Page 125 of Brutal Obsession

“A traitor?” My voice sounds strange. “Here?”

“It was just a hunch.” Rory straightens up. “Until they got Harper at the airport.”

Rory’s words bring me to a screeching halt. My eyebrows fly up my face.

“Wait. Just…fucking wait.” I can’t even process this news. “Are you saying one of the Kings is moonlighting for theDe Lucas?”

“Yup.” Finn’s tone drops an octave.

I shake my head, dazed. “What does your dad think?”

“He thinks it was the perfect cover-up.” Something bitter twists Finn’s face as he snuffs out the end of his cigarette. “The De Lucas were already after me. If the mole wants to shake up the power, helping the De Lucas take me out would destabilize the clan and leave my dad wide open.”

I hum, mind racing. “Who’s got that big a death wish?”

“Someone sneaky.” Rory leans his stick against the table and folds his arms over his chest. “Someone who thinks they’re smart enough to get away with it.”

“And has no respect for family,” Finn adds, balling his fists.

I rake a hand through my hair. “This changes everything.”

Is it possible that I was set up to fail this whole time? That from the beginning, I wasn’t able to protect Harper because someone on our side was working against us all along?

I didn’t think I had any more energy for rage left inside me, but I was wrong. I am my father’s son, after all.

“What does Harper’s abduction have to do with the mole?”

“We’re still trying to figure out what a mole would have gotten out of it.” Rory moves toward the liquor cabinet across the room. “Maybe nothing.”

“Or maybe it was a trust exercise.” Finn motions for Rory to grab two extra glasses along with his own. Rory reads Finn’s mind and returns carrying a damn good bottle of scotch.

“A test.” I catch on to Finn’s train of thought. Maybe the mole was trying to build trust with the De Lucas. I already know that Enzo’s interest in Harper goes deeper than any grudge, real or imagined, he had with Finn. If Enzo wanted Harper, and the mole was hoping to draw Enzo into an alliance, delivering Harper to him would have been a perfect show of goodwill.

Proof positive that the mole is willing to betray the Kings.

Whatever the cost.

“But what if they just followed us?” I ask.

“They didn’t.” Finn sounds certain as he sips his scotch. “My guess? They knew the plane number, the flight time, and the terminal. Rory and I have been over the tapes. They even knew where to station femaleoperatives for the grab, knowing we wouldn’t expect that.”

Rory nods. “Planning an abduction that well on a simple hunch about when you’d get back? Impossible.”

Finn’s brown eyes darken to nearly black. “They had inside information, all right. The question is, from who? There are so many possibilities, it’s overwhelming.”

An uneasy silence falls over us.

The worst part is that Finn’s right—the mole could be anyone. The Gallagher clan is huge. We have hundreds of members. Only the top one percent of us live here at the estate. The rest of our associates are spread across our territories throughout the boroughs and beyond. Anyone of a lower rank—even those just out of reach of the inner circle—could find a reason to betray our family. Unfortunately, the creation of a traitor often doesn’t take much.

Just trying to imaginewhere to begin sniffing out a mole makes my head pound.

“An unknown enemy is the worst kind.” I grouse the words and just like that, we’re all teenagers again. Shane used to drill the phrase into us when we were young, stupid foot soldiers training for the big leagues.

“Damn right.” Finn downs the rest of his glass and sets it on the table between our armchairs. “And you know how ugly a mole hunt can get.”

We were young when it happened, but the last time there were rumors of a mole within the clan, bodies started dropping like snow in a blizzard. Digging out a mole is a messy, dangerous, calculating business that pits brothers against each other.

Suspicion breeds violence of every kind.

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