Eye of the Falcon (Psychic Visions #12)(84)

“When instead he was actually banging Rory’s wife at the time.”

“Really?”

“Yes, the daughter saw them.”

Charlie snorted. “Wow. Angus did mention he was involved with another woman, but nobody could find her.”

“No. She bolted for America. Walked away from everything with the daughter, Angus’s daughter. But the mother died a month or so ago. The daughter was kidnapped and tortured for information she couldn’t possibly hand over, and then two of my friends came over here to retrieve belongings left behind for her. They’ve been kidnapped. Now we’re sitting here in a hotel room, figuring out what the hell’s going on.”

“Wow, when you get involved, you really get involved.”

“I know, and I remember saying I wouldn’t get involved in this kind of shit anymore,” Eagle said. Charlie was yet another one of the men from his unit. Childhood friends, they’d known each other for decades. “But when it comes to your door, like she did in my case, and I believe the circumstances were beyond strange, you have to do something.”

“Isn’t that the truth? My brother, Duncan, remember him? He’s in law enforcement in Dublin. I’ll give him a quick call.”

Charlie hung up, leaving Eagle to ponder this turn of events.

“What was that all about?” asked Issa, her sleepy voice beside him.

He winced and walked closer. “I’m so sorry. I tried not to disturb you.”

“I’m not sleeping at all until this is over,” she announced. “So tell me. What was that about?”

He sat down on the bed and said, “Apparently Angus is in jail.” He quickly relayed the rest of the information.

“And my mother didn’t come back and defend him? Seeing that she’d been with him at the time?”

“It may not have made any difference. If your dad had any idea where Angus really was, it makes sense he might’ve opened fire on him. In which case, Angus probably did shoot him. But how it ended up that he shot all three of your brothers, I don’t know. But what we do know is that some people were there that night and lived to say that Angus did it.”

She snorted. “Of course they did. My dad paid them all.”

“Sure, but, if he was dead, who would pay?”

She frowned. “I don’t know, but, in theory, they had the goods they’d smuggled in that night. Maybe dividing that up and taking Angus’s share was enough. There were a lot of people in the house for the next couple days. Then suddenly we were gone.”

“And did you leave during the day?”

She frowned, casting her mind back as she thought about it, then shook her head slowly. “No. She woke me up in the middle of the night, and we walked out.” She turned her gaze toward the dark window. “We walked down the hillside to the road and into the pub. There we got a ride.”

“Any idea who drove you?”

She looked up at him. “No.”

“Well, she obviously had one person on her side.”

“Or somebody she paid very well.”

“As in money from that box? And how is it that nobody found the box? The money would have been easy to spend. The jewels not so much.” He hated to see the fear and pain in her eyes.

“Haven’t enough people suffered for whatever the hell went wrong twenty years ago?” she asked as she shook her head. “It’s just too much.” She rolled over and closed her eyes.

He frowned, helpless to ease her suffering. Seeing her shoulders shaking, he realized just how badly she was hurting. He put his phone down, lay on top of the covers, and wrapped himself around her. He slid his arm around her ribs and tucked her up close.

There was a catch in her breathing.

“It’ll be okay,” he murmured.

“How can you say that?” she whispered. “It’s your friends hurting right now.”

“Because I have faith in them. Panther is a serious badass, and, even if he’s been tortured, it won’t have been the first time, and it would just make him all that much more eager to get retaliation.”

She sniffled.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Sleep. It’s the best thing for you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t shut off my mind. Needing sleep doesn’t mean it’s easy to come by.”

He gently stroked her arms up and down, soothing the edges of her soul—hoping the comfort would help her to sleep. When finally she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, he smiled. “Do that a few more times,” he urged.

Obediently she took a deep breath and let it out and repeated the action. Finally she sagged a little deeper into the mattress and whispered, “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “How can you thank me? I haven’t done anything.”

“You came with me,” she said simply. “I would not want to be here alone.”

Just the thought of it filled him with rage. They would’ve picked her up at the airport and turned her into chopped liver again. He knew one thing: the men who had done this to her would have to answer to Eagle before this was over. He didn’t know how all this played into one person, Issa, but somewhere, somehow it did. Eagle just didn’t have all the pieces yet. All he wanted to do was get her home, back to his place, where she could rest and heal.