Declan Shanahan had the gun pointed at Suzanne.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Where is he?” demanded Declan’s brother, Sean Shanahan, who stood inches from Suzanne on her front stoop.

“I haven’t seen him in years,” she said.

“Who is it, Mommy?” asked Brigid, peeking out from behind Suzanne’s legs.

Burr clenched his jaw, his heart thundering into overtime. Get back inside, baby girl. Please, God, get her back inside, Suzanne!

Sean narrowed his eyes at Suzanne before squatting down before her daughter. “What’s yer name, now?”

“Bridey Riley. What’s yours?”

“I’m Mr. Shanahan.”

“Shanahan. That’s a funny name.”

“’Tis, isn’t it?”

Brigid nodded, grinning at Sean Shanahan, one of the most dangerous criminals in Dorchester.

“Hey, Bridey,” he said, “where’s yer Uncle Burr at, eh?”

Brigid frowned at Sean, scrunching her little shoulders around her ears. “I dunno. I never seen him.”

Sean grunted at her, then stood up, running one hand through his graying hair. “Where is he, Suzy?”

“Please, Sean. We don’t know.”

“He’s a fucking narc, ain’t he?”

“I don’t—” Suzanne’s voice shook as she put her hands over Brigid’s ears, drawing her daughter closer. “I don’t know what he’s up to. But ‘narc’ feels pretty unlikely since he was busted for drugs and kicked off the force.”

You’re doing good, thought Burr, who was hiding in the dark shadows next to Mrs. Murphy’s garage across the street. Sean Shanahan didn’t kill women and children. Maybe he’d grill her a bit, then leave her be.

“Yer dad must’ve had a coronary over that one, eh?”

Suzanne blinked at Sean, licking her lips nervously before shrugging. “My dad…he’s retired. We don’t—we don’t talk about Burr much anymore.”

“Well, Declan,” said Sean, turning to the man standing on Suzanne’s small patch of lawn, who had a discreet pistol aimed at Burr’s sister, “I guess we got some bad information, eh?”

“Looks like it, boss.”

Sean turned back to Suzanne. “You see your brother around, you let me know, yeah?”

“’Course, Sean,” she said, and Burr watched her face, the way her features relaxed just a touch.

Burr relaxed a little too, holstering his sidearm as he watched Sean turn his back to Suzanne, heading to the stairs. Once Burr knew that Suzanne and Brigid were safe, he would deal with his own mess…and he’d start by figuring out which rat-bastard had revealed his true identity to Sean.

He glanced back at Suzanne, a bolt of longing making him breathless as he stared at his sister and niece. It had been three long years since he’d made contact with them, and he missed them fiercely. Maybe it was okay that his cover had been blown—it meant that his life as an undercover cop was over. And God knew he was long past ready to leave this life behind.

He watched as Sean lumbered down the four steps of the stoop, making eye contact with Declan, his lips thin, his eyes furious. The tip of his head was so subtle, anyone else would have missed it, but Burr had worked closely with Sean for years. Not only did he catch it, but he knew what it meant, and dread sluiced through his being.

Shit, shit, shit! Suzanne, run!

Thrump. The sound of a gun with a silencer being shot registered in Burr’s brain just as his sister stumbled back, falling in a heap on the floor of her open front door.

“That’ll get his attention,” muttered Sean, opening the passenger side of the car as Declan turned back around and hustled over to the driver’s side.

“Fuck! No!” yelled Burr, shaking himself from his shock and stupor to run down Mrs. Murphy’s driveway, grabbing the gun from his holster. He fired it at Declan, who whipped around in surprise, pointing his gun at Burr.

A bullet smacked into his shoulder, and Burr distantly acknowledged the hot, tearing pain, but it didn’t stop him. He fired again, hitting Declan in the chest before he could open his door. He fell back against the car.

 Someone in the neighborhood must have called the cops, because the screech and cry of sirens split the night, drawing closer and closer.

Declan slumped against the side of the car as Burr approached, wondering why Sean, who’d made it safely inside the car, hadn’t shot at him yet. But then he remembered, Sean Shanahan preferred fists to guns—he left the shooting to men like his brother, Declan.

Within reach of the car, Burr made eye contact with Sean through the window and raised his gun, aiming at his head, but Sean slid across the front seat, shifted into drive, and hit the gas before Burr could pull the trigger. The tires shrieked, and Declan’s head hit the pavement as his brother’s car screeched away. Even though Burr shot twice at the bulletproof glass of the back windshield, Sean disappeared into the night just as Boston’s finest arrived on the scene. Their sirens didn’t drown out Brigid’s high-pitched screams as she knelt by her mother’s unresponsive body.

