My heart soarsas I watch Tate and Islan hold each other. Islan openly cries, but Tate swipes a hand across his eyes, then looks at Kane with fierce determination.
“Where is he?”
“In holding with a colleague of mine,” Kane says. “Give me a phone and I’ll make a few calls. I’ll have him brought here.”
Tate blinks as if waking from a dream, and Islan reaches into her back pocket.
“Here,” she says, shaking her head at Kane. “This is why you wanted to come to Ireland, isn’t it? You wouldn’t tell me bloody anything except the Welsh were on the move.”
“Didn’t want to plant false hope,” he says, as Tate comes over and unfastens the bonds that hold him. He stands over him, meaty arms folded over his chest. He still doesn’t trust him, and hell, I don’t blame him.
I squeeze one of his arms. “You’re adorable, you know that?”
He rolls his eyes, as Kane makes a call. “Adorable wasn’t exactly the look I was going for just now.”
Kane mutters under his breath, “Not the first thing on my mind, either.” Then someone answers the call on the other end, and Kane speaks rapidly, but it isn’t English this time. I can’t place the language, but it’s rapid and guttural. Islan is the only one that doesn’t look surprised.
From my research, I know that Interpol represents just shy of two hundred different countries. Could be anything.
The morning moves so quickly, I can hardly keep up. I’m busy making notes and documenting everything I can for Kane. I reach out to my contacts, and Islan sits with Kane as he makes his moves. We’ve moved out of the blasted interrogation room—seriously, shudder—and upstairs to an office. Maeve comes in, bearing a tray of tea, sandwiches, fruit, and little slabs of cake. Islan and I eat heartily, but Tate paces back and forth, back and forth. I expect him to call Leith, but he doesn’t.
“Need to see for myself first,” he says. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, put anyone through more than what they have.”
“They never found his body,” Islan says, swallowing a large bite of her sandwich. “But the investigator said they had every reason to believe he’d been killed in the accident.”
Kane nods. “Was paid to tell you that.” He sits, brooding, in the corner of the office, and every once in a while I catch him and Tate in a silent battle of wills, like each of them is silently declaring, come at me, bro.
Men.
“About that,” Kane finally says, talking to Islan but keeping his eyes on Tate. He’s well aware of what Tate is capable of. When he speaks, it’s still jarring hearing his American accent. “The accident was initially a setup from the Welsh. I know because I was already stationed with them when Tavish supposedly died. But this year, he was taken into custody by Interpol.”
“What did the Welsh do to him?” she asks in a whisper.
He shakes his head. “Probably best you don’t know.”
She glares at him. Aye, that look is familiar. “Don’t you get on your high horse and decide I’m too delicate a fuckin’ flower to know what happened to my bloody brother.”
He grins at her, and nods. “Ah, right. Forgot myself there for a minute.”
“Tell me.”
He looks to Tate, who still glares at him. “The Welsh interrogated. Blackmailed. Seems your father owed them money?”
“Doesn’t bloody owe them fuckin’ anything anymore,” Tate mutters.
“Aye,” Kane says. “They tried to get information out of him, but it was useless, you see.”
“Why?” Islan asks.
“He sustained head trauma. Had amnesia. Didn’t bloody know who he even was at first.”
“And you know all this how?”
He sighs. “I’ve followed his case for the past year. I’ve asked everyone I know. My associates believed him affiliated with the Welsh for a time, and they apprehended him.”
“And why was he brought here, to Ireland?” Tate asks.
Kane turns to him. “I knew you were here, and Islan was. And I couldn’t blow my cover.” He frowns.
