Swallowing, I nodded then hurried away.
I had no idea where Finn was, and I didn’t care either. I heard furniture clattering at one side of the house, and though it made me jump, I was glad everyone’s attention was elsewhere.
When I was outside, I saw John standing by the garage, huddled in a coat as he smoked and checked his cellphone.
“I need to go back to the city, John,” I called out the second I registered the glint of the glowing tip of his cig.
He saw me, and his eyes widened. “Where’s your coat?”
I started shivering, just as Jake did.
God, I’d left all our stuff inside!
What the hell was I doing?
Maybe I really was losing my damn mind.
John darted into action, though, and he dragged open the door to the Range Rover, demanding, “Get inside, Aoife. You’ll drop from exposure in a minute.”
When I leaped into the back and settled Jake in his car seat, I wasn’t too dumbfounded to realize that he’d shot off a couple of text messages in that time.
How did I know?
Finn appeared at the doorway, and he stood there, watching me watch him as John, permission granted, climbed behind the wheel and drove us home.
With each yard that separated us, I felt the agonizing pain as if our arms were tied together and they were being pulled from the sockets as the distance grew.
But away from him, away from that house, I took the first deep breath since I’d jumped behind the wheel earlier and had destroyed something Lena loved and held dear.
As I leaned back, I processed the conversation I’d just had with my sisters-in-law, and while they’d all said something that had made sense, it was Aela’s words that resonated the most with me.
Is it worth pushing for a reaction you won’t be able to control?
Forty
Aidan Jr
“What’s going on with them?” Brennan rasped as Finn jumped out of his chair and took off after his cell buzzed and he read the message.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
I knew it wasn’t a medical emergency because he’d have shouted an explanation, but Eoghan got to his feet and headed toward the same doorway Finn had used to leave the room.
I monitored my youngest brother’s movements, saw him drift over to the windows behind me after a couple seconds, and I let him be my eyes and ears until he finally said, “Aoife left without him.”
My brow puckered. “She just took off?”
“She did,” Eoghan confirmed before he demanded, “Kid? What do you know?”
“Why would Conor know?”
I didn’t mean to sound peeved, but Finn was my best fucking friend. If anyone should know what was going on with him, it was me.
“Keep your panties on,” Eoghan sniped. “Boy Wonder over there has all our phones bugged.”
“That’s creepy as fuck,” Brennan growled.
Declan snapped, “Since when?”
“Christmas.” Conor frowned, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “I’m not listening in because I get a sick kick out of it. I was told to do it, and like a good fucking soldier, I obeyed.”
Studying him, wondering when the last time he’d slept was, I retorted, “You can’t possibly be listening in on all our conversations.”
“I have a program that scans for keywords.”
“That doesn’t sound like it could go wrong at all,” Brennan mocked.
Yawning, Conor flipped him the bird but agreed, “I have a system. It’s working so far.”
“Because of the Sparrows?” I questioned. “He thinks we can’t be trusted?”
“More that the people around us can’t.”
“His daughters-in-law?” Brennan demanded.
I ignored that to ask, “How did you know about this, Eoghan?”
“I did a sweep of my rooms. Found a bug, then, when I realized the only person who’d come by to visit was Conor—”
“Conor came to visit?” I asked suspiciously.
“Hey! It’s not that fucking weird,” Kid grumbled.
Ignoring him, Eoghan retorted, “Exactly. It was weird. Anyway, his visit prompted me to look deeper, and I found spyware on my phone.”
“And you didn’t think to tell us?” I retorted, incensed.
“No, I didn’t,” Eoghan groused. “What use would there be in you knowing? Conor keeps getting hacked. He had to up his game at some point. I just thought it was him trying to recover lost ground.”
“I take offense at that.”
“So you should. Slow poke.” Eoghan’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “Plus, I thought it’d be funny, you guys finding out on your own, but, apparently, I’m the only one who does security checks like that.”
Brennan grunted. “I’ll start scanning my place every week.”
“Same,” Dec concurred with a glower.
“I don’t always use bugs.” Kid’s sniff was disparaging, as was the eye roll he aimed at no one in particular.
“No, you use spyware too,” I drawled.
“Is that a threat?” Brennan rumbled, his eyes narrowing on Kid.
Deciding to save Conor’s neck from being broken by Brennan, I asked, “He’s trying to weed out more Sparrows, Kid?”
“It’s why I agreed to do it.” Conor shrugged. “But who knows why Da does what he does?”
I heard footsteps down the hall and watched Finn, pale and tense, head back in.
“Everything okay, brother?” I asked him quietly.
“Nothing’s fucking okay,” he snapped, and he stunned me by raising his hands to his head and gripping his hair in his fists. The room throbbed with his wrath before he snarled, “No more secrets. No more. I can’t deal with any fucking more.”
Conor leaped to his feet, and just when Finn looked like he was going to let loose and punch the wall, Kid grabbed his shoulders and rasped, “Finn, I’ll explain. Just leave it to me, okay?” He shook him when he didn’t answer. “We’ll get those out in the open.”
As he shoved his forehead up against Finn’s, I knew I wasn’t the only one watching on, wondering what the fuck was happening.
Finn was supposed to tell me what had gone down with Aoife, but shit had gotten in the way and I’d forgotten. Was this what that was about? Or was Aoife’s miscarriage the problem?
Ashamed of myself for forgetting, my hands tightened around the armrests of the chair I liked to think of as Da’s throne, and I ordered, “Conor, what are you going to explain?”
Finn muttered something under his breath, but then slowly pulled back.
Conor’s hand tightened around his shoulder. “Aoife’s mom died in a hit and run.”
I cast Finn a confused look. “This isn’t news to any of us.”
“Ma was the one driving the car that knocked her over.”
Eoghan spat, “What?”
“No fucking way,” Brennan griped.
“You can’t be serious,” Declan hissed.
“It’s true,” Finn mumbled. “I found out at the same time as I learned Senior was my father.”