Forbidden Bond (Forbidden #4)

ONE

“ARE WE GOING TO run forever? Is that your grand plan, Dad?”

“I’m thinking, I have to think.” In the car, since leaving Conn bleeding, cuffed to her grandfather’s couch, they’d been driving around the city. Just driving. Achieving nothing except dowsing tiny, anxious glimmers of hope. “We need a car. We need a different car.”

Conn deserved a chance. He’d put himself in front of her; taken that bullet for her. No one else knew what went down in that room, no one else was there, no one else saw. His survival depended on her.

“We need to call Lachlan,” she said. “We need to call an ambulance. It’s not too late to—”

“No! No. No. No!”

The warmth on her cheeks chilled until a fresh wave of tears escaped. “Please,” she sobbed. “Please, Dad. You don’t want to do this. If we go back now, if we get him help—”

“He’s beyond help!”

Fear dried her throat. A world without Connel McDade? Without her McDade? She wouldn’t believe in his demise until her own eyes witnessed him prone and lifeless.

“Daddy, please.”

This man, the strength in him, once all bluster, had become something determined… and unsettling.

“That Irish scum doesn’t deserve to breathe. You don’t need him. You’re a McLeod, I did you a favor. In time, you’ll see I’m right.”

Every time she closed her eyes, the growing blot of blood on Conn’s pristine shirt poisoned her mind.

“I love him, Dad. I know you don’t…” The words stuck in her throat. Though she fought to expel them, only a shriek escaped. Loud. Pained. Desperate. Primal grief commanded her senses. “God-fucking-damn you! Give me your phone!”

“No, my phone…”

Her father drove with one hand on the wheel and one on the gun in his lap. Was that how this would end? Murdered by her own father?

“If he’s gone, if I’ve lost him…” Swallowing a dose of resolve, grief gave way to rage. “I swear to God, I will take you down and I will make it fucking hurt!”

“Watch your mouth!”

“You fucking bastard!”

She wanted her goddamn hands, wanted to punch and kick, and cause him pain. But that was nothing to her need to be with Conn, to call for help, to scream from the deepest depths of her guts. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t.

It was her fault. He’d only been at the meet for her. She should’ve told him to stay in bed. Left him safe in their loft and gone to meet her father alone.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, young lady! You have done this! Caused this! Everything worked until you—”

“Fucked Ire McDade,” she spat and lunged closer. “I did, Daddy. Over and over and over again. He was fucking amazing, made your little girl take it fucking hard and I begged for more! Begged him, you sick bastard!”

“How dare you!”

“How dare I?” Disgust tightened her jaw. “You’re a murderer! You murdered your father! Murdered the man your daughter loves! You need help!” Though she wasn’t the one who’d give it. “Take off the cuffs, give me the gun, and I’ll end both our miseries right here.”

“My car is too conspicuous.” The bastard wasn’t even listening to her pain, to her boundless agony. “We need something—Lachlan uses the motor pool.”

“Yeah?” she asked, though already knew that. “Why don’t you drive us there, huh? Right up to the precinct.”

“We need something—no one would know we… One of your lowlife friends must—”

“Oh, sure, wait while I call my friends for help. At least I have fucking friends who can help. At least they know—”

“Kurt Stratford.”

Strat. Another shiver of fear.

Anger faded to a sheer terror she didn’t want her father to see.

“What?”

“What is his address?”

“I am not taking you to his place.”

“His son then—”

“No! Why would I—”

“You do this! You help me or your lover will not be the only one going to hell tonight.”

Gritting her teeth, the fire of anger in her belly threatened to erupt. She’d allow it to burst, if she wasn’t so damned impotent.

“I won’t let you near him.”

“His son—”

“No! Why would I open my network to—”

“I have the power to dismantle everything that slug built. Do you want me to make a call and bring in every McDade that walks the street?”

Yes, she sort of did, because at least then they’d know something was going on. Except if each person was brought in alone, how long would it take anyone to notice Conn wasn’t among them? She needed McDades, needed them to hear her silent plea and start looking.

Niall would find him.

Though their First Team, as Conn called them, were asleep. Niall was the only hope. The guys outside her grandfather’s would never enter and interrupt a meeting. The silenced shot would’ve passed by unheard. She and her father went out the back. No one knew her love was there, slowly bleeding to death, the cuff on his wrist preventing him seeking help on his own.

“Stag,” she said. “Go to Stag, we have cars there.”

“Ha!” His single beat of incredulous laughter startled her. “Don’t play games with me, you think I’m that stupid?”

“I think you’re that crazy.” And entitled. “You said you needed a car and I’m telling you there are vehicles there.”

“And plenty of men you might appeal to for help.”

Yeah, rocking up with her father would be bad enough. When they saw the cuffs and the gun, and the lack of their leader…

Someone would rouse Niall, wouldn’t they? Who else would be on-site? She didn’t know if there were cars for the taking. Even if there were, she wouldn’t know where to find keys. If she could stall—who would know her well enough to read between the lines?

“I won’t—”

He raised the gun, aiming it toward her stomach. “Stop playing with me.”

