33. Fiona
Chapter Thirty-Three
FIONA
Adrian Smirnov should be dead.
I watched the entire scene play out from the window as I held Scout in my arms, needing to see for myself that Cormac was alive. I watched how he gave up a clear shot and let the man who kidnapped his son walk straight through his front door, and I can’t help but feel it’s because of me.
I press my forehead against the glass, watching Adrian disappear from view, and my stomach twists violently.
If this goes wrong, if Adrian comes back and Scout gets hurt, I’ll be the one to blame.
Scout shifts in my arms, his fingers curling into my shirt like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.
I tighten my arms instinctively around him, my heart hammering in my chest.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, though I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince.
The house is too quiet now, and that feels almost worse.
My arms ache from holding Scout, so I carry him over the floor between the bed and the dresser.
My body still feels jittery from the adrenaline, and I’m desperate to hear what is going on downstairs, but I refuse to leave Scout.
He’s quiet, which, in Scout terms, is never a good sign. And his body is rigid, like he’s bracing for something that hasn’t happened yet. I murmur to him softly as I rub my hand up and down his back, but he barely reacts.
The last time men stormed the house, he was taken. One moment, he was here, the next, he was gone, ripped out from underneath us before he could even scream.
“It’s over,” I tell him quietly. “You’re safe.”
He doesn’t answer. He just holds on to me even tighter.
Eventually, heavy footsteps come up the stairs, and when Cormac enters the room, I swallow a sob of relief.
He drops down onto the floor and wraps his arms around Scout and me.
“You did good,” he murmurs. “Everyone is safe.”
I don’t want to upset Scout, so I force myself to hold back my tears.
We sit there in the quiet for a moment, until Brennan’s voice cuts through it as he calls from downstairs. “Cormac! Just a small thing… Kieran is back, and he’s… Well, he’s pissed!”
Cormac curses as he gets to his feet and crosses over to the window.
“This is going to be fun,” he mutters.
I climb to my feet, adjusting my hold on Scout, and move to join Cormac at the window.
At the bottom of the driveway stand Ronan and Kieran, staring at the mangled gates with a cold sort of fury on their faces.
Cormac sighs. “Stay with Scout. I’ll handle this.”
Scout lifts his head from my shoulder at the mention of his name.
“Is he coming to take me again?” he whispers.
A look of complete devastation passes over Cormac’s face, so I quickly chime in.
“No one is taking you anywhere. We’re safe. It’s just Uncle Ronan and Uncle Kieran.”
“Are they mad at Daddy?”
Cormac reaches out to stroke his hair. “I think that might be an understatement, buddy.”
The three of us head downstairs, and the moment we’re outside, Cormac moves past us, running toward the chaos at the end of the driveway.
Brennan follows, his hands raised. “It’s fine! It’s just a casual misunderstanding. Nothing to see here.”
Ronan finally speaks, but it’s clear he’s holding back his anger as he takes in the sight of the mangled gates. “Want to tell me what the hell happened?”
Before Cormac can answer, Ciara steps out of the car to survey the damage.
“Get back in the car,” Ronan orders, but Ciara ignores him.
She looks around. “I take it someone decided to turn up without an invitation?”
“It’s handled,” Cormac replies.
Kieran seethes. “Is it? My gates are fucking wrecked.”
“Gates are overrated,” Brennan chimes in, which earns him a warning look from all three of his brothers.
“How did you let this happen?” Kieran demands.
Cormac’s jaw tightens. “Lower your voice.”
“Oh, don’t start with me. You don’t get to tell me to calm down when I walk into a war zone.”
Ronan steps forward, placing a hand on Kieran’s shoulder. “Enough.”
But Kieran shakes him off, his anger already starting to simmer as he rakes a hand through his hair. “Someone breached our perimeter, and you’re standing here acting like this wasn’t an attempted kidnapping mission!”
Scout instantly stiffens in my arms.
“Is he coming back? Is he going to take me again?” he asks, his voice shaking, as he looks to Cormac for reassurance.
Everyone goes utterly still.
