Chapter 13
Harvey closed the door to the bedroom.
He’d gotten her handbag for her, cursing himself for not realizing that her lips were chapped. Eventually, she’d come to him immediately when she needed something.
He knew she wasn’t used to having someone look out for her. Her mother certainly never had. Nor had Rick.
Harvey was going to have to come up with something to take care of that bastard. It wasn’t enough that his family was simply broke. It would be too easy for Rick to glom onto another rich heiress and milk her for her money.
He couldn’t believe he’d had to pretend to be friends with that asshole for the past year.
But that was the price of doing business sometimes.
Ronan had wanted him to get close to Rick after he’d attempted to use his sister as collateral for a gambling debt.
Ronan hadn’t liked that. Especially considering that Rick’s father was a senator.
And one whom Ronan had done business with occasionally.
They’d found out more than they’d bargained for about Rick and his father.
None of it good.
Harvey had done his part. He’d stuck close to that asshole to see what he could find out. The only good thing about being near Rick was Lily.
He hadn’t been able to make any moves for a start, not wanting to rock the boat with Rick. He’d thought her loyalty would be to her fiancé before he’d figured out that Rick was a complete and utter prick. And that Lily was lost. She wasn’t cold or removed. She was something else entirely.
But he hadn’t realized that she’d been drugged. He thought that she’d pulled back from life because she couldn’t stand to live through it with Rick.
He hadn’t realized how bad things were for her until about a month ago, when he’d heard her mother talking to her like she was nothing.
His job for Ronan was done, and he was finally free to take her. He’d just needed the right moment.
Harvey wished that loyalty to the family wasn’t drummed so deeply inside him. Then he might have taken her earlier and saved her from some heartache.
But she was here now.
And he was going to make up for the delay by putting her first.
He intended to stay close, to touch her as often as he could, to look after her, to show her what it felt like to have someone take care of her.
He wanted to treat her like she was precious because that’s what she was.
Walking into his office, he called Paddy on his phone. Now that she was taking a nap, he could get some other things done. First on the list was to see if Paddy had found out anything about this doctor her mother had taken her to.
“Is that my big brother who has mysteriously disappeared but still likes to bark out orders and expects me to drop everything to help him?”
“I only ask you to help because you’re the best at what you do,” Harvey replied smoothly.
“You know just how to stroke my ego. Bet you know how to stroke other things as well since you’ve been alone so long.”
Harvey groaned. “Can we please not?”
“I’m just concerned for you. It’s not healthy to go without sex as long as you have. You’re a Gallagher. We need sex to keep our tempers under control.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. That was such bullshit. Sex had nothing to do with their tempers.
Yeah, the Gallagher men were known for their tempers and for their sex drive, but that didn’t mean they had to be defined by it. He wasn’t. He’d worked hard to keep his temper under control. And while he might have sowed a few wild oats in his earlier years, he wasn’t interested in that any longer.
He wanted something real. He wanted to build a life with someone. He didn’t want to just get off. It wasn’t about sex for him. It was about forever.
And that forever was going to be with Lily.
But Paddy didn’t have someone like that.
Maybe one day he would. Gallagher men were known to fall hard when they found ‘the one’.
“Harvey knew he was lucky because he’d found Lily. “Listen, I’m not interested in a quick fuck. I don’t need that to keep my temper under control. I already have good control.”
“Yeah, but don’t you need it just to wake up in the morning with a smile on your face?”
“I already do that. I don’t want something temporary. I’m building something that is going to be forever.”
“Yeah? You want to enlighten the rest of us what that is?”
He could, but he wasn’t ready to tell his family about Lily. For the moment, he just wanted to keep her to himself.
“All in good time, brother.”
“Does it have something to do with this doctor that I’m researching?”
“What have you found out about that doctor and that clinic?”
“I don’t know if I want to tell you, if you’re not going to tell me what’s going on.”
Fuck, sometimes being around his family was like dealing with a bunch of toddlers. They could be the most loyal, amazing people, and they could also be the most infuriating.
“Fine. There’s someone in my life. I’m not ready to introduce her to you guys. You’ll overwhelm her. She’s not feeling very well at the moment, and I want to help her get better.”
“Well, well, well. Of all of us, I didn’t think you’d fall first, Harvey boy.”
