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I huffed. “They’re not just stories. They’re facts.”
Kiernan grunted. “Sure, they are.” He smirked. “But we’ll come back to that later.”
Not if I have anything to do with it.
How and why I became an investigative reporter was inconsequential. What did it matter if my father strung me along the path? I was doing good. Helping to shed light on the criminal activity in the city.
My father never pushed me to write about the mafia or the Seattle underground. He tolerated but did not support my career as a reporter. The only reason he had allowed it was because Drew had supported it for his own personal gains.
Marriage and becoming a dutiful housewife were what my father had planned for me.
There were times when my father talked more openly about what the mafia had been doing in the city. I’d chased some of my best leads with the information he’d let slip at the dinner table or at business meetings he’d have in his office.
“Why don’t you tell us about your father’s deal with Magnus Knight?”
Not gonna happen.
The twins exchanged an unreadable look at my silence.
“Bailey.” Kiernan’s voice held a darkened edge to it. A warning.
Good girls get rewarded. Bad girls get punished.
Yeah, fuck that shit. I wouldn’t be telling them anything related to my father or his business. Not that I knew much, but they didn’t need to know that.
“What about your adoption records?” A smile spread across Liam’s face at my sudden flinch. Shit. “No one can seem to find anything on your sudden adoption, Bailey. Not even sealed records. I find that rather interesting.”
My hand clenched around my mug. “You really shouldn’t.”
“It just piques my interest that there wouldn’t be a single trace of you.” He leaned back in his chair, eyes gleaming as his gaze challenged me. “Your birth certificate doesn’t list a father, and the woman listed is labeled as a missing person.”
“You’re a real Jack Taylor,” I drawled. “Got it all figured out.” My jaw ticked, and my teeth clenched as I struggled not to give anything away. I knew it was too late. I might as well have just screamed that there was something wrong at the top of my lungs. One thing I’d never been good at was deception. My father said I wore my emotions on my sleeve. Too open and naïve, he’d told me.
“Answer the questions, Bailey,” Seamus growled next to me, his hand coming to the back of my neck, applying just enough pressure to exert his dominance but not enough to hurt.
“Don’t pretend like you know anything about me or my family,” I hissed at them. “My father is a good man who’s made it his life’s mission to see men like you wiped out of business.”
“You want to know about your family?” Seamus hissed, tightening his hold on my neck. “Your father is a murderer. A coward who hides behind his social standing and the men he sends to kill those who are in his way. And for what? Prestige? To get into office? He may be a pillar of the community to the people of your fancy country club, but down here, in the real world? He’s in bed with some of the city’s worst gangs. He’s a killer, just like us. The only difference is we do it to survive. Your father does it for his own selfish reasons. So before you laugh at how little we know, remember that you’re still the enemy’s daughter and show my father some respect. Hear me?”
I nodded as much as I could with the harsh grip he had on the back of my neck.
“Good.”
He let go of my neck. His mouth turned down slightly at the edges when I eased away from him, but his face remained hard.
“He’s not like that,” I whispered, my hand massaging where he’d gripped me. Seamus hadn’t gripped me tight enough to bruise, but it still wasn’t pleasant. Didn’t stop my panties from being soaked through at his sudden display of dominance. My thighs had clenched together beneath the table, and I was glad that no one seemed to notice my body’s sudden arousal.
I wondered if I could get that lobotomy now.
Maybe electroshock therapy.
“He is,” Kiernan insisted lowly. No. My father was a good man. He had never been my knight in shining armor, but he was still my father.
“I may not know a lot about his political career, but I know one thing for sure. He’s not a murderer. And he sure as hell isn’t in bed with any gangs. He’s been trying to run the gangs and mafia out of the city. That’s his whole political stance.”
“That is what he sells to the press, Bailey.” Kiernan’s tone was gentle. “Your family has been involved with the local gangs since long before your father became a senator. Your own grandfather moved and manipulated many of the gangs in the city to do his dirty work.”
“No.”
