Page 115 of Shattered Veil

“Well, do you, Bale?” Eoghan asks, sounding sincere and eager to hear my answer.

“I’m crazy about her. We have a good thing going right now. I like her in my bed. I like waking up next to her. She takes care of me. I fucking love that. She doesn’t want anything from me, and I respect the hell out of her for being strong. She’s staying with me in the townhouse while her father is in Tokyo. She also...” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m treading lightly because of the abusive ex.”

Do not say his name, Lachlan!

“Have you figured out who he is?” Lachlan asks instead in a voice that sounds alien.

Christ, he’s a terrible actor, but no one picks up on it.

“I’m handling it. It’s been almost eight months since she’s seen him. It’s why she’s hesitant about our relationship. She wants to take things slow. So do I. I want to make sure she actually loves me first.” I hold my breath. “And we’ll get married when we want to, okay?”

I direct my pushback and faint hope for a blessing mostly at Kieran.

He gives a curt nod. “Keep me posted on your relationship with her. Any woman we open our homes, hearts, and beds to is a potential risk.”

“I get that,” I say quickly. “Remember, I’m the oneyou’ve all been calling these past two years to delete your shit from public cameras, change shit on websites, hack intogynecologistrecords...” I kick Eoghan and yell to get my point across “I did it all because I understand the risk.”

No one dares to yell back at me.

We finish the meeting and by the time I leave, everything feels normal. But when I head to my car. I find Lachlan leaning against it.

Here we go...

“You seriously need to tell Riordan about Brennan.”

“I know, Lachlan.”

“This cop knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak.” He means the black site, which I’ve often seen guarded by an unmarked cop car.

I never asked questions because paying off the police isn’t my responsibility. Just hacking into their computers when needed.

“I say we just end the fucker right now. Bring him to the black site, I’ll get him to admit if he’s got that tripwire you were talking about. I do this all the time, Balor. Dead men in shallow graves don’t snitch.” His deep jagged-sounding voice speaks to who he really is—the man I’m not sure his wife sees. “Riordan found Brennan, he’ll find someone else. Onlywe’reindispensable, Balor.”

Shaking my head, I blame myself for not vetting Michael Brennan’s police record deeper when Riordan brought him up. I don’t even remember off the top of my head when Riordan made contact with him. That kind of stuff is so far in the background compared to my computer work.

“If his last breath is on us...” I stick my finger in Lachlan’s massive chest. “I end him.”

I give Denton the rest of the afternoon off and get into my car. I want to drive myself, but instead of going to thecommand center, I head straight to Ella’s school.

I get there and park the Rivian. The weather still brisk, I pull on a jacket when I see Ella in the playground with a little boy, something I want to see better up close. She mentioned Jory, the student she’s assigned to as a special education aide. Watching her with kids is my new favorite pastime. She’s so gentle. So patient. So loving.

I never thought about having kids. The trauma of witnessing Da beat our mother burrowed into me like barbwire, and my hang-up of only wanting to bang escorts was born. All ideas of relationships and a family were dismissed. How stupid of me to think love wouldn’t find me.

Fate put Ella on that plane. Opened the floodgates for me to act on the feelings I never let go of after our first night together. Her father is just a damn thorn in my side because I don’t really know him. Or what he’s capable of if cornered. Was the Christmas Ransomware Virus just a tease of what he can really do?

He hid his background under a shatterproof veil. Once I confront him, he has to come clean.

With my eyes on Ella and Jory, I walk right into the roughly textured bars of the school’s wrought iron fencing, and it knocks me out of my thoughts. I step back and laugh at myself. I’m obsessed with the mother of my child.

Now I get what Eoghan went through last year.

Movement across the courtyard catches my attention.

Several other people gather on the side closest to the school’s entrance. I assume they’re parents and not sure why someone would be leering from all the way over...

My blood runs cold in my veins as my gaze sharpens. It’s a man, and from what I can tell he’s staring at Ella. Or Jory?

Is that the boy’s father?