26. Chapter 26 #2
Another quiet laugh moved through his chest. “Aye. After a few years, we made her an equal partner in Xyst. She’d earned it, and by then she was one of us.
We still had no bloody idea who she really was.
By the time the truth came out, Luca was already involved in our lives, and Nik wasn’t far behind. Things got complicated fast.”
“And somehow all of that still ended with you taking a blood oath.”
“Something like that.” Lachlan was quiet for several steps. “That night came with another surprise. Luca and Nik knew more about the Byrnes name than Lucian and I ever had. We’d grown up believing Da was exactly what he seemed—a farmer who wanted a quiet life in Ireland.”
His voice took on a more serious edge.
“Turns out Da had been born into one of the most powerful Irish crime families. His brother, Jack Byrnes, runs the family out of Boston now.”
That took a moment to process. “So he’s your uncle?”
“Aye. A man neither of us even knew existed until recently.”
I started to wonder how anyone could keep something that enormous from their children, then stopped myself. Until yesterday, I’d believed Ciro was my father. Lachlan and I had both grown up surrounded by family secrets without knowing they were there.
“So, your parents never told you that you had an uncle or anything about the mafia ties?”
“No. They’d walked away from that world before raising us. The farm, the sheep, the quiet life Mam and Da gave us—it wasn’t an accident. They chose it because they wanted Lucian and me nowhere near the life they’d left behind.”
His steps remained steady beneath me, though several moments passed before he continued.
“Mam begged us not to leave when we decided to come to America. Da hardly said anything. I was young and thought he was simply letting us make our own choice.”
“You don’t think that now?”
“No.” He stepped carefully over a root. “I understand the look on his face a hell of a lot better now.”
“What do you mean?”
“That he’d spent our whole lives trying to keep us away from his world, and the two of us were walking straight out the door toward it without even knowing.”
The irony of it was not lost on me.
“He and Mam had escaped that life, and somehow Lucian and I crossed an ocean and ended up right back in it.”
“Have you met your uncle?”
“Aye. Not long after we learned the truth. Jack wants Lucian and me involved with the Byrnes family in Boston. He thinks that’s where the Byrnes blood belongs.”
“And what do you think?”
Lachlan was quiet for a few steps.
“I think sharing blood doesn’t give him the right to decide what I do with the rest of my life.”
The parallel between us was suddenly impossible to miss.
For twenty-five years, I had believed Ciro’s blood connected me to everything ugly about him.
Now I knew Papá’s ran through me instead, while Mamá’s Dravik blood carried another history I had barely begun to understand.
In the span of one day, the names and bloodlines I had used to define myself had all changed.
Lachlan had discovered something different but strangely similar. The farm boy he had been had carried a criminal inheritance his parents had deliberately hidden from him.
“I think I know exactly what you mean.”
“Figured you might.”
I rested my cheek against the curve of his neck again. “It’s strange learning where you came from after you’ve already become who you are.”
Lachlan was quiet for a moment.
“Blood can tell you where you came from, Mouse. Doesn’t mean anyone gets to decide where you go next.”
We continued in silence for a long time after that.
Lachlan carried me until the terrain eased into gentler slopes. When I told him I wanted to walk again, he put me down without argument.
Once I was steady, I slipped off the backpack and handed it to him. He retrieved both pistols, tucked them back into his waistband, then returned the pack to me.
The rest had helped my ankle, and we continued on foot as the afternoon wore on. Farther down, irrigation systems and sacks of fertilizer beneath a crude shelter indicated that people worked these plots regularly.
The sun had begun turning gold between the trees when metal struck wood somewhere ahead.
Lachlan stopped instantly.
His pistol was in his hand before the sound had finished carrying through the trees, his free hand catching me at the waist and shifting me behind him.
Another strike followed.
Someone was working nearby.
“Stay behind me.”
This time, I had no objection.
Rather than continue in the direction we were headed, Lachlan angled us away from the sound, keeping us beneath the thickest cover we could find.
We left the narrow path and moved between the cultivated rows, stepping carefully over roots and irrigation lines while the broad leaves around us helped hide our movement.
The metallic strikes grew fainter behind us. After several minutes, I could no longer hear them or any other sign of whoever was nearby.
Lachlan kept his pistol low but ready as we continued. I had just begun to think we’d managed to pass whoever was working without being noticed when he stopped so abruptly that I nearly walked into him.
A man stood less than fifteen feet ahead of us.
I hadn’t heard a footstep. Not even the rustle of a leaf. He’d come out of a narrow break between the taller plants where the ground dipped enough to conceal him until he was almost directly in front of us.
And he already had a worn gun in his hand, aimed directly at Lachlan. In the same instant, Lachlan brought his pistol up and leveled it at the man.
He looked to be in his fifties, lean and browned by years outside, with faded work trousers and rolled sleeves.
For several seconds, none of us moved.
I stood partly behind Lachlan, close enough to feel the tension running through his body as the two men assessed each other.
“Don’t move,” the man ordered in Spanish.
“He says not to move,” I murmured.
“Aye. Got the general idea.”
The stranger’s gaze stayed fixed on Lachlan. “Tell him to lower his gun,” he continued in Spanish.
“He wants you to lower your gun.”
“Tell him we don’t want trouble.”
I repeated Lachlan’s words in Spanish.
The man’s expression hardened. “Then why is he pointing a gun at me?”
I couldn’t fault his logic.
“He wants to know why you’re still pointing a gun at him if we don’t want trouble.”
Lachlan remained perfectly still, his pistol steady on the man.
“Tell him we’re trying to get away from armed men and we need a telephone. Nothing more.”
I did.
The stranger listened without lowering his weapon.
“If you want my help, tell him to lower his gun first.”
“He says if we want his help, you have to lower yours first.”
Lachlan glanced at me.
I knew exactly what he was weighing. We had spent the better part of two days running from men who wanted us dead, and now a stranger had a gun pointed at his chest—but we also needed help.
Slowly, Lachlan lowered his gun until the barrel pointed at the ground.
The man watched him closely.
Lachlan tucked the pistol back into his waistband and kept his hands where the man could see them.
“Tell him that’s as good a peace offering as he’s getting.”
I softened the message when I translated it. “We don’t want trouble. We only need to use a telephone, and then we’ll leave.”
The man kept his gun raised, although his stance eased slightly as he studied us.
“What are you doing on my land?”
“We’re trying to get away from armed men. We didn’t come here intending to cause any trouble.”
His gaze lingered on Lachlan’s bare chest before returning to me.
“Where did you come from?”
There was no believable lie that explained the blood on my clothes or Lachlan’s injuries.
“Finca La Cruzona,” I said.
The farmer’s gun rose slightly.
“Delgado’s finca?”
“Yes, and we just escaped.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied us. Then he looked at Lachlan and, to my surprise, switched to heavily accented English.
“You came all the way from Ciro Delgado’s finca through the backcountry?”
“Yes, Rafael Duarte helped us escape.” I squeezed my eyes shut and drew in a deep breath. “He died getting us out. But Ciro was killed too.”
The farmer went very still.
“Ciro Delgado is dead?”
“A woman who worked for him shot him. The compound split into factions, and Rafael used the chaos to get us out.”
His eyes narrowed as he processed the information.
“You know Rafael?” I asked.
“I know who he was.”
The farmer looked toward the mountain for a moment.
“What happened to you?” he asked, gesturing the gun at Lachlan.
“Delgado had me chained in his cellar because he wanted information and to use me as leverage against a powerful organization that’s interfering with his trafficking of women, among other things,” Lachlan said bluntly.
“And you?” He gestured toward me. “You work for Delgado?”
“No. I lived there, though.”