Page 375 of Romeo

“It’s Mac.”

Relief came fast enough that I actually felt my shoulders drop. Mac wasn’t somebody who wandered into other people’s business. He was one of Sal’s top three, the kind of man Sal trusted when something needed handling rather than discussed. If King had reached out to his father after my warning, Mac showing up made sense.

Fiona leaned just far enough to see past me, but instead of relaxing, her body went rigid.

“I know him.”

I looked back at her. “You do?”

“He was in Rosewood when everyone came for Morgan.” She stared through the window, her brow drawing together as if she were dragging up a memory she hadn’t expected to need again. “He looked at me.”

There was something in the way she said it that kept me from brushing the comment aside.

“He didn’t say anything,” she added. “He just stared. I remember because it gave me this weird feeling.”

I looked outside again. Mac stood on the porch with his hands visible, wearing the same unreadable expression he usually did. The man could make breathing in his direction feel vaguely threatening, so Fiona remembering an uncomfortable look wasn’t enough to turn one of Sal’s most trusted men into an enemy.

“That’s Mac,” I told her. “He makes most people uncomfortable.”

Her expression didn’t ease, but she nodded.

“Stay back.”

I approached the door with my hand close to my gun, more habit than suspicion, and opened it without stepping completely out of the way. Mac’s gaze landed on me first, and that last thread of tension eased enough that I almost smiled.

“Sal send you?”

He didn’t answer.

His attention shifted past my shoulder.

I felt Fiona behind me without needing to look at her.

Mac’s expression barely changed before he said, “Kaitlyn.”

Everything inside me stopped.

There were moments when your body figured out the truth before your brain was willing to touch it. My grip tightened around the pistol hidden behind my leg while part of me was still trying to find an explanation for why Mac had looked directly at my wife and used a name he had no reason to know.

He should have called her Fiona.

If Sal had sent him, he should have asked if she was safe.

Instead, he had said Kaitlyn like that was the woman he had come to find.

I started to bring the gun around.

Mac moved first.

He came through the doorway hard, driving his shoulder into my chest before I could raise the weapon. My back slammed into the wall, the impact knocking the breath out of me and throwing my gun arm wide. By the time I shoved myself upright again, Fiona was no longer behind me.

Mac had her.

His arm locked across her upper chest, dragging her back against him. The gun in his other hand stayed low against her side, close enough that he didn’t need to point it anywhere for the threat to be clear.

“Jasper.”

I had heard Fiona afraid before, but never with somebody else’s arm around her.