“I can’t claim to know what you’ve been through,” Carl said. “I was in the military, but my experience was different than yours. While my childhood wasn’t the best, yours makes mine look like a long-stay, all-inclusive Disney vacation. Meaning I won’t bullshit you and tell you to just do it, and everything will be kittens and roses from here on out.
“But what I am telling you is that this pack has been through hell and back multiple times in its history. They stand by their own. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’re a damned good person with an even better heart and soul. As for being a mom? You are a natural mom to those kids, Aisling. Frankly, while I appreciate your sense of honor and duty, I think you’re a fucking idiot if you don’t sit down with Tamsin and talk to her like an adult. You’re taking her choice from her on the opposite end of the spectrum by not telling her.” He studied her. “Did Badger and them tell you not to tell her?”
Aisling didn’t answer at first. “More like they weren’t going to order me one way or the other. That it’s my choice. The help they gave me was shorin’ up my willpower to not go and claim her unless she wants it.”
“So…they didn’t forbid you from telling her?”
She shook her head.
He climbed to his feet. “No, I won’t tell anyone. But if you think I’m so wrong, talk to Badger and Duncan again. If they agree with me, then you have to start thinking that maybe the problem isn’t the situation but that you are a goddamned chickenshit who’s so used to not living up to people’s expectations in your head that you deliberately blow opportunities out of the water so you can feel right about something. Even if it’s to be right about being wrong. Because I gotta tell you, this sounds like it’s about your fear.”
She wanted to jump up and punch him, scream at him, tell him how wrong he was.
Except…
She couldn’t.
Because he was most likely spot-on.
Or rather, he was completely right.
And she knew it.
That wasn’t something she had the mental or emotional bandwidth to contemplate at that moment.
But there was no way she’d drag Tamsin down with her.
After sniffling back tears and rubbing her face against her shirt sleeve, she put the tin whistle to her lips again and started playing “Slan Le Maigh” while trying not to cry.
Carl slowly shook his head and finally left her alone in the backyard.
Chapter Fifty-One
Dewi
Now reassured that Ken and Peyton were alive, well, and safe, Dewi finally allowed herself to lie down and sleep after nursing Lyssa and getting her back to sleep.
Except it was far from restful. Dark dreams plagued Dewi, filled with anxiety and outright desperation as she frantically tried to keep all the various threads tightly held in her hands to prevent life as she knew it from unraveling. It felt like everything after the Segura Cartel infected their existence had gone to shit.
It was almost a relief when she startled awake a little before nine to the sound of Lyssa softly fussing.
“Okay, sweetie. Coming.” She dragged herself out of bed, nursed and changed her, then settled her once more and opted to climb into the shower and stand there.
Gawd, I’ll be glad when this bullshit is settled. Meaning with Faegan and the Australian asshole and the lab and…everything else getting in the way of her just being able to enjoy her family, for once.
Except…something nagged at her. And she hated that she couldn’t immediately put her finger on it.
After finishing her shower, she brewed herself a cup of coffee and curled up on the couch with her work laptop to go through reports from her Enforcers.
As she skimmed through the index list, she stopped at one from Duncan filed back in March about the circumstances surrounding an incident that had also, coincidentally, led Aaron Harries to meeting and mating Lowri.
Assholes had taken Lowri’s family hostage because of them growing pot to help a close family friend with her cancer pain.
Clueless human drug dealers mentioned that one of them had a cousin hooked up with a Mexican drug cartel, and they were on the lookout for ‘weird people’ to buy. No further details available at this time. Recommend admin run a trace on the men for familial connections to the Segura cartel if more information desired. Not enough resources locally to conduct that investigation without potentially raising suspicions…
That’s when part of her dreams snapped into focus. Dewi blamed first her pregnancy brain and now her new-mom brain for not picking up on it sooner. Although, to be fair, Duncan had been on top of the situation, so she hadn’t felt the need to follow up.
She grabbed her work phone and impatiently waited for the call to connect to the South Carolina number.
