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“She threatened to disown him.” He snorted in amusement. “Strolled right into his office during a meeting and told him that if he didn’t call off the arranged marriage, she would leave, and he’d be left with no heir.”
“He could have just appointed someone,” I pointed out, but Liam shook his head.
“It may work that way in theBratva, but clans are blood-only successions,” Liam divulged. “No one but a blood relative can inherit. That means not even a wife.”
“And Katherine was an only child.”
“She was.” He hesitated again, thinking over what he was about to divulge to me. “Part of me thinks she wasn’t, though.”
“Why do you say that?” Nothing in Katherine McDonough’s history gave way to the theory that she wasn’t an only child. I’d searched through Sheila McDonough’s hospital report the night she gave birth, and there didn’t appear to be any discrepancies.
“Right before we moved to Seattle for college, Katherine started acting…off.” Liam tapped his fingers on his jean-clad knee. “She was spitting out nonsense about her father not being her father.”
“Which we now know is the truth,” I reminded him.
“That we were being watched,” he kept going. “She began to distance herself from Marianne. Katherine had been planning to move in with me after I got back from my Portland trip. The two of them had been falling out for a while, but I never knew why.”
“You.”
Liam shot me a puzzled look.
“Me?” he questioned. “That makes no sense. Marianne never had any interest in me. She’d always been head over heels for Noah. Another reason why I shot him.”
“I’m going to throw you a bone here, because I think you deserve it.” I cleared my throat. “But Ava needs to be the one to tell you the whole story and what she found.”
“If this is about her theory that Marianne was somehow involved in Katherine’s disappearance,” he grumbled, “she already told me.”
“Did you listen?” I wondered. “Or did you brush her off like you did when she tried to warn you about the Seamus doppelgänger?”
Shame was etched into every pore, his shoulders sagging with the weight of his guilt.
“I can understand that her poking at the people you’ve known your entire life can be painful,” I assured him. “But if you ever make my wife feel like she is worthless or crazy, or you make her cry because you dismiss her thoughts again,” my voice turned cold, venomous, “I’ll kill you.”
Silence followed my declaration. The only sound in the copter came from the blades slicing through the chilly air and the hum of the motor that shook our feet. Liam’s gaze held mine, unblinking for several moments, before he gradually shook his head, acknowledging my words with a deep smirk.
“Break my daughter’s heart again, and I’ll give her yours.”
I chuckled. “Deal.”
“You two are fucked up,” Vas grunted from his seat, rolling his eyes. “Seek therapy.”
CHAPTERTEN
Where am I?
The scent of pine and spices filled the air outside my closed lids. I didn’t need to open them to know that I was no longer in my cell at my grandmother’s mansion. Something heavy was draped over my body, but it was soft and silky. Not the scratchy wool that had been covering me before. My eyes felt swollen and as heavy as lead bricks. My lashes were glued shut, and it took considerable force on my part to pry them apart. When I did, my vision was foggy and blurred.
There was a soft voice filling the space. Rough and sensual. His words were honey on his tongue as he read out loud from a small book in his hands. I could just make out the shape of him through my bleary eyes. He was sitting right in front of me, at the side of the bed normally designated for a night table. My ears were still ringing from the beating I’d taken, but his soft murmur was soothing to my wounds.
He wore a pair of light gray joggers and a fitted white shirt that stretched across his broad muscles, melding to him like a second skin.
Shit, was that drool?
Too late to be worried about that now since he’d stopped reading and was looking down at me with a knowing smirk.
My cheeks heated. My husband had caught me ogling him, and I doubted it looked sexy.
A choked sob broke free, and tears managed to escape from my swollen eyes. I didn’t think I had any left in me to shed.
