“Okay, when you have the flight time, I’ll call Danny and let him know we’re on our way.” Declan kissed Diana softly. “I just need to grab a few things and we’ll be ready.” He strode out of the room.
Moira’s mind ran through a list of what she’d need to travel. “I’ll just need to drop by my flat to get a few things as well.”
“No time,” Justin informed her, as he shoved over the kitchen table. Glass shattered from the centerpiece that she’d bought for her parents one Christmas. She saw her heart shattering with it. If only they were here, none of this would be happening. Her father would’ve smoothed it over. He could fix anything.
Jumping up in fright, she screeched, “What are you doing?”
The look he gave her made her feel as if she’d asked a ridiculous question. “Trashing the place.”
No. This was her brother’s home. Her childhood home. He couldn’t do this. Angry, she stepped forward.
“Stop, Moira. If I’m going to make it look like the three of you died, let me do this.”
That stopped her in her tracks. He had said “look like.” While it settled her somewhat, a sense of foreboding welled inside her gut.
A switch flicked in her boggled mind. What about her stuff? All her art and supplies. “Wait!” she nearly screamed. Not to stop him, but to get his full attention. This couldn’t happen at her home. “What about my flat? I have a ton of money invested in my studio. I don’t want you to destroy it.”
“No time.”
“Justin, I have commissions that are complete or in process, not to mention a small fortune in supplies.” Plus, she’d been working on a few special pieces to show a friend of a friend’s boyfriend who managed a gallery. If only she could have her own showing. It’d seemed so close. Plus, she could use the cash from the sales.
Looking away, a muscle in Justin’s jaw ticked. “I’ll have someone pack what they can before Boyle checks. Make me a list with locations of the items.”
She skipped right after his assuredness of Boyle checking. “I can have Cassie and Quinn pack it for when I return. She can deliver the finished ones and can collect the outstanding payments for me.”
“No.” His quick, forceful response startled her. He softened before giving her a small smile. “No. No one can know you’re leaving. Once I’m done, it’ll appear the three of you fled, then died along the way. There’s no coming back, Moira. I thought we agreed on that.”
Moira swallowed hard. They hadn’t said she’d never return. Had they? His words sounded so… final. “Okay,” she managed to say, her mind processing everything, and it finally all clicked. Truthfully, she felt a bit of an idiot for not cycling through it faster. “So, you’re not going to kill us like your boss wants,” she said with still a bit of hope in her voice, although she’d resolved that in her mind.
“Of course not.” Justin’s incredulous response bolstered her confidence.
“And,” her voice rose with the word, “you’re saying that I can never—ever—come back to Dublin. To my home. Because you’re going to pretend to kill me”—she looked toward the office door where Diana had joined Declan. Pointing to the couple, she finished— “and them.” Nodding, as if to answer her own unasked question, she pressed forward. “Why do I have to die? Can’t I just move away and come back after a long time?”
Declan returned. “Moira. Quit fighting. You’ll leave if I have to tie you up and carry you to the plane.” Her brother’s firm tone had her spine snapping with tiny explosions of anger. “We can talk more when we travel.”
Knowing it’d be fruitless to argue, she acquiesced and did as Justin and Declan instructed. She allowed every bit of anger, frustration, and fear to build up inside her. Hopefully she wouldn’t blow up on the flight and decompress the air pressure.
Within three hours of Moira overhearing the threat, they’d left Declan’s home for possibly the last time, passed through private airport security—with the fake passports her brother had asked about—and boarded a Gulfstream.
Fingering the passport she’d been handed before boarding, Moira examined it closer. It was her passport picture. She guessed she could’ve shared it with Declan at some point. And, he had allowed her to keep Moira as her name. Now though, instead of Aiofe Moira Gallagher, she was Moira Lee Wright. With a roll of her eyes, she murmured, “Morally right.”
“You’ve been planning this for a while,” she said to her brother, who sat on an ivory-colored sofa, as Diana slept with her head across his lap.
It’d taken a while for Declan to calm Diana enough to get her to rest for the sake of the baby. Understandably, the woman’s emotions were shattered. With the length Diana’s father would go to so she didn’t marry Declan—murder—Moira wondered what Diana’s childhood had been like. She’d always seemed so happy and put together.
Declan’s hand didn’t stop softly stroking Diana’s blonde hair, but he looked up from the woman he loved. “We have. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
The sharp pain in her heart from his betrayal pressed on her chest. She couldn’t speak. He didn’t owe her any explanations for keeping his and Diana’s relationship secret, but the rest…. He owed her big time. He’d had a fake passport made for her!
“Originally, Diana and I were just going to slip away. We knew her father wouldn’t allow a garda, a policeman, into the family. I’d never go on the take and would end up putting him away.” He shrugged. “It’d just never work.”
“You were going to leave me,” she accused, “alone.” Vulnerable. Nay, she wouldn’t allow him to make her feel that way. “Yet, you had a passport for me. Why? Were you planning to tie me up
