Page 86 of Forbidden Need

One voice rose over another. This was fast becoming a—

“Hold,” Connel’s voice boomed above them all and everyone silenced. “Watch your tongues around Macushla.” Oh, she’d heard worse, but didn’t mind being Connel’s diffuser. “One at a time.”

“We don’t ignore leads.”

“I’m not saying you should,” Lachlan said, a tad calmer.

Her father was just sitting there. Barely looking at anyone, his attention fixed straight ahead, while the surrounding grunts took notes. This was his father they were fighting for. Did he resent not being in charge?

“Are you gonna join us?”

Ford’s question brought everyone’s focus around to see what he was seeing.

Strat leaning against the hallway wall, arms folded. His eyes stuck on hers and he turned his head, rolling his shoulder on the wall to disappear back into the darkness of the tunnel.

Jumping up, she hurried across the room to meet him in the shadows.

“Tomorrow,” he said in a low murmur.

“Thank you. Where?”

He shook his head. “Not for you. For me.”

Wariness grew acute. “You? I don’t get—”

“If you’re so sure dangling her in front of—”

“You don’t even know where she is.”

“I don’t have to know. Your plan isn’t to give her up, is it?”

“You can’t walk into the firing line like that. You can’t… No.”

“No?”

“No, I won’t let you. I won’t let you risk—”

“You were happy to risk it. Makes more sense coming from me. People know we’re connected now. This isn’t a leap.”

“But you weren’t there. You didn’t find her—”

“You did, yeah. How many people know you snuck her out of the hospital?” Oh, she didn’t like this. Didn’t like it one bit. “That’s a question, Scamp. I need to know who knows.”

“Me and you, that’s it.”

“Me and you?” he asked. She didn’t like how he peered into her like he questioned her honesty. “I’m the only one who knows where she is.”

“Ire?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Rising to her tiptoes, she clasped his folded arms. “I won’t let you do it. I can’t, Strat. You have a family. You—”

“You have your whole life laid out.”

“Not much more than you.” They joked about Strat being old, but he was only in his forties, not over it yet. “This was my play, my decision.”

“I won’t let you do it, I can’t. The meet’s already set, it’s done.”

“No,” she said, her mouth watering as her sinuses tingled. “It is not. And I will—”

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