14. Ronan
Ronan
“So let me get this straight.” Lorcan tips his chair onto its back legs—a habit that drove Ma insane when we were kids and still does. “You drove to a cult compound for a routine financial review, watched them drag a girl to a whipping post, and your solution was to marry her on the spot.”
“That’s the short version, yeah.”
“In a dirt yard.”
“Correct.”
“Officiated by a cult leader.”
“Also correct.”
He rocks forward, all four chair legs hitting the hardwood of Cillian’s office with a sharp crack. “And people call me the impulsive one.”
Declan, arms folded against the far wall, snorts. “He’s got you there.”
“Like you have a leg to stand on.” I spin my pen between my fingers. “Either of you,” I say to Cillian, before he can chime in.
Cillian was given his wife to settle a gambling debt. Declan proposed to his in a laundromat at three in the morning to keep her from testifying against him.
“You’re all throwing stones from very fragile glass houses.”
Lorcan grins. “Fair point. But mine’s going to be the best story. Just wait.”
“God help us,” Declan mutters.
Cillian has been quiet through the exchange, seated behind his desk, fingers laced together and resting on the surface. He does this—absorbs, calculates, waits until the noise burns itself out before he speaks. His eyes move from Lorcan to Declan to me.
“You like her,” he says. Not a question.
“I married her.”
“That’s not what I said.”
I hold his gaze. My eldest brother reads people the way I read financial statements—line by line, looking for discrepancies. There’s no point in lying.
“I more than like her.” The pen stills between my fingers. “When she’s not with me, I’m counting the minutes until we’re together. I’ve never had that with anyone. I didn’t think I was built for it.”
Lorcan’s grin eases into genuine warmth. “She is pretty cool. And she agreed I was handsome, which obviously makes her a woman of superior taste and intellect.”
“She was being polite,” Declan snorts. “But I like her too. She’s got backbone and integrity.”
“She does appear genuine,” Cillian adds. “No agenda, no calculation. Makes Ma’s parade of senators’ daughters and society heiresses look like piranhas.”
“They are piranhas,” Lorcan says.
I didn’t realize until now how much I needed their acceptance. The tension I’ve been carrying loosens a fraction.
“Speaking of the Children of Light Enclave.” Cillian’s expression shifts, and every brother in the room registers the change. He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a folder. “We have a problem.”
He spreads three pages across the desk. I recognize intelligence reports—typed summaries from our network of informants, the people embedded in law enforcement, politics, and the criminal underground who funnel information to us in exchange for protection or payment.
“Finn’s been hearing rumors for the past six weeks,” Cillian says. “Credible sources—two independent, one corroborated by his contacts in the trafficking task force.”
Trafficking. The word lands on the desk alongside the intelligence reports, and no one breathes.
“Clive Buford,” Cillian continues, his voice monotone, “is believed to be dealing in the flesh trade. More specifically, the buying and selling of women, some may even be from his own Enclave. The intel suggests he’s been running a side operation for years—identifying members who won’t be missed, packaging them as ‘transfers to sister communities,’ and moving them through a pipeline connected to outside buyers. ”
I don’t move. I don’t blink.
“How long?” My voice comes out level. It shouldn’t. “How long has this been going on?”
Cillian glances at the reports. “Best estimate—five to seven years. Possibly longer.”
I’ve been reviewing the Enclave’s financial books quarterly for the past four years. Sixteen visits. Sixteen times I sat across a desk from Buford, shook his hand, nodded at his neatly kept ledgers, and drove away satisfied that the arrangement was clean and profitable.
My fingers dig into the arms of the chair until the leather groans. Bile climbs my throat. I swallowed handshakes from a man who was selling women while I laundered his books.
“The money wouldn’t show in the agricultural ledgers.” I force my brain into analytical mode. “He’d keep a separate set. Off-ledger. Cash transactions, probably—the buyers would want anonymity.”
“The question is,” Cillian says, “what do we do about it?”
“First we need proof,” I say, thinking aloud. “And if we get it, the last thing we want is a human trafficking ring operating on O’Rourke land.”
Cillian nods in agreement.
“The Iron Guardians,” Lorcan says.
All heads turn to him.
Declan raises a brow. “The motorcycle club?”
Lorcan straightens. “They specialize in trafficking rescues and rehabilitation. Ex-military leadership. They’ve dismantled three rings in the Midwest in the past two years. I know a couple of their members. Viper’s the club president. We’ve crossed paths a few times. They’re solid.”
“If the trafficking is confirmed,” Cillian says. “But I want evidence—clear and undeniable—before we move. No premature action that gives Buford a chance to scatter.”
“I’ll reach out to Viper,” Lorcan says. “Set up a meeting.”
“If the Iron Guardians are up for it, we hand the dismantling over to them.” Cillian meets each of our eyes in turn. “They have the expertise. Lorcan, let them know we can help by providing resources, intelligence, and backup, but the rescue operation runs through them.”
I think about Buford and how he let Prudence go with only a slight resistance. He didn’t have to. I was physically outnumbered, and my Glock was in the glove box of my Audi.
The man’s a sleazy con artist—even sleazier than I thought. There are a number of things he could have said and done in the name of protecting one of his so-called Flock.
Will he make an attempt to get her back?
“I want security on Prudence increased,” I say. “Starting today.”
“Done,” Cillian confirms. “Coordinate with Finn.”
The meeting wraps. Lorcan claps my shoulder on his way out—his version of solidarity. Declan nods and takes off. Cillian stays behind his desk.
“Ronan.”
I stop.
“You couldn’t have known.”
I blow out a long, slow breath. “I reviewed those books hundreds of times over the years.”
“Trafficking revenue wouldn’t be in the agricultural ledgers. You said it yourself. He kept it buried.”
“I sat across from that man and shook his hand while women were being sold.”
Cillian holds my gaze with a steadiness that I need more than I want to admit. “Then we make it right.”
I nod once and leave.
In the hallway, I pull out my phone. One missed FaceTime from Prudence, timestamped twenty minutes ago.
I stare at her name on the screen.
She FaceTimed me four times yesterday. She called to show me a bird on the balcony railing. She called to ask if peanut butter was supposed to be sticky. She called to read me a passage from a book Nora recommended. She called a fourth time, she said, just to see my face.
My hand tightens around the phone until the case creaks.
That fucker’s not getting her back. I don’t care what resources I burn, what alliances I leverage, what lines I cross.
She’s mine. And I protect what’s mine.
I head for the car, already composing a text to Finn about tripling Prudence’s security detail.