He may have betrayed her. He may have lied to her in the worst possible way, but it was her fault. She had no one else to blame.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered at Dawg’s back, laying her forehead against him as a sob tore through her. “I’m so sorry, Dawg.”
“Doogan, what the fuck are you doing here?” The sound of his voice was savage, like a predator determined to protect its offspring.
“Ask your sister, Dawg.” Doogan’s voice was quiet, intent. “Ask her why I’m here.”
“Dawg, do we have a problem?” Natches asked the question.
“Doogan, this is a family party,” Rowdy stated calmly. “You weren’t invited.”
“And you’re sure as hell not family,” Timothy, the man she often wished had been her father, stated with that razor edge of innate arrogance he always carried whenever he felt his family was being threatened in some way.
“Thank God,” Doogan drawled then, the amusement in his tone causing her to shake. He was at his most dangerous now, his most cunning. “Why not tell them why I’m here, Zoey? Or are you going to force me to do it?”
“No.” Pushing away from Dawg she forced herself out from behind him, trying to move in front of him, trying to stop the tide of destruction before it began. “Stop this,” she demanded, anger raging through her now, shaking so hard now she wondered how she was still standing. “Don’t do this, Doogan. Don’t turn this into a war.”
“Natches.” Dawg’s tone was the warning. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough.
Natches pulled her to him, against his side, holding her firmly as she struggled against him, staring back at Doogan, begging him silently, knowing it wouldn’t do her a damned bit of good.
“Go to the house with Natches, Zoey,” Dawg ordered firmly, never taking his eyes off Doogan “We’ll discuss this there.”
“Where you can surround me with Mackay males, and the agents you so carefully pulled away from me?” Doogan chuckled as though amused by them all. “That was an excellent move by the way, arranging to have my agents fall head over heels for the women they believed they couldn’t have. What better bait than to make a man think he can’t have a woman he desires? Ah Dawg, you’re good. You, Rowdy, and Natches are really good . . .”
“Better than you know,” Natches assured him as Zoey stopped struggling, shocked by her cousin’s declaration. “Good enough to have already figured out exactly what you’re doing here and why Zoey was terrified to come to us when she realized she was in trouble.”
“Really?” Doogan drawled. “And why is that?”
Zoey shook her head slowly, holding his gaze, bitter, hollow rage destroying her from the inside out.
He was destroying her and he knew it. He would destroy her and her family and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“Get the hell out of Somerset, Doogan,” Tim demanded then. “Don’t turn this into a fight. It’s one you won’t win and you know it. Not against me.”
Chatham smiled. “Perhaps, perhaps not.” His gaze never left hers.
“You know this is wrong.” Helpless, desperate, she knew begging wouldn’t help. Doogan would only see weakness in a plea. “We had a deal . . .”
“But you reneged on your side, sweetheart.” He stepped forward slowly, his gaze pinning her, forcing her to remember, forcing her to make a choice.
“I didn’t renege,” she all but screamed back at him, hating him, hating herself more. “You lied to me, Doogan. You lied.”
“Don’t do it, Doogan,” Dawg warned him softly. “You’ll regret it.”
Doogan only stared back at her mercilessly. “Zoey Mackay, you’re under arrest for the murder of Harley Perdue . . .”
Then all hell broke loose.
—
Zoey came awake with a hard, brutal punch of awareness, her breath catching, the dream so surprising, so shocking it made very little sense.
Why would she dream something like that?
It made even less sense than the nightmares she so often had.
Hell, it made about as much sense as her life had in the past year. She would call it a comedy of errors, but there had been far too little comedy and far too many errors for the description.