THIRTEEN

She wanted answers, did she?

Lyrica had forgotten that demanding answers from the men in her family was like trying to force nature to reverse course.

And it was just as effective.

Definitely more confusing.

And boy, did those answers have the power to kick her ass once they were forced out into the open.

Lyrica sat silently, furiously, in Graham’s living room just before dawn, glaring at the men who were watching her warily.

Sometimes, she thought, a person was just better off not asking, because a Mackay and his schemes were way too confusing at the best of times.

This wasn’t the best of times. And that meant life was beginning to border on the ridiculous.

“So, the man who shot at me in London wasn’t really trying to shoot me, he just wanted the person who hired him to think he was trying to shoot me.” She really needed to get it all in perspective. “And he knew all along where I was hiding behind the Dumpster, just as he knew Kye would be trying to call me and would eventually tell Graham the problems her phone was having when she dialed my number. He also knew Graham would head out after me, and that same hired assassin was meeting with you tonight across from my apartment when I left for the inn, and my so-called neighbor is actually a member of his team. Have I gotten all this straight so far? Tell me, Dawg, have any of you wondered yet if that enterprising would-be assassin is possibly related to the rest of you game-playing, calculating, manipulating, overdramatic Mackays?” Her voice rose as incredulous disbelief overwhelmed her.

She wanted to get the facts out in the open before she exploded. That way, there were no mistakes or misunderstandings as to why she was furious with every one of them, excluding Graham, who had been just as much in the dark as she was.

After all, that was an important part of understanding exactly how insane her life was becoming, and the toll it was taking on her and her sisters when it came to dealing with their brother and his related sidekicks.

“Your perception is amazingly accurate.” Graham spoke up for them with a hint of mockery from where he stood with his shoulder braced at the side of the fireplace. “And your self-control is astounding under the circumstances.”

Shooting him a silencing glare, she turned to her brother again. “And you knew all along that the whole ‘mistaken identity’ thing was bullshit. So much so that you had a bodyguard who was supposed to be following me? Except he wasn’t following me tonight as I left home because whatever floozy he’d picked up knocked him out and left him unconscious by the side of the road. How am I doing so far?”

“Your sarcasm excels, as always,” Natches pointed out as Dawg wiped his hands over his face and blew out a weary breath. “It even rivals your exceptional memory skills, it seems.”

“Natches, stop,” Rowdy hissed.

“And you. I thought better of you.” She flicked Rowdy a scornful look. “I never imagined you would allow yourself to become mired in the schemes those two manage to get themselves stuck in.” She flicked her fingers at Dawg and Natches as she leaned forward, anger burning hot inside her as understanding hit her like a slap in the face and seriously undermined her trust in her family. “All three of you were hiding the fact that you didn’t believe that bullshit mistaken identity story any more than Graham did, yet you still let me skip along as though I were as safe as ever.”

“Oh hell no, that’s not how it worked,” Dawg protested instantly, his expression creasing in angry defense. “Instinct and evidence are two different things, little sister. And if you recall, I tried to get you to either move in with me or stay with your mother and Timothy. You insisted on returning to your apartment.”

“Did you tell me you didn’t believe it?” she demanded, glaring back at him fiercely. “Did you even warn me?”

“And terrify you on the off chance I was wrong?” he argued, the strong, determined lines of his face tightening in conviction. “It’s been a lot of years since my gut has had to guide my life, little girl, and I’m getting older. How was I to know it wasn’t indigestion?”

She blinked back at him in disbelief.

“Indigestion?” She was amazed that he’d even come up with such a far-fetched excuse.

“It could have been,” he growled in defense. “You remember Natches had that acid reflux thing year before last? He was convinced it was his gut warning him something was wrong and he all but boarded up the house until Chaya and Bliss threatened to shoot him with his own rifle.”

“That wasn’t acid reflux,” she snapped, shooting Natches a disgusted smirk. “That was because he found that hunters’ stand in his woods and he was convinced everyone in the known world knew better than to hunt on his property, so of course it had to be a sniper instead. His own paranoia was his damned problem.”

Her cousin straightened in his chair in outrage, emerald eyes gleaming like hard, cold gems between lashes so thick and lush most men would be embarrassed by them. Instead, Natches used them shamelessly, whether he was charming his wife or issuing one of his icy promises.

“The acid reflux thing is the reason I was out in the woods to begin with,” Natches pointed out—and she so knew better than to trust that innocent expression on his face. “I felt the need to check out the property just in case it was a warning of danger. I’ve made a few enemies, you know.”

“Deliberately,” she charged sharply.

