Page 35 of The Thief
I sit on a crate, trying to organize my thoughts.
"Ava was married to Trace for two years. She was living a double life, going from Boston to Dublin and back; she had an apartment in both places, bank accounts in both places. She was playing both sides."
"We knew that already," Emmanuel says.
"Did you know she was pregnant when she died?"
That stops them cold. Three faces are staring at me like I've just announced the world's ending.
"Pregnant?" Stephen's voice is careful, controlled. "How pregnant?"
"Report said six weeks."
"Whose?" Maverick asks.
It’s the question I knew was coming. It had been over a year since I had seen Ava. No way could it have been mine.
"His," I say, anger and betrayal coating my words.
"But it could be yours."
"Not mine," I say adamantly. Ava changed a long fucking time ago.
Silence stretches between us. Four men trying to process what this means and how it changes things. Why the hell did Trace kill her knowing she was carrying his child?
"It changes nothing," I say finally. "She's dead. The baby's dead. Trace still needs to pay."
"Does it change nothing?" Maverick asks. “Trace being married to Ava and her having his baby has to have fucked with your head?"
"I can think fine."
"Can you? Because right now, you look like a man who's living as a ghost, who’s got nothing to fight for. And men like that make mistakes."
He's not wrong. I haven't been thinking clearly since I found out about Ava's double life. Between her betrayal and Jer's death and this growing thing I feel for Alastríona, my head's a mess.
But that doesn't mean I can't do my job.
"I'm fine," I say.
"Prove it."
"How?"
"By putting the family first. By remembering where your loyalties lie."
Another test. Another way of asking if I'm still one of them or if I've gone soft over a blue-eyed girl from Belfast.
"My loyalties haven't changed."
"Haven't they? Because from what I hear, you've been very cozy with Henry's granddaughter. Getting close to her. That sound like keeping professional distance to you?"
“I’m not distracted, and I’m not doing anything with her. She’s a job. That’s it.” Even though the words sound plausible, I know damn well that I’m lying.
Maverick nods. “None of us need distractions right now.”
"Lorenzo's got a lead," Stephen says, changing the subject.
"What kind of lead?" I ask.
