Page 142 of Deceived Wrath

I catch Fiona’s eye and find a genuine smile on her face. It’s small, but it’s there, and I love that Scout is the one who brings it out of her.

“Fiona, can we go to the park again today? There’s even more snow, and I never got to finish my snow man.” Scout pouts.

She ruffles his hair. “We’ll go later. But first, we have your lessons to do, remember? It’s your first official day of homeschool.”

Scout groans as he slides onto the chair beside Fiona.

“I thought that was a joke,” he mumbles as he gazes out of the window at the snow-covered city below, and I swallow a laugh.

“Don’t make him work too hard.” I finish the last of my coffee and get to my feet, snatching my phone off the table.

It immediately starts buzzing with a notification for a meeting I’ve already rescheduled twice, and I audibly sigh.

“If you get all of your work done, you can come and build snowmen with us,” Fiona teases.

Scout bounces in his seat. “Yes!Pleasecome and build snowmen with us!”

“I’ll do my best.” I walk around the table to place a kiss on the top of Scout’s head.

On impulse, I lean over and press a quick kiss to Fiona’s head too.

She goes still for a moment, then leans in slightly, so I bend close and whisper in her ear, “We’ll talk more over dinner.”

“Ok,” she whispers when I pull back, her blue eyes meeting mine.

I reach out and gently stroke her cheek, wishing I could lift the weight that is sitting heavy on her shoulders, even if only for a moment. I wonder if maybe it would be worth paying her brother-in-law a visit…

While I ride the elevator down to the parking garage, I decide to send a message to Aiden Clark, Kieran’s trusted personal investigator, asking him to do a little digging on this Joe. He sounds like a complete scumbag. The fact that he is keeping someone like Fiona, who is nothing but kind and attentive, away from her nieces doesn’t sit well with me.

Aside from worrying about Fiona, my attention keeps drifting back to Lorcan.

As I walk into the office atSullivan Investments, I’m already replaying the last handful of leads Brennan and I have chased over the past week. Every single one has ended with the same misdirection or dead ends as people swear they haven’t seen Lorcan in months.

But I call bullshit on the lot of them.

Lorcan’s on the move, and I know he’s closer than any of us realizes.

And the longer we go without finding him, the higher the chances he will stumble across the truth about Scout or worse. The truth about Scout’s mother.

If Lorcan gets his hands on that information, he’ll weaponize it. And I can’t let that happen.

I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling, hoping for something to come out of the woodwork. There’s nothing I hate more than feeling out of control, but I’ve started to exhaust all of my contacts.

My inbox dings, and I almost upend my chair as I hurry to open it. But it’s only an email from Aiden sending over some information on Joe Halligan.

I pull up the file and quickly scan the contents, but every page I scroll through pisses me off more.

Multiple reprimands at work.

Financial strain.

A sealed domestic disturbance report that I can’t access without pulling strings.

And this prick thinks he can keep Fiona from seeing her nieces? Not on my watch.

I drag my finger across the trackpad and highlight a relevant line, which I forward onto one of my guys. Hopefully, knowing he has me watching his back might be enough to persuade Joe to step out of the way and give Fiona back the little family she has left.

The question is whether Fiona will thank me for it, or never forgive me for digging into her past.