SEVENTEEN
SHIT. Shit.
Where the hell even was she? Maybe an hour wouldn’t be enough time to travel—where the fuck was her guy?
Rushing through the bedroom to the closet, on the hunt for shoes, she searched the call logs and hit the one with no name. On three rings, he picked up.
“Bluebell?” Niall’s thick Irish accent showered her with hope.
“I need him. I need him now. I need him, please.”
“We’re on our way up.”
Tossing the phone aside, she dropped onto the closet bench to pull boots onto her feet. The moment she heard noise in the office, she leaped up to run through. And there he was, as promised, her guy with his lieutenant at his side.
Running to him, she pressed herself against the steadying pillar of his strong body.
“I have to do something incredibly dangerous and insanely stupid. I have to, Conn. I have to go. I love you, but I have to go.”
“Breathe.” His command at least gave her an aim. “Talk.”
“Strat. He has Strat. He’s—” Her voice broke because she couldn’t—grief didn’t even cover it. “He’s got Strat. He’s taken him, and he—he wants me, you know he wants me. Why does he want me? People are getting hurt, so many—it’s because of me, I’m a—”
“Macushla.”
Right. Okay. That stability, the cool calmness, washed over her. Get it together. Where the fuck would panicking get them?
“I went downstairs looking for Strat. Daly said he wasn’t here, and I’d seen the phone on the desk—I called him.”
“Strat?”
She nodded. “His number’s in my phone, it’s in his phone too. I called, but he didn’t answer. Someone else did.”
“Who answered?”
Despite the question, the keen light in his eyes suggested he already knew the answer.
“Evander.” Another name she’d be happy never to hear again. “He’s got Strat, said he put three bullets in him.” Resting her face against Conn, the tremor shaking her wouldn’t subside. “He’s my best friend, he’d die for me, I know. We can’t let him. Please… please don’t ask me to give up on him. He’s looked after me, hunted me down after…” Raising her chin, her wet eyes sought his certainty. “Please, Mo Grá.”
His finger slid from her temple to her chin. “Strat’s proved his loyalty. It’s to you first and foremost, as is the McDades. Where is he?”
“Hustle,” she said. “He told me to be there in an hour.” Without a word, Niall reversed to slip out. When the door closed, she licked her dry lips. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Anyone?”
Was that a question about…?
“You, Niall, our people. I don’t give a shit what happens to Evander,” she said. “I don’t want any McDades hurt. I don’t want Strat hurt… I don’t want you hurt.”
Her palm glided down to the location of the gunshot that pierced him. Or she tried to, he caught her hand and pressed it against the family tattoo at his clavicle instead.
“It’s handled.”
“He said I should come alone.” She’d certainly learned her lesson on that. “And he said…”
“He said what? Don’t hesitate with me.”
“I don’t hesitate because I don’t trust you, I hesitate because I don’t want to say the words, face the truth. He said if I brought the Irish, there’d be a barbecue, and… he said you had yours coming.” The words hurt as they passed her throat, but they just bounced off him. “Will you stay here? Please?” The angle of his head wrung a sigh from her lungs. “I know, I had to ask. You talk about keeping me in chains to protect me, while it seems all I do is put you in danger. Everyone in danger. Is this it? Will Strat’s life be the cost of us letting Evander keep his? It’s not fair. Was I wrong?” Her decision, to let Evander live, was meant to save the McDades paying a grave price. “I’m poison to everyone I love.”
“Macushla, you need to rest.”
“Rest?” Was that offense or fear? “I have to go. I have to be there. I have to be with—I can’t let Strat—”
“Strat would prioritize your safety over his.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” She tore her hands from his. “I’m not more worthy, I’m less worthy. He has a family to protect. If either of us should survive, it should be—”
“Get back in bed. Daly’ll bring you something to eat.”
“I don’t want something to eat!” Alarm wouldn’t yield to sanity. Her blood pumped hot and there was no way to vent the steam with him being all composed and accepting. “I want to help my friend.”
“You’ve done your part. It’s McDade business.” Which meant it was his duty to take care of it. “You’re a good girl.”
Because she again presented him with a dangerous situation with no obvious out? Was this going to be her grandfather’s all over again? Maybe without her there, it would be easier for him to focus.
“I love him, you know. Strat.”
“Aye.”
“I love you too. I thought I lost you and—if anything was to happen to either of you… Just as it feels like I’m pulling you closer, now Evander wants to steal you away from me.”
“No one steals anything from a McDade, not without consequences.”
“You’ve been laying low here. Keeping things quiet at Stag.” With one thing in her mind, she didn’t want to miss other important developments. “There’s something happening. You have a strategy.” He didn’t say anything. “What happened at the prison? With Whisper?”
“The power balance has shifted.”
