25. Lara
25
LARA
I stand at the appetizer table, nibbling on a crab cake while my stomach rolls. I’ve tried to ignore everyone here, but it’s proving difficult. Everyone keeps staring at me. I guess it’s a novelty to have a Burke at a Murphy gala, but their eyes on me–especially Murphy’s men–feel so... gross.
Raquel sidles up next to me, this time wearing a dress and looking uncomfortable in low heels.
“You hate this as much as I do?” she grumbles, stealing a crab cake from my plate.
I look her over, snickering a bit as she pulls down the hem of her dress. “Definitely at least as much.”
She groans. “My wife picked out this dress. I look ridiculous.”
I size her up, humming in the back of my throat. “No, you don’t.”
Raquel is definitely out of her element. She looks better when she’s more confident, like when she wears her pantsuits around the mansion.
“She’s not here.” When I look at her, confused, she sighs and elaborates. “My wife, I mean.”
I tilt my head. “Why not?”
“I like to keep her away from all this. It can be dangerous for a woman...” she trails off, as if realizing. “Sorry. I guess you don’t really have a choice in this.”
“It’s okay.” I don’t blame Raquel for working for Murphy–it's difficult in this lifestyle for a woman in her position, and she probably took the first job that she was offered. “I bet it was hard for you at first, this job.”
“You have no idea.” She sips from a glass of champagne. “There are a lot of creeps in this industry.”
I look around at all the men looking at me with predatory eyes. “I can imagine.”
“Most clans have a code about hurting women and children, but it’s like they still don’t see a woman like me as a person.” She huffs out a breath, blowing her blunt bangs out of her face. “But I didn’t come over here to bitch about work. How are you doing? I know this is a lot all at once.”
“I’m hanging in there.”
I’m actually searching the gala frantically for Rory, praying that he comes to save me from all this scrutiny soon. People are still staring and speaking in hushed tones.
I’m grateful that Raquel came to talk to me. She’s about the only person in the Murphy clan who has been kind to me and treated me like a human being instead of cannon fodder for war.
Rory is nowhere to be found.
My heart races, my mind going through every terrible scenario possible.
Has he been caught snooping? What would happen to him if he’d been caught? Surely, his father wouldn’t order him killed... right?
I can’t be sure. Niall Murphy doesn’t seem to go by any sort of code, and it’s scary to imagine the lengths he will go to in order to win this war. He’d practically written Bree off with the flick of a wrist, so what stops him from hurting Rory?
My gaze travels to Niall, who stands in the corner with a group of people.
He throws back his head and laughs uproariously, and I can’t help thinking that it’s likely at my expense. Before I can look back down into my half-empty champagne flute, his blue eyes are on mine, pupils dilating slightly.
I look away instantly, wanting to clutch at Raquel but not daring to. I turn around, busying myself by making a new plate of appetizers and hoping it’ll be enough for Niall to forget I exist.
Just before I put a cocktail shrimp in my mouth, he taps me on the shoulder.
I squeeze my eyes shut briefly before opening them again. I’m in the thick of it now. There’s nowhere to run.
I turn to face him, not bothering to force a polite smile. We’re past the niceties by now. He knows that I don’t want to be here, and he has to think that I’m a prisoner. He can’t get a sniff of what Rory and I are really up to.
“Niall.”
“Mrs. Murphy. Would you care to dance?”
“And if I say no?”
He looks at me coolly. “I can have you locked up in a closet in less than ten minutes.”
“Don’t you think Rory would be angry?”
He chortles. “Don’t you think I got over Rory being angry when he was a wee one? He can throw a tantrum if he likes, it won’t change the outcome.”
“What outcome would that be?”
“You in chains instead of warming his bed every night.”
I look at him, and his expression is blank, as if we’re talking about the weather instead of me being imprisoned.
He means it. He means every word.
He outstretches his hand for me to take and with a sharp indrawn breath, I take it and let him lead me out onto the dance floor.
This early in the gala, we’re one of only three couples dancing, and so all eyes are on us.
I hate it. It makes my skin crawl.
“This dress... it used to me my daughter’s, aye?”
“Aye.”
“Fits you better,” he murmurs, waltzing me around on the tile.
I hate the way he says it, the way his eyes flit down to my cleavage only briefly before backing up to my face.
I know in that moment that it isn’t just Scott who hurts women. It’s the whole clan. He allows them to do whatever they like, probably because he does whatever he likes. He has no code. He has no honor.
He’s nothing like my father, despite the fact that they work in the same arena. There’s a sour taste in the back of my mouth as we dance, but I don’t speak up, not wanting to provoke him.
I have to be careful in a way that I don’t have to be with my father’s men.
“Wonder what sounds you make when—” Niall starts, and then someone pulls me away from him, just as he’s started to draw me closer, his hand on my hip, making me feel like crawling out of my skin.
I’m relieved but also afraid until I look into Rory’s blue eyes, so much like his father’s but also different, kinder. I nearly slump into his arms, and he glares at his father over my head.
“All you had to do was ask to cut in, boyo.”
Rory doesn’t respond, taking me into his arms and moving away from his father.
