Chapter 32
Wow, Ronan Gallagher was one scary dude.
She was glad Harvey had warned her, and that he’d told her those stories about how Ronan took care of his sisters.
She just kept playing those thoughts over in her mind as she stared at him.
Because if she didn’t know that he had a big soft spot for women, she might have turned and run the other way.
He was extremely beautiful, quite possibly the most beautiful man she’d ever seen in her life. He had a five o’clock shadow that made him look more rugged and less angelic.
Well, maybe not angelic exactly, more like a dark angel fallen from heaven.
His hazel-colored eyes seemed to read her instantly. It was like he could see straight into her soul and she knew she should probably never lie to this man. He’d be able to read her like a book.
Then he shocked the hell out of her. He walked over to where she was standing beside Harvey and reached out his hand to her.
He held his hand palm up, and she wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted. Moving on instinct, she put her hand over his and waited for him to move. He drew her slowly forward and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow.
“Come with me,” he said. “You need some hot chocolate.”
Hot chocolate? This man, who looked like he ate the souls of those who betrayed him, was offering her hot chocolate?
Had she stepped into some sort of alternate universe? What was going on here?
“You should take him up on that,” Harvey’s other brother told her.
Paddy seemed the complete opposite of Ronan.
Sure, he had the dark hair and hazel eyes, but that’s where the similarities stopped.
He had Harvey’s grin, but there was also more of a lightness to him than Harvey had.
While Harvey might smile and joke, there was a watchfulness about him, as though he never fully relaxed.
Paddy looked like he knew how to have a good time.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I’m not sure I can drink anything right now. I think I just need to speak to my mother.” She glanced over at Paddy again. “Did you find out anything more? From his home computer or the clinic?”
Paddy shot Harvey a look
Harvey nodded. “I told her everything.”
“I’m still working on it,” Paddy told her. “But I’ll take one of those hot chocolates while I do.”
“You can get your own,” Ronan told him.
“Pfft, that doesn’t seem very fair. I’m the one doing all the hard work here.” Lily was worried that Paddy was actually upset, but then he sent her a wink and a grin. “You really should have one. It’ll put hairs on your chest.”
She wasn’t certain that she actually wanted to put hairs on her chest, strangely enough. But she attempted to give him a small smile anyway. She wasn’t sure that she was that successful when he gave her a sad look in return.
“I just really want to see my mother and get it over and done with, if you don’t mind. Thank you for the offer though. I really appreciate it.”
Ronan stared down at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded. “All right, come with me.” He kept her hand still tucked into his elbow as he led her along.
She glanced behind at Harvey with a questioning look, but he just shrugged and gave her a small smile.
So she guessed this was normal behavior for Ronan?
He wasn’t acting like an iceberg right now.
They headed along the hall toward a hidden door underneath the staircase. They stepped through.
Ronan moved in front of her. “Put your hand on my shoulder as we head downstairs. I don’t want you to trip and fall over.”
Wow. He was as bad as Harvey.
But she rested her hand on his shoulder as they headed downstairs.
“How is the girl that you found in the clinic?” she asked. “Is she awake? Is she okay?”
“She’s not awake yet,” Ronan said. “We’re waiting on the results from the blood test to see what she was drugged with. I’m guessing it was the same thing as you, though.”
Poor girl.
“Do you think that when she wakes up I could talk to her? Are you going to explain how you found her?”
“Probably,” Ronan said. “We need to find out if she’s got anyone that can look after her, or whether her family knew what was happening to her.”
“And if they did know? If she has no one?” she asked, hating to think that the other woman might end up on her own. At least she had Harvey. As if he could sense what she was thinking, he placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“She won’t be left alone,” Ronan said. “I’ll take care of her.”
Poor girl was probably going to be terrified when she woke up and found out where she was and who was looking after her. But she also got the idea that no one would take better care of her than Ronan.
Ronan put a code into the keypad next to the door. Then he opened it. Without thought, she reached back and Harvey took her hand in his, squeezing it tight.
To her shock, they walked into what looked to be a small apartment. There was a bed and a door off to the side that she assumed led to a bathroom.
There was also a heavy-looking chair in one corner, but the rest of the room was pretty bare, and she guessed she understood that.