I glance at Cormac and see his face slowly drain of color.
Cormac crosses the distance between us in two strides. “No. No one is taking you anywhere. Ever.”
Scout’s breath hitches as his lower lip starts to tremble. “Y-you promised…last time.”
Cormac swallows hard as he takes his son’s face in his hands. “And I’m keeping it.”
“I suggest we move this inside,” Ronan orders. “It seems Cormac has a lot to fill us in on.”
Kieran scoffs. “Yeah, no shit.”
Scout burrows his head against my shoulder again, and I can tell he’s starting to panic again by the way his breathing speeds up.
“It’s okay, Scout. Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I whisper.
The tension doesn’t dissipate once the front doors are shut. If anything, it sharpens.
Riley and Ciara have the right idea by disappearing upstairs with the children, but when I try to do the same, Scout lets out a cry of protest, insisting on staying with both me and Cormac, so I join the brothers in the living room.
Kieran is the first one to lose his patience as he paces around, looking like he wants nothing more than to put his fist through a window.
“This place is compromised, and you’re really expecting us to believe that everything is fine?”
“I told you. Adrian and I reached an agreement.”
Cormac keeps his voice level, but I can see it’s costing him something to keep his cool from the tight set of his shoulders.
“An agreement,” Kieran repeats, letting out a sharp, humorless laugh. “With him.”
Ronan folds his arms, his gaze fixed on the floor like he’s thinking five steps ahead. “Cormac, you know as well as I do—”
“I know exactly who Adrian Smirnov is. I also know what he wants, and right now, a ceasefire serves him just as much as it serves us.”
Kieran scowls. “And when has that ever stopped anyone in our world? Since when do men like him keep their word?”
Cormac turns on him. “Stop. Lower your voice.”
Kieran rounds on Cormac, his eyes blazing. “I’m not lowering anything while my house—”
“—is still standing,” Brennan steps between them. “Mostly.”
No one laughs.
Kieran shakes his head. “It’s not safe to be here. We should send the girls and kids to a safehouse.”
Ronan nods. “I agree. At least, for the time being.”
My fists clench hard. “No. I won’t be separated from my son.”
Kieran throws his hands up. “Then go with him for all I care. Seeing as you’re the one with the target on your back.”
“No!” Scout suddenly cries, breaking out of my arms and running for Cormac. “I want to stay with Daddy!”
Cormac wraps him up in his arms in an instant, holding him so tightly I’m surprised Scout can even breathe. As I watch the two of them, something inside me snaps, and before I can talk myself out of it, I step forward.
“No one is taking Scout anywhere.”
Kieran opens his mouth again, but I cut him off. “Scout needs to stay with his family, which means, keeping him here where he feels safe.”
Ronan frowns. “Fiona has a point. Maybe—”
Kieran rounds on Ronan. “No. We don’t maybe this. We move him. Protocol exists for a reason.”
Scout lets out a small, broken sound and clings tighter to Cormac, and I feel his fear like it’s my own.
“No,” I repeat, louder this time. “That’s exactly how this gets worse.”
Everyone turns to me, but I don’t balk under the weight of their stares.
“You move him now and all Scout learns is that the world really isn’t safe. That every time something bad happens, he loses his home.”
Brennan shrugs. “She’s not wrong.”
This earns him a glare from Kieran.
Ronan nods. “Then we reinforce the boundary tonight. No one sleeps until it’s done.”
Kieran glares at me, but I don’t even blink.
Right now, Scout is my priority, and it’s going to take a lot more than his bad mood to get me to back down.
Brennan tilts his tablet. “Already on it. I’ve got two dozen men on their way.”
Cormac meets my eyes from across the room.
“Thank you,” he mouths.
While Ronan, Kieran, and Brennan load up on weapons with grim efficiency, Cormac hands Scout back over to me and presses a kiss to both our foreheads.
“I’ll be right outside,” Cormac tells Scout, though his eyes flick to me. “Just making sure everything’s locked down.”
Once the front door closes, the silence that follows is loud.
