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Pale rectangles remained after the lives were removed.

I stared at them whenever sleep refused to come and wondered how many homes the Society had emptied without firing a weapon. How many families had abandoned pictures, names, and ordinary routines because someone decided their blood could be useful?

Every house protected me by exposing someone else.

Maxim’s men drove the vehicles. Vladmir arranged food and false names. Sinclair passed information through channels he couldn’t guarantee remained secure. Uncle Sal searched Boston for anyone who might be watching my family, while Dad rarely left Mom alone. Rowen carried stitches in his arm because he had followed me to the pier.

The danger spread outward from every person attempting to keep it contained.

For weeks, I believed I was the infection.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

On Christmas Day, I learned how wrong I had been.

Rurik received the call shortly after nine. We had finished dinner, and I sat at the table with Salvatore’s file open beneath my hands. He answered, listened for less than a minute, then looked at me.

“O’Malley needs to speak with you.”

Something in his face made my stomach tighten. Rurik connected the secured tablet and placed it upon the table. Uncle Sal appeared first, sitting behind the desk in his Boston office. Dad stood near his shoulder while Mom occupied a chair beside him. Duncan paced across the background, moving in and out of the screen with his phone clenched in one hand.

No one greeted me.

“Who died?” I asked.

Uncle Sal leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. I had rarely seen him appear old. Anger usually sharpened him, giving his authority enough force to make age irrelevant. That night, something had hollowed the strength from his face.

“Mac.”

The name did not belong beside death. Mac was simply there, as permanent as the men whose blood gave them a place in our family. I stared at Uncle Sal, waiting for something more than a name.

“What happened?”

“He was working for St. James,” Dad said. His hand settled upon Mom’s shoulder when she lowered her gaze.

“Mac wouldn’t do that.”

Duncan stopped pacing. “Another heir was found."

My eyes closed. Now everything made sense. Why my grandmother was willing to let me go. She had someone else. "Who is she?"

“King called me a few months ago,” Uncle Sal began. “Carly found what she thought was another one of Steele's daughters.”

I listened as he told me everything. I’d been told about Kyllian—another cousin I had never known about—and her connection to the Brotherhood of Bastards. A club Sylvia St. James would not go up against without Jane Craven. I'd thought she felt the same about the Russian Bratva.

Uncle Sal explained about Kaitlyn Ward—Kyllian’s baby sister—who Sylvia believed was her niece. Only, Uncle Sal hadn't told his men everything, just that Sylvia wanted her niece—now known as Fiona—and where she was.

“Mac disappeared after Thanksgiving. No one knew where he was until King called me and told me his man had killed him when he entered the bayou expecting to take the girl by force.”

The room around me became very quiet. Rurik moved to the chair near the window, allowing my family to speak without his presence becoming pressure.

“Is Fiona safe?”

“Yes,” Dad answered immediately. “She and Romeo are both safe.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, swiping at the tears I didn't want to shed for a man I saw as family. I looked from Dad to Uncle Sal, searching their faces for the part that would make the rest impossible. Mac had stood behind Uncle Sal for as long as I could remember. He had occupied the edges of Sunday dinners, birthdays, weddings, and funerals until no one considered him a guest. The man they described could not be the same one who carried me to bed after I fell asleep on Uncle Sal’s sofa. “He must have been forced.”

“No one forced him, baby,” Dad said.