Chapter twenty-six Need-to-Know Status
Chapter twenty-six
Need-to-Know Status
WRAITH
When áine texts me three messages in a row without a single emoji asking to talk to me without the girls around, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
What the fuck is going on?
I text her back that I'll have Dagda bring her to the Bunker.
Then I have to wait thirty-two minutes and seventeen seconds before they arrive. I knock three of my newly assigned soldiers on their asses in training and do my best not to kill any of them for their ineptitude in the meantime.
As soon as my smart watch flashes a text from Dagda saying they're headed to the gym, I toss my latest sparring partner into his friends who are standing around gossiping instead of paying attention.
They all go down in a tumble of arms and legs.
"Do something with them," I bark at Ellie on my way to the door.
I don't want her sticking her nose into whatever has áine stressed enough to drop her emojis. I like that my wife is coming to me and I want to be the one to fix whatever it is.
I step out of the gym just in time to watch her walk down the hall toward me. Grunts, thumps and an unmistakable cry of pain sounds from behind me.
áine's somber eyes widen. "What's going on?"
"Training," I tell her.
"Oh. I guess you train pretty seriously, huh?" She bites her bottom lip, something about what she just said bothering her.
"We do." Does she hear my stress on the word we?
Kenneth-fucking-Shaughnessy didn't train his men hard, that's for damn sure. They're all fairly accurate with a gun, but their hand-to-hand combat skills are a joke and I didn't even test their knife skills. I didn't want one of them cutting a damn finger off when there's so much training to do.
áine nods, her thoughts clearly not on what's happening in the gym now the door has closed and we can't hear anything. "I walked Sadie into class today."
"Dagda informed me. How is she doing?" She seemed alright this morning when I checked in with her, but she's a preteen girl.
My experience with that is exactly as long as I've known áine and our daughters.
"Okay. Fitz is walking her from class to class today.
"He'll probably do that for the rest of the school year."
"Good." áine looks at me questioningly. "We're going to have to plan some kind of celebration for the last day of school. We usually go out for ice cream."
"I'll make sure Dagda and another guard are available to take you."
She hugs herself, pressing curves into prominence that I've had to show too damn much self-control around since we got back from Anaheim. "Can you be there?"
"You want me to be?" I ask, surprised.
"Yes. More importantly, the girls will be disappointed if you're not. Even when I was working for Kenneth, I got that afternoon off to spend with them."
The last day of school is this Friday, two days after the emergency school board meeting.
I mentally juggle some things on my schedule and grab my phone to update my calendar before sliding it back into my pocket. "I'll be there."
"Thank you."
Something is wrong. I look toward Dagda asking him silently what the fuck is going on.
He shrugs. "Maybe something happened when she dropped Sadie off at class."
áine looks at Dagda and frowns. "I didn't walk her to class. I went to the office to confirm the boys who hurt her weren't at school today."
"I told her they wouldn't be." I don't like the fact áine felt the need to confirm it.
"I didn't know that, did I?" áine's not so happy gaze is set squarely on me now.
"No?" I ask rather than state.
Why didn't Sadie tell her if it was important to her?
"No," áine confirms. "I didn't know because you didn't bother to tell me."
Oh.
Well, fuck.
"Was I supposed to?" I ask, to make sure I'm straight on what I did wrong.
Dagda snorts. Is he laughing at me?
"Yes, Kieran, you were supposed to tell me. Unless it doesn't matter to you that I've been worried about how to keep them away from her since I found out what happened."
"Uh oh. Uh, boss, I think I should go help with training the new recruits."
"They're not new," I grouse.
Some of those fuckers have been made men for years. Decades even.
Dagda shrugs. "Might as well be."
I jerk my head toward the gym in silent agreement to his plan.
"Is there someplace we can talk that's not a hallway?" áine asks with enough sarcasm to let me know she thinks I should have offered to take her somewhere more private already.
But there's no one in the corridor and the facility is secure. No one's going to sneak up on us either. Somehow, I don't think that's going to impress her.
"I still have my rack." And I'll be keeping it until we move into a house.
There's no room for my things in áine's crowded apartment. I'm living out of the same duffel I took on vacation, plus a garment bag with a suit hanging in her closet in case I need it.
"Rack?" áine asks.
"My room."
"Let's go there."
After we've gone through the second secure airlock between quadrants, áine says, "This place is like a futuristic space station."
