Page 73 of Bartered Innocence

He nods across from us toward our cars. “Let’s get home. Cormac took out most of them. Aodhan grabbed the last few. But their focus seems to be on you two, not any of the rest of us.”

Anger courses through me. “Someone followed her and knew the moment she was unprotected.”

I scoop her up, adjusting her in my arms so I can hold her more easily. “Tell Declan we have eyes on our territory and to shut them down.”

Cillian nods, standing next to me as we move to the car, and I slide into the backseat. Aodhan hops into the passenger seat just as Cillian starts the car.

I glance over him, concerned at the blood pouring from his arm. “You hit?”

“Just a scratch.”

Cillian pulls out of the parking lot in a hurry and I adjust Isabelle on my lap, stroking her hair away from her face.

“Cormac grabbed Ricky. Bringing him back to the house. And we got men to grab her parents. Where you want to take them? House? Or Jersey City?”

“Penthouse. I don’t want them together just yet,” I say. I’m pretty sure Isabelle and Ricky’s loyalty to each other comes from their parents, and they wouldn’t put their children in danger. But I feel like I can’t trust anyone anymore, given that multiple family members have betrayed me.

The shrill ringing of my cellphone has my annoyance increasing tenfold when I see the caller ID, and I answer, spitting out my words through bared teeth.

“You’re a fucking dead man.”

Luca sighs. “I just heard and?—”

“Heard? Fuck you. Have the balls to admit the set up to my face.”

“Rian, be reasonable?—”

I hang up and toss the phone to the front seat where Aodhan grabs it. I breathe in and out a few times in deep pulls before looking down at Isabelle in my lap. Her mouth is open, she looks peacefully asleep. On our way here, I had been consumed with fury, desperately wanting to get to her so I could punish her. But every mile closer to home, I’m more grateful we’re all unharmed.

* * *

“It doesn’t make sense,” my father mutters. His face is scrunched as he stares at the wall, thinking over everything we’ve told him. My brothers and I all stand around his bed, with crossed arms and peeved off expressions.

“It does if the marriage was just a ruse to get me to drop my guard,” I say.

He hums. “To what end, though?”

I shrug, stretching out my shoulders as I pace in front of his bed. “Declan believes Ricky was used as a smokescreen as well. That Gio is more than Luca’s second, that maybe he’s more involved than we’ve been led to believe.”

“So you think he’s hiding something?”

“Or someone? Sebastian asked for our help to find a girl he thinks Gio is hiding.”

My father frowns. “Gio could have a separate agenda though. Why did Luca propose an arrangement to lure you into a trap after the fact? And at the risk of killing his own people. That won’t sit right with some of the traditionalists.”

“Also poses the question if his father truly has cancer or not. And if he doesn’t, then where the fuck is he and what happened to him?” Aodhan adds.

Cormac groans. “I should have killed the fucking bastard.”

“There’s a possibility that Luca isn’t involved at all,” Aisling says.

We all turn to look at her. She arrived sometime last night and slipped into the house without any of us being alerted. Her hair is still dyed a midnight black and it’s a startling difference from her usual auburn.

“If it’s not him, then he’s lost control of his people.”

She shrugs. “Then he lost control of his people. Don’t you think it’s plausible that someone inside is trying to set him up and he arranged the peace arrangement as a possible ally? The Italians had no motive to align themselves with us, then his father disappears from public view and suddenly he wants to make an alliance? A very public alliance? I’m just saying, Luca doesn’t seem like a dumbass who would publicly betray you. ”

“And if someone was working against him, they would only need to create the doubt that Luca would,” Cillian agrees, nodding at his sister.

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