“Not sure why everyone’s so uptight here,” Boner says. “I mean, it’s not like what Tiernan did is that out of the ordinary, is it? I mean this is why we have a Clan doctor, Clan lawyers, connections on the police force and even the fucking Church.”
Lachlan sighs. “You don’t have a fucking clue who he was, do you?”
Fuck.
Lachlan looks at me, and he shakes his head. “Motherfucker, you don’t either, do you, Tiernan?”
I shake my head. Waiting for his answer feels like waiting for the axe to drop. I swallow hard.
“Fucking son of the Prime Minister, Tiernan.”
A cold, prickly awareness travels over my neck, down my spine, and settles in my belly.
“No fucking foolin’, Lach?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and looks out the window. His silence underscores how serious he is.
Christ, but I’ve fucked up royally here.
“We have any witnesses?”
He gives me a withering look. “I had Carson run the specs and interrogate. No cameras in there. We have one witness and you bloody well know who she is. She’s secured at the mansion.”
“You know who that girl is?” I ask him.
He sighs again. “Course I do. Aisling.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t let Fiona see, but there will be no hiding it now.” His gaze on me sharpens. “Have you had anything to do with her, Tiernan?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t,” I tell him honestly. “Swear to fucking God, Lach.”
His voice hardens again. “And just like that, out of nowhere, you kill a man for her?”
I sigh. “I don’t know how to explain it. She was like a sister to me, back when she and Fiona were mates, you know? If a man attacked Fiona, I’d have done the same.”
Lachlan scowls out the window, thinking, before he looks back to me. “What the hell has she done with herself? Looks like she’s fucking aged a decade since I saw her last, and can’t be more than a few years?”
I shake my head. “I only know what Keenan told me. Mum and dad divorced, mum took off with a man in America and left her with nothing. Dad shot himself last year, she’s been scraping to get by.”
Boner looks at us in the rearview mirror.
“And she was sitting with the line of Vivian’s girls, now, wasn’t she?”
I feel my body tighten, my anger surging. “If you fucking touched her, Boner…”
“Swear to God, mate! I didn’t. Came straight to Keenan. I knew she was Vivian’s, though.”
I growl under my breath but let it go.
Lachlan blows out a whistle. “Mother of God,” he mutters. “Jesus, that’s terrible.”
It is.
We make it to the bunker, mostly in silence this time. The weight of what happened tonight, what I did, hangs over all of us like a storm cloud.
This is why Keenan has me coming to the bunker, the safest place we have, to make sure everything’s secured before I return home.
Lachlan and Boner leave me, and I enter the cold room underground with the dread of a prisoner entering a cell. I flick on the dim overhead light and smile to myself when the light illuminates the small room.
Someone’s come in here with a feminine touch since the last time I was here. The bed is made with a nice duvet, and they’ve even hung up some wall art. A small vase of plastic flowers sits on the bedside table. I open the cabinet where we keep the emergency food store, suddenly ravenous. I put the kettle on, and make myself a hot cup of tea, some tuna, and eat it with crackers.
Sebastian, the Clan doctor arrives, and looks over my minor injuries. He pronounces me fine, and tells me Keenan’s on his way.
“I’ll see you later tonight at home,” Sebastian says, leading me to believe that I’m likely not spending the night here.
Keenan arrives an hour or so later, after I’ve damn near worn a hole in the floor pacing.
“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.”