“Aoife—” The trouble was, where to start?
Had Aoife been targeted by the ECD because of her relationship to the current president?
“What about her?”
“I’ve just learned something about Michelle Keegan’s death.”
“Give me five minutes and I’ll call you back.”
He didn’t wait for an affirmative response from me, just disconnected. I knew Davidson would phone. Though he’d tossed Aoife aside in a bid to hit the White House, the man had courted disaster by trying to have a relationship with her period.
He cared.
His care just wasn’t enough, wasn’t worthy of my wife.
A different number phoned me but it was exactly five minutes after Davidson had ended our last call.
“I can speak with more ease now,” he said by way of a greeting. “What do you know about Ellie’s death?”
My brows rose.
Ellie?
“The ECD targeted her. Aoife was also a target. But you knew that already, didn’t you? You’re the reason she had guards.” I tossed that out like it was a lure, and he took the bait.
A hissed breath sounded down the line. “Are you in a private area?”
“Yes. No one can eavesdrop. Do you know why she was targeted?”
“I do.”
The flat answer had me narrowing my eyes. “And you’re not going to tell me?” When I received silence as a reply, I demanded, “Is the threat still active? Is it tied to the more recent threats to her safety?”
Davidson sighed. “It’s complicated.” I was about to call him out on his bullshit, but he said, “The ECD are a complex cell. When Ellie was killed, it triggered a power struggle. For a time, the leader lost power until he consolidated his position.”
“What happened during the power struggle?”
“Someone decided to ensure that my rise to the top went unheeded.”
“So it was because of her ties to you?”
“I loved Michelle, O’Grady. I’d have—” He fell quiet, then he repeated, “I loved her.”
I felt the truth in his words, but it didn’t stop me from pointing out, “She died because of you.”
“She did,” he spat bitterly, “and that was the reason I left her in the first place, to keep her safe. I sacrificed a lifetime with her for nothing. She’d have died either way.”
My brow furrowed. “Explain.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“You sure as hell do. I have to tell Aoife this. I have to share the truth with her. I’m not going to withhold this from her.”
“What good will it do to tell her?” Davidson countered.
For four years, I’d lied to her about her mother’s death.
I could feel the sword of Damocles hovering above my head with that one secret alone, never mind this.
For a second, I stared blankly ahead, and as I did, I was taken back in time.
Crouched on the floor like a rodent, shoulders hunched, fear of exposure making my stomach churn as I wondered where I’d spend the night, where I’d get my next meal—
It was then I knew I’d prefer to be back on the streets, to be without a home, to be without my family, rather than keep another lie from my wife.
She deserved so much fucking more from me than what I’d given her. I’d chosen family ties over her, a family that had taken me in when I was at my lowest, who’d given me a future—even if that was splattered with blood. They’d been my foundation, and that was why I’d sided with them. But Aoife was my heart. My soul—
“O’Grady?”
I heard the president barking in my ear, and it brought me back to the moment.
No longer was I sitting in a dirty alley that reeked of desperation, where the stench of trash was prevalent. I was in my office, the air redolent with some lavender and oat spray that Aoife insisted would make me calmer at work.
Blinking at the thought, I had to smile.
The only thing that would make me calmer at work was if they pumped Valium through the air conditioning.
But that was Aoife. Always thinking of me...and here I was, continually letting her down.
“Yeah?” I rasped when Davidson growled my name again.
“You don’t have to tell her.”
“I do.”
I really did.
I had to tell her everything.
And rather than scaring the shit out of me, the notion came with relief. Like a bolder had been removed from between my shoulders. Like the truth was a key to a door that had been locked between Aoife and me for years.
“You don’t. What good will it do, her knowing that her mother was killed for political gain?”
“Because she has a right to understand the puzzle pieces of her past that have brought her to this point.” I sucked in a breath, letting the rightness in my words resonate.
I needed to go home.
Now.
I got to my feet and told him, “If you ever want a relationship with your daughter—”
His answer was immediate. “I do. I want nothing more.”
“Nothing more? And you dumped her like she was nothing?”
A snarl sounded down the line, and I jolted in surprise because unless Davidson had a fucking lion in the Oval Office with him, he’d made that sound. “You think I wanted that? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that you should look at your own people if you want to understand why I made the choices I did.”
“The hell are you talking about?” I demanded, brow puckered with complete confusion.
“My family sold its soul to the O’Donnellys a long time ago, O’Grady. I got here with their help too. It was a bipartisan effort,” he mocked. “The second she started associating with you was the second I had to back away because I couldn’t raise attention to the ties between us.
"What the Five Points want, they fucking get. My family owed them a president, and they got one. Doesn’t mean they have to like what I am.”
“You’re telling me the Five Points helped you get into office?” I rumbled.
“That’s what I’m telling you.” He let out a scornful laugh. “I’m not surprised Aidan Sr. doesn’t boast about having a president in his pocket though. I’m not like my father. I’m not a puppet that’ll dance to the Irish Mob’s tune—”
A faint voice sounded in the background. “Sir? The meeting with the prime minister is about to start.”
Davidson grunted under his breath. “I have to go. Just remember that everything comes at a cost. Even the truth.”
When he cut the call, with those words echoing in my ears, my plans changed. I needed more answers before I returned home so I phoned Aidan Jr.
“You hear about Michael?” I asked by way of a greeting. “Or did Conor only send the livestream to me?”
“Michael? Ma’s guard?”
That meant he was in the dark. I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yeah.”
“What’s Kid done now?”
“What hasn’t he done?” I snarked. “I told you to watch him.”
“Watch him? Who the fuck can watch the watcher? It's as impossible as I said it would be."