“I need to meet with Donegal face to face; try to get this hit cancelled.” He released my hand and ran his through his hair, the skin around his mouth pinched-looking.
I twisted in my seat so my back was to the door and I could watch him more easily. It couldn’t possibly be as easy as that. If it was, he’d have done it sooner. “Do you think he will? And what happens if he doesn’t? What will we do then? We’ll be right there.”
“Honestly?” He waited for my nod. “I don’t know. There’s a lot working against us. I killed one of Donegal’s men, who was on a mission from Donegal. That’s…” He breathed a sigh through his nose and shook his head. “It’s not done. I spoke to my cousin, Kael. He’s going ahead of us and setting up the meeting, and he’s going to try to ensure his father listens with an open mind.”
There was something he wasn’t telling me. I was certain of it. Watching the trees along the highway flash by, I replayed his words in my head.It’s not done.What he was saying…it wasn’t me at risk. Or at least, not only me.
“What aren’t you saying?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Stop deflecting.” I pointed a finger at him, watching as his shoulders slumped. “Is it that bad?”
“An unsanctioned kill against a member of our clan or their family is grounds for execution.”
A cold stone settled in my stomach and the hair on my arms lifted in response. Execution. Brodie had saved my life, not once but twice, and as a result he was traveling towards his potential death at sixty-five miles per hour. I swallowed. “Brodie—”
“Emery.” For once the name didn’t bother me. I liked the way it sounded on his lips, the full musicality of it, the feeling behind each syllable.
“You can’t do this. We need to go somewhere else. Hide.”
He spared me a look, knuckles whitening on the wheel. “There is no hiding. Only running, until they catch up. And they will catch up. That’s—”
“Then we run.” It was simple to me. He couldn’t do this. Not for me.
“No.” His tone was steel. “That’s no way to live. You’d be giving up your home. Your people. Shiloh.”
I swallowed, and when I responded the words were thready. “I’d have you.”
His eyes were warm upon me. “You’ll have me, regardless. I’ll keep you safe,macushla.”
“No! That’s not it. I can’t—” My voice cracked, and I gathered myself, straightening in my seat. “I can’t be responsible for your death. We have to find another way.”
“There is no other way. It’ll be fine. Please don’t worry yourself.”
“Fine, he says. It’ll befine. Will it really be fine, or is that the man’s version of fine that really means it’s FUBAR?”
“FUBAR?”
“Fucked up beyond all recognition.”
He huffed out a laugh. “The other kind. Kael and I…we have a plan.”
“And you trust Kael?”
The lines of his face sobered. “More than anyone. We’re more than cousins. We’re brothers in every sense of the word, other than biological. We played together when we were lads. Trained together as young men. Drank together, whored together. Kael will be king when Donegal hands the reins over to him, but he’s always held very different ideas about our purpose and our functions. He would never have sanctioned a hit on you.”
I nodded, feeling slightly better about what lay ahead. “So what’s the plan?”
He tapped his fingers on the wheel and checked his rearview mirror. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Just tell me.”
“We have a creed that goes back generations. We don’t mess with clan members or their families. We don’t harm innocents.”
“Right.” He told me this already. There was a faint sheen of sweat on his temple, and now that I looked, I could see his fingers flexing on the wheel. Brodie was nervous.
Unease swept through me, and I was about to question when his phone rang. He thumbed the screen to answer the call with his free hand and greeted the caller.
