Page 58 of Catch Him
“How would he even know that a picture of you was valuable? I mean, I assume you don’t go around announcing you’re a…”
“Contract operative,” Declan supplied.
“Yeah, that.”
“I told him,” Mary said quietly. “Garrett wasn’t allowed to know he was my brother. Declan didn’t want any known familial relationships. However, Dec was introduced as a dear friend at the wedding. When Garrett first asked about him I alluded to his career, but I told him about the no picture thing. Just an offhand remark. ‘Oh by the way, he doesn’t like to have his picture taken. Make sure you let the photographer know.’”
“Mary, stop,” Declan interjected. “How many times do I have to tell you this is not your fault?”
“A million,” she said quietly. “And I still wouldn’t believe you. As I told you, the night Garrett… attacked me I had to be taken to the hospital. I had several bones broken. His father came to see me the next day. He said Garrett was sorry, and I needed to come back and be a family with him again. He was willing to offer me a ‘settlement’ to make that happen.”
Sinead winced.
Mary nodded. “Right. That’s when I knew deep inside what kind of people they really were. I told him to shove his money. I told him that if Garrett ever came near me again… I told him… Lucifer would make him pay.”
“Lucifer?” Sinead asked.
Declan coughed. “It’s one of the names I’m known by… on the world theater.”
Sinead considered that. “It fits.”
“Thank you, love.”
“Anyway, I saw his face change,” Mary continued. “Like he knew what the name meant. He left, and Declan packed up my things and got me out of there, but then I remembered… the wedding album with the drive containing all the pictures in the box. I knew about the picture. I didn’t delete it because it was the only one of my husband and my brother, the two men I loved most in the world together. Smiling. I called Garrett from a burner phone and asked him to send the wedding album and box to a PO box in New York. Sentimentality, I told him. Nothing more. That’s when I think he knew.”
Declan swallowed his drink and stood, heading to the bar for a refill.
Sinead looked at the still-full glass in her hand and took a sip. It tasted expensive, which she figured was predictable.
Sinead put the final pieces together. “He puts together Lucifer with the wedding album and realizes he has an actual picture of you.”
“He doesn’t,” Declan said. “His father certainly does. Huntley Sr., after much investigation, has dealings with a nefarious set of international terrorist brokers. He would have known the name. He would have known what having a picture of Lucifer meant.”
“And you think his plan was to sell this picture to the highest bidder?” Sinead asked.
Declan nodded. “I know it was. Because I was his first call. Ten million and Mary’s address. Obviously, I refused. I told him he was ridiculous, that the picture was worthless. I didn’t know if he bought it, but I knew I had to secure it. Wouldn’t you know, a client in Shanghai had a critical situation that needed Huntley’s immediate attention?”
Sinead got it. Declan orchestrated that emergency to get into the house.
Declan—it still felt weird thinking about him with that name. But it fit. So did the voice. It was the same when he was wearing a suit or hanging out in jeans. When he was fucking her or making love to her. They were all variations on a theme, but they were all him. He was like this fascinating instrument that could play all these sounds, but at the heart of him was this true note that seemed to call to her.
“Is it all making sense?”
“Why are you concerned about the threat level?” Sinead wanted to know. “All that crap about it being dangerous for me.”
“As you correctly stated, Huntley is the least of my concern. But as we’ve been monitoring him, some of the players his father has reached out to… well, let’s say some of them are very scary. I wanted total control over everyone’s movements until they all realized Huntley no longer had the goods. The tail you lost was mine. I couldn’t take any risks. But if someone else was monitoring your movements, well… let’s just say getting my picture would be a coup. Getting me would be… on another level.”
“I know how to make a tail and I was careful.”
“Fine. Then we can all bunker down here for a while once they realize they will get neither a picture nor me, and the threat should be lifted.”
Sinead thought about what that meant. Stuck in this house with him.
“I still hate you.”
“No you don’t, love.”
She hated that he was right. She hated it when he called her his love because she’d missed him so damn much.