“Shhh. Shhh. Stop thrashing now.”

The voice was firm but gentle, just like his—“Mam?”

“No. I’m not your mother. I disinfected it,” she continued, “but I should call a doctor. It needs stitches.”

“Suzy?”

“No. I’m not Suzy either.” She paused, then asked, “Is she your wife? Suzy?”

“Where…am I?” he asked.

His mouth was so dry, his lips stuck to each other when he made the “m” sound of “am.” She pressed a glass to his lips, and he took a small sip of water.

“New Hampshire,” she said.

New Hampshire? Why the fuck was he in New Hampshire? What the hell was going on?

“You’re safe here,” she said, offering him the water again.

He took another sip, but his eyes were still closed, too heavy to open.

They’re at Suzy’s.

They’re going after Suzy.

He’d received the call last night around ten. He hadn’t known who was on the other side of the line, because the caller disguised his voice, and the line went dead before Burr could find out. On his way to drop off his daily collection to Sean, Burr had done a U-turn in the middle of Roxbury, racing to his sister’s Dorchester neighborhood and parking one street away. Cutting through the Koswalskis’ backyard and hiding against the Murphys’ garage, where he could see Sean talking to her. And then…And then…

“Suzy!” he screamed, opening his eyes wide.

The first thing he saw was…

Her: a young woman, midtwenties, dark hair, green eyes, glasses. Her face was close. She sat in a chair beside the bed where he was lying. Placing a glass of water on the bedside table, she looked into his eyes.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Calm down. You’re safe here,” she said again.

“Where the fuck am I?”

“My house.”

“Where?”

“I already told you: New Hampshire.”

My wife’s family has a place on Lake Ossipee. Twelve Carlson Road in Freedom, New Hampshire. Go there. Stay out of sight. I’ll be in touch.

“O-Ossipee?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Where?”

“Moultonborough,” she said.

“Where the fuck is that?”

“About thirty miles away.”

“East or west?”

“West.”

He clenched his jaw, staring at her. “Who are you?”

“Tierney.”

Her answers were maddeningly brief, telling him nothing.

“Tierney what?”

“Haven.”

“Where’s my gun, Tierney Haven?”

She dropped his eyes for a moment, then looked up again. “Safe.”

Goddamn it. He took a shaking breath. “Get it.”

“No.”

“Now!”

“I can’t do that,” she said. She went to reach into her pocket, and he flinched, jerking back from her. She froze, looking at him curiously, then nodded in understanding. “I’m only reaching into my pocket for your keys.” Moving slowly, she pulled Suzanne’s keys from her pocket and placed them on the bedside table. “You’re not a hostage here. You can go whenever you like.”

He snatched the keys and fisted them, still staring at her.

“How did I get here?”

“You drove here.”

“When?”

“Last night. Your car is in my driveway. I moved it from the road.”

His memories of his drive north were spotty, at best. Before he left Dorchester in Suzy’s car, his partner, Ray, had grabbed some painkillers from the paramedics who came to take Suzy to the hospital. They must have been pretty strong.

“Tell me what happened.”

“You woke me up, banging on my door at four o’clock in the morning. You wanted my phone.”

That made sense. He had given his burner phone to Ray so his whereabouts couldn’t be traced, but finding out what happened to his sister would have been a priority. Was she alive? Dead? He inhaled sharply at the terrible thought.

“Did I call anyone last night?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why didn’t you call the cops once I passed out?”

“No service,” she said, reaching into her back pocket and holding up a phone. “They’re restoring it now.”

“They?”

“AT&T.”

He stared at her, still trying to determine if he was safe here or not, despite her reassurances. “You could have driven to the local police department when I passed out.”

“Yes.” She stood up and nodded, stepping away from him to lean against her bureau, her clear green eyes still fixed on his face. “I could’ve.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Her lips twitched and she pushed her glasses up her nose. “You asked me not to involve the police.”

“I broke into your house at four in the morning waving a gun around—no doubt scared the shit out of you—and you didn’t call the police or run to them the second you could?”

“You didn’t break in. I opened the door.”

“Do you always open the door to strangers?”

“I thought you were my brother.”

Burr sighed. “And when you realized I wasn’t…?”

“You were already inside,” she said.

