Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
ALEX
I barely registered the bedroom door opening before something hit me in the face. Saffron yowled in protest from where her sleep had been disturbed on the pillow next to mine.
“Get up. You’re coming with me,” my brother ordered.
I dragged the jeans he’d tossed at my head away from my face. “The fuck is wrong with you? I’ve been shot.”
Deeply unimpressed, Aidan just glared at me. “You already said it was a flesh wound. Get your arse out of bed.”
I flinched as he slammed the door behind him.
Saffron padded onto my chest, where she proceeded to knead with her sharp little claws.
“Och, there’s no need for that. I’m awake.” With my good arm, I lifted her off and sat up, scrubbing a hand over my face.
I felt like warmed over death, less because of my injury and more because I felt as if I’d performed open-heart surgery on myself with a rusty spoon. It had been forty-eight hours since I’d forced myself to walk away from Ciara. Two days during which I’d mostly slept, trying to avoid my own misery. Evidently, my brother had decided I’d moped long enough.
Dragging on clothes, I headed downstairs to find Aidan’s husband Charlie fixing breakfast for Niamh. My niece knelt in her chair at the kitchen table, a princess tiara perched in her jet-black curls and a Lightning McQueen toy in her hands.
“Uncle Alex!”
I mustered up a smile and bent to kiss her head. “Morning, Sprite.”
“Will you be eating breakfast?” Charlie asked. “I’m making eggs.”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but my brother interrupted.
“Later,” Aidan snapped. “We have somewhere to be.”
“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, aye?” I muttered to Charlie.
“C’mon, brother.”
I shoved my feet into the boots I’d left by the door. “Where are we going?”
“Just get in the car.”
I wondered what the hell had crawled up his arse, but kept my mouth shut in front of his daughter. Let Charlie explain to her why her da was being an uncharacteristically surly bastard.
As Aidan backed out of the driveway, I wished I’d at least gotten a travel mug of coffee, because I was exhausted. I might’ve slept much of the last two days, but I hadn’t actually rested. I hadn’t answered any of the phone calls or texts from my mates, either. I didn’t miss the fact that there’d been none from Ciara. But I’d ended things, hadn’t I? That was the whole point. To cut things off clear and cleanly, so there’d be no question that things were over.
Would Ewan be tracking me down to put his fist in my face? I wouldn’t stop him.
“I dinna ken what the hell is going on with you, but you came down here as a miserable son of a bitch, and this is no’ acceptable. You have apparently torpedoed your life and expect us to pick up the pieces. I’m done letting you wallow.”
Aidan wasn’t the only one who could be a surly bastard. “Excuse me?”
“You were always the one of us who was destined for greatness. The things you did during your service—I know you’ve never talked about it, but it was major, life-altering, world-saving shite. And I know it absolutely killed you when you had to stop. I know, too, that you took on something to do with all of that off-the-books.”
When I stared at him, he made a noise of derision in the back of his throat.
“I’m no’ an idiot, Alex. I didn’t need to be read in to understand what you were doing. Especially with how you behaved after Da died. You blamed yourself, as if it was somehow your fault.”
My shoulders had hunched up by my ears. “It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t. And that’s what I’m here to prove to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
I realized we were turning into the lot at his construction company warehouse, where he kept materials and heavy equipment. “I found Da’s car.”
“You what?”
“It took a while for it to work through all the proper channels, but eventually, mum was contacted by the breakers’ yard where it ended up, because there were a few things of Da’s that the owner wanted to know if we wanted. So I hauled the thing back here.”
He stopped in front of one of the big rolling doors and climbed out of the driver’s seat. I followed much slower, eying the door as if there were an entire team of enemy snipers behind it. He unlocked the smaller door to let us into the warehouse and flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights.
I spotted the car immediately on some kind of lift in the far corner of the building. My breath wheezed out as if I’d been inside when the front end crumpled like a bag of crisps.
Aidan snagged a torch off a tool bench and waved me over to the vehicle. “Look,” he demanded.
He shone the beam of the torch on the underside of the car.
This was the thing I’d wanted for the past two years. To be able to look at the evidence for myself. To see with my own eyes what caused the accident. Bracing myself, I stepped close enough to peer under the front wheel well, where Aidan pointed. The failed ball joint stood out as if it were wrapped in neon lights. The thick grease boot was split wide open and looked dry and cracked. I could see the loose lower control arm dangling freely, detached from the steering knuckle. The ball joint itself remained connected to the wheel hub assembly, but the vertical post it attached to was sheared off where it should have been seated firmly in the control arm. I realized there was no doubt the front wheel had separated at speed when the worn ball joint finally hit total catastrophic failure. This was no act of sabotage. It was simply an aged component giving out after years of metal fatigue and negligent maintenance.
“Why the fuck didn’t he check it?” I muttered.
“You know he didn’t have the mechanical sense of a field mouse, and he was always putting off maintenance like oil changes and the like. Foolish. Tragic. Horrible. Preventable. But truly, just an accident.”
I loosed a slow breath, and with it, some of the heavy weight I’d carried for the past two years began to lift.
Aidan clapped a hand to my good shoulder. “Da’s death was no’ on you.”
“That may be, but I still nearly cost the woman I love her life. Twice. That was on me.”
“Did you directly endanger her?”
“She was targeted by someone because of the op I ran.”
“You said nearly. Is she okay?”
“Aye, we got to her in time.”
“And did you capture the bad guy?”
“Bad woman, as it turned out. And aye, she’s been arrested.” In fact, the one message I had responded to had been from Cardinal. The intel they’d gleaned from the laptop recovered at the cottage was enough to link Johanna Klein to a number of cyber terrorist attacks, so she was going away for a long time.
“Okay, so you eliminated the threat. Why the hell are you here acting like your best mate died?”
Temper kindled. Didn’t he see that this was for the best? “I’m no good for her. It’s not safe to be with me.”
“Oh, get your head out of your arse. Do you really love her?”
“Of course I do. That’s why I walked away.”
“You’re a fucking idiot. Do you think that, because of everything you’ve done, you’re somehow not worthy of being happy? Is that what this is? Because that’s what it sounds like, and it’s a boatload of shite.”
“No, I just don’t want?—”
Aidan rolled right over me. “Are you planning to bail on your mates you just went into business with?”
I hadn’t actually gotten that far. My focus had only been on staying away from Ciara so she’d be safe. “Well, no.” Fresh guilt settled over me that I hadn’t gotten in touch with Callum or Finn to reassure them on that particular front since all this went down.
My brother continued. “And don’t you think it would be pretty fucking awful of you to be up there, running that business, to be near her and not be with her? She’s going to matter to you no matter where you are. There will always exist the potential for somebody to find out about that fact. Wouldn’t you rather be there to stop it, like you were this time?”
“Her brother is there. Callum and Finn are there.” But the excuses sounded half-arsed to my own ears.
“Are they going to keep as close an eye on her and make sure that she’s okay all the time the way you would?”
“Well, no, but?—”
“I rest my case. Look, Alex, you’ve been happier when I’ve talked to you over the past couple of months than I’ve seen you in years. This woman is good for you. And if she still loves you after the total horse shite that you’ve now pulled on her, then I say you go back to do some major groveling, because she is your One. You look about her the way I look at Charlie. That is rare, my brother. Don’t be a fool and waste it.”
I looked back at the car, my brain slowly wrapping around what he’d said. “If I agree to think about it, can we go back and get some breakfast?”
Aidan wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “If you’re good, I’ll even share the bacon.”