Chapter Fourteen
DARE
Cillian frowns. “Quinn? That’s an Irish name.”
I can’t help but be somewhat overjoyed.
Maybe she really isn't Maggie, and we’ve gotten it all wrong. In that case, why can’t I ask Isla out on a date or something?
“I told you, my father is first-generation Irish.”
“This is all bullshit,” Liam snarls, running his hand through his hair and mussing it. He doesn’t even seem to care that it’s out of place, which is kind of scary.
Liam, in general has been pretty out of it since this all happened, and I’m worried about him.
Cillian cuts his eyes at Liam, and I can tell he’s worried, too.
Liam seems to be on the verge of a breakdown with everything going on with his father and this Maggie/Isla situation.
Liam steps toward her. “You’ve already tried this ploy. Why don’t you try sleeping with Dare again?”
Isla doesn’t move, staring up at him defiantly.
This could get ugly, so I step between them. “You won’t hurt her.”
Liam scoffs. “I’m not going to hurt her, Dare, I just won’t coddle her like you do.”
“Coddle me?” Isla bursts out, her eyes flashing. “I’ve been thrown into this house, barely fed more than once a day, and you think I’m being coddled?”
“Oh, please. You’ve spent your time lounging about and sleeping with Dare—”
“I’d think you were jealous, the way you keep bringing it up.”
“Aye, well, I’d think you were a—”
I punch Liam in the arm. “Hey! No name-calling,” I warn, and he gives me a murderous glare, but I don’t back down. “You need to go out there and get some fucking air.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he barks, but he paces around in a circle, clearly affected.
“I don’t know how to prove to you that my name isn’t Maggie Sullivan if you won’t take any of the very legal identification I have in my purse,” Isla points out.
Cillian turns to her. “Why did you lie about your name if you’re not Maggie?”
Isla sighs. “Because I wasn’t exactly supposed to be at that gala.”
I watch as Liam narrows his eyes, panic rising in my throat. I put a hand on his chest as he advances on Isla. Or Maggie. Or whoever she is.
At this point, it doesn’t matter. I’m crazy about her either way.
But it’s not like I can tell Liam that.
Liam doesn’t advance further, but he exhales out of his nostrils. “You’re still lying to us. That doesn’t make any sense. If you are telling the truth, then tell us. Who invited you?”
She opens her mouth to speak and then closes her mouth. “I won’t reveal that. I don’t want you going after them, either.”
“They won’t be in any danger,” I say, and she scoffs.
“And I’m supposed to trust that? Look at him!” She gestures to Liam, wary as he continues to pace around. “He’s like a bull in a china shop.”
“What’s your birthday?” Cillian asks. “Quick, so you don’t have time to make one up.”
“March twenty-eighth.”
“Maggie was born in July,” I murmur, and Liam laughs wildly, running both hands through his hair this time.
“Different birthdays? Are you two kidding me? You’re seriously believing her? If you’d stop thinking with your dick for five minutes—”
Cillian stands up straight, puffing out his chest. “Are you accusing me of thinking with my dick, Liam?”
Liam deflates. “No. No, but just a birthday and her telling us a fake Irish name doesn’t make her not our target.”
Cillian brings out his phone, showing Isla the picture once more. “You’re saying this picture isn’t of you?”
She shakes her head. “No. No, in fact, she looks a little younger than me. I’ll be honest, we do look alike, but it’s just the way our eyes are set. Her mouth is fuller, her cheeks chubbier. No starts of crow’s feet around her eyes.”
“So what? It’s an old picture,” Liam barks.
“And she had a surgery.” Cillian points at the woman we kidnapped, whoever she is, and I realize that he’s starting to believe her.
I think I am, too, even though I thought at first it was just wishful thinking.
Isla pushes up her bangs, revealing her high forehead. “Look. I have a chickenpox scar on my forehead. That’s why I always wear bangs.”
Liam squints. “It’s small, I wouldn’t be able to see it in the photo.”
