Page 109 of Illicit Temptation

“Nice speech, Dar. And the fact that you agreed to stay with Ma...” Lachlan hugs him but stops when his phone beeps. “That was Griffin. He’s calling around Waterford to find us men with weapons who will help us.I’min charge here now. Tomorrow, at first light,I'llgo talk to Malone. That’s the plan. And that’s final.”

AN HOUR LATER, LACHLANand Trace have moved myfather’s body somewhere out of sight. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I sit at Ma’s bedside while Darragh scours through her records on a medical tablet he refused to let the nurses take.

With nothing else to do, I say prayers for her using Lachlan’s rosary.

“What in the fuck’s sake was Da doing to her,” Darragh says, stressing over the medical records. “None of this makes sense.”

“How long does she really have, Dar?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “These meds she’s on don’t look right.”

“What are you saying?” I ask him, and I’m so glad he’s here. There is something wrong with my mother. MS should not have ravaged her down to skin and bones with no ability to breathe on her own.

“I think Da was trying to kill her,” he whispers.

I jump up. “What?”

“I’m turning down the morphine and then taking her off the ventilator,” Darragh says, looking at me. “She may start convulsing. You don’t want to watch this, Shea.”

“Will she die?” I hold my chest.

“It’s possible,” Darragh says, a catch in his voice. “From the trauma. She’s so damn weak.”

Nodding, I kiss her on the forehead. “I love you, Ma.”

I stumble from the room, tired and wrung out. Wandering through the hallway maze, I find Trace in the butler’s pantry. I spin around to leave, but he pins me to the wall.

“Let me go,” I say through clenched teeth.

“No. Let me explain why I didn’t tell you about Nico Scava.” He pushes his thigh between my legs. “Scava sent a guy to spy on you, a guy I beat the crap out of. Scava also held a gun to my head when we were in Vegas because he knew we were fucking. And now he’s downtwo men because I killed them.”

I suck in a breath. He killed two men in Las Vegas. “And you didn’t tell me any of that either?”

“I didn’t tell you any of that for your own good. It’s part of being a bodyguard to deal with threats and keep the client safe.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that on a count of me, yourclient.”

“I’d go through hell for you,wife.” He tries to touch my face, but I pull away. “Truth? Part of me worried that you’d see Scava as some kind of good option. All you did was tell me how you wanted to divorce me.”

“Because I can’t have kids,” I spit out.

“And I told you, I don’t care.”

Shaking my head, I wave him off. “You should have told me. We had enough time. You were too busy screwing me.”

He smiles. “And you loved every second of it.”

I consider all the lives at stake right now. How we were caught so off guard. “I know Lachlan is in charge. But he’s putting us all at risk. Don’t make him approach that guy alone. Right now, drive me there. How am I supposed to live with myself if you all die because of me?”

“With all due respect, I don’t care if wealldie, except you.” Trace grips me by the throat, no longer worried about what anyone will think of him touching me. “How am I supposed to live without you? You are mine.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Trace

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