TEARS OF JOY and sorrow sprang to her eyes. Jumping up to—she rebounded to the floor, the cuff attached to the wheel of the bed pulled her down.
Lachlan immediately frowned. “What the hell is going on?”
“How did you find us?” her father asked.
“That’s your first question? Why the hell is Sers—”
“Conn,” she said, swiping at her tears. “Is he alive?”
“Alive?” Confusion deepened her brother’s uncertainty. “Someone better—”
“Lach, please…” Her heart pounded as desperation leaped in her belly. “Have you seen him? Since we disappeared, have you—”
“No.”
Air did reach her lungs, yet all vestige of hope seeped out of her. She sank against the bed again.
“How did you find us, Lachlan?” her father asked.
Lachlan stepped in and slammed the door behind him. “Maybe we start with one of you telling me what the fuck is going on.”
“We’ve been… talking.”
“Talking,” Lachlan said, his attention deliberately falling to the weapon in their father’s hand. “And the suppressed firearm is what? Like the talking stick?”
Why would Conn avoid her brother? He wouldn’t. If she’d gone missing, and Conn lived, he’d move heaven and earth to get her back. Which would mean working with her brother who had access to police resources. That her lover hadn’t reached out, hadn’t contacted her brother, didn’t bode well. The only explanation was he didn’t make it. She’d lost him.
“We had a confrontation.”
“Uh huh,” Lachlan said, coming to crouch by her. “With who?”
He unlocked the cuffs and she threw both arms around him, burying her face in his neck. For the first time, her grief wasn’t unjust, it wasn’t a ridiculed hinderance. Support. Love. Everything her brother’s presence offered, she lapped up, absorbing him, using him to keep herself breathing.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Damn right, I came,” he said and eased her back to check her bruised, cut wrists. “How long has she been in cuffs?”
“Since we left the city,” she answered. “He cuffs me to the shower rail when I wash, and to him and the bed when we sleep.”
Lachlan surged to his feet, taking her with him in his embrace. “Someone better start talking.”
“I need your phone.”
“No!” her father exclaimed. “You do not—”
“You can’t stop me! You won’t hurt your beloved son, will you?”
“Who else knows you’re here?” her father asked Lachlan.
“Don’t answer that.” So much for their tentative peace. “Don’t give him more targets.”
“Targets?”
“Lach, you didn’t believe me about Silvio Manzani—”
“What did you tell him?” her affronted father demanded. “You didn’t—”
“Tell you the full truth?” she spat. “Of course I didn’t. How does it feel to be in the dark?” She grabbed her brother’s hand. “We have to get out of here. We have to—”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down.”
“We can’t,” she yelped. “If he gets control, if he has the chance—you can’t get trapped here too. I couldn’t get away alone—”
“You’re not alone,” her brother said. God, if only she could be so optimistic. “Whatever’s going on, we’ll work it out.”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t want to figure it out. And I need to find my guy.”
“Why are you so worried about Ire?”
She pushed out of his arms. “You don’t think if I went missing, he’d do anything to find me?”
“Until right now, I didn’t know for sure who you disappeared with.”
“Dad and it wasn’t voluntary.” As the cuffs attested. “I don’t want to leave you here. He’s unhinged and—”
“Sersha! I did what was necessary.”
“The truth,” Lachlan said, tucking her under his arm. “Trust me, Sersh, you’re safe now.”
“Sorry if I find that difficult to believe. My father has held me captive for almost a week. He lured me to a meeting that he said would save your life. Instead, Silvio Manzani walked in and Conn got shot.”
“Conn? Ire? How is he involved?”
“He came to the meet with me—”
“Sersha, stop this,” her father demanded, marching over.
On instinct, she put herself between him and Lachlan. “If you’re going to shoot someone else, make it me. Please.”
“No one is shooting anyone,” Lachlan stated. “Put the gun down, Dad.”
“I can’t.” Rather than put it away, he raised it toward the ceiling, shaking it, emphasizing his dominance. “Our lives hang in the balance.”
“Why’s that?” she asked. “Because you took Manzani money and didn’t deliver? Or because you murdered the head of the McDade family?”
“Murder?” Lachlan asked. “He’s dead? Why did you ask me if—”
“If you haven’t heard from him and he’s not here, death is a given.” She took his hand. “We need to get out of here before we’re next.”
“I need to know what’s going on.”
