Chapter 30
LIAM
My blood is a volcano of lava and ash as I beeline for Patrick’s office, my mind racing with questions and no fucking answers.
This Brian cunt. What’s his fucking angle?
Why did he yank Rowan from her life, from me?
And what does that have to do with this so-called dossier of information.
As a gard, the fact he’s collecting intel on us is interesting.
It tells me he’s too low down the command chain to realize anything he collects will be buried by the higher-ups.
Which also tells me he isn’t acting on orders.
He’s had his dick in my woman. When I catch up to him, he’ll regret all his life choices, but especially that one.
I mentally make a list of what I know.
I have a first name and his occupation. But the most valuable piece of information she gave me?
They were in school at the same time. Which means there’s a paper trail.
School records, social media accounts, maybe a yearbook or newspaper clippings.
And if the public records don’t give me what I want, there are always the private ones.
Downstairs, I almost trip over the dog who’s sprawled out in the hallway. “Fuck’s sake,” I mutter.
Titan growls as though to say, “It’s your fault, dickhead.”
That she’s right is neither here nor there.
I step over her and nudge open Patrick’s office door. He’s at his desk, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, glasses perched on the end of his nose. He glances up when I enter.
“Need a favor.” I close the door behind me.
He takes off his glasses and puts them down then leans back, giving me his full attention. “What kind?”
“The kind that needs Darragh’s particular skill set.” Our youngest brother might be a pain in my hole most days, but when it comes to digital forensics and making databases cough up information protected by privacy laws, he’s a fucking artist.
Patrick’s eyebrows lift. “This about your woman?”
I don’t correct him. Everyone in this house knows Rowan is my woman even if I haven’t come right out and admitted it. “Yeah.”
I reel off what Rowan shared, including this little pissant’s attempts to gather intel. Patrick listens, throwing in the odd “hmm” and a nod or two but, notably, he doesn’t flinch. Then again, my brother is great at poker.
“And?”
I frown. “What do you mean ‘and’?”
“What else is chapping your arse?”
Having a brother who has an uncanny and inconvenient way of reading my mind is fucking inconvenient.
“She refused to give me his surname. Told me to leave it. That she can handle him. Even now, she’s still protecting this guy over spilling every fucking bean. She’s putting him first.” Something hot and ugly and violent twists in my gut.
“You haven’t exactly made it easy for her to talk to you.”
I grind my teeth. “Whose fucking side are you on?”
“Yours. But I know you, brother. You’ve enjoyed keeping her as your little prisoner. Keeping her just the right side of scared. You’ve loved the control. Admit it.”
I’m admitting nothing. “Fuck you. You’re no different. You forced Sorcha to marry you without telling her why. That’s far worse than what I’ve done to Rowan.”
He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a competition.”
It sort of is, though. Always has been. This is how the Mahoneys roll.
“Besides, you don’t need Darragh to dig for shit.”
“Why?”
“Because I already did.” He reaches into his desk drawer. “And before you start throwing shapes, I haven’t been keeping this from you for funsies. I wanted to do a little more digging before sharing, but now that Rowan’s given you something.”
He tosses a blue folder across the desk. A pulse of electricity shoots through my chest. I stab it with a finger and draw it toward me.
Inside is a single sheet of paper and a picture of a nondescript brown-haired guy with eyes that are too close together and a nose the Romans would’ve been proud of.
I scan the paper. On it is everything I planned to have Darragh pull.
Full name, address, place of work, date of birth, inside fucking leg measurement plus several other pieces of information that may or may not be useful.
“How did you know?” There’s a bite to my voice, and beneath my skin, my blood’s simmering.
Rowan’s my girl. It’s my fucking responsibility to find out what’s going on.
Yet here’s my elder brother, always in fucking control—God, I hate how he keeps a cool head even in the middle of chaos—sitting there chill as you fucking like, presenting me with the intel I need to find out what really happened to my girl.
“Sorcha.”
It’s not an explanation, but it’s enough. I grind my teeth. “Your wife is getting above her fucking station. If she found out something about Rowan then she should’ve told me, not you.”
Patrick slowly rises to his feet, walks around the desk. Grabs me by the throat and lifts me right out of the chair. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
My blood, on a simmer until now, explodes in a fiery burst of rage and frustration and fucking injustice of it all.
I throw an uppercut. He ducks out of my way, and I jerk myself free.
“She the boss around here now?” I sneer, fully aware I’m taunting the monster.
