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“Go home. I’ll take care of this motherfucker.”
My head swiveled in the direction of Keegan’s voice. Our gazes met, and I nodded. I was already late for Sunday supper—a Flynn family tradition.
As a captain and first-in-command over the foot soldiers, Keegan Kane didn’t attend most Sunday dinners even though I considered him a brother. Someone needed to stay alert while those of us at the top checked out for a few hours each week.
“Tomorrow’s the big day, right?” Intrigue lit up his face.
My jaw spasmed, and I offered him a grunt of affirmation.
Keegan tied off a tourniquet around the femoral artery of Molotov’s left leg, then went to work on the right one. “I can’t fucking believe that for the first time in ten years, the Flynns and Brennans are having a sit-down. If your father could see—”
“He can’t fucking see,” I stated.
Keegan righted himself. The corners of his eyes creased. “I know, man—it’s a figure of speech.” He shook his head. “Raphael is really getting hitched. Never thought I’d see the day. To a fucking Brennan—to a widow—no less.”
A week ago, I would have concurred with his assessment of my twin brother. Yet here we were.
“Doesn’t matter if she’s a Brennan, a widow”—Molotov’s discarded molar crunched beneath my boot—“or the fucking tooth fairy ... she’s still a woman capable of producing an heir and unifying two Irish crime dynasties.” The words felt treasonous on my tongue regardless of their accuracy.
Keegan rested his hands on his hips, engrossed in our conversation about Raphael’s pending nuptials and forgetting about the nearly dead heir to the Russian throne in front of us.
I kicked Molotov’s foot, and he groaned.
He’d live. For now.
I wasn’t convinced the Russians hadn’t intercepted our latest shipment of artillery from New York, but that would have to wait.
I was fucking late for Sunday supper.
“Finn dig up her deets yet?” Keegan pressed.
As gifted as I was at inflicting pain, my cousin was a genius when it came to technology. But in his effort to glean anything of value about the widow, Finn had only learned that Colin Brennan, the youngest of the three Brennan brothers, was his equal in that regard. The identity of Widow Brennan was as elusive as a sober Irishman.
“No,” I bit out. “All we know is her age. Even for the Brennans, it’s shady as fuck.” I shifted my gaze to watch Keegan’s pending reaction, knowing I was about to make his goddamn night. “Raphael’s heading into this marriage blinder than our father in his current state.”
Keegan smirked. “Nice. You cracked a joke, Lucifer. I knew you had it in you.” Then he winced. “A bit dark, and the delivery was rather dry, but, fuck, I’m proud of you, man. This feels like the kind of moment where we should bro-hug.”
I ignored Keegan’s appraisal and reconsidered his status in our ranks as I began packing up my unused toolkit.
“Finn told me she’s ten years younger than you and the boss,” he said, citing the one detail that Raphael had been granted about his future wife.
Hearing our childhood friend refer to my brother as the boss was foreign—but not unexpected.
Tension slithered under my skin. “Accurate.” I shrugged off the sensation and shrugged on my leather jacket. “She turned twenty last week.”
“Damn. Raphael’s basically robbing the cradle.”
I glanced up. “Tiernan fucking Brennan robbed the cradle when he married her on her eighteenth birthday. The fucker was thirty-nine.”
Keegan’s face contorted in a way that told me he also found the idea of a grown man marrying a teenager, albeit a legal one, repulsive. Heir to the Brennan Syndicate or not, Tiernan was Irish, not fucking Italian.
“So he’s the one that—uh, Jack ... right?”
“Aye,” I growled.
The mention of my former mentor and friend threatened to trigger something rare—an emotional reaction. With a flex of my fists, I suppressed my lapse in self-discipline for the sake of the family. I couldn’t go into the first sit-down in a decade between the Flynns and the Brennans with fucking feelings.
Keegan was just an errand boy for my father when the Brennan family visit that would forever go down in infamy had taken place. He’d heard the stories, but that’s all they were to him.
