“I’m sorry, but I’ll need to call you back,” I said suddenly. “I don’t think I should be speaking to the police without a lawyer present.”
“I see. Well, you have my direct number. Please call me back within the next forty-eight hours. The sooner the better.”
I lay in my bed, staring at the phone for what felt like hours. What could Ronan have done that had the Las Vegas police calling across state lines, trying to track him down?
I had a feeling it wasn’t an unpaid parking ticket.
As if summoned, my phone buzzed again with one more text.
Ronan
Please, Laney. Just tell me where you are. I need to know you’re safe. You owe me that much, at least
I stared at the message for a long time. I wasn’t sure I owed him anything right now, much less my safety.
Nevertheless, I found myself typing out one more message before turning the phone back off so I could sleep.
I’m home. I’ll be fine without you. For both our sakes, please let me be.
32
THE WAY IT REALLY IS
RONAN
Istared at the text—the single text Laney had sent since running out of our wedding reception like a hunted rabbit—for several long minutes as the Rover idled in front of my father’s house in Brookline. “Looks like a party,” Mac observed.
I glanced outside, where several familiar cars lined the circular driveway. Owen’s Mercedes, Liam’s Tesla. The Audi belonged to Liza, and I was pretty sure the new Porsche was something Shea had just picked up. There was a staid Bentley at the far end I didn’t know, though I had my suspicions about its owner.
“Some party,” I muttered.
Not for the first time, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. How many times had I taken extra minutes outside this house like a criminal about to go on trial?
I’d been summoned early this morning for a “meeting of minds,” in Dad’s words—otherwise known as a semi-public flogging for embarrassing him in front of Boston’s entire business class. Honestly, though. Was he really expecting me to stay at the party, hobnobbing with Boston’s idiocracy while mywife ran away because of his treachery? It took me all of five minutes to shake my siblings off like raindrops and run out after her, only to see her and Megan disappear into a cab.
They were quick, those two. Quick enough to hightail it to Seattle within a matter of hours—a fact I only discovered when Laney finally turned her phone on just long enough to send that text and reveal her location before she went dark again.
It was long enough.
“He did say he wants to ‘make things right,’ didn’t he?” Mac was carefully neutral in tone, even when I gave him a look.
“Mac, you’ve been working for us long enough to know exactly how often any member of the Black family legitimately wants to ‘make things right.’”
He was wise enough not to answer. Probably because he was the one who had been sent to bring me to heel.
“He has one chance to unfuck this,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if it was to Mac or to myself. “Otherwise, I’m out.”
“Out?”
I opened my door. “That’s right.”
I didn’t even bother waiting for Jenkins to open the door. I just strode into the gaudy old house like it belonged to me. Mac followed closely, feeling less like my warden and almost like a friend.
Everyone was waiting in the sitting room just off the back gardens that looked out over the pond. Owen and Liam stood by the drink cart with Shea. Liza, Dad, and Violeta were already enjoying their own cocktails by the window. And then there was the likely owner of the mystery car: Bas fucking Huntington, sipping scotch in Dad’s favorite leather chair.
This wasn’t a peace accord. It was an ambush, just as I thought.
“Ronan.” The room quieted at the sound of Dad’s voice, and everyone turned to me. “We wondered when you’d show. Get adrink and have a seat at the table. We need to go over the Meráki acquisition.”
