THIRTY-EIGHT
READING HIM THERE, eyes hooded with the fury he was named for, she stepped past her brother.
“I wasn’t missing. I wasn’t hurt. We were followed from the club and had to divert.” Still, he said nothing. Anyone else, namely her brother and Strat, might be pissed she told the truth. What she gleaned, that they may not have absorbed from her lover’s energy, he already knew. Conn knew, lying wouldn’t get them anywhere. “Strat got shot protecting me.”
“Aye,” Conn said, not in question, he already knew that too. On the spot, he turned to her friend who leaped up from the couch. “You’re in charge of her security.”
Strat’s head tipped a little forward. “I’m… I’m what?”
“Head of security, take whatever guys you need. Train them. Give her the best. Every second, you know where she is. Manage the schedules, the discipline. You’ve proved you’d give your life for hers.”
“Yeah.”
“From now on, you make sure no one has to.”
As Conn’s attention moved, Strat took a step forward. “At the scene where—”
“It’s been handled.” Whatever that meant. “Macushla, the Stratfords will be protected by this family.” Like Strat protected her, yeah, but that wasn’t what he meant. Her guy was telling her Strat wasn’t getting a break, or a pink slip. “That’s final.”
“Your boy’s downstairs,” Niall said to Strat.
She’d barely noticed the lieutenant, her eyes stayed locked on Conn’s. Her heart beat faster, her throat hurt, her love grew.
That suit, the clear expression, his hair just a fraction damp. He’d showered and changed. Good. But what did that mean? He’d showered before coming to her, was that because his clothes could be used in evidence against him?
“What happened? At the club, Byrne—”
“Was no threat,” Conn said as she got closer. “I handled it.”
Yeah, like he’d handled Marseille.
“They wanted Madison,” she said.
“They didn’t get her.”
“I know. Won’t they come again?”
“Hard to come at me when they’re under our control.”
“All of them?”
“Enough of them.”
The thinning Byrnes ranks had been decimated at the same time the Dohertys lost almost a whole generation.
“And the club? Stag? The damage to—”
“Damage will be repaired,” he said, pinching her chin to raise her head. “We’re unshakeable.”
Which was his way of telling her to grow a pair.
“What about the authorities?” she asked. “The press? Want me to call Steeple?”
Steeple would know more, her editor always did. Except she couldn’t risk calling him from Conn’s phone, or the club, or from their secret location. Damn caller ID and backtraces.
“Has he called you?”
“My phone’s at the club.”
“Niall,” Conn said without turning.
“Aye,” Niall said.
“Strat’s phone was left in the—”
Niall tossed something to her friend in front of the couch. He held it up, his phone, huh. Guess the scene really had been handled, just like they said.
“Doc’s waiting for you,” Niall said to Strat, who looked to her.
“Bluebell patched me up. I’m good.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, actually turning Conn as she leaned against him to lay eyes on her friend. “Go see the doctor. He’ll give you painkillers and antibiotics. And he’ll have something to knock you out. You need rest.”
Before he claimed the Bluebell Brigade.
“Now.”
The single word from Conn dispelled any notion of objection. Niall opened the door until Strat trailed out, then said something in his foreign tongue, to which her guy replied.
Oh, how his words dampened her panties. When Niall left a second later, Conn’s attention landed on her brother.
“Handle Jane Doe.”
“I will,” Lachlan said.
“Handle her? What does that mean ‘handle her’? What’s going on with her?”
Before opening his mouth, her brother got a nod from Conn.
“I’ve been working with her, learning what she knows, what she saw, trying to track it down… unofficially.”
“So she’d never have to testify? Because you know if this got to a court—”
“She’ll help your brother as long as she can,” Conn said.
“Then Ire’s got a whole new life waiting for her,” Lachlan explained. “She’ll be safe.”
“No Manzani will touch her.”
And if in the interim some Manzanis were brought down by what Marseille knew, all the better. She might not topple the regime, but any harm they could inflict on the Manzanis was positive.
“I trust both of you. There was no need to keep it a secret, I can be helpful if you tell me things. Keep me in the loop, I’m a familiar presence to Marseille, if she’s unsure—”
“Oh, she was pretty sure,” Lachlan said, slipping his hands in his pockets. “About the women who rescued her. The plural was a surprise.”
“I have chips to play with the Manzanis. Conn and I weren’t together, but Imogen would’ve made an easier target than—”
“I know.” Lachlan bowed to kiss her head. “Showed me we don’t have to be doing the blue thing to be doing the right thing.”
And that was a big admission from her brother. Turning to hug him, she held tight. He hadn’t changed, they hadn’t changed. Okay, maybe a few details had, but at the core of them, they were still them.
He’d never put her in the middle if this was an undercover sting. If he disliked, or distrusted, Conn so much that Lach thought he should be in jail, he’d never let her sleep next to him every night. If for no other reason than when the McDades discovered the double cross, she’d be an immediate, and vulnerable, target.
Backing away, her hand found Conn’s, who gave her brother a side nod. Yep, time for him to read her the riot act.
Lachlan didn’t seem concerned as he sauntered to the door.
“Oh, hey,” he said, turning back to them. “Seen that picture kicking around with the guys.”
“Picture?”
“That picture—shit, I’ll fucking kill him,” she said. “You’ve seen it?”
“Yeah, and it’s not a uniform,” he said, smirking. “It’s a costume.”
“You let me go out like that?”
“You were nineteen.” Shit, did her brother remember everything? “Didn’t give me much say.”
Not that she ever had when it came to her apparel. “How do you even remember that?”
He laughed. “Don’t think you want me to tell you that in current company.” Saying that necessitated his answer. “That was the night you met Vex.”
She shivered. “Burn it.”
“Already did, little sister.” He opened the door. “I’ll check in with Marseille.”
Alone with Conn, she rested her face against him. “I’m sorry I left you at Stag.”
“It was my order. I would never have let you stay.”
“Because your head isn’t in the game when I’m around?”
“That and you’ll have to get used to it.”
“Leaving you?”
Stacking his hands on the back of her head, he bowed to kiss her crown then skimmed them around until the pads of his thumbs pressured her jaw upward. Much as he had on the night of their reunion in his office.
One soft kiss followed another. Right there in the middle of the office, he sampled her mouth from this angle and that, giving her something while he took. The reassurance of each other’s safety demanded they celebrate in that intimacy.
Used to it? Yes, he was right. She would have to get used to him being in danger. His life was always at risk, as was hers, as they always would be.
“Mo Grá,” she whispered between kisses. “Take me to bed, Mo Grá.”
“I’m going back to the club.”
She laid her hands on him to put some space between them. “You’re leaving? Why did you come here just to leave me?”
Sweeping her hair from her face, he scooped it higher, admiring her features down the line of her throat. “You know why I came here, Cushla Machree.”
To lay eyes on her, to prove she was safe, to gather the strength he got from her.
“I could come with you. Back to Stag.”
“McDade wives stay in safety.”
“Wives? But I’m not…” A harsh edge to his determination broke through. “When?”
“Soon. You need the McDade name. It’s long overdue.”
Her smile flourished and she pulled him down for another brief kiss. “Taste’s good, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said on the whisper of a snicker. “Told you, didn’t I?”
“You did. Damn, am I happy I insulted you.”
“This is your kingdom.”
“Act like it.”
Accepting his next kiss, their need would have to be sated before he could go anywhere. Everyone she loved under the same roof, she could get used to that. As long as she existed under her McDade’s roof, she’d never wake lonely again.
~~~~~~~~~~
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