We join the others in the meeting room. Keenan sits at his desk, nodding soberly when we enter. Nolan and Cormac are here, but that’s it.
“No Lachlan?” Aisling whispers in my ear. I shake my head. Lachlan’s got a woman to take care of tonight, and the top three are McCarthy blood, direct heirs to the line of Seamus McCarthy. “We’ve a hierarchy,” I explain quietly. “These are the three most inner circle.” Keenan calls this group when we need the utmost in privacy. “And Fiona needs Lachlan tonight, doesn’t she?”
She nods.
“Y’alright, Aisling?” Keenan asks with concern, every bit the McCarthy patriarch with his brows drawn together. I swear his role as Chief has aged him.
She nods. “Oh, aye. I’m good. You?”
His eyes twinkle. “I’m very good, thanks, lass. And you, Tiernan? Y’alright?”
“Yes, sir.” I sit beside Nolan, and Aisling sits beside me.
Nolan fairly beams at me.
“You’ve done well, lad,” Nolan says with a smile. “Damn proud of you.”
“Goddamn right about that,” Cormac says with a nod, his brows drawn together in concern. “I’m sorry we didn’t know about the dangers at the school.”
Keenan blows out a breath. “It’s my fault. I’m the one that bloody sent them there, when they would’ve been safer staying right here.”
Aisling shakes her head, “Now, there’s no point of playing that game, is there? Where everyone has regrets and the like. If we’re going to play that game, I could take the blame myself for even being responsible for this coming on McCarthy family territory?” She looks at me with a smile. “But Tiernan will have my arse if I go there again.”
“Bloody well will,” I say with a scowl.
Keenan smiles. “Aye, lass, it’s a fair point.”
“Better, then, for us to focus on where we are,” Aisling says. Christ, but I love this woman. She’s in the midst of some of the most powerful men in Ireland and yet she leads them in this. I can’t fucking wait to put a ring on her finger.
“Let’s hear the update, Keenan?”
He nods. “Aye. So what I can tell you so far is this. Had a meeting with Brady. Vivian and Clifford have been apprehended, of course, everything they’ve done.”
“Still can’t bloody believe she did that,” Aisling mutters sorrowfully.
“Aye. I can’t either,” Keenan says. “I’ve got men that were in pretty deeply with her girls, and it’s a fucking shame.”
Aisling sighs. “Aye.”
Keenan frowns. “The problem is, you’re not off the hook, Ais.”
I feel my belly tighten, and I sit up straighter.
“What do you mean?”
“Brady has it on record now, that Aisling was acting in self-defense. We were able to run the reel at the school, and we’ve got Vivian admitting as much as well.”
“Aye,” Aisling says. “That was smart.”
Keenan blows out a breath. “But the Prime Minister isn’t buying it, and you know he’s powerful. The good news is, hardly anyone knew that the girl you brought to the school was the same girl who worked for Vivian, Tiernan. So they don’t know she’s here.”
“Doesn’t matter, though, does it, if the Prime Minister’s determined to take her down?”
Keenan shakes his head. “We have clout, boys, but you know he’s got connections as well.”
We do. Deep ones.
“So what do we do, then? Run?” I hate the fucking thought. I’ve never run from a threat in my life, and I don’t fucking want to start now.
Keenan nods thoughtfully. “So far we’ve managed to find the threat against us. Through Aisling’s tactics, we’ve removed any implication that a McCarthy was responsible for the death. But now we need to remove any threat against Aisling. I’m afraid even if the courts rule in her favor, and both Brady and Walsh are absolutely certain they can make that happen… well, it doesn’t eliminate the threat against her personally.”
“Jesus,” Nolan mutters. “All he’d have to do is hire a hitman, eh?”
“Aye.”
I hold her hand tighter, her fingers woven into mine, like the tapestry of my life. Right here, nearly all that matters is the people in this room and my siblings. My brothers of the Clan, and the woman I’ll make my wife.
“Got an idea,” Aisling says. Her eyes shine like beacons in the dark, and I swear to Christ it makes my dick hard. She’s so fucking brilliant.
Keenan nods, giving her permission to speak.
She swallows hard, holds my hand tighter, and states her plan. “We fake my death.”
Keenan’s brows shoot up. “Your death, Aisling?”
“Aye,” she says firmly. “My death.”
Bloody hell.
She’s determined. “It just might work, Keenan.”
Keenan nods. “You’re right. It likely would. But would anyone in Ballyhock recognize you?”
“Well, with these changes we’ve made, I hardly recognize myself,” she says with a laugh.
“And she wouldn’t be here on the premises often if she got a job at the school, would she?” I suggest.
Keenan looks from me to her. “Job at the school?”
Aisling’s eyes shine bright. “Oh, God, I’d love that.” She looks like she might cry. She jerks her chin at me. “Tiernan’d make a bloody good teacher himself.”
Nolan grins. “He fucking would.”
Cormac looks reluctant. “We need him here working for the Clan.”
Keenan shakes his head. “Of course we do. Working as a teacher at St. Albert’s wouldn’t eliminate him from Clan duties.”
I’m surprised, because I actually love that idea.
“Well, now, something we can talk about for sure,” I say. “Would give me direct contact with Aisling’s guard.”
“My guard?”
“We’d have to make sure you were safe.”
Nolan sits up. “There were a handful at the school who knew she had a different identity, but that’s fairly easily dealt with. She gets a new look altogether. New I.D. She becomes Tiernan’s, and no one can deny that’s who she is. ‘Tis the Prime Minister we need to appease after all.”
Aisling’s eyes shine. “Would anyone at the school turn me in, though?”
“We’ll run a thorough sweep, but it seems the headmaster had two boys he paid to snoop, as well as Vivian, and we’ve dismissed the boys from school.”
Aisling’s face falls. “Well that’s terrible. It isn’t their fault if they were coerced.”
Keenan clears
