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“Then don’t chase me down and manhandle me. Let me go back to my hotel.”
“I can’t. If I do, the McGuire brothers will find you and either kidnap you or kill you within the hour.”
“Why? They don’t even know me.”
He sighs. “No, but they aren’t the brightest bulbs and if they think I’ve got a lady friend, they’ll use her to get to me…”
I stop fighting and sigh. “Fine, then let’s go to the police.”
He arches an ebony brow. “I am the police in this city, luv. You’re safer with me than you would be anywhere else…at least until I figure out what Mattie McGuire is up to and can shut this down.”
Resigning myself to the situation for the moment, I let out a long breath. Fine. I know how this works.
Sadly, this ain’t my first rodeo.
“All right, so who are you, anyway? IRA, INLA, Irish Mob?”
He tilts his head from side to side, his ebony hair brushing the color of his dress shirt. “I prefer Irish businessman.”
“Uh-huh. So mafia.”
“From an American perspective, I suppose that is close enough to the truth of it.”
Just fucking great.
It’s like I’m a living magnet for trouble.
Some of the tension in his shoulders eases as he studies my reaction. “You don’t seem as freaked out as most.”
I’m not about to admit that as a defense attorney in Chicago, I’ve been around organized crime more than I care to admit.
If I did that, he could discover my real identity.
Then he’d dig into the circumstances of my departure and my chance of starting over as Lainey O’Neill would be lost.
I shrug. “I grew up in the lower class and have a strong survival instinct. For tonight, I’ll play it your way, but come morning, Mom and I?—”
I gasp and look down at myself. My hands are empty. “Where’s Mom?!”
I turn back the way we came, and he grips my shoulders. “We can’t go back, but as soon as we get off the street, I’ll call Aiden and have him secure your mam’s urn.”
Hot, fat tears run down my cheeks as I work to breathe past the tightness in my throat.
I can’t believe I lost my mother.
“Her dying wish was for me to come here and give her a peaceful end and I lost her in a shootout because I was horny and desperate. Hell, I don’t even know your full name.”
“Quinn’s my family name. I’m Tag Quinn.”
Tag Quinn.
I think back to the case files I worked on and the conversations I’d been both privy to and overheard.
I don’t remember the Quinn family specifically, but I wasn’t that involved. The law firm had clients in the Chicago mob that supplied guns to the players in Ireland, but I don’t think Quinn was the name.
Tag is studying me and the yearning, edgy energy deep in my belly tries to make a comeback.
What the hell is wrong with me?
