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12
Declan strappedon his Kevlar and rechecked his weapon. Nick and Ronan did the same, each of them working silently in the trees surrounding the house where Neil Curran was inhiding.
They’d parked the car on a narrow path off the side road where they’d taken turns monitoring the camera feeds. The Rover had barely fit through the overgrown pathway, but the trees provided ample cover for the car and theirpreparations.
In the two days they’d been planning the raid on the house, no one had come or gone and there had been no sign of Beth. It was the kind of uncertainty they took pains to prevent on any job, but it was unavoidable. They couldn’t afford to wait. The risk of Neil running was too great, especially after Jóhanna Leifsson’s message from Gunnar Ármannsson, who’d obviously reached the limits of hishospitality.
And waiting wouldn’t do them any good anyway. They had no more leads, no new information in thepipeline.
Neil was the lead. He was thepipeline.
They needed to find out what his plans were for WMG before Aiden and Kate walked into the company to find it had been stolen out from underthem.
And they needed to findBeth.
He heard Kate’s voice in his head, almost felt her in his arms the way she’d been the night before, her body pressed to his under the mysticalsky.
Do what you have to do to come back to me. That’s all thatmatters.
The words had come at a cost to her, and he knew she meant them. But that didn’t mean there would be no fallout if Beth was killed in the raid, and it didn’t mean there would be no fallout if she remainedmissing.
One way or another, Kate needed closure on the issue of her sister. Declan was determined to provide that closure, starting with beating every bit of information out of Neil before killing him for what he’d done to the Walshfamily.
To hisfamily.
“Yougood?”
He looked up to find Ronan staring at him, his forehead creased with worry. It was after one a.m., the forest dark and silent except for the scurry of smallanimals.
“I’m good,” Declansaid.
“You sure?” Ronan asked. “Because Nick and I can probably take him if you think you should sitout.”
Declan spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not sitting out. Jesus. I’mfine.”
“We have to ask,” Nick said. “You know that. There’s a lot atstake.”
They had no way of knowing Kate had given Declan her blessing to do what had to be done, and he had no intention of telling them. Putting Beth in danger had to remain a last resort, and while Ronan and Nick were always careful when it came to the innocent, Beth wasn’t entirelyinnocent.
Declan didn’t want to give his brothers an excuse to be anything less then meticulous if she ended up being in the house with Neil. He was grateful for the escape hatch of Kate’s forgiveness, grateful she’d given him her blessing to do what had to be done, but he would still try to keep Beth alive if she was in thehouse.
“No one knows more than me how much is at stake,” Declan said, slipping on hisearpiece.
“You know what I mean,” Nicksaid.
He nodded. Nick wasn’t talking about the stakes for Kate and Beth and the Walsh family. He was talking about the risks to them, about the fact that if one of them got sloppy or sentimental, it could cost their lives. None of them had ever had a death wish, but they all had a lot to live for now. No one wanted to come out of the house in a bodybag.
“I know what you mean.” Declan thought of Alexa, of Julia and John Thomas. Of Kate and Griff. The greatest stakes imaginable. “I would tell if you if I wasn’t solid, but I am. This is just like any other job: breach the house, get to Neil, keep him alive so we can get information out of him before I killhim.”
“And Beth?” Ronan checked his weapon and shoved it into the holster strapped to hisside.
“We protect her if we can, if she’s even there,” Declansaid.
Ronan met his eyes. “And if wecan’t?”
“Then we do what has to be done to get outalive.”
Ronan nodded,satisfied.
