“Aye, of course,” I say. I don’t have to give it a second thought. When he holds me to his chest, kisses my forehead, entwines his fingers with mine, he shows me how very much I mean to him.
“And men want to be respected,” Maeve says. “It’s how we show them we love them, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” Caitlin says. “We let them take care of us. Now, granted, I don’t have much experience beyond the walls of our home, and I know it might look very different to a woman not wed to one of these cavemen.”
Maeve laughs out loud. “Don’t I know it.”
“But I know it pleases Keenan very much to take care of me. He listens and respects me as well, but from the very beginning, he knew I’d support him as leader of the Clan.” She pauses, allowing her words to have emphasis. “No matter what that meant.”
No matter what.
I mull over her words. We talk on, drink our tea, and finally cave and make some instant noodles in the little cups, unanimously agreeing we’d give anything for some of the staff’s good food. We distract one another with talk, knowing the ones we love still fight battles outside this door.
When I grow quiet, Maeve reaches a hand to me and squeezes my leg. “He’s a strong lad, isn’t he?” she says. “Never knew a boy like him in his youth. Keenan talked nonstop about his potential as a member of the Clan. He can handle himself and will, lass. Mark my words. He’s a woman to come home to now. And that will make all the difference.
It’s good to be here like this, it’s good to be back home with them. Even in the dark, cool room with just my two friends, talking about their men and their children, their lives and mine, my heart is filled to overflowing.
Sometimes you need to lose nearly everything to appreciate the goodness you already have.
Chapter 22
Lachlan
I leave Fiona with reluctance, but know she’s under good protection. No one will hurt her in the fortress of our bunker. She’s much safer there while I do what has to be done.
I return to the McCarthy mansion and go straight to the interrogation room. Tully and Cormac have retrieved our entire guard. Keenan pulls up feed on his phone and mulls it over.
“No one at the gate now, but it’s been locked to anyone returning home until further notice.”
It’s unsettling that the fortress we’ve built’s been compromised.
“We’ll sort this out,” Boner says, uncharacteristically sober as he looks around the room. “We bloody well will.”
Cormac’s taken over interrogation. The fiercest of our number, he knows how to twist the truth out of a man when he needs to.
“Who do you work for?” Cormac asks one of the guards, who looks suitably ashamed as he stares at Cormac.
“No one, sir, we work for the McCarthy family and you know—”
Cormac strikes him so hard and fast, the man’s head snaps back and blood spurts from his nose. “No more lies. You pulled a gun on Lachlan when he asked you to show your ink. Who do you fucking work for?”
The man doesn’t give in easily, but Cormac doesn’t either. When our prisoner hangs his head, both eyes swollen shut and his body sagging from the beating he’s taken, he finally confesses.
“Jay Byrne, Boston,” he says, crying like a baby now. We all watch, prepared for Cormac to put him out of his misery when he’s given his answers. “Said to hurt the women. Paid us to infiltrate your guard.”
Not a fucking rival, then, but a sick old man with a vendetta against us.
“How did you fucking infiltrate?” Carson asks.
“Took them over, one by one,” the man says. “In their sleep. Took their clothes and identities. We were matched by description, facial recognition, and thumbprints modified.”
I cringe to hear what these men were put through.
“Is our guard alive?”
He shakes his head. “All killed.”
Bloody hell.
Cormac interrogates him until it’s clear he’s got very little left to offer. Keenan nods. Cormac pulls the trigger. Without question or flinching, Boner drags the body out of the room.
We move on to the next.
“Were you in Boston?” I ask another, but he isn’t as complacent as the last. He spits at me. Spittle hits my cheek and my stomach rolls, but I swipe my face clean and look back at him. I don’t strike him, though I want to, but stare him straight in the eyes. “Were you hired as well?”
He opens his mouth to speak, when shouting sounds behind me. I jerk my head around to the interrogation room being jerked open. I can’t see who it is, I can’t stop what they’re doing, but the next thing I know there’s a deafening shout, something strikes me, and I fall to the floor. I’ve been hit in the chest.
Someone’s on me, hitting me about the head, but I shove them off and strike back, when we roll, my head hits the floor, and the world dims.
Bright lights. Beeps. And so much fucking pain.
I try to open my eyelids but they’re too heavy. I try to lift my hand but it’s made of lead. I try to open my mouth but my lids are sealed shut.
And then she’s here.
The pain lessens when I feel her hand at my temple. I can hear her soft, pretty voice, though I can’t open my eyes to see her.
“You’re alright,” Fiona says in my ear, her warm presence like balm to my soul. “You’re going to be alright. Now open those stubborn eyes of yours and look to me, will you?”
I try, but they’re too heavy. I sink back into sleep.
Her voice comes to me in the quiet, reading.
Poetry, I think. Her voice is so pretty. I tell myself to ask her to do it again when I’m lucid.
Beeps and sounds, whirs of a machine and conversation.
After what seems like ages, I finally open my eyes. Fiona’s sitting beside me looking at her phone, but she jumps to her feet when she feels me looking at her. “Lachlan. My God, Lachlan. Sebastian!”
“Don’t be sounding the fucking alarm,” I mutter. My mouth feels odd, like my tongue’s too swollen. It’s dry from disuse, and it takes effort to talk. “I’m fucking fine.”
“You bloody well are not,” she says with that flare of temper I’ve come to love about her, even as she drives me mad. “You lost so much goddamn blood, and the filthy bugger tore a hole right through your shoulder.”
I reach a hand out tentatively to my bandaged shoulder.
“How’d he get in?”
“Had a code, didn’t he?” she asks with an eyeroll. “Seems they doubled up guards in some places so when the guards were brought in, the new men went under the radar.
“Bloody hell.”
“Oh, it’s been a bloody hell alright,” she mutters.
“Tell me everything. Who’s hurt?”
“All of the people of importance are fine,” she says with flashing eyes. “The assailants most emphatically are not. I don’t know what has happened to them, but I know for a fact that they’ve been summarily dealt with. Keenan’s put Nolan in charge of security for now, and it’s been a mess getting people back up in place. The girls have all been pretty much grounded here on the premises.”