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“Well,” Eden said to Ronan. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he said, stone cold.
“You, however…” Eden hugged me. “You get tired of this man pretending he’s not crazy about you and I will be back in an instant.”
“Where are you going?” I asked into her hair, awash with surprising affection for this woman who literally blew up my life.
“One quick reckoning for my sins with Bryant and then…” She tilted her head. “I don’t know. Eastern Europe? Maybe I can find an old count with a castle somewhere who needs a wife to blow his mind and spend his money.”
“If anyone can find him, it’s you,” I said and then squeezed her one more time. She was born in the wrong time. I could easily imagine her in some medieval royal court, keeping secrets and dispensing poison. “Stay safe.”
“You too,” she said, and with a wave of her fingers she climbed in the back of one of the town cars and it drove away.
“Are they going to kill her?” I asked Ronan without looking at him.
“I hope not.”
Slightly stunned by what passed as an emotional outburst from the man, I turned to stare at his profile. His cold beauty was familiar, it held no new torture for me. But there was something else in his eyes and the corners of his mouth. Something softer. Contemplative.
That would be the end of me. I would see what I wanted—affection and concern when it was just exhaustion. Or gas. I had to remember that, to not go falling in love with what I wanted to be true.
Ronan’s hand touched my back and he gestured to the open door of the other town car. Doors again.
I wondered bleakly where this door would take me. What bitter world it opened up. I climbed in, surprised to see another person in the back seat. A young man with light brown skin and deep black hair. “Ma’am,” he said with a thick Irish accent.
Ronan swept in behind me. “Raj,” he said to the boy and held out his hand.
“I got ya the phones.” Raj put two new iPhone boxes in that hand. Ronan handed one to me. “Set them up, programmed a few numbers into them. You can call each other. Me.” Raj smiled at me. “You can call your sister.”
I clutched the phone to my chest like a lifeline. Ronan had given him those instructions. To put Zilla’s number in the phone. Stop it, Poppy. Stop seeing care where there’s only expedience.
“Thank you,” Ronan said, his voice different as he talked to Raj. Brusque and commanding. “The other instructions?”
Raj’s eyes drifted from me, back to Ronan, back to me. “It’s fine,” Ronan said. “Poppy knows what we’re walking into.”
“I brought on the lads you asked for,” Raj said. “Twenty new soldiers. All of them clean. Niamh gave me their names.”
“That’s good.”
“The house has been silent. Though Caroline Constantine’s new killer drives by once a day, real slow, window rolled down. Swear the fucker is just looking for a bullet between the eyes.”
“Don’t be provoked,” Ronan said.
“She’s put a bounty on your head,” Raj said.
“What? Why?” I cried. We’d known while in Ireland she was looking for him. But a bounty?
“She’s just yanking on my leash,” he said. “Reminding me who owns me.”
“Just so I’m clear,” I said. “I’m wanted by the Morellis dead or alive and now Caroline wants you dead or alive?”
“Oh no,” Raj jumped in to clarify. “She wants him alive.”
“What a relief,” I said sarcastically.
“We’re safe,” Ronan said to me without any comfort. “The marriage made us safe.”
Raj’s eyes went wide. “You’re married?” he asked with a smile and Ronan nodded. The ring on my finger felt like a chain. “Maireann croí éadrom i bhfad,” Raj said, and Ronan’s lip twisted in what could not be mistaken for a smile.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
“A light heart lives long,” he said, and I couldn’t help it. Wild laughter burst out of me. Raj’s smile faded and Ronan turned to look at me with his cold face.
“Come on,” I said, punch-drunk from exhaustion and stress and…everything. “You gotta admit that’s funny.”
His face told me he didn’t need to admit anything. “Any other updates?” Ronan asked Raj.
“That lawyer you wanted us to keep tabs on?” Raj said.
“From Bishop’s Landing?” Ronan asked.
Raj nodded.
“Wait, you’re keeping tabs on Leonard Bennington?” I asked. It seemed like a million years ago that I went with my sister to Bennington’s office after the senator died. He’d been such a quiet little man, his glasses slipping down his nose. I’d been surprised that the senator used a rather unimpressive lawyer from Bishop’s Landing rather than a big firm out of the city to handle his foundation’s paperwork. But the senator was only predictable in his cruelty.
