THIRTY-FOUR
MORE VOICES, a shout, a ruckus. Shots, she definitely heard gunshots, quick, slow, some louder, some too close for comfort. She wanted to do as told and stay in their bed, but, at the same time, didn’t want to be naked if someone burst in. Grabbing clothes from the closet, she dressed and threw her hair up. The second her butt hit the bed, Niall materialized in the doorway.
“Come.”
A man of few words. She followed him down the stairs and round into the playroom. Without turning on the light, he grabbed her hand and pulled her through a door to the left. Then they were going down. Huh, so quick welcome to the basement stairs. At the bottom, there was another door, and a turn.
“What’s going on?” Her heart pounded. “What happened? Is someone hurt? Where’s Conn?”
“Taking care of business.”
Niall opened another door and shoved her into light. The glow burned her eyes, as she shielded them, a door closed, the one behind her.
“What the…?”
“We’re here.”
“We?”
Was that Strat? Yes, he put her in a car, drove up a ramp, and then they were out, on the road.
“What’s going on?”
“Incursion,” Strat said.
“What does that mean? What incursion? I don’t—what the hell is going on?”
“Heard we’re breaking up,” her friend said.
Wait, did he mean…? How could he possibly know about that already?
“We’re not breaking up,” she said, “I’m giving you back your life. Go back, what do you mean incursion? Who’s incurring?”
That didn’t even make sense. Nothing did. She’d been lying with her man, warm, sleeping, comfortable, and now she was out in the night. Her head couldn’t catch up.
“Byrnes,” Strat said.
And, shit, if that didn’t put the danger into immediate perspective. “Oh my God, Madison! They’ve come for her, haven’t they? They want her back! If they get her…” Would they snatch the woman and run, or stick around to dish out a little payback? “This isn’t good. This is bad. Really bad. Really, really bad.”
She’d been obsessed with her choices hurting the people she loved, now she didn’t even have a chance to speak to Conn, to find out his plan.
“Byrnes can want, they won’t get,” Strat said, shifting his hands on the wheel. “Shit, did I sound like a McDade there? Better turn that dial if I’m out on the street in the morning. Bet the Gambattos have a few want ads in the paper. Think Ire’ll write me a reference?”
Could there be a crappier time for this to happen? What made it worse? He wasn’t even mad. He wasn’t sad or bitter or spiteful, there was a blade of anger, one sliver, but it was matter of fact.
“No one was ever throwing you in the street. I love you; I’d do anything for you. I want you safe, to have the life you want, and this isn’t it. You chose to leave this life already. You’re my friend, my best friend, and you only got into protecting me because I took you to Conn, I put you in front of him. I need to fix this for you. I have the ability to do it, Conn trusts me on this. No penalty, you get away clean.”
“Know why Ire trusts me to guard you? Me? The old, fucking, washed up has-been?” She tsked at him. They might tease, but he was worth any other two men, three, sometimes four, depending on the guys. “Do you?”
“Because you love me.”
“That’s damn right. Irish doesn’t have to tell me to protect you, it’s automatic. He doesn’t have to train me how to fight or warn me to get in front of any bullet meant for you. Why? Because you’re my girl, you’re not a daughter, you’re not a child, you’re smart, capable. When you’re not griping and you’re thinking straight, we make a helluva team. Quit trying to make everyone’s choices for them. Live your life, not mine.”
“My brother hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“And he’s right. He should hate me. Every person I love has been touched by my decision to be with Conn.”
“Immie’s decision to be with the cop influenced my relationship with her. Jagg, the same. Just like me and Bette’s choice to break up influenced Ford and Im. We’re a part of each other’s lives, we’re family.”
“Strat—”
“The day I came to Stag with you, when you were in trouble, I chose to be there. You said it would out us and I walked in anyway. Remember that? ‘Cause I fucking do. I made that choice. I made it. I’m not ashamed of you. You ashamed of me?”
“No!”
“Take me off payroll, won’t make a difference. I’ll still show up, I’ll still get in front of that bullet. Just means I’ll have to couch surf, but there’s plenty of beds in Stag.”
If Stag was even still there. God knew what mess they’d left behind.
