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Sure, I could switch off the phone, but if I did that, it would look suspicious. Would look even stranger—
Damn, this was what it felt like to be between a rock and a hard place.
I sucked in a sharp breath as the singing bowl’s song soared higher until the baton collided with the rim, and it clicked discordantly as it broke the tune in two.
I let the note die down, let it fade and die as I turned around to face the woman who’d betrayed me.
“Why are you here?”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist, but I needed to pinpoint her exact reasons.
She raised her hands. “I’m sorry about the deception, Aela.”
“You’re sorry?” I repeated a little blankly. “You’re sorry that you breached my trust, my confidence, and that you’ve been, what? Snooping around every time I’ve asked you to look after my kid? What have you been doing? Looking through my lingerie every time I needed you to help me with Seamus?”
Her mouth tightened. “No. Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid?” I huffed. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s stupid. What are you doing here?” I snapped, my brittle temper shattering around me like a window after someone had pitched a baseball through it.
She squinted at me for a second, then reached up and rubbed her eyes like she was tired. “I was placed here to monitor your activity.”
My activity?For a second, I could only gape at her. What the hell had I done to incur any level of curiosity from the Feds?
Before I could implicate myself in something I didn’t even know I was implicated in, she muttered, “It came to our attention that select individuals were using your services as a means of laundering money. You were passed around like you were on Yelp, and I was placed here to monitor you and your activities, so we could use that as a means of uncovering further criminal activity.”
If I’d been gaping at her before, that was nothing compared to now.
“You’re using me to get to other people?”
“Yes.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Bullshit. Name a client who’s been laundering money through their purchases with me.”
She pursed her lips. “Donavan Lancaster?”
I hissed out a breath, hating that I had to concede that one. But in all honesty, it didn’t mean anything. Everyone knew Lancaster had been into trafficking ever since one of the women he’d tortured, some wife of an MC biker, had come forward to testify against him. The bastard was somewhere in Asia now, apparently, rocking around the continent as he evaded extradition treaties and went on one long vacation.
Prick.
And for the duration of our contract, I’d stayed in his pool house. Seamus had too.
I shuddered at the thought.
My project in New Jersey, a small town called West Orange, was the sight of one of my most adventurous pieces—a ceiling of glass balls that was crafted to represent the solar system. Lancaster had told me I could do whatever I wanted once he’d shown me the space in his living room where he wanted the art collated, and I’d gotten on with the work.
He’d even come onto me, though I’d pushed him aside, something he hadn’t liked, but I’d lied and told him I was gay. That was my standard excuse when someone was a prick and couldn’t handle rejection, and it worked like a charm—even with psychopaths like Lancaster.
“Who else?” I rasped, wanting to know more names so I could figure out how deeply they’d been looking into my work.
I paid my taxes and toed the line in all ways. They couldn’t Capone—hit me up on nonsense charges just to get me inside—me.
Well, they couldn’t before I’d shot someone in my bedroom.
But no… Brennan would never let that happen.
Declan wouldn’t either, would he? Unless he hated me for keeping Seamus from him.
Earlier today, they’d been drawing him out of the coma, but that didn’t mean he was awake and responsive, did it? Maybe he was still in the dark about being a father…?
