Page 101 of Vengeful Vows

“All is clear on all fronts.”

“And that is a bad thing? You can’t have hoped there was a rat.”

“I kind of did,” I admit. “Because if there isn’t.... the attack on us that day could be my wife’s doing.”

Kael nods as he takes a crowbar to the first crate.

We start unloading the guns, putting them into the truck and replacing them with money, which the Russians would pick up later tonight. We changed all our routines and started doing these shipments like this to protect our men ever since Murphy attacked.

“And you’ve fallen in love with the enemy’s daughter.” Kael chuckles and shakes his head. “I can’t leave town for a few weeks without you or Cillian doing something stupid.”

I laugh. “Bet you didn’t think it’d be me.”

“I didn’t.”

We continue piling the guns into the truck. He bangs on the back of the truck once we get it all done.

“You want to go get some breakfast?”

I’m hoping for any reason not to go home yet, and Kael hops up in the truck’s cab with me.

At the diner, I order a big breakfast with a short stack of pancakes, and Kael orders steak and eggs. My mind goes to Bree feeding me Marisol’s steak and eggs the other day, and my shoulders slump.

“What are you going to do?” Kael asks.

“What do you mean?”

“If it was her,” he says. “Are you going to do it yourself?”

I shiver just thinking about it.

I know what Da would tell me. He’d say she’s a Murphy, that she’s just like her father. That she needs to be dealt with.

“I can’t even think about it,” I admit.

“Will you forgive her?”

“It’s not up to me to forgive,” I point out. “She’s put the whole Burke clan in danger, if it’s true.”

“But you can’t kill her.”

“I don’t know what I would do,” I say honestly. “I guess I’d be angry, but I’d try to get around it, somehow.”

I sigh. “I don’t think Gray would forgive it.”

He nods. “Gray can be kind of a hard ass.”

“He’s been pretty against it since the beginning.”

He’d been shocked when Da suggested it. So had I, but so many things had changed since then. “But she’s grown on even him, I think.”

Kael raises an eyebrow. “Paige likes her?”

“Paige especially likes her,” I say, and Kael snorts.

“Didn’t know she liked anybody.”

I blink at him.

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