Page 79 of Irish Brute
“I think so.”
He grips the handle of the duffel and says, “Let’s go.”
We’re halfway to downtown Philadelphia before I find the nerve to ask, “You’re just leaving Aiofe in that house? With Grace?”
“And Fairfax. And the rest of the Thornfield staff.” And then, “Grace has taken care of her since she was three years old.”
I want to ask how often Grace has set the house on fire during those seven years, but I don’t dare. Instead, I watch the lights go by and try to piece together what’s happening, why we’re on the run.
From Braiden’s half of the conversation, I know he’s heading toward a summit. I assume it’s with Russo. And I assume they’re meeting Sunday night, if Braiden intends us to stay in our suite for three nights.
He tried to change the timing. He didn’t want to meet on Sunday. That must be because of the shipment he has coming into the port, the drugs Russo is after.
I recognize the flutter in my chest as hope. Maybe, justmaybe, if Russo is in on this summit, he won’t push for the information he’s demanded from me. He’ll be too busy to call my office cell, checking in on the data he ordered me to steal. He’ll forget his threat to release his pictures from That Night.
And maybe leprechauns are real, too.
When we arrive at the Rittenhouse, Liam is waiting outside the hotel. I expect Braiden to hand him my bag, but he doesn’t. It’s only as we cross the lobby to the elevators that I realize Liam needs to keep his hands free—bodyguard rule number one.
Braiden studies the lobby with a commander’s cool precision. I see him pick out four of his men; they exchange tight nods. I wonder if one of them is the summoned Patrick. Apparently not—fifteen minutes remain before Braiden’s one-hour deadline, and no one falls in line behind us.
Liam calls the elevator and when it arrives, he gestures for Braiden and me to enter. A mother dashes up with her little girl, calling out, “Can you hold that please?” But Liam shakes his head and tells her she’ll have to take the next one. He stands in the center of the closing doors, unmoved by the mother’s exasperated sigh.
Our suite is on the third floor, through a locked door and down a private hallway. Liam takes up a position in that corridor after keying us into our rooms.
Braiden wastes no time leading the way to the bedroom. “My men and I will meet out there,” he says, jutting his chintoward the luxurious table and chairs, along with the high-end kitchenette and its modern appliances. “You’ll stay here. Safe.”
It doesn’t feel safe. Nothing about today feels safe—from my aching shoulder to the fire in the hallway to the phone call that turned my husband into a calculating machine.
I know I should add to Braiden’s burden, now, before it’s too late. I should tell him about Russo’s demands, about the spying I’ve been blackmailed into. I should warn him that Russo wants to use me to steal the drug shipment.
But I won’t.
Because I’m not giving in to Russo.
I’m not sure when I made up my mind. Maybe it was when Braiden insisted I stay in our bed, even though I couldn’t possibly give him the type of sex he requires. Maybe when he fed me at breakfast this morning, bite by tender bite. Maybe when he took that devastating call from the man he’s forced to call boss.
Whenever I made my decision, I’m positive now. I won’t betray my husband.
So Russo will disclose the truth about That Night.
I’ve dreaded this moment for eleven years. The entire world is about to learn the terrible thing I did. I’m forty-eight hours away from losing the life I’ve built for myself, the job I love, and probably—likely—my marriage.
But I haven’t lost it yet.
In fact, I still have one option to make things better. I can siphon off some of the tension that radiates from Braiden like the glow of uranium.
I cross the room to his side. I close the door between this bedroom and the rest of the suite. I look directly in my husband’s eyes and say, “Before you go…”
A greedy hunger lights his face. But he says, “I’ve work to do.”
“You have to wait for Patrick, right? And for Madden too?”
He shrugs, which I take as his agreement.
I reach for the buckle on his belt. “So we have time.”
His fingers close over mine, firm and forbidding. “Your shoulder,” he says, as if I might have forgotten my bandages.