What did that mean? “You said that to me before. After we were out. Should I be scared?”
“You will be protected, Macushla. I won’t let you down again.”
“I got you hurt, that wasn’t you or the McDades. This was the McLeods, they threatened the McDades.”
“And you’ll have to make a decision.”
“McDade,” she said, curling her fingers into his shirt. “I said it that night, and will always choose—”
“Not that choice.”
Niall came back in before she could ask what he meant. Her guy went to the desk, his number two on his heels. When Conn confused her, usually Strat made sense of it for her. Even if he didn’t know the details, the way her friend talked to her, how he monitored her reactions and nudged her this way and that, she got there in the end. Without him… how would she live without Strat?
“Ford.” She spun to the men having a hushed conversation. “Should I call to—”
“We’ve got it under control,” Niall said.
Wasn’t always an easy guy to read. Though he was right, they weren’t rookies and knew way more about these situations than she did.
“Him and Vex used to move in the same circles. He might know a—” Both men’s unimpressed expressions pushed her lips to the side. “Which you know, of course, and don’t need me to tell you. Can I come and sit in the car?” Nothing, but nothing was needed. “How do I help?”
“You help by sitting on your arse,” Niall said. “This is grown up stuff.”
Congratulations, he got her from despair to offense in a flash. “And you know just the way to piss me off.”
Fighting, arguing the insult, was her impulse, but she’d caused so much trouble already. Niall might be her vent, though hostility wouldn’t help. They had enough of that on the outside, inside should be safe.
Meeting her guy’s eye, it was easier to address him. “Will you check Lach’s okay? I know you said my father isn’t—I don’t care about him, but my brother—”
“Is safe.”
Did he know that for sure or was he trying to put her mind at ease?
“Will you take Daly? Him and Strat have worked together with—”
“Daly’s job is to keep you alive.”
“Hock?” When that got no reaction, she winced. “I’m sorry about this. The trouble. Again.”
Her love’s head moved, just a fraction, enough to send Niall trailing out of the room again.
“Front and center.” Rounding the desk as he sat, she sank down onto his lap, raising her feet to the arm as he stroked her thigh. “Vex took Strat. Your father held the gun. Stop taking responsibility for other people’s shit.”
“You wouldn’t be dealing with any of this if it wasn’t for—”
“The actions of others. You’re a McDade, Macushla. McDades don’t apologize. Not at our level.” His gaze grew acute. “I gave you an out—”
“I don’t want an out. My job is to support you and all I’ve done recently is endanger lives.”
“I am going to get your friend back. Insulting him is insulting you, and that won’t fly. And if…”
She pressed closer. “What?”
“It’s overdue.”
“What is?”
“Vex and me got some business that needs cleared up.”
So maybe walking in there wouldn’t be so bad. “It’s good timing?” Thinking of Strat being hurt couldn’t ring any positive bells, but if Conn could kill two birds with one stone… “Please bring him back to me, and you come home to me too. I need both of you back.”
“And Vex?”
It wasn’t possible to convey how little she cared about his safety.
Her fingers slid down his chest. “Has whatever fate you decide. I don’t care if he’s hurt, I don’t care if you kill him, except…”
“You worry how his father will react.”
“I trust you, but I’ll always worry. Living without you this week, I can’t go through it again for a minute, let alone a lifetime.”
“Our superior position gives us more latitude.”
“You won Harvest.” He nodded once, though that was a given. “Is Silvio pissed?”
Vex’s father, Silvio Manzani, also known as The Director, had been on the other side of that vote. Winning it gave the McDades more territory, more power.
“He will be when I tell him about his son’s betrayal.”
Vex did seem to forget that he’d tipped his hand to the McDades. Sometimes he was his own worst enemy. He’d engaged with the McDades looking for help and support. But it all came down to who was packing what in their pants.
Vex, Evander, had wanted her for years. Working with the McDades, he somehow thought, increased his chance to be close to her, intimate with her. Damn, that boy could not read a room. Conn wouldn’t share her with anyone for anything.
“He’ll be desperate. If you shut off his Manzani support—”
“Won’t matter ‘cause he’ll live the rest of his life in our basement.”
A quiver at the back of her neck traveled to the tips of her fingers. “He will?”
“It’s one insult too many. If Silvio wants his son back, he’ll have to pay.”
“With what? No opposition on the rezoning vote?”
“Among other things.”
“I want Strat to give me away.” Their eyes met. “Him and Lach. When we get married.” He raised a brow. “Mo Grá.”
“One spectacle at a time.”
Guiding her mouth to his with a strong grip on her head, he gave her reassurance and his promise. Strat was one of them. An honorary McDade. That promised anyone who threatened him a short expiry date. She wanted to be there but trusted her guy. Would Strat trust him too?