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“Greetings, gents,” Darragh says, still panting slightly from the exertion of the boxing match, his breath rasping around his slight Irish accent. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
And there’s that manic fucking grin again. It doesn’t reach his lopsided eyes.
I don’t return the smile. I don’t know what kind of games Darragh’s playing and I’m not interested in feigned pleasantries.
“Where’s your office? We have business to discuss,” I say.
“Straight to business. Don’t know why I expected any less from a Titone. Come on, then.”
He turns and leads us through the room, past the boxing ring, and through another door. The four of us enter an office, followed by the big bearded guy who closes the door behind us.
The office is a lot simpler and less luxurious than the big gambling room we’ve just come from. The green leather of the armchairs looks comfortably worn, the wooden desk taking up the centre of the room old and kind of rickety. There’s an antique-looking bar cart in the corner of the room, and even the bottles stacked there can’t exactly be called new, because most of them are aged whiskey, brandy, or port.
Considering how filthy rich Darragh is, all this old scratched-up shit throws me for a bit of a loop.
But I’m not here to analyze Darragh’s interest in moth-eaten furniture. I’m here to tell the bastard to back the fuck off my bride.
Darragh swivels to face us, leaning his hips back against his desk.
“Got your message this morning,” he drawls. “Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
I can already tell this conversation is going to be infuriating.
“No more dramatic than sending your men after us with their fucking guns blazing,” I reply, keeping my voice even.
“They weren’t gonna kill her,” Darragh scoffs. “Can’t lure her daddy back here with nothing but a body now can I?”
I snort, because I truly didn’t think that Darragh was this dumb.
“You think kidnapping O’Malley’s kid is gonna bring him back here?” I ask. “He’s the one who sold her out to me. He put her up as collateral on his debt then turned tail and ran when I came to collect. He doesn’t give a shit about her.” My head begins to pound the way it often does these days, a vicious ticking when I think about Deirdre’s papà.
“That’s because you’re too soft with her,” Darragh replies coolly. “You’re draping her in diamonds and carting her around to galas like she’s your new favourite pet.” A cold hunger enters his gaze, something mutely hostile and not quite human. “You ever sent a father the severed fingers of his only child?”
The ticking grows, bomb-like and ominous. My blood heats and surges with rage when I remember how frantically I’d checked each and every one of Deirdre’s fingers, first at the cemetery and then back at home.
“You so much as try to trim her pinky fucking fingernail,” I seethe, “and I will rip your goddamn throat out.”
The big guy near the door shifts at the threat. Curse and Enzo both tense, ready for action.
But Darragh just barks a laugh and shakes his head, sending bits of dark copper hair flopping.
“Down, Rowan,” he says to the Viking-looking guy. “We’re all friends here.”
“Friends? That why you addressed that weird-ass fucking riddle the way you did? And just who exactly were you telling not to press their luck?” I ask him.
You know what? I don’t even care about the answer. With Darragh, maybe there is no real answer at all. He probably doesn’t even fucking know why he wrote that shit. Just trying to get a rise out of me.
“We are not friends,” I tell him, my voice cold with purpose. “And if you don’t want me as your enemy then you will immediately stop coming after my fiancée.”
I punctuate the sentence with a flourish of my hand, brandishing the sealed paper towards Darragh. He snatches it out of the air with animal quickness, pops the seal, and reads, his asymmetrical eyes flying over the words at a ferocious pace.
“You’re marrying her,” Darragh says, “and throwing the firepower of your family name behind her, solely to keep her from me?”
“I’m marrying her because she’s mine.”
Simple as fucking that.
Darragh looks like he doesn’t quite believe me, like he’s trying to figure out my true motive here, what I might stand to gain. His gaze is narrowed, calculating, before it suddenly widens in astonishment.
