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“So I watched because I heard the rumble of the engine.”
My brow puckered at his attention to detail, which rarely came into use when he was forgetting to do things like pick up the laundry in his room or when I asked him to not leave dirty dishes in the sink.
Kids.
Heaving a sigh and deciding this was not the time to wonder why my son had the wherewithal to notice details in a crisis but was incapable of focus on a regular basis, I tuned back into the conversation, grateful he’d noticed anything at all.
“It pulled up into a position that I also considered odd, because it was parked on the Mandelson’s drive, and they’re on vacation, and I’ve been keeping my eye on it ever since. When I was packing up, I happened to see someone get out of that car, walk over to the SUV Mom said belonged to—well, you—”
“And you as well, Seamus. You’re an O’Donnelly now.”
Was now really the moment to throw that in there?
I didn’t say a word, but my irritation flared.
“I’m an O’Neill,” Seamus corrected, his own anger stunning me, as well as the vehemence in his voice.
Maybe it took Brennan aback too, because he didn’t get mad, didn’t even say a word. Just let Seamus continue.
“There was a shot fired, I heard it, then the guy who rode with us got out of the SUV and walked back with the shooter. Rogan, I think that’s his name… he didn’t get out. I think, I mean, well… that has to mean he’s dead, right?”
My brows rose at that, and I felt a little winded. “Seamus, you need to think very carefully about what you just said there,” I murmured. “You mean to tell me that one of the Five Points’ men got out of the vehicle and went over to the other car?”
“Kind of. They didn’t go back to the car on the Mandelson’s drive. They disappeared.”
All my ideals about the Five Points came crashing down around me, because as far as I knew, traitors weren’t exactly cosseted with gems and riches. You fucked with the O’Donnellys and they more than fucked with you.
“You have a traitor in your midst, and you brought them with us,” I growled, fury and terror whittling down my voice until I was almost whispering in my outrage.
“The cops are on their way,” Brennan replied smoothly, and once again, I recognized just how like his father he was.
It took a psychopath to register another’s terror and to sound as if we were talking through our takeout order for a Friday night.
I closed my eyes, praying that the cops would make it here fast, but I knew, from my past experience, that luck was rarely on my side.
And that was only confirmed when I heard the tinkling sound of glass breaking.
My heart almost stopped at that, and when I turned to Seamus and I saw the outright terror in his eyes, I wanted to weep.
I’d done this.
Me.
I’d hurt my boy, I’d made him look like this.
I sucked in a breath, determined that if anything happened to him, I’d rather die, so I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and started hauling him toward my bedroom. He began to struggle, but that whole ‘a woman can pick up a car if it means saving her child’ stuff was, I realized, true.
One hundred percent true.
I didn’t care that he was like a brawling cat that was trying to scratch and hiss at me. I just needed to make sure he was out of here and in a safe place.
Dragging him back down the corridor to my bedroom, I was grateful for the thickly woven rug that dampened our footsteps. My door was wide open because I had a thing about never closing them, much to Seamus’s horror, because I’d inadvertently flashed him a few times, and I didn’t stop hauling him in until we were in my room.
“You stay there,” I snarled at him, shoving him into the cupboard that acted as a safe room. “You stay small, and you stay in the corner. You have your gun aimed at the door, and if anyone opens it, you shoot. You shoot straight in the chest, remember like I taught you? Bang in the middle of the torso. But don’t waste bullets,” I hissed at him. “They’re not going to kill you, Seamus. You’re too valuable.” The words annihilated me, but it was vital he was aware of that. “You’re an O’Donnelly, and that means you’re too important. So they won’t kill you, but they will incapacitate you. You make sure that doesn’t happen. The cops will be here soon, and once they are, your uncle will be here next.”
He gulped. “Not my father?”
“No, sweetheart. Remember, he’s in the hospital. He’s too sick right now.” I hadn’t told him about the extent of Declan’s injuries, had just said he was resting up in a clinic. Now I regretted that because it figured Seamus would paint a pretty picture of his father, and instead of Declan being the one to come storming in to the rescue, it would be Brennan.
