Page 33 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“You’re just not patient enough, my love.” She winked at me as she settled the game back into its box. “You don’t take the time to consider your moves and the impact they might have later down the road. Think before you act.”

I screwed up my face as I looked at her. “You sound like a fortune cookie.” She laughed, melodic and low.

“Maybe life would be better if we all sounded a bit wiser.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I never said you sounded wise,” I teased her. “Just old.” She growled low in her throat before launching herself at me, hands prepared to grab me. I squealed with laughter and took off like a shot.

“I’ll show you old.” She ran after me, barely missing me as I darted past her and scrambled up the stairs. There was no way out on the second landing, but plenty of hiding spots. Her room alone had several. One of my favorite places was beneath the pile of clean clothes in her overly large laundry basket.

Unfortunately, she would see that coming. I chose to hide beneath the mountain of pillows on her bed instead. Curling myself up against the headboard, rearranging everything over me as if it had never been moved.

Let her try to find me now.

Except—she never did.

“I heard her screaming at the top of her lungs,” I choked, refusing to look down at the pictures Aine had laid out on the floor on the landing. The combination of them together, laid one on top of another, created a life-size portrait of my mother’s last moments. “Heavy footsteps thudded up the steps after her as she screamed our safe word again and again. One of the safe spots was in her room.”

“The police report said there was no sign of forced entry,” Aine told me softly. “She knew her killer, Ava, and she let them in.”

“Doesn’t narrow down a suspect pool,” Liam commented bitterly.

“Actually,” I told him, leading them into the master bedroom. “It does.” He didn’t need to ask what I meant. He knew. Seamus McDonough. Well, the man who masqueraded as him, anyway.

Taking a calming breath, I searched for the spot I had hidden in for hours before one of the officers finally found me. The house had been crawling with people, and any noise I made was lost to their heavy footsteps and loud voices.

Then, out of nowhere, the door opened, and a saddened but caring face appeared in the darkness. His name was Officer Finn, and he’d done everything he could to take care of me before social services whisked me away without warning.

“No one will hurt you,a chroí,” he uttered the safe word my mother had drilled into me to accept.

“They will calla chroí,”she told me. “Always trust that word, my star.”

“I remember staying with him and his family for almost a week before social services found us,” I told Sully. “Finn…”

“Kelly.” Sully smiled at the name. “He was a good man. Good soldier.”

“He isn’t still alive?” I cocked my head to the side, concerned.

Sully shook his head and said, “He was killed in October 2007 in a drive-by.”

“That was less than a month after I was taken,” I said. “Did your father think anything of it?”

“He wrote down a couple of theories.” Sully nodded. “But nothing he could prove. Whoever did it was a ghost.”

I was getting tired of ghosts.

Bending down, I felt along the wooden floor near the edge of my mother’s old dresser and pressed down when I felt the wood change from rough to smooth. The wall to the right of the dresser slid open, revealing a dark, musty crawl space.

“Several of these were built into the house on my father’s orders.” Sully bent down to admire the craftsmanship.

“Why would your father protect her mother?” Vas wondered. “Was she paying him for protection? Or—” Sully growled and stood, turning on Vas in a second.

“Be careful what you say next,” he snarled. “My father would never exploit a vulnerable woman like that.”

MySovietnikheld up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Okay. Okay,” he backed off. “But the question remains. Why would he protect her without anything in return?”

“What if she did pay him?” Liam wondered, not the least bit upset about the two men talking about my mother trading sex for protection. His eerie calm bugged the shit out of me, and I wanted to ruffle the surface just to see what lay below. “With secrets.”

“That explains a lot, actually,” Sully agreed. “We saw a huge intake of drugs and guns that year. At least on paper. I wasn’t old enough to remember what was taken in.”

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