I shook my head, then looked over at Hazel. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean you don’t think so? Christ on a cracker, you’re giving me a friggin’ migraine over here. What’s going on?”
“They seemed to think Hazel was someone else…,” I started.
Hazel put her hand on my arm, and her touch made zings of electricity travel up my arm. Inside me, my inner animals settled, both of them.
“Hazel Bryant isn’t my real name,” she began.
“I knew it!” Wanda said triumphantly. “Your background is way too clean.”
“You were running checks on me?” Hazel asked, seeming irritated.
“We do that on all clients and their known associates,” my coworker told her. “Standard procedure.”
“Go on,” I urged Hazel. “Tell us what’s really going on so we can help you.”
She looked around, her gaze lingering on Lois and then me before returning to Lois.
“I have privilege here, right?”
For the first time since I picked her up yesterday, Hazel seemed a little uncertain.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like when you talk to your attorney and they can’t disclose anything without your permission.”
“There’s no privilege here,” Lois told her. “We’re not the friggin’ witness protection program you know. But we would only disclose information if it was absolutely necessary, like to comply with a subpoena or to save a child. Otherwise we treat client matters with great confidentiality.”
My mate nodded, looked around the table again, then brought two fingers to her temple, rubbing on it.
“My real name is Moira O’Brian,” she said slowly. “My parents Colm and Elizabeth O’Brian have been running a well-known criminal enterprise since… well, way before I was born.”
“The O’Brians?” Wanda started frantically tapping on her laptop, then quickly looked back at Hazel. “Your parents are Irish mafia?”
Hazel shrugged. “They’re one of many crime families who’ve been operating out of Ireland, the U.S., and Canada for years. They specialize in rare items, antiques and old books and high-end jewelry, that kind of thing.”
When no one asked any questions, Hazel continued. “I was trained from birth to be a criminal, how to steal and run a scam. I was raised to take over for my parents in their old age, me and my brother. But then Liam…”
Her voice cracked and she took a shuddering breath.
“My brother died eight years ago, back when I was a senior in college. I don’t know the real story. My parents claimed it was a hit from a rival family, him being in the wrong place at the right time, but word on the street was that he was trying to run a deal for my parents and he got made. Liam didn’t have the same instincts as my parents, he was too trusting. Whatever happened, someone took him out. Gunned him down on the street and left him there. He was only eighteen.”
Deep inside me both my wolf and my vamp were begging me to comfort her, although I wasn’t sure how much I could do,especially with my boss at the table. Subtly I moved my leg closer, pressing my knee against her thigh in silent support.
We were all quiet for a couple of minutes, other than Wanda, who continued to tap away on her laptop. No doubt she was running a deep background check on Hazel’s family now.
“What happened after your brother passed?” Lois asked in the gentle tone she normally reserved for her mate.
“I graduated college a few months later, and the night I graduated, my parents informed me that I was now working full-time for the family. That wasn’t a surprise, I’d known that was coming. But they also said they were arranging for me to marry the oldest son of another family, so we could join forces with them and take over the entire eastern part of the United States.”
Hazel paused, slowly breathing in a long breath. She was good at hiding her emotions, not that it was surprising given the family she’d grown up with. If it wasn’t for the sensitivity of our tenuous mate bond, I’d never be able to tell how much it was taking for her to tell the story.
“I acted like I was going along with it for the next couple of years, but behind the scenes I planned carefully,” she continued. “I worked hard to de-digitize everything that tied me to my identity. I opened up an offshore account and transferred all my funds there where no one could trace them, including a trust my grandparents left for me that I got control of when I turned twenty-one. Then I gathered up as much money and easy to sell items as I could from my parents’ house, taking it all with me.”
“You stole money from your parents?” Wanda asked, her tone surprised.
I frowned, but she ignored me, her attention still on that damned laptop. Hazel’s spine stiffened but her face remained impassive.
