I sucked in a breath because if he was awake, knew the truth, anddidhate me, this would be the perfect way to get rid of me, wouldn’t it?
To shove me in prison. To never let me have access to my son—
“Mom?”
Seamus’s voice cut through the panic. I twisted to look at him and saw he was staring at me oddly, but his gaze was relatively calm considering the crap we were going through together.
I sucked in a breath, turned back to Caro, and demanded, “Which other clients?”
“Gianni Kilhain. Matthew Wright-Smythe.”
I frowned at her. “What about them? They’re just businessmen.”
“They’re Lancaster’s associates.”
Panic flickered through me, but I growled, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I never said you had. I already told you, you were a means of monitoring criminal activity.” She pursed her lips. “Who’s the guy on your bedroom floor, Aela?”
“Ms. O’Neill to you,” I sniped, twisting around to look at my singing bowl again. “And I have no idea who he is. I just know that he—” My throat tightened. “I believe he took out one of my guards, and then broke into the house.”
“One of your guards?” she repeated, and I heard the slight quiver in her voice, the slightest of intonations that told me this went so much deeper than her so-called look into my client list. “Why do you have guards? You didn’t have them this morning, Aela.”
“Security threat,” I told her blandly. “Apparently, I hired them just in damn time too.” My mouth tightened, but before I could say another word, there was a tap on my door.
I didn’t even have to head out into the hall to let them in, the guy just strode in, his suit expensive, his briefcase evenmoreexpensive, and the watch on his wrist was more than Caro made in a year as a government stooge.
I looked at it, studied the lawyer on the whole, then smirked ather.
Because I knew exactly what he was, and so did Caro from the outrage in her eyes. My lips forged a smile that told her the interview was over now.
For good.
* * *
DECLAN
“They did what?”I roared, ignoring the intensity of the heart monitor as it started to practically sing a choral aria as my pulse soared. “They had the Feds on her?”
Brennan scowled at me as he folded his arms over his chest, but it was Conor who replied, “There’s no point in getting stressed, Declan. She did well.”
She did well?
I almost wanted to wheeze at that, because she shouldn’t have to do fucking well.
She hadn’t set eyes on me in over a decade, and here she was, a few days in, and she’d been a part of an attack by aFamigliagoon, had been betrayed by one of her own, had to kill someone, had the cops in her house, and learned a federal agent had been a mole… what was the cherry on the sundae? Hernotbeing arrested?
Fuck.
I scraped a hand over my face as I demanded, “Where is she now?”
“As good as French is, even he couldn’t circumvent basic police protocol. She had to stay and be interviewed, give a statement. Seamus too.” My entire being tensed at the prospect of my flesh and blood being interviewed by pigs. “Then, the house needed to be bagged and tagged. Her street was a crime scene.”
“Rogan’s dead,” Conor inserted softly.
My eyes flared. “Fuck. You need to go and speak with his ma.”
Brennan nodded. “Already did that. I’ve had Aidan handle the details on the funeral arrangements. Should happen in a few days’ time.”