“What? I thought she was with Kieran?”
I grit my teeth. “So did I.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We go after them. But I need you to find me everything you can on Stephen. Call Connell if you must and have him hack into his messages because I really need to be wrong about this.”
Brennan’s already on his phone, his fingers tapping away at the screen as I speed toward Ciara’s location.
Every muscle in my body is tense as I race against the clock, knowing that there’s a possibility I could already be too late.
The life I thought I was building with Ciara is slipping through my fingers, but I refuse to give it up without a fight, and this one is going to be bloody.
“Anything?” I demand as we hit the main road.
Ciara’s location pings again on the GPS as it continues to head north in the completely opposite direction from the hospital.
“Got something. Stephen’s phone connected with a number tied to a known Walsh associate two nights ago. Before that, text messages were exchanged with a burner registered in Cork, which is also?—”
“Walsh territory.”
“Yeah.”
Fuck.
I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white.
I growl. “He’s been feeding them information this entire time.”
“But why now? He’s worked for us for almost a decade and has shown us nothing but loyalty. It makes no sense.”
“Maybe he got in too deep, and Declan threatened his family.”
“Sounds like you’re making excuses for him, brother.”
Maybe Iamtrying to make excuses because it’s easier than facing the reality that one of the men I trusted most could turn his back on me without a second thought.
Therehasto be a reason. Agoodreason.
“Even still, it doesn’t explain why he would take Ciara. Unless he hopes you’ll bail him out of whatever hole he’s dug himself into with Declan Walsh.”
A knot forms in my stomach at the thought. “I swear to God, if he’s sold her out, there won’t be enough of him left for an autopsy.”
Brennan glances at me. “Ronan?—”
“I mean it. I don’t care that we were friends. He lost my allegiance the second he decided to kidnap my pregnant wife.”
Brennan’s jaw goes slack as he stares at me, but he says nothing, the silence stretching on as the highway flies past us on either side.
The GPS says I’m ten minutes away from Ciara’s location, but that’s not good enough. Ten minutes is more than enough time for Stephen to make a move. So, I push my foot to the floor and hope that time is on my side.
Ciara is pregnant with my child, and I didn’t see it, I didn’tknow.
How many times has she been alone in that house, wondering if I would ever come home because I was out chasing the mole that was right under my nose the entire time?
Maybe the signs were there, and I ignored them, too blinded by trust to see Stephen for who he really was.
A traitor.
