CHAPTER FIFTY RONAN
CHAPTER FIFTY
RONAN
NOW
Ipace my bedroom restlessly, my chest tight and nausea rolling over me with each step I take.
This is a mistake.
I’ve made a mistake.
And this one I can’t fix without betraying my family.
Chloe doesn’t deserve to die, and she certainly wasn’t lying when she told me what happened all those years ago, but I let anger get the best of me.
I allowed jealousy to fuel my rage, and now an innocent woman is chained up in the cellar, waiting for her death.
Fuck.
Glancing at my phone, I consider calling one of the guys from the Legion. It would be so easy to help them without giving away it was me, but Dad won’t let this go.
He believes with absolute certainty that Chloe knows something about Kingston, and if she doesn’t give him up, she’s going to be tortured and killed.
To me, it’s irrelevant what she knows. Our shit with Beaumont should stay between us, but Dad doesn’t see it that way.
I want to believe this will be the end of it. That he’ll get whatever he’s looking for from Chloe and let her go, but no one leaves that cellar alive.
The second Damon carried her down there, her fate was sealed.
As far as my father’s concerned, she is the enemy, and there’s no reasoning with that kind of certainty.
“Ronan.” My father’s voice stops me in my tracks, my body jerking to a stop so abruptly my muscles groan. “What are you doing?”
“Stretching my legs,” I reply without hesitation. If there’s one thing I’ve gotten good at over the years, it’s lying to my father about my emotions. He thinks Damon and I should be heartless robots, but he’s only succeeded in making one of us cold and emotionless.
He used to say I had my mother’s heart, but when she stopped breathing, that suddenly became a bad thing.
“It was a long drive and flight,” I tell him.
He stares at me for long seconds, assessing my answers but he doesn’t pull me up on them. “I want you to question the girl.”
Any air in my lungs evaporates. He’s testing me. Chloe has always made me weak in his eyes. He used to say that love makes us weak, and yet here he is more than a decade later still chasing after the man responsible for his own broken heart.
Refusal isn’t an option, but I’m not capable of hurting her. Even after all these years, she’s still a part of me, and torturing her would be just as excruciating for me as it would her.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“She’s most likely to answer you truthfully. That high school sweetheart shit will get her talking.”
Perhaps that would have been true years ago, but not now. Now she hates me almost as much as she does him and Damon. I may not have been in the room when she watched her parents be killed, but the same blood runs through my veins.
I wish I were stronger. I wish I had the backbone to stand up to my father, but it would be so easy for him to destroy me. He doesn’t see us as his sons anymore. He hasn’t since Mom died.
Now we’re just his heirs. We’ll carry on the Lombardi name, but he has no emotional connection to us.
Not anymore.
I nod slowly, considering my options. “If you want me to do this, torture is off the table.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I cut him off before he gets the chance.
“She’s more likely to talk if we don’t hurt her.
We’ll make her as comfortable as she can be down there, spend time talking to her, and she’ll be far more likely to slip up and give us the truth.
If we hurt her and she doesn’t know anything, we could waste time chasing down leads she’s given us just to make the pain stop. ”
Dad considers me for long seconds, and I hold my breath.
None of what I just said was a lie. She’s not one of our normal prisoners.
She isn’t trained to withstand pain, and while she might fold if she does know something, if she doesn’t, she’s just going to tell us what we want to hear to make it stop.
“We’ll play it your way, but if we have nothing in a week, we’re reverting to the original plan.” He turns on his heel, and a breath of relief rushes from my chest.
Now all I have to do is make her talk.
I just hope she knows something, because if she doesn’t, I can’t keep her safe forever.