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And a queen.
The knot in my stomach tightened, and I hastened my movements.
I hiked up my jade dress by the lace-embellished skirt as I ascended the winding steps that would lead me to the guest wing on the second floor. I side-eyed the Virgin Mary statue as I passed it. Then my gaze landed on the massive oil painting lording over the second-story landing. I’d caught a glimpse of it earlier, but this was the first time I found myself alone and had the time to admire it.
Hesitantly, I stepped forward until I was close enough to touch it if I wanted to.
The painting depicted a much younger version of the Flynn family. Lachlan was posed behind a seated and strikingly beautiful Nessa, his hands lovingly cupping her shoulders. The hardened criminal beamed like any proud husband and father would.
One of the twins stood beside his mother, and the other sat on her lap. Even at the tender age of maybe five years old, Raphael was dressed and smirked like a tiny businessman who’d just swindled a sweet old lady out of her retirement fund. Raphael’s mini-tyrant impression and Lucifer’s unruly hair and fuller cheeks were dead giveaways—as was the way Nessa’s arms curled protectively around the latter.
The only thing that looked out of place? The shy grin teasing at Lucifer’s mouth. I definitely hadn’t seen that side of him in our one encounter. I would have remembered if I had.
“Are you lost?”
The gravel-filled voice settled in my bones.
It had been thirteen years since I’d heard that coarse Irish timbre. The familiarity—however superficial it may have been—made my soul long to rewind the hands of time.
I turned around.
Lucifer Flynn.
He stood as though carved out of stone. I dared to meet his gaze. His piercing eyes reminded me of the moss-covered trees in Ireland after a heavy rainfall.
My heart did something strange inside my chest.
Lucifer was as dangerously handsome as his bookend, maybe more so due to the bonus muscle and trimmed scruff that he’d acquired since our initial meeting. He was taller, broader, more masculine, and, if possible, even more intense than I recalled. His hair was the same thick umber that it’d been when he was a teenager, though now instead of a disheveled mess, it was smoothed, shaped, and groomed into place.
I wondered if Lucifer realized his new hair regimen was symbolic of who he’d become. Who he’d been molded into by the same shadow side of the Mob that had destroyed his perfectly imperfect innocence.
Had my soul found its mirror?
It was widely known among the Brennan Syndicate that Lucifer had remained loyal to my father until the very end. It was a small comfort, but one I’d held on to for ten harrowing years. I prayed that my father had died knowing that not every man he’d chosen as a brother—men he’d have laid down his life for—had been cowards when he’d needed them most.
My unsure smile gained confidence and spread a little wider. I blinked at him as I held my breath.
Nothing in his empty expression told me that he recognized me. I felt my heart drop just a little.
“Not lost. Just winded from climbing Croaghaun.”
His brow drew tight. “There’s a lift.”
The man still didn’t grasp the concept of sarcasm.
I shook my head. “I’m just saying the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. All these mountainous twists and turns seem like overkill.”
The moment the words were out of my mouth, I realized how they could have been interpreted, and my insides liquefied. But it didn’t matter. The man standing before me didn’t even bat a clinical eye.
His lack of reaction was ... unsettling. Maybe the gossip was true. Maybe Lucifer Flynn was a black hole after all.
My skin prickled with unease.
I needed to remember that whether he recognized me or not, syndicate law labeled me the enemy until I was bound by a marriage that could only end in death.
I was foe, not friend.
Willa Brennan. Not Willa Callahan.