“That was a hell of a house call.”
My head snaps up to find Riley and Ciara standing at the top of the stairs.
I sigh. “You can say that.”
“Does anyone want tea? Or something stronger pretending to be tea?” Riley suggests.
“I don’t know about you, Scout,” I start. “But I could definitely do with a hot chocolate. And I think Auntie Ciara might even have some cookies lying around somewhere.”
“They’re in a top-secret location that only very special little boys can find. Shall we see if we can find them?” Ciara plasters on a smile as she heads down the stairs.
“Fiona’s coming too?” He looks anxiously at me.
“Are you kidding? I’m not missing out on cookies for anything.”
The three of us keep our tones as light as possible as we whip up some hot chocolate and cookies, though I can see the worry in both Ciara and Riley’s faces.
I manage to get Scout to let go of me long enough to get him settled on the couch with his snack, and I put on a film that will hopefully serve as a distraction, at least for a little while.
“We were barely gone for two hours. This could have been so much worse,” Riley mutters as the three of us stand in the corner of the room, watching Scout.
“I think Adrian was waiting for you to leave to make his move,” I say quietly.
“The fact that he was even in my house—” Riley sucks a breath before exhaling slowly. “It makes me want to throw up.”
“I still can’t believe Cormac let Adrian live,” Ciara says, the animosity clear as day in her tone.
“I get why he did it.”
“Do you? Because I don’t. Blood doesn’t mean anything. Trust me, I learned that the hard way.”
Riley nods. “Same.”
“I know. And I’m not saying Adrian deserves Cormac’s forgiveness.
But how I see it, Scout should be able to make the choice for himself.
When I lost my sister, I didn’t get to choose that.
She was taken from me. And that kind of loss…
It feels different. So, I’m a little unwilling to pretend family stops mattering just because it’s complicated. ”
“Well, now Riley and I just sound like assholes,” Ciara mutters, and I huff a laugh.
For a moment, the three of us stand in silence, watching out of the window as Cormac and his brothers move to re-secure the estate.
They have everything under control, so why does it feel like I’m still not able to take a full breath?
That night, Cormac and I both tuck Scout into bed and stay watching him long after he’s fallen asleep.
I lean back against the headboard, letting out a shaky exhale, and glance at Cormac, who lounges along the bottom of the bed.
“Is everything good?” I ask quietly. “I mean…the house. Is it secure now?”
Cormac gently rubs my ankle as he lets out a low hum. “Yeah. What happened today won’t happen again. The gates, the alarms, the cameras have all been triple-checked. We’re safe here.”
I study his face, looking for cracks, for any sign that he’s still rattled. But he’s steady, the way he always is when he has to be.
“I just needed to make sure. After everything, I can’t help worrying.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not letting anything happen to him or to you.”
“I know.”
He sits up then and reaches out to take my hand, squeezing it hard.
“Thank you for staying calm today,” he murmurs. “Knowing that Scout was taken care of… it helped me think straight.”
“I just hope it doesn’t backfire on us.”
“Me too.”
We both glance toward Scout, sleeping soundly curled up in his bed.
I look back at Cormac and notice the distance in his eyes as he watches his son. I often wonder if he’s thinking about her, about Nadia.
I don’t want to ask, but I ask anyway.
“Do you ever think about her on nights like this?”
He doesn’t pretend not to know who I mean.
“All the time,” he admits.
The honesty stings more than a lie would have. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”
Cormac’s eyes soften as he watches his son sleep. “I did. I loved her.”
I nod, trying to shake off the ache in my chest. “And…now?”
“Now…” He brings our entwined hands up to his mouth and brushes a kiss along my knuckles. “Now, you and Scout are my world.”
I exhale, letting the tension leave me just a little.
He leans closer, brushing a soft kiss across my lips.
“Loving her doesn’t mean I love you less,” he whispers as he strokes my jaw. “You have to know that.”
I nod, but there’s still a small niggle of doubt that I can’t voice because I can’t bear to know the answer.
Would he still be here with me if Nadia wasn’t dead?