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“I hope you’re right,” Ronansaid.
He was as imposing as ever, remnants of his time as a SEAL evident in his implacable expression, the hard line of his jaw, the blue eyes that never gave anythingaway.
“Because of Declan?” Kate asked. “Because ofme?”
“Family makes everything trickier.” He flashed her a grin. “I shouldknow."
She smiled. Declan had told her some of the details of the job that had brought Ronan and Julia together, but they’d been broad strokes: Julia’s grandfather hiring MIS to find Elise, Julia and Ronan crashing into each other in an alley, both of them staking out the man they thought was responsible for Elise’sdisappearance.
They’d come within seconds of finding Elise in Dubai and had tried to infiltrate Manifest in Italy before finally rescuing her in the waters off Greece. After that, Elise had moved into the Murphy house where she’d settled in as a member of thefamily.
“It must have been hard,” Kate said softly. “Trying to save Elise withJulia.”
Ronan and Julia were both opinionated and stubborn. She could only imagine the sparks that must haveflown.
He looked at her. “Do you know I had to carry Julia, kicking and screaming, out of a club in Dubai while Elise was only a few doors down the hall, waiting to berescued?”
Kate shook her head,horrified.
He nodded. “If I hadn’t done it, Julia would have died, and maybe me too. And who knows what would have happened to Elise then?” He turned his eyes back to the view beyond the house. “I thought she might never forgiveme.”
“But shedid.”
“She did.” Kate could hear the relief in his voice. “But it was touch and go for a while, which was why I didn’t want her to come toDubai.”
“Ah.” Now Kate understood. This was an intervention ofsorts.
Ronan turned his blue eyes on her again. “You’re already here. And I get it. I get that you want to be close if they find Beth. But if theydon’t…”
“If they don’t, I have to be a good girl and let the big, bad men handle everything.” It came out more bitter than she’dintended.
Ronan seemed to consider his words. “Being a good girl has nothing to do with it — being smart does, and you’re one of the smartest women I know. In fact, if the operation to take down Neil Curran and stop whatever’s been put in motion with your father’s company were an intellectual one, you’d be the first person I’dcall.”
“How do you know it’snot?”
His nod was slow. “Touché. But first we have to get ahold of Neil, find out what we can about his plans. That’s about guns and infiltration strategy. It means trying not to get killed and trying not to get anyone innocent killed. Like Beth. That’s ourdepartment.”
“I know. Which is why I’m here at the house and not staking out Neil’s hideout with Declan andNick.”
“That’s good. I just don’t know where this job will take us next. In a perfect world, we get ahold of Neil, he confesses everything, and we get enough information about what he had planned for WMG to stop it before we take him out. But trust me when I say things hardly ever work out the way we intend. I need to know this isn’t going to be a problem if it’s not as clean as wehope.”
“You mean me. You want to know I’m not going to be a problem,” shesaid.
Ronan met her eyes. “Are you? Going to be a problem? Because I love you, Kate, and I love my nephew. I want you to be able to live with the outcome here. But I want my brother to come out of it alivetoo.”
Her anger was softened by the fact that the mountain of a man sitting next to her had confessed his love for her and Griff, that he’d spoken of them likefamily.
She looked away. “You think I’m putting him indanger.”
“Not overtly. Not sitting here at the house. But things can go bad fast in a raid. I need to know Dec can focus on coming out of it alive, not whether you’ll be able to forgive him if something happens toBeth.”
She took a deep breath. Was that what she was doing? Endangering Declan’s life with her worry aboutBeth?
The thought caught her in a frigid grip ofpanic.
She looked at Ronan and couldn’t be mad. He was just looking out for Declan, which was what she needed to do too. It was what Declan had been doing for her since he’d come back into her life, trying to prove that she could trust him to put her and Griffinfirst.
She had to find a way to do thesame.
“I hear you,” shesaid.
He nodded. “Good.”
She was relieved when he didn’t say more. The possibility that Declan would put himself in more danger because of pressure from her made her stomach turn. She’d been selfish, thinking about her family, acting like Declan was invincible when he was about to storm a house in the middle of nowhere with no idea what he was upagainst.
But how was she supposed to balance the family she was born to with the family she was building? How was it possible to protect all ofthem?
And what would happen if she had tochoose?
