Page 39 of Creatures in the Night

“I suppose that could be true,” he conceded, before adding, “Let us go and get you some food.”

As we both stood up from the bench, I asked, “Do you think I could get enough for the rings to get me out of Maryland?”

“I suspect that those rings could fetch you enough to fly you all the way to your homeland, Irish girl,” he answered, grinning down at me.

“I was born in America,” I informed him, correcting his assumption.

“Bah, that matters not,” he replied. “Your homeland is where your heart is, and your heart is Irish. Like me, your nationality is American, but it is impossible to be American since an American is so many different races, cultures, and identities, dorogaya devushka. Therefore, you are Irish like I am Russian.”

“I never thought about it that way before,” I muttered in thought.

“Many people confuse their nationality with their ethnicity, but it’s right there in the word,” he went on. “Nation is in the word that makes up nationality, so when someone asks your nationality, it is the nation in which you were born. When someone asks your ethnicity, that’s when the miracle of being an American comes into play, because that’s when your bloodline has its opportunity to shine bright.”

I glanced up at Ivan. “Are you a philosopher, Ivan?”

“No, I am not,” he answered, grinning again. “I’m just an old man with too much time on his hands.”

Knowing that he was lying, I let it go since he was being kind enough to ignore my lies, too.

Chapter 25

Noah~

I was close to losing my shit, and just about everyone knew it. My wife was fucking gone and in danger, the hospital was refusing to release Craig for the time being, and I was no closer to knowing what the fuck had happened since Craig was claiming ignorance.

The second that Shea had driven off, I had called Declan, and he’d told me that Craig had just been moved to a private room, though he was still out of it. After quickly giving Declan a rundown of what Shea had said, he had agreed to stay with Craig to get some answers, but when I’d gotten there, Craig had insisted that he had no idea what Shea was talking about. He’d sworn that it was just a random mugging, and until I got him to the manor, I couldn’t force the truth out of him. Because no matter what Shea thought, I believed my wife, and I knew that Craig had to have overheard the same thing that Shea had claimed to. So, if he was denying it, there could only be one reason why.

“He’ll be released tomorrow, Noah,” Declan said. “He just has to be stabilized through the night.”

“That would help if my wife wasn’t fucking missing,” I snapped.

“We’ve got everyone looking for her,” he reminded me.

“Which means that she’s no longer in O’Brien territory, or else someone would have found her by now,” I pointed out. “She also has no money, no phone, no ID, or her purse.”

“But she has your gun, so that’s something,” he said, doing his best to calm me down, though it wasn’t working. “You know, I’ve never seen you so worked up over anything before.”

“Yeah, well...I’ve never had a wife before,” I retorted.

Eyeing me from across his desk, he asked, “Do you love her?”

“Yes.”

Declan’s brows shot upward in surprise. “That was fast.”

I downed the rest of my whiskey before saying, “Yer one ta talk, lad,”

“That was different,” he claimed. “I don’t have an apathetic personality.”

Before I could comment on that, my phone was ringing, and when I saw Maksim Barychev’s initials flashing across the screen, my back immediately went up. I could use some good news right now, and if they had managed to finally find Klive Simpson, then that would be one less headache on everyone’s plate.

“Murphy here,” I answered. “Did you guys finally find Simpson?” At the mention of Klive’s name, my cousin sat up straighter in his chair.

“No, he still evades us,” Maksim answered. “I am calling you for another reason.”

My blood ran cold down my spine. “Which is?”

“Something of yours has wandered into our territory, and as a courtesy, I am calling to find out if you want it back,” he answered. “And before you ask, she is well, despite being covered in bandages.”

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