39. Fiona
Chapter Thirty-Nine
FIONA
I stand at the door and watch Cormac leave, feeling like this is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for.
I might not get another chance like this, and I can’t afford to waste it.
The door closes behind him with a quiet click, and I exhale, but not with relief.
I glance over at Brennan, who is hovering in the doorway to the living room where Scout is playing.
He is the only obstacle left in my way. His body is angled toward Scout, but I’m not stupid enough to think he’s completely engrossed in his nephew.
He is a Sullivan after all, which means he’s hyper-vigilant.
Even without looking at me, I know he’s tuned in to my every move, listening to my every footstep.
Scout suddenly appears, his face lit up with excitement at the prospect of having Brennan’s undivided attention. He doesn’t seem to notice how tense everyone has been, but that’s how it should be. I’d hate for him to be stripped of that childhood innocence because of this.
“Uncle Brennan, do you know how to play the floor is lava?”
“No, but I really hope it doesn’t involve setting anything on fire. Your uncle Kieran doesn’t need a reason not to invite me to his house.”
“Why wouldn’t Uncle Kieran want you at his house? You’re way more fun than him!”
“Preaching to the choir, kid.”
I’m only half-listening to their conversation as my thoughts race a thousand miles a minute, trying to come up with a plan that will allow me to go search through Kieran’s office without being noticed. Even if I do manage to sneak away from Brennan, this place is riddled with cameras.
“All you have to do is not touch the floor,” Scout explains. “Because it’s lava, and it will burn your feet off.”
“Why do I have a horrible feeling that this means jumping all over the furniture?”
I smile. “Because it does. Scout, I don't think you should be jumping all over the furniture. This isn’t your house, remember?”
“But that’s how you play the game! You’re not allowed to touch the floor,” he whines.
I shrug. “Then I think you need to play another game.”
“I might have to agree with Fiona on that one,” Brennan says.
“But what? All the toys in this house are for babies. And I’m not a baby.”
Both Brennan and Scout look at me as if I can somehow magic up some toys that Scout won’t get bored of in five minutes.
Even if I could, I have a feeling they wouldn’t hold Scout’s attention, not when he’s been cooped up in this house for days on end.
Suddenly, an idea forms. Maybe if I could get Brennan and Scout outside, I could sneak away and try to find the laptop…
I cross my arms over my chest to hide how badly my hands are shaking. “Why don’t you go and play in the yard?”
Scout tugs at Brennan’s sleeve. “Oh, please, can we go outside, Uncle Brennan, please!”
Brennan frowns. “Uh…”
Brennan is very hesitant. I can see on his face that he’s weighing the risks.
Scout is bouncing. “We can race!”
When he sees how excited Scout is, Brennan lets out a sigh.
“Fine, but you need to stay close at all times, okay, Scout? I know I’m the fun uncle and all, but this is one rule I can’t let you break.”
Scout groans. “You sound like Dad.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. But if something happens, your dad is going to chop off a very important body part.”
“What, your hand?”
Brennan scoffs. “Yeah, something like that…”
Scout bounds over to me. “Come on, Fiona. Let’s go and show Uncle Brennan how fast I am, because I’m super-fast!”
I smile, though it’s more from muscle memory than anything else. “I know you are. You’re the fastest astronaut I know.”
Scout beams up at me. And seeing his eyes, Cormac’s eyes, light up makes my chest feel like it’s being cracked open.
As Brennan heads for the back door with Scout in tow, I feel the moment slipping away. This is it, the opening I’ve been waiting for.
“Hey. I’m just going to run to the bathroom real quick. I’ll be right back,” I say lightly, forcing my voice to stay steady as my heart slams against my ribs.
Scout stops and turns. Pouting, he puts his hands on his hips. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
When I look away, I find Brennan watching me.
His gaze is sharp, all traces of the usual humor that dances in his eyes gone.
For half a second, I’m convinced he knows, that he can see the truth written all over my face. But then Scout tugs on his sleeve, and Brennan’s attention snaps back to where it’s been all morning.
“Don’t wander off,” he tells Scout. “We want all parts of Uncle Brennan intact, okay?”
Scout is already halfway out the door. “I won’t!”
I exhale a shaky breath.
Once the door shuts behind them, I dart up the stairs, the quiet of the house pressing in on me from all sides.
I pause outside the door to Kieran’s office, my hand shaking as it hovers over the doorknob.
This is completely reckless. Kieran likely has cameras everywhere.
I’m not naive enough to think that he doesn’t know exactly what is going on in his house at all times. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.
The game will be up soon enough. All I need to do is make sure I can get whatever is on that file to Cormac before Lorcan decides to make his move.
With one last quick glance over my shoulder, I open the door and slip inside.
