Eight
Flames illuminated the night, licking high into the black sky. The boy was screaming. Despite the ringing in his ears, Brendan could hear him, and his heart clutched with sympathy for the toddler’s fear.
He could hear the fire trucks, too, their sirens whining in the distance. Ambulances and police cars probably followed or led them—he couldn’t tell the difference between the sirens.
Despite the slight shaking in his legs, he pressed harder on the accelerator, widening the distance between Josie’s little white SUV and the fiery remains of the mansion where he’d grown up.
It had never been home, though. That was why he’d run away when he was fifteen and why he’d intended never to return. If not for feeling that he owed his father justice, he would have never come back.
“Are—are you sure you want to leave?” Josie stammered, wincing as if her own voice hurt her ears. She was in the front seat but leaning into the back this time, her hand squeezing one of their son’s flailing fists. She’d been murmuring softly to the boy, trying to calm him down since they’d jumped back into the vehicle and taken off.
The poor kid had been through so much tonight, it was no wonder he’d gotten hysterical, especially over how violently he’d been awakened from his nap.
“Are you sure?” Josie prodded Brendan for an answer, as she always had.
He replied, this time with complete honesty, “I have no reason to stay.”
“But your staff...”
Wouldn’t have survived that explosion. Nothing would have. If he hadn’t noticed the smell before he’d turned that key, if Josie hadn’t clutched his arms...
They would have been right next to the house when a staff member inside, who must have noticed the key rattling in the door, had opened it for them and unknowing set off the bomb. Instead he and Josie had been running for the SUV, for their son, when the bomb exploded. The force of it had knocked them to the ground and rocked her vehicle.
“Are you all right?” he asked again.
She’d jumped right up and continued to run, not stopping until she’d reached their screaming son. The explosion had not only awakened but terrified him. Or maybe he felt the fear that had her trembling uncontrollably.
She jerked her chin in an impatient nod. “Yes, I—I’m okay.”
“Maybe we should have stayed,” he admitted. But his first instinct had been to get the hell away in case the bomber had hung around to finish the job if the explosion hadn’t killed them.
While Brendan wished he could soothe his son’s fears, his first priority was to keep the boy and his mother safe. And healthy. “We should have you checked out.”
She shook her head. “Nobody can see me, in case they recognize me like you did. And those other men...” She shuddered, probably as she remembered the ordeal those men had put her and CJ through. “We can’t go back to the hospital anyway.”
“There are urgent-care facilities that are open all night,” he reminded her. Maybe her new location wasn’t near a big city and she’d forgotten the amenities and conveniences of one.
She shook her head. “But someone there might realize we were at this explosion...” The smell of smoke had permeated the car and probably her hair. “And they might call the police,” she said. “Or the media.”
He nearly grinned at the irony of her wanting to avoid the press.
“And it’s not necessary,” she said, dismissing his concerns. “I’m okay.”
He glanced toward the backseat. CJ’s screams had subsided to hiccups and sniffles. Brendan’s heart ached with the boy’s pain and fear. “What about our son?”
“He’s scared,” Josie explained. And from the way she kept trembling, the little boy wasn’t the only one.
“It’s okay,” she assured the child, and perhaps she was assuring herself, too. “We’re getting far away from the fire.”
Not so far that the glow of the fire wasn’t still visible in the rearview mirror, along with the billows of black smoke darkening the sky even more.
“It won’t hurt us,” she said. “It won’t hurt us....”
“We’re going someplace very safe,” Brendan said, “where no bad men can find us.”
He shouldn’t have brought them back to the mansion. But the place was usually like a fortress, so he hadn’t thought any outside threats would be able to get to them. He hadn’t realized that the greatest danger was already inside those gates. Hell, inside those brick walls. Had one of his men—one of the O’Hannigan family—set the bomb?
He’d been trying to convince her that he’d