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I gesture to the chair on the opposite side of the table and wait until Tag takes a seat. “Is everything all right, luv?”
I tilt my head this way and that, but don’t know how to answer. “When I first arrived, I was intent on keeping my situation to myself. I wanted to reinvent my life without looking back. But after speaking with my cousin Patrick yesterday, I realized there are too many loose ends to hope the dangers from Chicago won’t follow me here.”
Tag frowns. “What loose ends, luv?”
“Well, if Marco is still alive, he knows my mother’s maiden name and that I planned to visit her family to spread her ashes.”
“And Marco is your husband?” Tag asks, his voice calm and even.
It seems foreign to say that out loud now that I finally took a page from his book and moved on, but that’s the truth of it. “Marco Moneta, yes. And I lived as his wife, Madelaine Moneta, for the past seven years.”
“And was he always such a negligent ass?”
His indignance on my behalf is sweet, and while I appreciate it, the truth is, our indifference was shared. “We hadn’t been living as a married couple in a very long time. He had his private life, and I had my work within his family firm. Neither of us cared to cause the stir that a divorce would bring, so we lived apart while still together.”
Tag grunts. “The man is a fool.”
“I appreciate that you think so, but it’s fine. Marco and I looked good in the society pages, but we were never a love match. There was never a romantic entanglement.”
“All the better.” Tag seems pleased with my comment and is taking all this quite well. “You said you had your work in the family firm. Let’s go there next.”
“Billings, Moneta, & Whyte is one of the top tier legal firms in Chicago. I met Marco in university and was given a job there once we were married.”
“So, you are a solicitor, then?”
“A criminal defense attorney, yes.”
Tag grins. “I thought it might be something like that. You are smart as a whip and you’ve made a few comments that made me wonder.”
Really? And here I thought I was flying well under the radar. “And that proves my point. I intended to start fresh and not look back. Now, I’m worried I need to know how things landed when I left.”
“But she’s worried about sending up red flags if she starts searching,” Finn adds.
I run a finger down the condensation of my glass. “And that’s why I’m bringing it up. I realized I’m not equipped to navigate what comes next and worried I might do more harm than good, inadvertently bringing danger calling.”
Tag glances over to where Finn is finishing with the last of the installs. “I’m sure we can sort it out without tipping her hand, can’t we, brother?”
Finn considers that before meeting Tag’s gaze. “I’ll need to know the players, but without knowing how sophisticated their systems and paranoias are, there are no guarantees. I’ll do my best. They’re just lawyers, after all.”
I shake my head. “And that’s where the irony of my life comes into play. My father-in-law and, in turn, my husband, were doing extra work for the Chicago crime outfit. I fled the USA to get away from the reach of organized crime and ended right in the middle of your Dublin feud.”
Tag scrubs his hand over his jaw and fights not to smile. How can he think this is funny? None of it is funny.
Touching the gold and green shamrock cufflink in the sleeve of his shirt, I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to land on your doorstep.”
Finn chuckles. “Says the woman who was swept away in a pub shoot-out because she was with my brother when a rival mafia family came for him.”
Okay, that’s true.
I let a long breath out and meet Tag’s amused gaze. “Looks like we’re both magnets for trouble.”
Tag grins. “Aye, or a perfect matching set.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Tag
After the breakthrough of Laine confiding her truths in us, I want to end the day as quickly as I can and get her alone—but I can’t. I’m still bothered about the tracking device Aiden found on the truck and I haven’t checked the perimeter of the compound since coming back here.