"Or a secure underground bunker."
"Dagda said it's called the Bunker," she acknowledges. "I can't believe you were able to build something like this underground without anyone knowing, but the way we got in makes it obvious this place is a secret."
"It is." I clear my throat and add. "They built it over one hundred years ago."
"It's too space age to be that old."
"Mick overhauled it before I joined the mob."
"Wait." She stops and stares up at me. "Is this where you got caught breaking in?"
"Yes," I say shortly.
I'm glad I'm in the mob now, but failure isn't something I ever enjoy revisiting.
"I can't believe you broke in here at all, but no wonder you got caught."
"Bad intel," is all I say.
When we reach my room, I place my palm on the biometric lock. The door swings open and áine steps inside without hesitation.
I try to see the sparse room through her eyes. There's an extra long single bed, a basic desk, chair and bookcase filled with books.
"That door leads to the bathroom." I point. "The other is my closet." One full side of which is dedicated to my personal armory.
áine sits down on the bed.
I go to sit on the chair, but she shakes her head and holds out her hand. "I want to talk."
And she knows I'll find it easier to use more words if we're touching. I haven't been able to figure out why, but I'm okay with it. I like it.
I sit down beside her, our thighs press together and take her hand, lacing our fingers. My cock jerks, my lizard brain focused on the things we could be doing in this bed instead of talking.
After several long seconds of silence, áine sighs loudly and crawls over me to straddle my lap, facing me, her beautiful eyes pensive. "I think you're rubbing off on me because it feels like I can't say what I need to without sitting like this."
"Works for me." Even if it means having a pike in my jockeys instead of a semi.
She licks her lips and then bites the bottom one. "Kenneth Shaughnessy waylaid me on the way out of the school. He said some stuff."
Tension tightens every single one of my muscles. "Dagda should have escorted you inside."
"Not possible. I didn't tell him I wanted to go in until we were in the dropoff line. He had to move the car."
And I can see her demanding my man to do just that. Dagda listened because I didn't give instructions to stay with her if she decided to go in.
It wasn't a scenario I considered. Damn it.
It's my job to consider all potential outcomes and risks and plan accordingly. "I miscalculated."
She shakes her head, her ponytail swishing. "I don't see how. It was a long shot for him to lay in wait for me there. How could he know I would go inside with Sadie this morning?"
"You worked for him long enough. He knows what a good mom you are." I should have realized she'd want to walk Sadie in this morning.
Horror fills her eyes. "Or he wasn't there for me."
Now that áine is married to me and he's been punished for his son's actions, I assumed Kenneth would know better than to go after my family. He knows what I'm capable of. He heard my promises during his sentencing.
My miscalculation could have resulted in either áine or Sadie being hurt.
Or the two younger girls. I grab my phone, sending a text to my men, adjusting the security protocols and sending guards to both schools.
I instruct McLaren to hack into the security feeds at the girls schools and make sure there are no surprises lurking in the hallways.
"What are you doing?" áine asks.
I tell her.
She sighs. "I'm not used to having security dog my every footstep and frankly, this whole thing feels like overkill."
"Not overkill. He was there."
"But he didn't do anything to me. He wanted to intimidate me into not telling you anything about what I might have heard or seen working for him. That's all."
I don't believe it was that simple and my silent regard tells her that.
She frowns. "Okay. He grabbed my wrist and he put his hand over my mouth so I wouldn't scream."
If he wasn't already marked for death, he would be now.
"You got away," I grit out.
She wouldn't be here if she hadn't gotten away.
"He wasn't trying to kidnap me. Just keep me quiet. He's the one that yelled though. I bit him." She sounds proud of herself.
She should be. My wife is fierce.
"He had no reason to kidnap you. As far as he is concerned, you don't know anything," I remind her and myself.
She wasn't in any real danger.
So, why do I feel this weird thing in my chest? Fear.
I don't feel fear. Facing pain or death has never scared me. Thinking áine could have been kidnapped by that bastard makes me break into a cold sweat.
"You're right." áine scoots back on my lap, her glare hot enough to singe.
"I don't know anything. You didn't bother to tell me about the last-minute change to Disneyland until after the plans were made.
You didn't bother to tell me those boys wouldn't be at Sadie's school today.
You didn't bother to tell me that Kenneth was punished by being temporarily demoted from his position. "