Page 102 of Her Mercenary

Gripping onto the window frame, I climbed out. Rain dripped from the leaves overhead as I carefully crept along the siding. Pulling myself up and onto the peak, I crawled up the side of the roof, to the top.

Ryder was yelling my name by the time I finally returned to the call.

“You there? Roman—”

“Yeah, bad reception. Where are you?”

“Listen, about the letter in that box—”

The letter from my mother, confessing that my father was the leader of a human-trafficking network.

“You read the letter?” I snapped.

“Of course I read the fucking letter, dude. You’ve obviously got yourself in a shit-ton of trouble. I don’t give a fuck who your father is. We’re a team, man, fucking ride or die.”

I inhaled, the relief overwhelming.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m heading to the lodge as fast as I can, but I’ve got news for you. I had one of my old DOD contacts reach out to your contact in G2, the Irish military intelligence division.”

I repositioned, straining to hear Ryder over the rain and shoddy reception.

“I requested the file on your father, Oisin Cussane, to study on the plane ride down. You probably know it’s rumored that he has had, like, a dozen illegitimate children with his mistresses, right?”

“Yeah, like me.”

“Well, my goal was to begin pinning down all these people, assuming that they could be involved in this mess in one way or another. I found something interesting. According to the file, Oisin is rumored to have actually claimed one son, to train him to take over his organization if anything ever happened to him. Thing is, the kid’s name was kept under wraps, and there’s no documentation connecting him to the birth, or anything.”

“Except ...” Obviously, Ryder had something.

“Except an old medical record that was attached to Oisin’s file with an asterisk. Meaning, they couldn’t confirm the validity of it, but felt it was important enough to keep record of.”

“What is it?”

“Thirty-five years ago, a boy, age twelve, was admitted into an emergency clinic somewhere outside of Dublin. The file says he was alone, delirious, close to death. The boy claimed he was the son of Oisin Cussane. Kept screaming it over and over.”

“What was wrong with him?”

“His left eye had been carved from his head.”

I spun around, almost losing my footing as I stared in the direction of the black car I’d seen disappearing into the rain.

“The man came and took her.”

“What man?”

“The man with the eye patch.”

Lucas, my friend, my confidant.

Lucas Ruiz, a fucking liar, a fraud. My partner for over a decade wasn’t undercover with the Mexican government. He was Conor Cussane, Oisin Cussane’s son, undercover within his own organization. The man that no one had laid eyes on, the man who ruled a multimillion-dollar organization from behind the secrecy of his laptop.

Conor Cussane, the mystery, the enigma.

My brother.

And he had Sam.

I killed the call, clambered down the roof, and sprinted to my truck.

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