Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Cassandra Ramirez .

Seeing that name didn’t seem real to Irish, yet it was.

There was no mistaking the picture of the child on the monitor as the woman next to him. They had the same wide eyes. The same slim nose. Everything was the same, only changed with time and maturity.

“Cass?”

“I thought it was bad before. But this is even worse. I’m the daughter of a monster. The niece of an even worse monster.” Her tortured whisper cut him to the soul.

Pain, shame, and disbelief in every word she uttered.

No way was he going to stand for it. No way was he going to let her take on the sins of her father and uncle.

Men she didn’t know. Hadn’t known she had any connection to until this very moment.

Irish pulled her up from her seat, gripping her biceps. Not forcefully, but with enough strength for Cass to know he wouldn’t let her fall. “Look at me, Alastriona .” He waited.

She eventually looked at up him, her dark eyes brimming with tears.

Irish pressed his lips against her. Softly, but he needed her to know what he thought of her hadn’t changed.

It wouldn’t change—ever.

“There is nothing wrong with you. Do you hear me, Cass? What they did or are doing isn’t on you.”

“But their blood flows through my veins. My DNA is the same as theirs.” Her voice was thick; hopeless.

“It’s not. You don’t have anything evil within you. They do.”

How could Irish convince her, when it looked as though everything good within was gone?

That all that was left was evil.

“What am I going to do, Dylan? I don’t know what to do. ”

The tears Cass had been holding back spilled down her cheek, and he held her tightly against his chest, wishing he could reverse the last twenty-four hours.

Take away the pain of knowing that the people she knew as her parents were CIA agents and didn’t care for her. That her real father was the scum of the earth.

“I’ve got you, Cass. Always. I won’t let you go.” He stroked up and down her back, as her cries filled his ears, a sound he never wanted to hear again. Never wanted her to know this kind of pain again.

Irish was also a realist, and they needed to face this. Needed the team to know because so many people had been affected by the Ramirez Cartel over the last year.

Slowly, her sobs lost their intensity until the occasional one overtook her body.

His shirt was wet—he didn’t care. He’d do anything for the woman in his arms.

“What are we going to do?” Cass asked, her tear-streaked face cutting him to the core.

“We can’t keep it quiet. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“When do you want to tell them? If you want to take a couple of days, then that’s what we’ll do. You’re in control of this, Cass. Not me.”

Again, she nodded and chewed her bottom lip .

Irish nudged his finger below it and she released her hold, but he could see the teeth marks and was surprised she hadn’t drawn blood with the force of the bite.

“After everything Astrid and Teresa have gone through, we need to mention it now. I need to get out of everyone’s orbit for their own safety. I could be the reason why they were targeted. Why Teresa got taken and was shot. I have to do this, Irish. Teresa’s pregnant now. If anything were to happen to her or the baby,” she finished on a whisper.

Flares of anger shot through him, but he tamped them down. Could he say he was angry with Cass and the way she was thinking?

In a way, yes, but also no because he understood why. He’d bet his favorite Glock no one in Alliez would ever blame her for what’d happened to Astrid and Teresa—if anything it was sheer coincidence that what happened to both of them brought the cartel into their orbit.

“Stop. And listen to me,” Irish demanded, but her gaze remained fixed on a spot over his shoulder. “Listen and look at me, Cassandra.”

That got her attention.

She met his gaze, and as wrong as it was, he was glad to see that his demand had drawn a little bit of anger.

He much preferred that to the sorrow and devastation he’d seen there in the last fifteen minutes.

“What?” Cass snapped.

“There’s no way anyone is going to blame you for what happened to Astrid or Teresa—least of all them. You know, deep in your heart, that it’s the opposite. It’s because of them that we know about Ramirez.”

Her gaze didn’t waver from his, and he could see the way the truth of his words was sinking in.

“I’m so confused. I don’t know who I am anymore,” Cass eventually said, the sorrow back in her voice.

“I know who you are. You are Cassandra Whitehall. Computer hacker/genius extraordinaire. Friend to all. And an amazing woman. I’m proud to know you.”

Nothing Irish said was a lie, but he’d left out the most important feeling—the woman he cared about. He’d keep that to himself.

Cass wanted to believe what Irish was saying, but now she knew who she was. Her blood was tainted, and there was no shaking that. People she shared DNA with callously killed people every day with the drugs they produced and sold. Not to mention the women they’d snatched off the streets and sold into a hell they couldn’t get out of.