Know what? I don’t fucking care. A fight is what I need to take the edge off. “You been demoted?”
Patrick launches. Slams into me. I hit the wall. Winded, I land a weak punch. He lands a much harder one. My lip splits, blood flooding onto my tongue. I throw another uppercut. His head snaps back with a crack.
“Christ.” Darragh bursts into the room and leaps in between us, a hand on each chest, holding us apart. “Ladies, please, what the actual fuck?”
“Move, Darragh,” I growl.
“Yeah, move.” Patrick huffs. “’Bout time he got put on his hole.”
I lock eyes with my eldest brother, a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue. Until I catch the gleam in his eye.
He laughs. I laugh. Darragh rolls his eyes. “It’s like living with toddlers.”
“Always been the same between me and him.” Patrick returns to his seat on the other side of his desk, rubbing the back of his neck. “Almost took my fucking head off.”
“Next time.” I smirk, reaching for the folder and whacking Darragh in the face with it.
“What was that for?”
“For cutting me out.”
His eyes shift to Patrick who’s opened his laptop and begun work as though the entire argument was a figment of my imagination. “You told him, then?”
Patrick doesn’t even look up from the computer. “He basically got there on his own save a few minor details.”
I snort to hide the sting that he went behind my back. In his position, I’d probably have done the same. Still fucking smarts though. “No thanks to either of you.”
This time he does look up, gaze sharper than my knives. “What’s your move?”
“Oh, I’m allowed out of the fucking playpen.”
He rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ Almighty.”
Something he said earlier clicks into place. “Wait. Hang on. You said Sorcha told you about Brian. How did she know?”
“She didn’t. She caught Rowan with a burner phone. Sorcha brought it to me. I got the number from it and went from there.”
“When was this?”
His eyes flick up and to the left. “Monday.”
Three days ago. Fucking Sorcha. The day she insisted on talking to Rowan she knew about the burner and didn’t tell me.
Then again, now I’m calmer, I can’t blame her for sharing with Patrick and not me.
He’s her priority. Doesn’t mean I won’t take a verbal swipe at her next time our path’s cross and remind her we’re all family now.
I open the folder again. Take out the photo.
Stare at it, committing it to memory. This guy stole my woman from me, and I’m going to find out why.
“So,” Patrick prompts. “What’s the plan?”
I tap the address on the sheet. “Surveillance. I want eyes on this prick twenty-four seven. Where he goes, who he meets, what he eats for fucking breakfast.” I turn to Darragh. “Can you get a phone tap set up?”
“Give me a challenge at least.” He grins then faces Patrick.
“While we’re talking about Murray, I’m working on scrubbing his private cloud as we discussed.
Man’s got an encrypted partition, which, if he wasn’t Garda and clearly an utter piece of shit human, I’d be impressed.
I’m running a script on it now. Should have it cracked and wiped before the day is out. ”
“When I’m ready, I’ll pay him a visit.” I stare at the photograph again.
Probably thinks he’s so clever, so protected hiding behind law enforcement.
“What I still can’t fathom is what he got out of this?
Why stage a murder to frighten a woman then offer to save her by putting her into witness protection? ”
“I doubt it’s legit.” Patrick pushes his glasses up his nose. “And you don’t know for certain that the murder she tells you she saw is fake.”
“No, but my gut tells me that it is, and now I have a date, it won’t take long to prove or disprove it. For now, Rowan believes it’s real, that she’s part of some police protection unit.” I rub my chin.
“Maybe he’s in love with her.”
Every possessive instinct in me rears up, vicious and unyielding. I clench my jaw until it aches, glaring at Darragh. “Then he’s about to learn a painful lesson in letting go.”
“You sure about this?” Patrick asks. “Going after a gard, one who could have connections we’re not aware of yet. Could get messy.”
“Since when have we given a shit about messy?” I slot the photo into the folder and tuck it under my arm. “She’s been hiding for five years because of this cunt. Living in fear, looking over her shoulder, pretending to be someone she’s not. That’s about to end.”
“Alright.” Patrick nods once, decisive. “I’ll put a couple of our best lieutenants on it. Rotating shifts. And Liam.” He waits until I look at him. “When you do confront him, try not to kill him before you get answers.”
I huff a laugh. “No fucking promises.”
“Liam.” There’s a warning in his voice now. “We do this smart. Controlled. Patient. You go in rage blind, and you might spook him into doing something stupid.”
I nod. “Surveillance first. Let’s see what crawls out of the woodwork.”