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Ada huffed a laugh as she leaned against the archway. “It’s cute how you shield him, Liam. How long do you really thinkyou’re going to be able to do that? He’s going to end up in hell with the rest of us no matter how much you try to protect him.”
My jaw pulled tight as I began cleaning up the counter, once again trying to calm my rage. “It’ll behoove you to keep that shit to yourself. Why are you here?” There were a few reasons but I needed her to spell it out. I didn’t want to say something she didn’t already know. She might have recruited me into this shit but that didn’t mean she was the boss. Correction, shewasthe boss but I answered to more than just her.
“Because I wanted to see if you had the program.” When I raised an eyebrow, questioning her sanity, she continued. “Don’t bullshit me. We both fucking know we were working different angles to appease the boss. We play nice for the rest of the family but cut the facade. Where. Is. It.” Her clipped tone told me something else was bothering her but we’d get to that eventually.
“I’ll assume you’re here because whatever you took doesn’t work.”
“And I’ll assume that the lack of a smug smile on your face means that yours didn’t either.” Ada moved farther into my house and leaned against my counter before folding her arms across her chest. My sister looked like a fucking gladiator and seemingly unbothered by Owen’s flesh covering her. She’d hate herself later for killing the father of her child but that was just another thing that wasn’t my problem.
I shrugged off her statement. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now. The program had been her thing. I had just seen an opportunity and seized it, although it hadn’t paid off. My focus now was staying under the radar and waiting for the next poor sap to recruit as well as fulfilling any other requests handed down the pipeline. “Great, that’s out of the way. What now?”
If she was going to stay for dinner, I needed her to clean up before Joey returned. And if she wasn’t, I needed her to get the fuck out of my house.
Ada didn’t say anything for several minutes but I gave her the time to push out what was bothering her. “I have to go get my fucking daughter.”
I froze and twisted around to meet her gaze. Beneath the fury that Rhys had somehow outsmarted the both of us, there was a twinge of fear. “Tia’s not with Ernest?”
“Dad thought he was being funny after seeing a few things he shouldn’t have. Thought he was protecting her. No one’s answering their phones and Dad hasn’t used his passport so I’m not entirely sure where the fuck they are.”
I was all sorts of confused because while this program had been on my radar, I handled the legal side of the business–not the action. “Why would you check his passport? Oh, right, the vacation home.” I mulled over that, wondering if Dad was brave enough to attempt something like that.
“Just get a hold of Rhys and figure out what the fuck is going on while I go get my child back.” She blew out a deep breath as she pushed off the wall.
“He’s not answering my texts.”
“Probably because he’s on a fucking plane to France. Oh, is that news to you as well? Yeah, those fucking men that Owen stupidly brought to Rhys’ house are now intent on protecting him and taking this to the main headquarters. Not sure what they think they’ll find but…”
I held up my hand, trying to hide my smile and failing. “Sis, you realize how coincidental it is that Rhys is going to France and that’s where our vacation home is, right?”
“Neither Mom nor Dad has used their passports or credit cards.”
Ada would have made fun of the undignified snort that came from me in different circumstances. As it stood, she was strung out and I was enjoying this little shit show even if I didn’t understand why Dad thought stealing Ada’s daughter was a goodidea. “And you know that they’ve taken vacations before and paid entirely in cash, acquired a driver, and decided to turn off their phones because, and I quote ‘we’re adults’”.
Watching the horror slowly bleed through her expression was everything. I had no idea where my parents were but I also didn’t care. Tia was safer with them anyway. “Fuck,”
“I might when Joey gets back. Now get out of my house before he returns or I’ll have to explain the carnage that you’re currently covered in.”
She didn’t fight me on that as she headed back out to her car. I watched as she drove away, mulling over the absolute shit show unraveling before me. Hilarious as it was, someone was going to get seriously hurt. I didn’t want it to be Rhys but he was caught in the crosshairs of something not even I understood.
One wrong move and we’d all have to answer for our actions. It made me wonder what Rhys’ program could truly do and why everyone wanted their hands on it. A quick text to an old friend gave me hope that I might be able to find out.
Me - Hey
Maia - You never text.
Me - I need you to look at something
Maia - What’s in it for me?
Me - 10%
Immediately my phone rang. “Fuck your 10%. You never offer money for these kinds of jobs. Give me a bag of Skittles and a little time to play with your problem. Do I get to know what it is?”
“No.”
“Ah, one of those jobs. Okay, skittles and 10%.”
“Done.” I hung up and walked over to the laptop to email her the file from the disk. I was smart enough to know that it was broken but not what had been changed. Maia was one of the few geniuses in her field who wasn’t employed by HawkInternational. I wouldn’t have to worry about all the red tape and I knew she wouldn’t snoop. I just hoped she could figure it out before Rhys accomplished whatever the fuck he was trying to do in France.
