“Hey.” I’m lying on the bed watching the news. There’s nothing on the telly and nothing online about his death. Maybe it hasn’t made the news yet.
Keenan jerks his chin in greeting. Cormac and Nolan come in behind him. They take up most of the interior of the bunker, sitting heavily on the little loveseat and folding chairs.
“Y’alright, Tiernan?” Nolan asks. I swallow hard, weirdly overcome with emotion at his concern.
“Fine. Look, I’m fucking sorry—”
Keenan holds up his hand to stop me. “You will not apologize for killing a man who tried to assault a woman who’s friends with the Clan.”
I blink and look at him in surprise. Aisling hasn’t been friends with the Clan for ages, but as I think on it, he’s right. Fiona would still be fucking crushed if anything happened to her, I know she would.
“I’d have done the same myself,” he says, but then he winces. “Might not have done it exactly at that location, but lucky for you, Carson and Tully are experts in the art of body disposal, and so far no one’s any wiser for it.”
So far.
I swallow and nod. “Thanks for that, Keenan. Lachlan lectured the fuck out of me on the way here.”
Nolan chuckles. “Of course he did. Bloody worried about you, lad.”
I’ll be sixty years old and Nolan will still call me “lad.”
My chest warms a little. He’s right. Lachlan’s worried. And even though I don’t like what’s happened tonight and didn’t like being lectured by Lachlan, I can rest easy in the comfort of this knowledge: these men are my brothers, loyal to the death.
“Tomorrow, we’ll have to form a plan,” Keenan says. “We’ll have to bury evidence and see to it his disappearance doesn’t circle back to us. Walsh is already on it, and we’ll have Sheena work on the papers as well.”
My sister’s job as investigative reporter comes in handy for times like these.
“And if we play this right, seems like none will be the wiser for it, Tiernan.” Keenan strokes the beard at his chin and shrugs. “But there are what you might call natural consequences for something like this.”
I blow out a breath and give him a curious look. “Natural consequences?”
Not out of the doghouse yet, then. Fuck.
“Aye,” Keenan says sagely. “Like telling a child not to touch the stove, and when they do, they get burned.”
I wait in silence. Here it comes.
“There’s a very angry woman in a state of deep withdrawal back at the compound.”
I blink. “State of withdrawal?”
Bloody fucking hell.
He nods. “Sebastian says she’s strung out and coming down from a high, will be looking for a fix in the morning, if not sooner.”
“Yeah?”
“Aye. You killed a man for her tonight, Tiernan. It’ll be your job to keep her. She’s your responsibility now.”
“Keep her?”
“She fucking witnessed the murder,” Keenan says. “You have no bloody choice, Tiernan. All she has to do is report you, and you’re fucked.” He sighs. “We all are.”
There are only so many things we can cover up.
I blow out a breath, my elbows hitting my knees as I lean over on the bed and mull this over.
Keep her.
Aisling. That gorgeous, feisty girl’s all grown up now, but honest to God, she’s a fucking mess.
Why does that appeal to me somehow?
“You have to make it clear she will not report you,” Keenan says. “And since you made this bed, you’ll have to sleep in it.”
He isn’t finished. I wait.
“She’ll be bloody hard to manage the next couple of days or so, but Sebastian can help you. And in the end, she’ll be better for it.”
“You’re punishing me by giving me babysitting duties?”
Keenan’s lips twitch. “Something like.”
I sigh.
“Let’s go,” Keenan says. “Your lady awaits.”
We all get to our feet. The other men don’t speak to me, and I’m glad of it, for I’m trying to process this. What does it mean to keep her? What the hell is she addicted to that would already cause withdrawal? What will Fiona say?
We get back to the mansion, and as I exit the car, I hear a high-pitched scream.
“What the bloody hell is that?” I ask Keenan.
He gives me a doleful smile. “Your new charge.”
I blink and look up at the mansion again.
“Sounds like a fucking wounded animal.”
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Keenan’s gaze grows sober. “I think you’re not far from the truth.”
That hits me straight in the chest. What’s happened to her? What happened to the happy-go-lucky girl who was best mates with my sister? The girl who never hesitated to flirt with me, toss her pretty blonde curls, and even wink at me if given the chance. Never gave her a second glance when she was younger, but bloody hell… I can’t get the image of her out of my mind.
I walk up the stone pathway then take the steps two at a time. If she’s my charge, I want to get a handle on this as quickly as I can. I don’t like that she’s disturbing the entire peace of the house with her howling and screams. What’s she going on about, anyway?
Anger surges in me as we approach the door, and her screams intensify. She’ll scare the bloody wits out of anyone and everyone on site.
Keenan snorts. “She’ll need a firm hand, Tiernan.”
“Oh, aye. I think she needs more than that.”
She needs a good bloody spanking for this tantrum. Still, a part of me feels badly for her. Something’s happened to the innocent girl I once knew.
“Where is she?” I ask, surprised by the sounds that emanate from the mansion that she isn’t right here in the damn entryway.
“Library. You sure you’re well enough to see her now?”
I give Keenan a look that makes him laugh out loud and clap me on the shoulder. “Give Tiernan Hurston a fucking job, and stand out of the fucking way.”
“Oh, aye,” Nolan says with unmistakable pride. “Could have his feckin’ arm hanging on by a tendon and a gun wound, he’d still get the job done, aye?”
I hide my face so they can’t see me smile. The approval of my two older Clan brothers means more to me than the fucking world.
“She have any kin?” I ask in a low voice, so no one hears.
Keenan shakes his head. “Nay, lad.”
“And isn’t that part of the fucking problem,” Nolan mutters with a sigh. It is.
They take their leave at the library entrance. I square my shoulders and enter the room, just as another high-pitched scream rents the air, peppered with vulgar words that should never come out of the mouth of a pretty girl.
The room’s darkened, the shades pulled. Aisling’s tied to a chair in the center of the room, facing away from me. Rope’s lashed about her body, and anger suddenly surges within me. Who the bloody hell roped her here?
That’s my job.
Cormac’s sitting at a desk chair, his feet propped up, reading a book. He smiles when I enter, and places the book on the table.
“Tiernan, y’alright?”