Isla groans. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. I don’t know how else to prove it to you. Let me show you the scar.”
“Don’t bother,” Liam snarls. “Dare’s already seen it, I suppose.”
Isla rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Liam.
I look back and forth between the two, seeing the chemistry between them, despite their arguing.
I shake my head. “Maybe she's really not Maggie. Maybe we've got it all wrong."
Cillian nods. “Boss, we have to be prepared for the possibility that she's telling the truth."
“What does it matter if she is? She knows where my childhood home is. She knows our names. Our faces. We can’t let her go."
I stare at my friend, concerned. “Liam—”
“In fact, I should kill her right now." He stalks toward Isla, and my heart leaps into my throat.
Liam doesn't hesitate when he kills. He’s not like Cillian, who plans it out, or me, who will refuse to kill. I might have left a few people bad enough that they eventually passed, but all the people who met the sharper end of my knife were alive when I left them.
Liam, though? When he decides, he takes action.
I take a step forward, but he is too quick, reaching her before I can step in.
Isla flinches, and Liam does the unthinkable.
He hesitates.
I freeze, staring at him.
He’s never once in his life hesitated. When he sets his mind on something, he goes for it.
Liam stares down at her for a long moment before whirling around, bursting open the front door and stalking outside.
I wince and look over at Isla. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She looks up at me with a small smile. “I think I got under his skin.”
“You’re something else, a ghrá.”
“Don’t I know it.”
God, I want to kiss her, and Cillian is looking between us like we need to get a room, but I don’t care. I’m fascinated by her, and I want to prove that she’s not Maggie almost as much as she does.
Because the way I feel about her doesn’t seem to be going away.
I glance at Cillian, and he nods, telling me without telling me that he’ll watch her, be sure she doesn’t escape. As much as I want her to be free, now would be really bad timing.
I walk outside to talk to Liam, feeling like he needs a sounding board.
“Hey, boss. Are you good?”
“Not even a little.”
“What are we going to do?”
Liam groans, banging his hand down on the hood of his SUV. “I don’t fucking know, Dare.”
Panic rushes through me. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know. We can’t let her go. We can’t kill her. We’re stuck.”
“We can’t keep her prisoner forever.”
He sighs and runs both hands through his hair, clearly stressed. “We can’t let her go! Think of all she knows.”
“She doesn’t know much, Liam. Just our names, which anyone could find on the internet.”
“Aye, and she can go to the cops and tell them we took her. Sure, I’ve got a few guys on the payroll but with a story like that, they’ll have to take us in. We’ll be facing years in prison, Dare, and you want me to just let her go?”
“It’s not about what I want.”
“Then what is it about, Dare?”
“Doing the right thing, Liam. Fuck, we do bad things all the time. Wrong things, nasty things. But we do it because it’s either them or us, and we do it to those who can handle it.
Those who punch just as hard as we do. This is not the same.
This is a line we promised we’d never cross, and we fucking jumped right over the damn thing. ”
“But—”
“No, man. No buts. None of us wanted this. We knew it was wrong, but we did it anyway. I know that you’re loyal to your father, but this? A woman? Worse. An innocent woman. A victim. Where is the fucking line now? Are we just erasing it altogether?”
Liam’s throat works. “That’s the thing, Dare. I don’t know.”
He sounds so lost that it makes my heart ache.
I walk over to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
Liam, for once, doesn’t pull away.
“Things are gonna be okay, boss. We’ll figure it out.”
“If she’s not Maggie Sullivan, then we kidnapped an innocent girl... Fuck.”
“There is only one thing we can do now to make this right.”
“Just give me a few minutes.”
“Liam—”
“I said give me a few minutes.” His voice is an order now, not just a suggestion, and I know better than to disobey him when he’s like this.
I hold up my hands. “All right, boss. I’m going back in. Take all the time you need.”
As I walk back into the house, I wonder just what in the name of God is going through his head right now.