“Deliberately?” Those thick lashes surrounded eyes that widened in supposed outrage. “Come on, Lyrica, I’ve been a good boy for a lot of years now. Chaya’s a damned good keeper, I’ll have you know. I can even move about in society without too much trouble,” he informed her with deliberately insulting amusement.

“You’re a fucking menace to society, Natches,” she retorted furiously. “Don’t pull that with me.”

“Hey, that was a lot of years ago.” Natches glared back at her. “I haven’t been a menace to anyone but my wife and child since Bliss was born, I’ll have you know.”

“What do you call torturing me and my sisters?”

“My god-given right as Dawg’s cousin,” he said with a heavy frown, his expression filled with conviction. “And don’t think he wouldn’t do the same if you were my sister. You and your sisters belong to us, just like our kids do. We can torture you all we like. That doesn’t mean we’ll allow anyone else that privilege.”

He was making her crazy. Dawg and Rowdy just sat with their heads lowered, the expression on their faces one of long-suffering patience as Natches demanded attention. Brogan Campbell was watching with narrow-eyed curiosity, while Graham watched with simple, astounded disbelief.

Evidently, he’d just not had enough experience dealing with the three Mackays at once. This was an education for him. And no doubt the death of any chance she might have had at a relationship with him.

“I might as well be your daughter for all the peace I get,” she pointed out, almost shaking in anger now. “Your poor child will likely join a convent just to find some peace.”

Natches’s eyes narrowed on her, the emerald gleaming between his heavy lashes in venomous contempt.

“Oh hell, come on, Lyrica,” he drawled bitterly. “Stop fucking teasing me here. You and I both know I’ll never get that damned lucky.”

The F-bomb? He dared to use a word he knew would have his wife chewing his ass for hours, just to distract her from the situation?

Oh, classic Natches, and she so wasn’t fooled.

“Whoa! Time out here, kids.” Chaya jumped in at that point, her husband’s use of the F-bomb clearly concerning her, just as Natches had anticipated.

“She started it.” Natches turned on his wife, his arm flying out as he pointed a finger at Lyrica as though he were five years old.

Chaya rolled her eyes. “No doubt, sweetheart,” she agreed with placating patience. “Could you put aside the inner child now and let the man out to play again?”

His lips twisted into a little snarl, but his arm lowered as he settled back in his chair with a glare in Lyrica’s direction.

God, could this get any more incredible?

“You know, the three of you are going to cause me to move to Lexington just to get some peace,” she informed them all as she rose from her chair. “I think I’ve had enough Mackay explanations for the night. You’ve exhausted me more than both attempts on my life have managed to do so far.”

It was no more than the truth.

“Well, look on the bright side—I promised not to hit Graham again, even knowing you’re going to be sharing his bed here,” Natches stated sarcastically as she turned to leave. “You have a free pass to be bad for letting him protect you for us.”

She froze.

She heard Graham’s muttered curse and Chaya’s groan clearly, and she tried counting to ten before turning back to Natches.

She made it to five.

“Letting him protect me for you?” She swung around on him furiously. “No, cousin of mine, I don’t have a free pass to any damned thing. Both of us know exactly where it’s going to end, just as we know you’ll wait until all this is over then think you can hit him again just because the danger is gone, then stick your nose right back into my life again. And don’t even bother thinking that I believe this magnanimous gesture toward Graham is anything more than it is. It’s just your own inability to force him out of the situation and your knowledge that I’ll probably only end up doing what both Eve and Piper did and try to hide the fact that I’m sleeping with him from the three of you once it happens.”

Natches just rolled his eyes at her. “You think you know us all so well.” He flicked his fingers at Dawg and Rowdy, and the other two men covered their faces with their hands in defeat as he ignored their hushed orders to just “shut the fuck up, Natches.”

“I know you well enough.” She laughed bitterly. “I know all of you far too well at the moment, that’s for damned sure.” She flicked Chaya a pitying look. “And I can’t say just how much we all appreciate the fact that you at least keep him distracted sometimes, Chaya. You deserve sainthood.”

With that, she turned and stalked from the room, ignoring Natches’s amusement as he laughed at his wife and thanked her for “keeping him distracted.”

Lyrica couldn’t believe their nerve any more than she could believe that they’d refused to share their suspicions with her. Though it shouldn’t have surprised her, she admitted.

Hell, she should have suspected . . .

Perhaps she had suspected, because she hadn’t felt entirely safe since the day she’d left Graham’s home and returned to her apartment. Except for those few times she had been with Graham.

Stalking to his suite, she realized just how close panic was to the surface, and just how very unprepared she was for the danger facing her. And that only increased the risk for everyone involved.