What was everyone going to think when she told them the truth?

Cass couldn’t bear for them to look at her differently, but that was exactly what they were going to do.

Teresa and Astrid wouldn’t want anything to do with her, and Eveline would join them. Angel and Growler would also want her to stay away from them. Her family had caused them both untold pain and fear.

God, if the boot was on the other foot, she’d feel the same way she expected them to feel.

No matter how much it hurt, the best thing Cass could do was resign and walk away. Maybe she could go back to the CIA and ask them to put her in witness protection. Or find a place where no one could find her.

“I don’t know what’s going through your mind, but it needs to stop. You know no one here is going to leave you to your own defenses now, Cass. Especially me. ”

Again, everything in her soul wanted to believe what Irish said, but the doubts were chasing each other in her head.

The easiest thing would be to make the cut quick. No point dragging it out. Thinking or wishing that things would be different. They weren’t going to change back to who she’d been the previous day.

“You don’t know that, but I know what I need to do.” Shaking off Irish’s hold, Cass strode over to her desk and picked up the phone, pressing a couple of buttons. “Ox? I need to meet with everyone in the conference room in five minutes.” She didn’t give her boss a chance to question her; she just hung up.

The pictures on her computer monitor mocked her, but it was who Cass was, and everyone needed to know her true self. Saying goodbye to the people who’d given her so much but to ensure that the black scum that surrounded her now, didn’t touch them, she would do what she had to do.

“What are you doing?”

She steeled herself from allowing Irish’s concerned tone to seep into her soul. Not having anything to do with him was going to be the hardest to cope with.

He’d always been there. Always watching and making sure she was safe. The one person she could count on when she needed help .

If things were different, Cass would want him by her side as she traversed this new world she now found herself in. However, they weren’t, and going solo was the only way to handle it.

“I’m taking control. Everyone needs to know who I am.” She picked up her tablet, making sure the file she’d uncovered was ready to be shown to every other person in the company.

What the contents of the file were, she didn’t know. Hadn’t looked, and did it matter what it contained.

All that mattered was who she was now.

Cass headed for the door, her back straight, even though her legs felt as though she’d been sitting on them for so long she’d lost all feeling. No way was she going to collapse into a heap, regardless her desire to do so.

“Are you coming?” she asked Irish because he still stood in the middle of her office.

“Tell me exactly what you’ve got planned after you tell everyone who you are.”

If she told him her thoughts and plan, he’d put the kibosh on them immediately. “No. I won’t. You don’t get to dictate my life. Or how I deal with this. It’s up to me. So many people have made decisions for me. Decisions I had no say in. Hell, I didn’t even know about. So no, I’m not going to tell you.” Cass took a deep breath, clutching the tablet to her chest. “I’d like you to be there, but if you don’t want to, I understand that, too.”

No one would comment if Irish wasn’t there. They all knew he had his own way of doing things. They’d probably raise their eyebrows, but they wouldn’t say anything.

He crossed his arms, his chin jutting out and anger marring his blue eyes. “I don’t know why you always think you know what I’m going to do. I’m not letting you do this alone. I’m never letting you face anything alone. Come on, let’s go.”

A waft of air caressed her arm as he strode past her. He opened the door and was out of her office before she could take in what he’d said.

The walk to the conference room wasn’t far, but to Cass, it felt like five miles, the burden of what she was about to tell them weighing her down.

A dull throb began at the base of her skull, and she paused, closing her eyes, willing the pain away. She didn’t have time to deal with another one of her headaches.

Like the other night when she’d closed her eyes, another vision played. This time the little girl from the photo was laughing and dancing with the man .

Cass gasped. It was her and her father, and they seemed—happy.

What happened?

She wished she had time to process it. To analyze it. Determine the meaning of the short snippet of a memory, but she didn’t.

The throbbing intensified, but she didn’t want to close her eyes because who knew what else was going to play out.

“Cass, you good?” Teresa came up to her, smiling, but concern shone in her eyes.

“Fine, just a little bit of a headache.”

What was the point in lying? As someone who had found out she’d been lied to for most of her life, the thought of not telling Teresa what she was feeling was out of the question.

This was the exact reason why Cass was doing what she was doing.

There would be no more lying. No more deceptions.

The truth was coming out.