Page 82 of Honorable Sins

Brice jogs over and picks him up, throwing him over his shoulder, blood from the man's wounded feet soaking the front of my top lieutenant's once pristine suit.

"Rory, I need you on cleanup. Alone. Conor, I want the surveillance footage of Fitz leaving erased."

"Right. No one knows that the heir to the throne nearly got kidnapped and killed," Brice barks. "This stays with us."

My soon-to-be-underboss understands.

So does my son, from the expression on his face as he reassures his mother that he's okay and was never in any real danger.

Debatable.

But I'm sure as bleedin' hell not going to say that to my precious wife.

I let us into the only tunnel not overhauled when we upgraded the Bunker's security. The air is stale and musty, the walls lined with century old brick, the floor still packed dirt.

Stygian darkness envelopes us after the door shuts behind us.

I turn on my phone's flashlight. Conor does the same.

"What is this place?" Fitz asks after turning on his own flashlight. "The call dropped when the door closed," he explains hanging up with his mam.

"To be expected. It's an access tunnel to the Bunker."

It takes us twenty minutes to reach the Bunker after tearing up Brice's shirt and pressure wrapping our captive's feet so he doesn't bleed out before he can tell us what we need to know.

Chapter nineteen

My Son Too

KARA

I tell Mick to wait to question Karl and our son until I'm there.

In an ideal world, he would bring Fitz home, and after I yelled at my son for scaring me half to death, I'd hug the stuffing out of him and we would watch another Christmas movie together as a family.

Or something like that anyway.

Something to settle the terror still gripping my heart at the thought of one of our enemies getting their hands on our child.

Only, I don't live in an ideal world.

Like me, my children have been born into the world of the Shaughnessy Mob.

They will never know a day without danger. Cannot live a normal life, even if they choose not to join the mob. They're mob royalty, whatever life path they choose to take, and therefore will always be at risk.

Some days, that barely registers. But on days like today, it's all my heart can see.

Our children are by no means the only ones born into a dangerous world. Being born into a wealthy family puts a child at risk for kidnapping, or worse. Mobsters aren't the only people with enemies. Being born into a publicly royal family carries many of the same consequences as being born a Shaughnessy in New York.

But I want Fitz to be able to have friends without having to worry about them being used against him. I want to be able to take our children to a theme park like Wraith and Áine took her girls.

Would Mick be willing to plan such a trip, especially after today happened?

Do I want him to?

Part of me really doesn't, but another part, the part that decided to stop living in the shadows in my marriage won't allow my children to live there either.

No, their lives will never be normal but that doesn't mean they have to be less. And if Mick tries to tell me otherwise, I'll remind him just how hard I'll fight for what I think is best for our kids.