Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
CIARA
“What if they get caught?” I paced another restless circuit around my brother’s lounge, as if that would help expel some of the anxious energy coursing through me.
“They’re not going to get caught,” Isobel insisted. “They’re all highly trained operatives, who’ve run missions together for years. They’ve invaded terrorist cells. Breaking into your ex-boyfriend’s house will be a cakewalk. It’s not even technically breaking in since you told them where he keeps the spare key.”
“Somehow, I doubt the police would see it that way.” I peered out the front window into the darkness, as if that would somehow force them to appear. “I can’t believe Alex had the nerve to suggest I get some sleep while they were gone.”
They’d been gone for what felt like days. Every minute that ticked by felt like an hour.
“Your tune about him has certainly changed,” Isobel observed.
“You were right. He had a good reason, and he finally told me what that reason was.” I spared a glance for my sister-in-law-to-be. “I suppose I have you to thank for the fact that Ewan didn’t utterly lose his shite over the two of us.”
“Partly. Though I want to make it very clear that it was your mum who spilled the beans, not me.”
“Honestly, I’m amazed she sat on it as long as she did. It was truly insane of me to think he wouldn’t find out before I got around to telling him. We’ve just… had a lot going on around here.”
“Clearly. I’m sorry you were hurt. But I can’t be sorry it finally brought the two of you back together. You’re two of my favorite people. You deserve a chance at happiness.”
I paced back to the kitchen counter and swiped a cracker and piece of cheese off the charcuterie board of snacks we’d made for when the guys got back. “I hope we’ll finally get that chance once all of this is resolved. But I’m worried. I have no idea if Alex is right and there’s someone else out there who wants to hurt me because of him. If he’s not, I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to let this go. He’s convinced his father died because of this. It’s one thing to have a 24-hour bodyguard for a few weeks, but as much as I care for him, I’m not sure I can live like this forever. It’s not practical.”
“They’re going to get answers,” Isobel insisted. “I don’t pretend to understand the details, but Alex is very, very good at what he does.”
Havoc lifted his head from her lap, his ears pricking. I swung toward the window in time to see a vehicle bumping along the driveway. A gusty sigh escaped, leaving my knees weak with relief. The SUV parked out front, and doors open and shut. Then they were all spilling into the house. Each one of them was dressed in head-to-toe black, and they looked like exactly what they were—a lethal, clandestine strike force. Some part of my brain registered that was incredibly sexy, but I was far too concerned with how their mission had gone to chase the thought.
Alex came straight to me, pulling me into his arms as if he needed the physical reassurance that nothing had happened to me in his absence. I burrowed in, needing the same.
“Did you find anything?”
His jaw was hard. “Aye. We found a lot.”
“We made food,” Isobel said. “Fix yourselves a plate and tell us.”
I barely managed to leash my impatience as they loaded themselves down with snacks.
“We started with the house, in the event something went awry. Figured it was more likely we’d find something there.” Alex sucked in a breath. “There were surveillance photos. Dozens of them. Someone’s been watching you—watching us—and sending physical photographs to Drummond.”
I stared at him. “What? Do you think he hired someone to follow me?”
All those little things he’d said that had made me mildly uncomfortable. Stuff he shouldn’t have known. Was this why? Had he had someone actively following me and reporting back on my activities?
“I suppose it’s possible that was how it started. I can comb through his hard drive to search for evidence of that. But I think something else is going on.” He shoved his plate aside and reached for my hand. “Remember what he said at the police station? That you’d pushed him too far?”
“Yeah, that made no sense. I didn’t do anything to him.”
“No. But I think it’s possible he believes you were the one sending the photos. Rubbing in the fact that you’d moved on.”
“But I would never?—”
“No, of course not. But this is what was bothering me. It didn’t make sense for him to escalate from all the petty shite to physically laying a hand on you. Not without someone dumping kerosene on that fire. And even if that’s what this was—someone attempting to fan his obsession in something bigger, darker—I don’t believe that Drummond was in that car. I don’t believe he tampered with your brakes. It doesn’t make logical sense. If he’d done it to my car, sure. But he wanted you back. He didn’t want you dead.”
“But what about the SUV?” I asked. “The police found it after he was arrested.”
“They found it at a property you didn’t even know he had. You were with him for a year. Unless the place was a total shitehole, seems like he would have taken you out there for a weekend getaway at some point. Now, is it possible he did the deed and hid evidence of it out there? I suppose. But it feels too neat. There were none of his prints on your car. I don’t know, but I suspect that there were none on the SUV either. I believe it was planted to frame him. He has no history of this sort of behavior. No priors. It is a big leap from stalking to murder. And even if he’s responsible for more than I believe, someone sent those photos to him. That alone tells us someone else is involved. The likelihood of that person being someone from your life seems pretty slim.”
“So what does all this mean?”
“I’m still working through the details, but this feels like personal retribution.”
“What are you thinking?” Callum asked.
“There were several people who were taken down as a direct result of my mission. It’s possible that someone connected to one of them found out that I was responsible and has decided to exact some form of payback against me through the people that matter to me.”
Finn leaned back in his chair and popped a slice of salami into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “You dinna have definitive proof about your dad’s accident. You do about Ciara’s. So focus on that for a moment. They’re going after your woman. That suggests an eye-for-an-eye sort of logic. Could be this is someone who was a spouse or a lover of someone put away because of your op.”
“That’s what I’m wondering. I need to do some more research into who’s connected to all the actors who were put away. That’ll just take some time.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I hadn’t really thought we were going to get clear answers from this lunatic mission, but I hadn’t anticipated getting a whole new string of questions.
“So now what? What do we do in the meantime?” I was afraid of the answer.
“Someone went to a lot of trouble to set up Drummond. Not that he shouldn’t have been arrested. He did assault you. He did stalk you and make a lot of other nuisance problems for you. But whoever was behind this needs to believe that setup worked. That we all believe the right person was put away, and we can go back to more or less normal.”
“How’s that going to work? Because I know perfectly well that you’re not going to just leave me without a bodyguard.”
“No. But you’re conveniently still without a car, so my remaining on chauffeur duty doesn’t look strange.”
“That’s all well and good, and I won’t argue with whatever you think needs to be done to put an end to this. But I still have a job to do. We have a three-hundred-person wedding happening this weekend. I can’t not be there for that. This is the part of the business that’s my specialty, and I can’t leave everyone else in the lurch.”
“That’s fine. We’ll all help out at the event. You said significant others are usually put to physical work, anyway. With all of us there, you should be covered without a problem.”
“How long do you think this will be necessary?” Finn asked.
“Hopefully not long. It’ll take me some time to dig down and figure out who we might be dealing with. I’m going to put in another call to my handler to see if I can get some additional intel out of him. But we’re on the right track. I can feel it.” Alex’s confidence was clear in his tone.
I could only hope that he was as good as everyone said he was, and that he’d find the answers we needed to put an end to this threat. Because it was about damn time we had an uninterrupted shot at that happily ever after.