—

Damn.

It took every ounce of self-control Graham possessed to keep the unruly flesh between his thighs from becoming painfully engorged as Lyrica tore into her family. With her eyes gleaming like green fire, that flush mounting in her cheeks, and mutinous fury stamping her expression, all he could think about was replacing all that defiance with hungry arousal.

She was a tempting mix of spice and sweetness and he realized he couldn’t wait to slide into his bed with her.

“I hate you!” Natches’s sudden declaration in his direction had Graham arching his brow in surprise.

“I’m brokenhearted,” he replied drolly, amused at the childish display of temper. “Am I still allowed on the playground?”

At Lyrica’s outburst, Chaya had plopped into the chair beside her husband, hung her head, and covered her face with her hands until it was over.

She was obviously well versed in Mackay dramatics.

Now she lifted her head and glared at Graham as though warning him to silence. But he wasn’t a Mackay—he didn’t have to put up with the bastard daily.

Yet.

Until he did, he could be just as damned snide as he wanted to be.

He wasn’t worried until Natches’s lashes lowered to stare back at him with cunning calculation, his smile full of icy disdain. Because until that moment, he’d forgotten Natches knew the very secret Graham had been hiding for far too long.

“You think you’re safe, don’t you, Graham?” Natches asked softly as everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath in anticipation.

Natches pissed was never a good thing, Graham knew, but he’d be damned if he’d kiss the man’s ass at this point.

Secret or no secret.

“I think I’m damned tired of playing into your game of Mackay machinations.” Graham grunted as he straightened from his slouched position against the fireplace. “Safe or not, Natches, I’m no puppet, and I refuse to play one now.”

The expression never changed.

“You’re cold inside,” the other man murmured then, disgust touching his voice. “Calculating and so absorbed with the mistake you made that you’ll make everyone in your life pay for it until the last breath you take.”

Graham glared back at him, wishing he could deny the claim. Unfortunately, they both knew he couldn’t.

“I learned my lesson,” Graham informed him. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” Natches smirked. “You want Lyrica so damned bad it’s about to eat you alive. But instead of paying attention to your own instincts, you’ll end up finding a reason, a transgression you’ll convince yourself she made, or you’ll make up your own just to ensure you never have to resurrect that dead little heart of yours. And then she’ll begin to realize that all she has of you is whatever pleasure you give her . . .”

“Enough, Natches. You think I want to hear this shit?” Dawg snapped in disgust as he rose from his chair and paced behind it to stare at his cousin furiously. “Let it the hell go for now.”

Natches jerked to his feet, facing Graham as Chaya followed and laid her hand on her husband’s arm warningly.

“Oh, I’m not going to hit him again.” Natches chuckled, the sound icy, filled with distaste. “I’m going to wait. And when Lyrica walks away from him, her little heart shattered in her chest, then I’ll remind every damned one of you of how you made me keep my rifle locked away instead of putting my fucking crosshairs right between his eyes.”

With that, he gripped his wife’s hand, gave it a little tug, and stalked from the living room.

The slamming of the door leading into the garage moments later had Graham scratching at his jaw in confusion before turning back to find all eyes on him once again.

“This happen often?” he asked the men, whose expressions ranged from resignation to contemplation.

“’Bout once a month or so.” Rowdy shrugged. “He gets bored sometimes when Chaya’s too busy to entertain him.”

“Good thing she seems to enjoy entertaining him,” Graham remarked caustically before moving to the bar for another drink.

Dealing with Mackays would end up driving him into AA at this point.

“You’ll be entertaining him if you hurt her.” The warning didn’t come from a Mackay this time. This time, it came from the one man Graham least expected—Brogan Campbell.

He had short dark red hair and the shadow of a darker beard, intense blue eyes, and savage features. He was a man Graham respected for his strength, but rarely agreed with.

“My days of entertaining the Mackays or their relations ended with that fist Natches planted in my face. As I told him then, that one was free. Another one will cost all of you. Now, if this little meeting is finished, dawn is nearly here and I’m damned tired. Get the hell out of my house or find a bedroom and leave me the hell alone. I really don’t care which.”

They were all tired. Tempers were beginning to fray and patience was wearing thin. Especially with him.

“Yeah, time to go.” Dawg wasn’t moving, though.

His hands gripped the back of the chair a little too tightly as the others rose and began filing out of the room toward the garage, where two SUVs were parked. Once the room was empty of everyone but him and Graham, Dawg stared at Graham with implacable determination.