Depending on who was down here, he wouldn’t want to leave anything that could be used as a weapon. The television was attached to the wall, but kept behind some sort of glass case, or maybe it wasn’t glass. It was probably a thick plastic.
She couldn’t see her mother, though.
“Roberta? Roberta?” Ronan called out, walking to the bathroom and knocking sharply.
“Go away.”
Lily started to walk toward the door, but Harvey slipped his arm around her waist. “Don’t go any closer. Let Ronan get her out.”
She nodded. It was probably for the best.
Ronan opened the door and just walked straight in. When he returned, he had a firm hold of her mother’s arm.
He drew her into the room, forcing her to sit on the end of the bed.
Her mother glared up at him. “Who are you to treat me like this? How dare you? I will not stand for this.”
“Mother.”
Her mother’s head turned and she glared at Lily.
“What are you doing here, Clem?”
Lily frowned at her. “Mother. It’s Lily.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Clem. Lily wouldn’t treat me this way. She’s so compliant, that girl, so obedient. No thoughts of her own, of course, completely blank inside, which is just perfect for what I need her for.”
Lily shuddered, her breath coming in fast pants.
But then she realized this might work better than if her mother realized it was her. Obviously, something had broken inside her mother’s head.
“What do you need Lily for, Mother?” she asked.
Harvey hugged her against him. Her mother didn’t seem to see him. She didn’t really focus on anything; her eyes drifting from thing to thing in the room. Ronan just stood to the side, silent and quiet.
Paddy hadn’t come down with them, but she guessed there were probably cameras in here, so this was being recorded.
“I need her to marry Rick. He’s ambitious, and his family has plenty of money. All of our money is gone. We have nothing. Nothing. The only reason I’ve survived is because I’ve been selling her.”
It was a punch to the stomach.
“I found a way to make her obedient. Dr. Wallace had this special formula, these pills that we gave her, and then we could suggest anything to her, and she believed us. I made her believe that she’d attacked me, that she’d hurt me, that she needed the pills in order for me to be safe.
She felt so guilty that she took those pills without a word. Not even an argument.”
“Did you not have to pay Dr. Wallace for the pills? How did you afford that? You said that you sold Lily? What does that mean?” she asked. It was hard to get the questions out without being sick.
“Oh, I was going to pay for them originally, back when I still had money. But the doctor suggested another arrangement. Something about making videos of her and selling them. I just had to take her to the clinic once every two weeks. He’d drug her more deeply so she wouldn’t remember a thing.
He’d get what he needed, and he’d pay me. It was all a win-win situation.”
A win-win situation. Was she for real? She felt Harvey tense behind her.
“Except for Lily,” she said. “It wasn’t a win-win situation for Lily. She spent most of the past ten months drugged with no idea what was going on. And what exactly was Dr. Wallace doing to her? What kind of videos was he making of her? And what was he doing with them?”
Her mother waved her hand through the air dismissively.
“What do I care what he was doing with her? The only stipulation I had was that he couldn’t have sex with her.
Oh, and that he couldn’t harm her. I didn’t want her waking up with bruises or cuts and wondering how that had happened.
I also couldn’t risk her getting pregnant before she was married to Rick. ”
Wow. Was that the only concern that she’d had, that Lily might get pregnant before she married Rick?
“You’re a monster,” Lily told her. “You sold your daughter for money and because you wanted her to marry some dickhead. You never had one thought for her or her feelings. How do you think she’s going to recover now?”
Her mother started to rock back and forth, and there was a strange look on her face. “Who cares? Who cares? It’s all over. It’s all over now. It’s all over.”
“Mother, what was Doctor Wallace doing with the videos he took of Lily?” she asked.
Pretending to be Clem was surprisingly easy. Maybe it was helping her keep herself calm.
“You had me arrested, Clem. Your own mother.”
Jesus.
“What was he doing with those videos,” Ronan said.
“Subscription. A subscription service.”
Oh God. She’d known it had to be something like that . . . but it made her feel sick to hear it.
Harvey shuddered, holding her tighter. She knew he was probably barely holding himself together.
“Do you know who killed Doctor Wallace?” Ronan asked.
“He’s dead. Lily’s gone. Clem had me arrested. All gone wrong. All wrong.”