The office smells faintly of leather and whiskey. Countless files lay strewn over the table alongside a few empty glasses.
My eyes scan every surface until they land almost immediately on the laptop.
I almost sob with relief.
It’s been left almost carelessly on the desk, as if someone was hoping I would find it.
My pulse kicks up another notch as I quickly glance around.
There are no obvious cameras in sight. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there.
“Okay,” I whisper, more to slow my breathing than anything else as I cross over to the desk and open up the lid.
The screen lights up, and it seems like whoever the Sullivans brought in to break through the security barrier did a good job, as there’s not even a login code needed to access the desktop.
There’s a handful of files on the screen, and I immediately spot the one Lorcan told me to erase.
27VSX3.
This is it, the key to making this nightmare with Lorcan end.
For one horrible moment, my finger hovers over the option to delete it.
It would be so easy to do what Lorcan asked and pay off the debt that has been hanging over my head ever since Carly died. But I can’t.
Something good has to come out of this mess. Even if Cormac and I have no future, I want to at least try to give him a fighting chance at one with his son.
I open the file and curse at the rows upon rows of data. There are so many numbers it makes my eyes hurt.
The encryption is dense and layered, designed to slow anyone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, but I’m well-versed in this.
After all, forensic coding was what I thought I wanted to do with my life.
Now, when I think of my future, all I want is a life with Cormac and Scout.
Sweat beads at my temples as I work, my fingers flying across the keyboard as muscle memory takes over.
I don’t let myself think about cameras or footsteps or Brennan calling my name from outside. All I think about is finding leverage that Cormac can use against Lorcan.
When I finally break through the encryption, rows upon rows of names and numbers that mean nothing to me start flooding the screen.
But as I continue to scroll and start to notice the patterns, I start to see it for what it is.
Nothing but transactions that don’t exist on paper and meetings that never officially happened between Lorcan and someone named Adrian Smirnov.
“Oh, my god,” I breathe as I continue to read.
My hands start to shake as I read faster, dread blooming into something cold and heavy in my stomach as I realize why Lorcan wanted me to delete this file.
This isn’t leverage.
This isn’t insurance.
This is preparation.
He isn’t trying to protect himself by making me delete this. He’s positioning himself to set up a chain reaction that ends with Cormac and his brothers completely blindsided, fractured, and exposed.
This document has Cormac’s world completely laid bare and marked for impact, and I was never meant to be anything more than a pawn he could dispose of.
The realization knocks the air from my lungs.
If Lorcan manages to go through with his plan, if I don’t stop it, once again, people I care about will die. At some point, the cycle has to stop, and I have to be the one to do it, even if it costs me everything.
The distant sound of a door closing echoes through the house, and I snap the laptop shut without deleting the file.
I scramble to my feet and put the laptop back exactly where it was as my heart hammers so hard it hurts.
When I step away from the desk, it’s like I was never there, even though I know Kieran will have cameras that will show otherwise.
When I leave the office, my legs feel weak, and my thoughts are racing too fast for me to make much sense of them.
I’m halfway down the hallway when footsteps approach.
My heart slams into my ribs as I try to keep my expression neutral, but I’m so in my head that when I turn the corner I walk straight into Brennan.
“Whoa,” he places his hands on my shoulders to steady me.
“S-sorry.”
His eyes quickly flick over me. His expression doesn’t change, but I know he sees the guilt I’m trying so hard to hide.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say a little too quickly. “I-I’m fine.”
He studies me for a second longer, his head tilted slightly, like he’s deciding whether to push. The silence stretches between us, heavy and uncomfortable.
“You look pale,” he says finally.
I swallow as I refuse to meet his gaze. “I…didn’t sleep much.”
“None of us did.”
For a moment, I think he’s going to say more. That he’s going to ask why I was coming from the opposite direction of the bathroom. That he’s going to step past me and check Kieran’s office.
Thankfully, Scout’s voice carries in from the kitchen, shifting his attention away from me.
“Uncle Brennan! I’m hungry!”
Brennan looks back at me for a beat before he finally steps aside.
“You should get some air.” His tone isn’t unkind, but it’s not casual either.
“I will,” I promise, even though my legs feel like they might give out.
As I walk past him, I’m painfully aware of how close I came to being caught.
The line I’m walking is becoming thinner by the second. At any point, my world is going to come crashing down.
By the time I step outside onto the snow-covered patio, the cool air hits my face, and my lungs finally draw in a full breath.
I’ve crossed a line I can’t uncross. There’s no deleting this from my memory. No feigning ignorance if Cormac and his brothers start asking questions.
If I don’t tell Cormac everything right now, this ends in blood. And this time, it won’t just be on his hands.
It will be on mine.