He shook his head, deeply annoyed with her. She was going to get herself killed behaving like this. “Stupid.”

She blinked at him, cocking her head to the side. “You’re calling me stupid?”

“You shouldn’t have let me in. You shouldn’t have opened the goddamned door! Didn’t anyone ever teach you anything about strangers?” he demanded.

“I guess they were too busy teaching me how to say thank you,” she said tartly. She took a deep breath, her unsettling green eyes still trained on his. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said softly.

You should be. I’ve been living with animals for three years.

She reached up and pushed a lock of dark hair from her forehead, which revealed a fresh bruise. Burr grimaced. “Did I do that?”

“Not on purpose.”

Fuck! He’d hurt her?

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” he yelled, furious at her for putting herself in danger. How the hell had she made it to adulthood acting like this? “You should have gotten help!”

“It’s not too late,” she snapped. “I’ll get in my car right now and tell the whole county you’re here. Why don’t you come with me? We’ll stop by the hospital on the way. Make it a real fine field trip.”

Fuck it all, but she was sassy.

The reality was that he didn’t know who in the Boston Police Department had betrayed his identity to Sean, but he couldn’t risk seeing if Sean’s tendrils reached as far as New Hampshire. Not to mention, Sean would be combing reports of emergency room patients from Portland to Providence.

“Is that what you want?” she prodded, schoolmarm tone on point.

“No. I don’t want the police involved,” he muttered, looking away from her. “I’m just saying…you should be more careful.”

Until he knew what was going on or could get to Ray’s house on Lake Ossipee, he couldn’t risk letting anyone else know where he was, and that included local police and emergency rooms.

He shifted his gaze back to the woman, letting his eyes trail down her body and back up again. She was a sweet little package—rounded hips, small waist, big tits, long, dark hair and a pretty, if way too serious, face.

“Smile,” he said, as surprised by the word as she seemed to be.

She flinched, narrowing her eyes with undiluted anger. “Téigh dtí diabhail.”

Fuck off.

He couldn’t help the chortle of laughter that lifted from his belly. She looked like a goddamn librarian but swore as neatly as any of Sean’s thugs.

“Ha! Damn.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said again. She turned toward the door, then glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll bring up some soup. Stay in bed. Your shoulder’s bad.”

“Where’s the john?”

She raised an eyebrow. “The restroom?”

It had been a while since Burr had needed his Catholic school manners. But duly chagrined, he nodded. “Yes, please. The restroom.”

She hooked a thumb to the left. “Down the hallway.”

And then she was gone.

He listened to the sound of her steps fade until he couldn’t hear her anymore. What did she say her name was? Tierney? Irish, he thought. Well, of course she’s Irish. She curses like she was born there.

Loosening his grip on Suzy’s keys, he placed them on the bedside table beside the glass of water, his memories of last night starting to return—and with them, a wave of fear and sorrow.

Hiding in the blue-and-red tinged shadows behind Suzanne’s garage, he’d learned from Ray that his sister had been shot in the hip, though the paramedics who arrived at the scene said they doubted, based on the way she was bleeding, that her artery had been hit. Suzy’s husband, Connor, had been called home from his shift at the Dorchester Fire Department to take care of Bridey. Burr and Suzy’s parents, Sheila and Frank (a retired Boston cop), had also been contacted, and were on the way to the Miami Airport.

After sharing this news, Ray had grabbed some gauze and painkillers from the ambulance, bandaged up Burr’s shoulder best he could and told his partner it was time to go.

“I’m not fucking leaving, Ray. They shot my fucking sister! They could’ve hit Bridey too. Fuck, they could have—”

“You don’t leave now,” said Ray, grabbing Burr firmly by his uninjured shoulder, “and I give you less than twenty-four hours to live.”

Fuck, but it had killed Burr to leave.

Suzy was shot because of him—or, more accurately, because of the person who’d sold him out to Sean and the rest of the New Killeens, where Burr had been undercover for almost three years—and if he wasn’t by her bedside, the only place he wanted to be was hunting down the motherfucking traitor who’d put Suzanne O’Leary Riley in danger.

 “Where’s your car?” asked Ray.

“Over on Mulberry,” Burr said, hooking his thumb toward the Koswalskis’ house.

“Good. Leave it there. Take Suzy’s,” he’d said, gesturing to the garage. “My wife’s family has a place on Lake Ossipee. Twelve Carlson Road in Freedom, New Hampshire. Go there and hide. Take care of that shoulder when you can. Stay out of sight. I’ll be in touch.”

