Page 100 of Illicit Temptation

“His wife is having a difficult pregnancy. He brought me to a terrorist camp, Ma is...” I sniff.

“I saw her last month when she and Da got here.” Cormac shakes his head, his once swept-up golden hair like Darragh’s now shorn close to his scalp. “She looked good.”

“I can’t wait to see her.” I breathe a sigh of relief, figuring being in her homeland must be having a positive effect on her mindset and slowing down the progression of her MS. “How are you going to deal with this?”

He clears his throat. “I’m a fucking O’Rourke, Shea-Lynne. I’ll get out of here on my own if I have to.”

“Please, please be careful.” I throw my arms around him.

Just then the door opens, and two guards come forward while the warden hovers by the entrance. Looking that way, his stare wrecks me.

Cormac hisses when Malone looks at me. A menacing scowl replaces the charming smile the warden wore earlier.

What. Is. Happening?

Trace appears at my side and tucks me behind him as Cormac walks off with his head held high. Warmth surrounds me. Trace on one side. Darragh the other.

Lachlan hovers behind me, growling, “In case anyone can’t tell, I’m not fucking happy right now.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Shea

Everyone in the SUV is silent, still recovering from the scene at the prison as we drive to my grandparents’ estate that’s just over the border from Dunbar, on the very south end of Waterford.

Maimeóand Pop on Ma’s side lived there my whole childhood. They’re both gone from this world now. Da kept the house and the immediate residential property, but sold off the farm to a developer. When Ma said she wanted to live out her last days in Ireland, Da brought her there.

Lachlan gets a call from Katya, and I lean in to listen. “What did the doctor say?” Lachlan asks his sweet wife. “How do you feel?”

Darragh holds out his hand for the cellphone wanting to talk to her, but he shakes his head.

“I’ll be home in a couple of days. I’m calling your sister right now and telling her to pick you up. You’ll stay with her andoff your feetuntil I get home. That’s an order, little one.” Lachlan pinches the bridge of his nose.

Darragh calls his wife Ana, Katya’s sister before Lachlan has a chance. My heart calms down knowing Ana will take care of Katya until we get home.

We arrive at the estate’s gated entry and are let in without any security hassles from the shaggy, weak-looking men, who work for my father.

Walking up to the door of the main house, I pull Lachlan aside. “Cormac was set up, wasn’t he?”

“Aye.” Anger radiates from him.

I’m about to ask a follow-up question when the main door, a heavy wooden monstrosity with a brass knocker, flies open.

Da stands there in trousers and a gray button-down shirt. For the first time, he seems older and shorter. Or maybe I’ve just grown so used to being around my extremely tall brothers. Not to mention Trace who towers above them all, except Lachlan.

As if no one else is here, Da comes right to me and squeezes me into his arms. “Shea-Lynne, my darlin’ daughter, you’re finally home! I’m so delighted to see you.” He kisses both my cheeks.

“Hello, Da.” I hug him back. He smells exactly as I remember. The mild scent of his cigar habit mixed with the English Leather cologne he’s always worn. Minus the coppery scent I learned later in life was blood.

My brothers stroll past us, not saying a word to him and a queasy feeling settles into my stomach all of a sudden. My father adored me growing up. Gave me all his love. Spoiled me at the expense of showing affection to his sons, who he raised to be ruthless killers like him. Not to mention showing any affection to his wife.

A woman he was forced to marry in these rural lands so many years ago. We all thought it was love, but cracks in our memory reveal details our brains made fuzzy and uncertain.

I’m the fourth in birth order and I’d heard rumors Ma wanted to stop after me. She had four sons and a daughter at that point. But Balor came a year after me and then four years later, Ma was pregnant again with twins.

What we don’t talk about is that she had left us for three of those four years. And again, on and off while we grew up, taking my twin brothers with her each time.

“I need to prepare you before you see your ma.” Da steers me into the house and through the grand foyer with a sweeping curved ceramic staircase to the second floor.

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