“Shoot me,” she said, shifting her angle to give him a bigger target. “Please. Now. Just do it. Maybe then they’ll find out what you’re really capable of. Any man who can murder his own father can murder his daughter. You’ll go to prison. Forever. Well, for as long as the McDades let you live.”

“I didn’t murder anyone. We already have a witness putting McDade at my father’s the night he was murdered. When they find your body next to his, we’ll call it murder-suicide and no one will bat an eye. Has the added advantage that Silvio will win the Harvest deal by default, and my standing will—”

“You make me sick.”

They’d never got along. Once she’d been sorry he couldn’t accept her. Now, glaring at his profile, nothing would erase her disgust. He hadn’t accepted her? Fuck that; she’d never accept him.

“You were the architect of his demise, his and yours, if you don’t do as you’re told.”

“Strat’s,” she whispered, resigned to their fate, and gave him the address.

“Good. This will be easier; I’m doing what’s best for all of us.”

All of us? All of him. Nothing about the situation was good for her. It wasn’t good for the McDades or the Stratfords. Wasn’t good for Steeple or her colleagues at The Chronicler. Most of all? It wasn’t good for Lachlan. How could this play out without ultimately shattering his world? She’d already lost one man she loved, two men, losing another would finish her.

For the drive to Strat’s, which wasn’t far, they didn’t share another word.

“Park over there,” she said, nodding to a space by the building. “We’re not going in. I don’t trust you not to…”

If anything happened to threaten Strat, she’d provoke her father into giving her the bullet. She didn’t want Conn setup to take the fall for her murder, but his people would fight his corner. She couldn’t lose a friend. Wouldn’t.

“You care too much about people,” her father said, turning off the engine.

“And you care about no one.” Not even his own blood. “Leave the keys in it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Where’s your phone? Loosen the cuffs and I’ll—”

“No.” He retrieved his phone from a side pocket. “What’s the number?”

Much as she didn’t want to give it, what choice did she have? He dialed on speaker. Shit.

Strat answered, clearing his throat. “Yeah?”

“Kurt?”

Another cough. “What the—”

“I need to borrow your car.”

“Scamp?”

“Please just, come to the window, drop your keys down to the parking lot.”

“What?” he asked again. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I can’t talk.” Her eyes met her father’s. “Please just, drop them out the window.”

“It’s barely fucking light outside.”

She hadn’t thought about the sun. Not that it had risen yet. Not then and it never would again. Without Conn there would be no new day, no sunrise could replace what she’d lost.

“I know, I’m sorry to wake you. It’s important.”

“Come up and—”

“No, I’m not coming up, and I don’t have time to explain.” The answer would be different if she didn’t fear her father flipping out and killing someone else. “I’m not alone.”

“Why’s Ire—”

“Long live the king,” she murmured, hoping he’d remember their conversation about Ire’s potential demise.

Strat was incredible at picking up her cues, at this most important moment, she hoped that skill wouldn’t desert them. Though so early in the morning, he may not have flicked the on switch yet.

Her father’s interjection was unexpected. “He makes you say that?”

“Superintendent?” Strat asked.

Ronald McLeod sealed his lips again.

“We’ll leave the keys in this one,” she said, “can you make it disappear?”

Something she’d never have said in front of her father before. She wouldn’t name Ford or Jagg, Strat’s boys, but once upon a time, they’d run the city’s most successful chop shop.

“Scamp?”

“I know,” she said, sighing at the trepidation in his tone. “Everyone is capable in the right circumstance.”

He had to be listening. Please listen. Hear her. Asking him to disappear the car would betray laws had been broken. Suspicion would swing Strat’s way if the superintendent’s car was abandoned in his parking lot. She would not let her friend take the fall for her father’s transgressions.

“Or the wrong one.”

Yes! Strat’s muttered words gave relief, though she couldn’t show it and reveal they were passing messages.

Her father gestured at the side door, gun against him, aimed in her direction. She managed to open the side door. The gun stayed on her, even as her father came around the hood. Weapon in one hand, phone in the other.

“What does that mean?” her father asked.

“Means I have nothing left to lose,” she said, walking closer to the building after getting out.

Something she’d said to Strat when she and Conn were apart in the past.

“I value it,” Strat said, adamant. Light went on above. His light. “You need me with you.”

The window opened and there he was. Discerning his expression through the dim light and distance wasn’t easy. Disapproval came in his tone, no concealing that.

“Not on this. Drop them.” He did and they landed right at her feet. “I’m sorry, Strat. I love you.”

Her father cut off the phone so abruptly, she wasn’t sure the final words were heard. Ronald backed up, more brazen with the angle of the gun.

“Pick them up.”

Turning her back, she braced for a kill shot as she crouched and fumbled to find them. As she stood, he ripped them from her hand and grabbed her arm.

“Dad—”

“Good. This is exactly what we need.”

What she needed wasn’t considered. At least she got to say goodbye to her friend. Whatever happened now, she doubted she’d see him again. Her father was off the rails and if he was adamant Lachlan couldn’t know, she wouldn’t be allowed to speak to him.

How the hell had they ended up in this insanity?