In that moment, Graham realized he’d been wrong. Natches wasn’t the one to watch out for any longer, unless the threat he represented had the potential to be fatal. In this case, Dawg was the one to keep an eye on.

“Lyrica and I have an agreement,” Dawg said softly, the pale green of his eyes almost colorless now as his gaze met Graham’s. “I stay out of her life and she doesn’t move to Lexington. That’s worked for us so far, because she’s not really one to poke at things, ya know?”

Graham didn’t answer him. Instead, he watched the other man closely, hearing more than what Dawg was saying.

“I looked into your past myself,” Dawg stated then. “Whatever Natches knows, he’s not sharing yet, but I’ll warn you, he’s close to telling me, Rowdy, and Timothy. Once he’s convinced whatever happened will hurt Lyrica, your secret’s out. But he forgets, I’m not one to wait when I want to know something. I’ve known how interested Lyrica was in you from the moment you two met. When you returned to Somerset, I knew something wasn’t right, so I made some calls.”

Graham stared back at him, forcing back the emotion, the searing regret and humiliation.

Dawg’s expression was heavy with compassion and understanding, and that only made things worse.

“You’re a good man, Graham,” Dawg said softly then, releasing the cushioned back of the chair and straightening slowly. “You’re a damned good man, and I don’t want to hate you.” He shook his head wearily. “But that’s my sister, and I guess I love her near as much as I love my own kid. And I’m an overprotective bastard,” he admitted with resigned regret. “So knowing she’ll be sleeping with you doesn’t sit well with me. Not because she doesn’t deserve someone to hold her, but because she chose someone that just doesn’t have it in him to hold her as long and as tight as her sweet heart deserves. And that, my friend, will ensure I hate you, because you’re too fucking stupid to realize how much she does love you, and too damned selfish to just walk the fuck away from her.”

Dawg didn’t wait for an argument, a protest, or an explanation. He turned and moved for the doorway as he rubbed at the back of his neck with the air of a man fighting his first instinct. The instinct that demanded he protect the sister he loved.

“Dawg.” Graham stopped him just before he left the room.

“Yeah, Graham?” He turned back, but he wasn’t expecting Graham to have anything to say that would change his mind about the outcome he could see coming for his sister.

“It’s not selfishness.” Graham had to force the words from his lips.

The doubt on Dawg’s expression had fury lashing at him. A self-fury, one he knew there was no escape from.

“Okay, Graham.” Dawg sighed. “Just remember what I said . . .”

“Goddammit, Dawg,” he snarled as he slapped the liquor glass he’d never filled to the bar. “It’s not fucking selfishness. She’s like a drug I can’t kick. Since the first time I saw her. I didn’t touch her when she was younger, I swear to god I didn’t.”

Dawg looked away momentarily, proving he’d always suspected Graham had dared to touch her during those earlier years.

“She was just eighteen when I met her.” He shook his head as he paced to the wide windows at the side of the room and stared into the summer dawn. “Eighteen.” Shoving his hands into his back pockets, he could see her as she had been that day. “So fucking innocent and filled with such hopes and dreams. I would have shot myself before destroying that. But that was six years ago.” He turned back to Dawg then, knowing there was just no way to explain fully what she did to him. “Six years, Dawg, and I can’t stay away from her anymore. And that’s not selfishness, but I’ll be damned if I know what to call it. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her face some fucking assassin without me there to make damned sure she comes away from this without being hurt.”

Uncomfortable now, resigned to the fact that Lyrica’s brother had every reason in the world to hate him, Graham waited for the legendary Mackay fury to erupt.

Dawg wasn’t known as the least temperamental of the Mackays. When he was younger he was the one who fought the fights Natches often instigated. Right after Rowdy would try to defuse them.

Graham figured he was about to get intimate with another Mackay fist any second now.

Instead, the other man shocked him more than he wanted to admit. Saddened, heavy with regret, Dawg’s gaze flickered with momentary anger before even that died away and he nodded heavily.

“When you figure out why you can’t stay away from her, Graham, maybe you’ll let her, or someone who cares for her, know,” he said softly. “Otherwise, trust me, your soul will know the minute she gives up on your heart. And once she gives up, it will be over for her. Forever. Then it will be too damned late to realize what you’ve lost.”

—

Dawg turned away from the younger man, fighting to hide the satisfaction he was feeling, the knowledge that the other man’s admission had given him.

Damn.

Sometimes it felt like that boy could have been his own son instead of that damned Garrett Brock’s. He was so damned much like a fucking Mackay that Dawg had, at one point, even had the DNA report the DHS had on Graham pulled to compare to Mackay DNA. A man could never be too careful when it came to the depravity his and Natches’s fathers had been capable of.

