he says, rounding the table to where Mary is clutching her wineglass like a lifeline.
She stares into its emptiness like she’s going to divine her future.
Cian’s hands settle on her shoulders, but she doesn’t move.
She doesn’t seem to even realize he’s behind her.
My blood is ice in my veins. Aiden is stone beside me.
“We have a special guest joining us tonight.”
My teeth grind together. The man sure has a penchant for theatrics, but I really wish he’d get on with it.
The room is silent now. A captive audience.
It’s so quiet I can hear heels clicking against the floor on the other side of the door.
It opens.
Devin walks in, and behind him…
Elizabeth?
I jerk hard enough to rattle the silverware on the table. My body tenses so hard, I’m afraid I’ll snap in half. “Bethie? What—what are you doing here?” I double blink, certain fear has me hallucinating, but no matter how much I try, the vision of them doesn’t go away.
“Come in, come in. Why don’t you have a seat?” Cian pulls out a couple of chairs next to Mary.
“What’s going on?” I look from Elizabeth to Devin as my brows draw together. “What are you doing here?”
“Like I said,” Cian interjects. “You got started on the family reunion before all of the family was here.”
“W-what?”
“Please. Quit the innocent act, Catriona. I’m so sick of it.” Elizabeth leans forward on the table. “You know, I used to be jealous of you. How close you and Mom were, how she would exclude me. I bet you didn’t even notice.”
“What? No, Mom loved you. Elizabeth, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong. Mom never loved me.”
“Stop, of course she—”
Elizabeth smacks a fist on the table. “Don’t treat me like a child. You’re so fucking clueless, Catriona. I thought for sure you would have figured it out by now.”
“Figured out what by now?”
“That Dad wasn’t the one who killed Mom, despite what you’ve been trying to prove for months.”
I suck in a breath. My eyes flit around the room like I can find someone to help, but with Cian prowling the perimeter, delighted by the display, no one else dares to move. Aiden is blank and unmoving at my side. “H-how did you know that?”
“Because you aren’t as smart as you think you are. Otherwise, you would have put it together that I was there that night.”
“No, you weren’t. Devin’s vehicle was the only one there.”
Elizabeth rolls her eyes. “Didn’t your husband piece it together? Devin was my alibi. I rode with him to the house. We’ve been in a relationship for months. He disabled it so it would look like he was stranded while I hid until it was safe.”
I’m shaking my head. There’s no way. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
Elizabeth continues, blotches of color high on her cheeks. “Poor little Catriona. Mom’s little princess.” She spits out the word like it’s poison. “She loved you best, she always did. And do you want to know why?”
I lean forward. “No, she loved you. She did.”
“She asked for a divorce after you were born. Did you know? Said she couldn’t put up with Dad anymore. Claimed Dad raped her. That she could barely look at me as a result. That’s why she was always distant from me. She doted on you but treated me like I was a monster.”
“No, she—no, I can’t—”
“She told me she couldn’t stomach living a lie anymore.
That night, she caught me in bed with Devin.
I tried to explain that we were in a relationship, but she kept screaming that it wasn’t right.
That she knew I was like our father. Always lying and keeping secrets.
That she knew I was rotten from the start. ”
I press a hand to my mouth to cover a retching sound.
Elizabeth’s face is alight with glee. “That’s when she told me she’d changed her will. That neither Father nor I would ever see a penny from her. After all the years Father invested in their relationship, she was just going to write us off like that.”