Niall chuckles and leaves the dancefloor, headed for the open bar.
“Are you all right?” he asks me in a low tone, his eyes searching my face.
“Fine,” I lie, watching Niall’s back as he sits at the bar.
I have no idea what he was going to say to me before Rory cut in, and I don’t want to know.
“Tell me what happened.” Rory’s voice is commanding and usually I give in, but tonight, I don’t want to talk about it. Niall’s awful, but he’s still Rory’s father.
“Nothing. We just talked.”
“He didn’t?—”
I put my arms around his neck, swaying my hips to the music, trying to shake off my anxiety.
“Drop it.”
Rory’s jaw ticks as he grits his teeth, but he does what I ask, not hounding me for answers.
I lean up to whisper in his ear, hoping I won’t be heard by anyone else on the dancefloor.
“Did you find anything?”
“A couple of things. Nothing concrete, though.”
“Something is better than nothing.”
When the song ends, I’m sweating. It’s hot under the lights, and it’s not like I’ve been able to stay in shape or go to the gym lately. I’ve been stuck in the Murphy mansion for too long.
I take Rory’s hand, not wanting him to leave my side, and lead him over to a nearby empty table.
I sigh when I sit down, my feet aching.
Rory raises an eyebrow when I put my feet in a chair across from me. He chuckles lowly.
“Do you always prop your feet up at galas?”
I huff out a breath. “No, but since I didn’t want to go to this one anyway, I figure who cares if I’m impolite?”
“Did something happen while I wasn’t here?”
“I asked you to drop it.”
Rory stands, and I scramble out of the chair, afraid to be separated from him.
“I’m just going to the bar for a drink.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Rory looks at me curiously, and I just know he’s going to ask me again what happened, but he doesn’t, just taking my hand and pulling me up.
When we walk to the bar, his father is still there, facing the dancefloor.
I stiffen, sticking close to Rory. His body heat makes me feel safer, more comfortable.
But I keep a wide berth from Niall.
“You were late.” Niall’s voice isn’t quite a bark, but it’s certainly sharp.
“Duncan needed a ride.” Rory doesn’t even look at his father, ordering himself a rum and coke and me a vodka soda.
I sip the drink gratefully, hoping the alcohol will dull the awful feeling in my stomach.
What was Niall going to say? Would he have actually done something if Rory hadn’t shown up? I can’t be sure, but my gut says he would have.
“You should speak to the O’Reillys,” Niall suggests, swiveling around on the bar stool to face Rory.
Instead of asking why, Rory just nods. “Aye.”
I’m so relieved my knees go weak when Niall leaves the bar, heading into the bathroom. When he’s out of sight, my stomach stops feeling so sour.
“Who are the O’Reillys?” I haven’t heard the name from my father or my brothers, and they basically know all the clans.
“Friends of the family. They really stepped in when Ma left.” Rory seems distant, far away, like he’s thinking hard about something.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask him in a soft, quiet voice, and Rory looks at me, sighing heavily.
“Just thinking about what I found.”
“What did you find? Can you show me?”
Rory takes out his burner phone and hands it to me.
“Flip through.”
I peer at the screen, squinting at the small writing.
My eyes widen when I see my mother’s name on a police report.
“He has—” It’s too loud, and Rory clamps his hand over my mouth, ushering me away from the bar and into a back room that’s deserted, not decorated for the gallery.
“If he hears us, if any of his men hear us…”
I look up at him. “I’m sorry. I just... He has the police report of my mother’s death!”
“I know. I know. But it’s nothing we can take to the cops.”
“What do you mean? Of course we can!”
He shakes his head brusquely. “They’ll only have enough to question him, and he’s got half the police force in his pocket. He’ll know that someone ratted and soon enough, it’ll lead to me. To us.”
I wilt, bringing the phone back up to my face to see the rest. Shipments, dates, things that he could talk himself out of, especially if he’s bribing the police.
“So, we have nothing.” I feel dejected, my shoulders slumping.
Rory puts his arms around my waist, pulling me closer. “It’s not nothing. There’s something there, we just need more.”
“How do we get more?” I clutch onto his shirt.
I can’t do this forever. It’s easy to forget, in the bubble I’ve been with Rory, falling in love with him, that I’m a prisoner. But tonight reminded me of that.
“I don’t know.” He peers back into the main room of the gala. “I need to talk to the O’Reillys, at least make an appearance, and then we can go.”
I nod, taking his arm when he offers it to me and following him toward the group of people. I barely listen as he makes pleasantries with them. I nod and smile, speak when I’m spoken to, but that’s it. I’m like a ragdoll, clinging onto Rory, waiting patiently for the moment that we can leave.
I want to feel free again, and when we finally get into Rory’s car, I let the window down, sticking my head out and breathing in the fresh, cool air.
Rory’s quiet for a moment, but when I pull my head back in, he glances over at me and then back at the road.
“Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll protect you.” There’s a fierce quality to his voice that makes me blink.
I just nod, but in the back of my head, I’m thinking that if Niall Murphy wants to hurt me, Rory alone won’t be able to stop it.
Chapter Twenty-Six