Except Burr hadn’t made it to Freedom. He’d gotten lost in the storm—the painkillers muddling his head, the hammering rain making it impossible to read highway signs—and somehow, he’d ended up thirty miles off course in…where was he? Oh, yeah. Moultonborough. Wherever the fuck that was.

He heard Tierney’s footsteps approaching, and he took a deep breath, sitting up. He instantly regretted the movement, dizzy from the sharp and intense burst of pain it caused to move. She was right—his shoulder was bad.

“Soup,” she said, stepping into the room with a tray. She crossed over to him, placing it carefully on his lap. “Split pea and ham.”

Burr looked down at the lumpy green muck. He hated pea soup with a fiery passion. “Thanks.”

“I made it myself,” she said, pushing her glasses up on her nose, “with a leftover ham bone.”

For the first time, it occurred to him that she might have a husband. None of the single girls he knew baked hams or made soup from scratch. That was a married-lady skill.

“You married?” he asked, taking a spoonful of the soup and finding it not as horrible as he remembered from his childhood.

“No.”

“Who’d you make the ham for, then?”

“Me and my brothers.”

Brothers could be trouble.

“They live here too?”

“Not right here. Nearby.”

Relieved, he nodded, taking another bite of soup. “This is good. I don’t like peas. Usually.”

“You’ve probably had them from a can. They’re not very tasty that way,” she commented, hovering by the foot of her bed.

“You can sit down if you want,” he said, gesturing to the chair by the bed with a flick of his chin.

She obviously thought it over for a minute before accepting his invitation, but her back was rigid when she sat down, her unsmiling face quietly disapproving.

“Why do you have a gun?” she asked.

“Protection.”

“From whom?”

“Better you don’t know.”

She pursed her lips. “How about the money in the back of your car? What’s that for?”

The spoon froze halfway between the bowl and his mouth. He turned to her. “What do you know about that?”

“You left your car on the road. I pulled it into my driveway and found money in the—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, giving her a hard look before drawing the spoon to his lips.

“Well, I am…worried about it,” she said. “I’m also worried about Suzanne Riley. The car’s registered to her. Did you hurt her? How’d you get her car? You called out for her a lot last night.”

Burr dropped the spoon into his bowl with a clatter and clenched his jaw. Her questions were hitting him in soft places, and he didn’t like it, though he guessed she was entitled to some answers.

“I didn’t hurt her…” he muttered, “but she got hurt.”

“Will she be all right?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, pushing the tray away. Enough. He looked up at her. “I need to go to the…restroom.”

“Didn’t you go before?”

He shook his head. “Hurt too much to sit up.”

“I’ll get you some more Advil,” she said, standing from the chair and holding out her hand. “Want help?”

He stared at her for a minute, baffled by the fact that she was helping him, a frightening stranger who’d arrived at her door in the middle of a dark and stormy night. He couldn’t think of another woman he knew who would act as she had, and he didn’t know whether she was the stupidest or bravest woman he’d ever known.

“You’re really not afraid of me, are you?”

She shrugged. “I told you…I have two brothers.”

“Older or younger?”

“Same age,” she said.

“You’re triplets?”

She nodded as he took her hand, groaning as he swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up. “You and two brothers, huh?”

“Yes. Me and two brothers. That’s how triplets work,” she said, leading him out of the bedroom and down a short hallway. She dropped his hand to push open the bathroom door. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” he said, offering her a brief, miserable grimace that would have to pass as a smile. “You’ve been…” His words drifted off. She was allowing him to stay here and feeding him, and she hadn’t called the police yet. For that, she deserved his gratitude. “…helpful.”

“Who is Suzanne?” she asked again, hands on her hips.

“My sister,” he said, figuring he owed her one true answer.

“Oh,” she murmured, her face relaxing, her lips parting, her green eyes all the wider behind her glasses. “Your sister. You’re someone’s brother.”

You’re someone’s brother.

The words hit him square in the chest and stole his breath for a moment, because he’d missed his family so damned much over the past three years, it ached. Someone’s brother.

“Yes. I am,” he murmured.

“And she’s hurt?” Tierney’s brows furrowed together. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s not dead,” said Burr quickly, his voice harsher than he intended.

“No. Of course not,” said Tierney. “I…that’s good. I hope she…”

Her voice trailed off, and she turned around without another word, heading down the stairs and leaving Burr alone.