“I can hear them, Aela,” Brennan told me, his voice as calm as ever. “Don’t move, and be prepared to fight the other guy. Just because the police are there doesn’t mean that the other intruder will stop. He’s there for a reason, and we both know what happens when you don’t follow the boss man’s orders—being thrown in jail is a kinder fate.”
I gulped, knowing he was exactly right.
My mouth trembled, and even though I was trying to be quiet, fear prompted me to ask, “TheFamiglia?”
“It’s likely. We’re at war with them—”
“Rogan told me,” I breathed.
I didn’t have to see his face to know he was surprised. “He did? Why?”
“I knew him back when I was a kid. We were neighbors, lived next door to each other before my dad’s promotion.” Not that you’d have known with the formality between us. I wasn’t even sure why he’d told me the little he had.
Nostalgia?
And now he was dead.
He had to be, didn’t he? Why would he have told me any of that when he fully intended on betraying the family a few hours later?
No, there was no love lost between him and I, but he’d been warning me. The thought of him bleeding out in the SUV had guilt spearing me in the chest, but it was overridden when I heard the sounds of the police rushing into my house, taking over the fight on my behalf.
I kept my Ruger raised though, just waiting for the other guy to come at me, but when he didn’t, when I heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, and a, “Ma’am? This is Officer Fellows. It’s safe to come out now,” I felt like crying.
So, because I felt like it, I allowed myself one weakness after a night of being strong and called back— “On my way down!” –before I placed the gun on the ground, covered my eyes with my hands, and let myself sob, just for a handful of seconds before I had to put on a brave face for Seamus.