Chapter 6 - The Brother's Leverage
The house cleared by three in the afternoon.
The trustees had departed in stunned, pale-faced silence. Declan Vane had been led down the front granite steps in irons, his camel-hair coat pulled over his wrists to hide the steel from the few holiday strollers walking their dogs through Louisburg Square.
The mansion felt larger now, hollowed out by the sudden removal of nine years of calculated deception.
I stood by the tall kitchen window, watching the sleet turn into heavy, silent flakes of white snow. The house was cold; the servants hadn't returned, and the boiler was running low on pressure. I reached for the kettle with my right hand, intending to heat water, when a sharp cramp seized my forearm, making me hiss through my teeth.
A large, warm hand closed over mine, gently taking the copper kettle from my fingers.
"Sit down, Maeve," Killian said.
He set the kettle on the commercial range, turned the gas burner on with a dry *click-click-whoosh*, and pulled out one of the heavy oak stools at the center island.
"I can make tea," I said, though my voice sounded small and worn thin.
"You’ve set sixty thousand tables in this house," he replied, leaning against the counter beside me. "I can boil water."
He watched the blue flame beneath the copper. The crisp authority of the morning had faded from his face, replaced by a deep, dark exhaustion that showed in the faint lines around his eyes.
"The federal prosecutor has your statements," he said. "The raid on Pier Four happened twenty minutes ago. They found eighteen million dollars in bearer bonds hidden in the false bottom of a diesel tanker. Declan is not getting bail."
I pulled my green wool sweater tighter around my ribs. "He’s going to prison?"
"He’s going to a federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania for twenty-five years," Killian said coldly. "He will never see Boston Harbor again."
A knock sounded at the back service entrance.
Killian didn't reach for his coat; his right hand dropped naturally, effortlessly, toward the inside pocket of his suit jacket where the butt of a concealed SIG Sauer rested. He moved to the hallway with silent, gliding steps, checked the security monitor, and unlocked the reinforced steel deadbolt.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a leather jacket stepped into the mudroom, brushing snow from his wool cap. It was Frank Miller, the head of Killian's personal transit security.
"Boss," Miller said, nodding briefly to me before looking at Killian. "We’ve got a problem across the river."
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
"Rowan," I gasped, jumping up from the stool.
Killian’s hand came up, palm out, holding me in place with a single look. "What happened at St. Jude's, Frank?"
"Two men tried to enter the rehabilitation wing at two-thirty," Miller said, his voice flat and professional. "They had fake volunteer badges from Catholic Charities. They said they were delivering holiday fruit baskets to the non-ambulatory ward. My boys stopped them at the elevator."
"Did they take them?" Killian asked, his eyes darkening to the color of wet lead.
"One of them ran. We took the other one into the utility basement. He’s one of Declan’s cousins from Charlestown. He had two zip-ties and a syringe of concentrated potassium chloride in his jacket pocket."
A high, thin shriek tore out of my throat before I could stop it. I caught the edge of the kitchen counter with my good hand, my vision graying at the margins. Potassium chloride. A heart attack. An untraceable, silent execution in a hospital bed.
"Maeve," Killian was suddenly right in front of me, his hands firm and heavy on my shoulders, holding me upright as my knees gave way. "Look at me. Look at my face."
I looked up through a film of hot, terrified tears. "He tried to kill my brother. He tried to kill him because of me—"
"Your brother is unharmed," Killian said, his voice cutting through my panic like an ice pick. "Frank, where is the boy now?"
"In our armored transport," Miller said. "We pulled him through the loading dock with his chair and his medical equipment fifteen minutes ago. He’s sitting outside in the courtyard right now with two registered nurses from our private clinic."
I stared at Killian, my chest heaving. "You moved him?"
"I told you last night," Killian said, his thumbs brushing lightly, almost imperceptibly, against the base of my throat, where my pulse was racing. "No one touches your family. Not while I draw breath."
He looked back over his shoulder at Miller.
"Bring him inside through the carriage house lift," Killian ordered. "Set him up in the garden suite on the ground floor. Have Dr. Patel review his medical chart and connect the backup monitors. Maeve is going down to see him now."
Miller nodded and disappeared back into the snow.
Killian didn't release my shoulders immediately. He stood looking down into my face, his features softened by something that looked terribly, dangerously like reverence.
"I dragged you into this," he whispered. "You spent three years serving my food and washing my floors, and I repaid you by bringing wolves to your brother's door."
"You saved him," I managed, the tears finally spilling over my bruised cheek. "You didn't have to bring him here. You could have sent him to a safe house in New Hampshire. You brought him into your own home."
May you like
"This is not just my home anymore," Killian said softly, his thumb gently catching the tear before it reached the corner of my mouth. "Go to your brother, Maeve. I have one final piece of business to finish on the docks."
***
