It means nothing that I found out only a few days ago that she’s my flesh and blood.
She is the air I breathe, the sun in my sky, and if something happens to her, I won’t survive.
“Okay,” Miko says, his brilliant blue gaze intense but unquestioning as he reads my face. “We’ll be there. I have your back.”
Relief surges through me, and we’re on our way out the door, several minutes behind the Murrays—who are hopefully heading straight home.
“So, what the hell happened?” Sandro asks as we reach the car.
I slide behind the wheel, unwilling to let anyone else set the pace to get to the Murray house. “They took Riley from her preschool, told the Murrays to bring Tatsuo my head if they ever want to see her again.”
“And Aisling called you to tell you that?” A hint of shock filters into my brother’s tone.
“I know.”
Aisling could have called her brothers.
She could have turned on me without blinking.
She could have asked them to bring her my head on a platter if it meant guaranteeing Riley’s safety.
She didn’t.
She called me.
That choice lodges deep in my chest, heavy and humbling.
Sandro gives a low whistle, his gaze turning to peer through the windshield from the passenger seat. “If that doesn’t tell you how she feels about you, I don’t know what does.” When I don’t respond, his eyes cast back in my direction, studying me closely as the seconds tick by. “You’re going to give Tatsuo what he wants,” Sandro says. It’s not a question, because my twin knows me better than anybody.
The plan is already mapped out in my head, sharp and deadly.
“He wants me,” I say. “That means we can control the tempo.”
“This was an emotional move,” Sandro says. “That means he’s unpredictable. Desperate.”
“And we’re going to use that to our advantage,” I finish.
My mind races, assembling angles, probabilities, blood.
But beneath it all, under every calculation, only one truth pounds through me, louder than anything else.
They took my daughter.
And I will burn the world down to get her back.
36
AISLING
The Murray house is already full when I hear the engines outside, my father and brothers having arrived not five minutes ago.
Their raised, strained voices cut off mid-sentence as everyone turns toward the windows. My father straightens, jaw tightening. My brothers move without speaking, instincts snapping into place.
Raf arrives like a storm in the shape of a man. I’ve never seen him look so thunderous.
So deadly.
When the door opens and he steps inside, alone, the air shifts. It sharpens—focused and dangerous.