“My brother hates me.” Didn’t he get it? How many different ways could she say it? No one understood. Yes, pathetic, but she’d never displeased Lach before, not like she had by being with Conn. And her father, it almost felt like her brother held her responsible for that too, somehow. “I don’t know how to make it right.”
Strat frowned. “This something to do with Vyne? You cut things short after he showed.”
“He’s always supported me. Always been on my side.”
If Strat couldn’t help her make sense of this, no one could.
“He’s still on your side. Love doesn’t go away just ‘cause someone’s angry.”
This wasn’t just anger, it went deeper than that. “He’s spending all this time with Conn.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing, neither of them will talk to me.”
And she wasn’t used to being so far out of the loop with either of them.
“It’s business.”
Did he just—he better not… “Do not tell me you know what they’re—why would they tell you and not me?”
“I don’t know. Believe me, I don’t.” Telling Strat would be tantamount to telling her. He’d share if he knew, wouldn’t he? “The guys have noticed Lachlan’s around the place when he never has been before.”
Was that a first? “Did you just call him Lachlan?”
“Yeah, shut up. If he’s going to be on the team, we’ll have to get used to him.”
Was that it? Her brother would be around long term? What did that mean for his job?
“Can he be a cop and—he’d never do it dirty.” The Lachlan she’d grown up with wouldn’t. The one who’d raised and nurtured and… she breathed out. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Shit. I figured it out. Damn, I’m slow. Spending so much time with my father killed a few hundred brain cells.”
“You figured it out? What did you figure out?”
“Will you take me to Lachlan’s?”
“We’re supposed to go to the mansion.”
“I don’t have my phone.” Strat was lucky she was dressed; clothes very nearly hadn’t been part of the deal. “You have to take me to his apartment so I can talk to him.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“And I have no patience. We left Conn behind, I don’t know if you noticed. You tell me the Byrnes are bringing down the roof, then expect me to toddle off to bed and get a good night’s sleep? That ain’t happening.”
“I have to follow orders. Boss says I’m close to my pink slip.”
“You’ll be closer to God if you ignore me.”
A phone rang. Strat’s phone. He dug it out of his pocket to answer. “Yeah…? Yeah, I got her.”
“Who is that?” The Stag situation couldn’t have been resolved already. That couldn’t be Conn. “Strat?”
He put the phone on speaker and dropped it into the center console nook.
“You’re on speaker,” her friend said.
“Sersha?”
“Lach!” It was a good sign he cared enough to check she was okay. Though… “How did you know—”
“I’m with Dad,” Lach said. “Are you safe? Are you hurt?”
“Not hurt, and yes, I’m safe. You’re with Dad?” Wasn’t he still at Stag? “I don’t get it. How can you be with Dad? Is he at your apartment?”
“Your brother’s not at his apartment,” Strat said.
Hmm, another reason her friend might’ve been reluctant to take her there, couldn’t he have just said that?
“Where are you?”
“On the way to the mansion.”
“Whoa, wait, what? What mansion?”
“Strat,” Lachlan said.
“Yeah, yeah,” her friend drawled. “We’ll meet you there.” He stabbed at the screen to disconnect the call. “I told you he’d been around.”
“Around like at Stag around? Like with the guys? Like underground?”
She didn’t even want to utter the word basement. Shocking though that was, she didn’t quite know where to settle her outrage.
Was it that her brother was so “tarnished” now that he could hang around with wise guys and low lifes as equals? That or he was deep in the McDade family intending to collect and share evidence of misdeeds with his law enforcement superiors. Did Conn trust him enough to allow him inside? If he trusted him like that because of her, the McDades could lose everything because she loved her brother.
Her friend shrugged. “You could say that.”
“I can’t believe any of this, I can’t… What is he doing with Conn?”
The question was rhetorical, in that moment anyway. An answer would come from elsewhere… maybe. Now she needed a strategy, something to tempt Conn into divulging details. She’d never had to turn it on like that for him before, not for such a crucial reason. Was she confident? Maybe, he’d ask if she trusted him and—
“Fuck.”
The word was a whisper on her friend’s tongue; his tone delivered a shot of alarm.
“What?” she asked. “What’s fuck? What is it?”
Brow low, he glanced up, down, at the side mirror, then the rearview. “We have a tail.”
“A tail?”
“We’re being followed.”