“You’re wrong about Sean. He would understand,” Alex said quietly. “Li will, too. Tell him.”
Ian was quiet for the longest time, so long Liam thought he wasn’t going to speak. “I was recruited into the CIA through their black ops program. They sometimes recruit active Special Forces members to train as operatives. I was one of them. I had run two or three small-time missions, mostly gathering recon in Afghanistan. I served there for a long time and had very good contacts. That was where I first heard whisperings of an arms dealer selling tainted materials, enough to make a significant dirty bomb or several that when used in a coordinated attack could destabilize the economy of any number of first world countries.”
“I know the reason behind the op, Ian,” Liam replied. He’d sat through many briefings, boring meetings meant to make him brutally aware of every aspect of the operation. He’d been sure that they were just long to make the agent briefing them justify his job.
Ian moved on. “I started tracking the arms dealer, but I couldn’t get close to him. He had ties to the Russian mob. I didn’t. I knew it would take more than just money.”
“You needed someone with a bad reputation.” Liam knew this drill. Someone like Ian would have to be under deep cover. That was hard. The Russian mob had access to many ways to break a cover. They would need real ties, and Liam had them. He had them all over his nasty family tree.
Ian’s eyes rolled. “You’re going to put the worst spin on this you possibly can. You and your brother had IRA ties.”
“I never hid them.” He couldn’t have hidden them. When he’d gone into the Army, he’d been a dumb kid barely able to wipe his ass much less hide the fact that his mother had seen the IRA as a religion. He hadn’t. He never had. It had almost been his way of rebelling.
“I know, and you were so damn good at your job that the SAS took you in anyway. Your commanding officers didn’t believe you had a hand in the IRA, but there are always rumors and those rumors can be used for good or bad.”
He’d never had a second’s misconception why he’d been chosen, and he’d known bloody well there could be a cost. His idiot younger self had practically wanted to sacrifice for the cause. That dumber Liam had believed he’d be a hero. “I knew that going into the mission. I knew there would be fall out. I knew intelligence would put it out that Rory and I were still meeting with Ma’s old cohorts.”
“Rory did meet with them, Li.” Ian’s words dropped between them.
Liam couldn’t help but reject it. “No. If he did, it was only for the mission.” But why hadn’t Rory told him? Ian had to be mistaken. Except he was always so cautious.
Ian seemed to choose his words carefully. “He did it before the mission. He was under investigation, but he convinced your higher-ups that he was just checking in on family. His ties were why I picked you both for the op.”
Liam felt the ground shifting beneath him. Rory had gotten in touch with their uncles? Their crown hating, kill ‘em all uncles? They’d grown up surrounded with bitterness and bile, and they’d promised to never go back after their mother drank herself to death. “He would have told me.”
“We all have secrets, Liam. Even from our brothers.” Ian’s eyes found the floor.
Liam’s head was spinning a little, but it had to be that Rory felt a connection to their family that he didn’t. Why the hell hadn’t his brother told him? Had Rory thought he would try to talk him out of it? He was right. He would have, but if he couldn’t then Liam would have stood by his brother. He would have gone into the belly of the beast with him. Hadn’t he always tried to protect Rory? Liam had always been the one to clean up the messes Rory made.
Had Rory died thinking he had to hide from his brother?
“I was coordinating with MI6 and G2,” Ian continued. “It was right about that time that I met Charlie, and I lost my fucking head. I was so in lust with that woman. She was gorgeous and sexy and submissive. It was like someone had reached into my libido and pulled out my ideal woman. She was fucking perfect on the outside. She wasn’t the type who didn’t make you work for her submission. No, not my Charlie. She was a righteous bitch half the time, and that got me panting after her. I let everything slide. My work, my other relationships, everything. I married her ten days after I met her. We were married for exactly 32 days.”
Ian went silent again.
“What went wrong?” Liam asked.