“Well, it definitely wasn’t going to be you,” he replied.
Paddy started laughing. “No, that’s for sure. So, she’s been seeing this doctor? Did he do something to her?”
“Her mother took her to see this doctor at a private clinic when she had some issues, and there’s not a lot of information about him that I can find. However, we tested some of the medication that she was given by him, only to find out it’s been laced with some black-market drugs.”
“Jesus. Just as well you came to me, brother.”
“So you do have some information.”
“Oh, yeah. So, our doctor friend was asked to leave his job in Chicago. I’m still trying to find out the specifics, but from what I can gather he was involved in something shady and it was covered up.”
Jesus what had that shady motherfucker done?
And had Lily’s mother known any of this?
“But he was allowed to open up a clinic here in Boston?”
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t charged with anything,” Paddy said. “So his medical license never got taken off him, although he probably would have found it hard to find another job.”
“So he opened up his own small hospital here in Boston?”
“Seems that way. Can’t be a big hospital, though, as he’s the only doctor listed as on staff. The website had very minimal information about what he does there. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
That did seem odd.
“Have you found out anything else? Anything about him having any ties to black market drugs?”
“Not sure how I can figure that out unless we get our hands on him, or I physically get into the building to go through any records.”
“Sounds like I’m going to have to talk to this doctor.”
Even if he wasn’t the one who had laced the pills with Devil’s Breath, it didn’t seem like he was innocent.
“What were the pills laced with?” Paddy asked.
“Devil’s Breath.”
Paddy whistled. “Jesus. That stuff is nasty and expensive. You could try to find the supplier. I can talk to Ronan if you want. See if he knows anyone that supplies that shit in the area. But I’m pretty sure it must come from further afield.”
Yeah, Ronan had his pulse on pretty much everything that went down in Boston.
“Not yet. Let me think about it.”
“DB has a high price tag so somebody was paying through the roof for those pills, and for what reason?”
To make Lily more compliant? But it did seem excessive.
And how would her mother have been able to afford it? No, there was something else going on here, something that he didn’t understand
As soon as he felt comfortable leaving Lily, he was going to go and have a little chat with that doctor.
“Thanks, Paddy. Keep me informed if you find out anything else about the doctor. I’ve got someone watching the clinic and him.”
He also had someone else on her mother, just in case she decided to run. He wasn’t taking any chances with any of this.
Not when it came to Lily. She was too important.
And he needed to go back and check whether she was still sleeping peacefully.
“Ahh, Miss Lily, your mother wishes to speak to you,” James said as she entered the house.
Crap.
She should have snuck out the back door, then James wouldn’t have found her.
“I’m actually on my way out, James. And please, call me Lily.” At thirty-one, she really wasn’t a ‘miss’ anymore.
And it was kind of embarrassing being called one.
“I’m afraid she was very insistent, Miss Lily.”
Of course she was.
Lord forbid her mother didn’t get her own way.
Lily glanced at the door. She could just leave. Walk out and never look back.
Sure, she had nothing. No money, no skills, nothing more than a high school diploma.
But other people did it.
Only problem was, she also didn’t have any friends or anywhere to stay. Her mother kept her birth certificate and passport locked up along with all important documentation.
Trapped.
She was trapped.
The only person she had was her sister who didn’t really like her.
Not that Lily blamed Clem. Her sister was everything she wasn’t.
Brave. Outspoken. Resourceful. Fun.
Clem could make friends wherever she went. She wasn’t afraid to be different.
Whereas Lily had spent all her life trying to please others, to fit in, to make her mother proud.
And for what?
A life of fucking misery.
But rocking the boat would do her no good, it never had. If she could keep her mother happy, then she was less likely to pick on Clem.
Lily couldn’t stand listening to her mother go on and on at Clem. About her weight, her looks, her intelligence.
Clem had always been an easier target for their mother because she didn’t play the game.
Lily played it a bit too well.
Well, Clem had enough going on right now and Lily was going to do what she could to make sure that their mother didn’t bother her.
After checking her appearance in the mirror, she brushed back a few stray hairs and walked to her mother’s study.
She hadn’t intended to see her mother today, so she wasn’t certain she’d be dressed to her satisfaction. But she didn’t have time to run upstairs and get changed.
“Come in,” her mother called out after she knocked.