Graham wasn’t related to them, but it hadn’t changed the similarity Dawg often saw in him. A similarity Rowdy and Natches had laughed over a time or two themselves.

Moving into the garage, he stepped into the waiting SUV and closed the door behind him. The other vehicle had already left, and the one waiting for him was filled with Rowdy, Natches, Chaya, Timothy, and Brogan Campbell.

“What the hell took you so long?” Natches grumped from the backseat where he slouched with deliberate laziness. “Did you do Lyrie a favor and kill the son of a bitch?”

Natches was always their ace in the hole. He could play the bad cop while pulling out the best of a man, or woman, without even seeming to try. Although he could be a calculating, manipulating bastard, he always did it with dedication and all those warm, fuzzy feelings he swore he didn’t have for anyone. Well, except his wife, his daughter, his cousins, his best friends . . . Dawg almost laughed at the thought.

He grinned instead. “Why would I do that, cuz? I’d never forgive myself for having to bury the man who loves her enough he’s determined to take a bullet for her if need be.”

Natches snorted at that. “Lust ain’t love, man. I thought you figured that out when you met Christa.”

“Exactly,” Dawg stated softly as Timothy pulled from the garage. “Just like Graham began realizing the day he met Lyrica. It took me eight years to get it right, though. I think this boy might have me beat. He’s already figuring it out.”

Dawg glanced back in time to meet the triumph in the emerald depths of Natches’s gaze and, behind him, in the forest green of their cousin Rowdy’s.

“Plan’s working, then?” Timothy was all but chuckling as he drove from the Brock property.

“Plan’s working.” Dawg breathed out in satisfaction as he turned back in his seat and stared at the road ahead of them. “Ahead of schedule, due, I imagine, to this interference in Lyrica’s life. But it’s working damned good.”

Silence filled the van-size SUV for a few long moments before a voice could be heard from the back of the van.

“Guess I was left out of the plan,” Brogan muttered in resigned acceptance. “Damned good thing I’m not just smart but observant. I told Eve last year that the three of you had this in mind, and she told me I was crazy.”

Rowdy chuckled at that as Dawg felt a grin curve his lips.

“So, Brogan,” Natches drawled, “did you figure it out when we chose you for Eve?”

All of them turned to stare back at Brogan, except Timothy. No doubt he was watching through the rearview mirror.

“You’re lying.” But the suspicion, the fear was there.

“Think Jed figured it out?” Rowdy asked with quiet humor.

That was the moment Brogan knew just how effectively the Mackays had maneuvered him.

“Fuckers!” He tried to snarl, but there was no true heat there. The poor son of a bitch was just too damned happy with his little Mackay honey. Just as Jed was. “You three are fucking dangerous.”

“Three?” Timothy said. “You got that all wrong, Campbell—try seven. Me, Alex, Zeke, and John Junior, too. Every now and then, John Senior likes to put his two cents in as well.”

“All I can say is that it’s a damned shame that the seven of you are that fucking bored in your old age,” Brogan said.

“Bored?” Natches questioned the supposed rationale for the maneuvering. “Hell no—it’s not boredom, it’s exhaustion. We’re getting old, man. It’s time to start enjoying ourselves more. The future is yours, Brogan. Yours, Jed’s, Graham’s, and whoever we give Zoey and Kye to for safekeeping. We’ve kept this little piece of Kentucky clean for a lot of years. It’s time to hand it over to the next generation and just pray we chose wisely.”

“I have one question,” Brogan stated then, the sudden dangerous softness in his voice showing that he’d suddenly thought of something that perhaps didn’t please him so well. “The threat against her, by god, I hope you didn’t instigate that.”

Dawg turned back to him, along with Natches and Chaya, while Rowdy turned his head slowly to his side. Timothy made damned sure Brogan glimpsed his look in the rearview mirror.

Five of the most dangerous people Brogan was sure he had ever met, and they were staring at him with such icy, certain death in their eyes that he didn’t think before nodding.

“I was just making sure,” he drawled as though those looks hadn’t given him a moment’s worry.

“And trust me, once we find the bastard that did, he won’t live to see a jail, a trial, or a sentence,” Dawg said. “He won’t get a second chance, Brogan. All he’ll get is a very quiet, very brief burial.”

No one fucked with his family, especially his sisters, and got away with it if he could help it. And should he become too weak or too old or, god forbid, should he be taken out before he could stop it, then he and his cousins had done their best to make damned sure they had backup.

A man had to have backup, he’d always thought. It was the way he planned.

He had backup for those he loved, just in case . . .

And he prayed daily that it was never needed.