Part of her wanted to run for the door, to just get the hell out of there in a hurry. Lachlan meant something to their father, father wouldn’t murder son, would he? That wasn’t a reliable measure. If pressed, she’d have guessed father wouldn’t kill grandfather.
“We were in bed,” she said to her brother though her focus was on their father. “Conn and me. It was the middle of the night. I got a call from Dad, he said I had to meet him at Grandpapas, that your life depended on it.”
“Alone. I told you we had to meet alone! You brought him. He was there because you—”
“I know that! Don’t you think I know that? Connel was in that room because of me. You put a bullet meant for me into him.”
“Wait a fucking minute,” Lachlan said, heavy anger in his slow tone. “You took a shot at your daughter?”
“It’s only thanks to Conn I’m here.” He’d given his life for hers. “Don’t be shocked, brother,” she said, folding her arms. “Turns out Ronald here is responsible for Grandpapa’s murder too.”
“What?”
“Sersha!”
“If you’re only going to shoot me anyway, someone has to know the truth. Yes, Lach, our father killed our grandfather; that is why I want to get the hell out of here.”
“No, no, it can’t…”
“It can,” she said, not envying Lachlan the shock. “Please, trust me.”
“I trust you, I can’t…”
As Lachlan dropped to sit on the end of the bed, she missed the stability of his stable form. Throwing something like that at him, a fact that shook the foundations of his world, wasn’t fair.
“Your sister doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” their father asserted.
Sitting by her brother, she held his hand and stroked his forearm. “This is a lot, and I’m sorry, I… I learned my lesson about keeping secrets. The only way we get through this is if everyone knows everything. And now I know I can’t trust him, I don’t want you to take the risk of doing the same.”
Her brother’s head came up fast. “Sersha’s attack, did you know?” The gun in their father’s hand descended to his side as the man averted his gaze. “You did, didn’t you? Everything Sersha said was true. You tried to get that information from her for Silvio Manzani. When that didn’t work, he sent his guys after her. You let me think it was—you put it on Ire—”
“It was his fault! She was in his territory!”
“You didn’t know about their relationship then,” Lachlan said. “You didn’t know she was under his protection.”
“No one was supposed to touch her there, it wasn’t meant to happen that night. That wasn’t the plan.” That there had been one at all was shocking enough. “Silvio had people watching her, monitoring her movements, who she talked to.”
Because watching her was easier than following Ire McDade. She’d been the oblivious fly caught in Silvio Manzani’s web.
“What changed?” Lachlan asked. “What did she do to deserve—”
“She was refused entry that night. At Stag. They turned her away. We didn’t expect that.” Both men looked at her though her father quickly returned his appeal to Lachlan. “The McDades blocked her… Silvio’s men told him what happened and he decided that was the time, the moment. I wasn’t consulted. Silvio Manzani doesn’t ask my permission before making decisions.” Though her father wouldn’t mind people thinking he had that kind of sway. “I asked, I demanded to know what happened.”
“And?”
Their father exhaled. “That was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up. With the McDades rejecting her entry, she would be angry, maybe she’d seen more than they wanted her to see. The only way to—don’t you see they only wanted words, names, why would she endure—”
“They didn’t care about names,” she murmured. “Not as much as you want to think. Men like that don’t have finesse, they don’t have patience. They think with their fists, with their dicks, and that’s exactly what happened.”
“You weren’t raped,” he sneered, diminishing her trauma.
Was that meant to be a comfort? Odd the justifications her father could make. Maybe they were all guilty of it, believing what they wanted to believe just to get through the day.
“You let them put their hands on her,” Lachlan growled. “She could’ve died!”
“Not if she’d answered them! I was sure she would! How could I know she’d been seduced by that animal? That he forced himself on her?”
Lachlan whipped around fast. “Forced?”
“Connel never forced himself on me,” she said with renewed anger toward their patriarch. “Which I told you, Ronald, you know that.”
“He made you think you had a choice.” That her father could be so dismissive hurt more with the knowledge he’d just as easily shrugged off Conn’s life. “You’ve never been strong. Not strong enough to—”
The door opened. No knock this time, just a man filling the frame.
A man who breathed new life into her determination.
Without the cuffs hindering her this time, she leaped up and ran to him. “Strat!”
“You wanna watch your fucking mouth, Superintendent. You have no idea about her strength,” Strat said, locking an arm under her ribs to pick her up and carry her inside. “You don’t have a fucking clue!”
“Who are you to speak to me like that? You don’t know my family! How did you find us?”