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“A loving brotherly visit before breakfast?” I asked in my most sardonic tone. “I feel so lucky.”
Dante took the liberty of sitting in the leather chair behind my desk, kicking up his feet as he smirked at me. He was already dressed to the nines in a dark maroon suit, the soles of his dress shoes matching the fabric color.
“A before-breakfast visit was a must, little brother,” he said.
I held his gaze. He was only a few years older than me, and we looked closer to twins, except he kept his hair high and tight whereas I let mine grow a little wild.
And I had more ink than he did.
“Say what you came here to say, Dante,” I finally said, sitting in the chair across from my own desk.
“I must have missed the memo where we were planning to piss off the Irish,” he said, tilting his head. “Why don't you bring me up to speed?”
“I’m sure Brooks already gave you a full report or you wouldn’t be here.”
“True,” he said. “But I’d like to hear it from you.”
“The Irish Princess called in a favor,” I said. “She won a favor chip from me several games back when she was sitting in for her father.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, what if she'd given it to O'Brien?” Dante asked, shifting his feet off the desk and sitting up straight in the chair.
“I knew she wouldn't,” I said, even though I hadn't been one-hundred-percent certain when I lost the chip to her. But clearly, my hunch had been correct.
Dante shook his head. “Your businesses are the only clean ones we have a hand in. Jeopardizing it over a turf war is stupid. Annul it.”
“I'm not annulling it until I know that Serenity is safe from the repercussions of the favor she called in.”
Dante raked his palms over his face, exasperation written in every line.
“And I have no interest in a turf war,” I added before he could keep lecturing me. “I may hate O'Brien, but the last thing I want is a war.”
“You marrying his only daughter without his blessing says otherwise.”
“She called in a favor,” I said again. “You know how our game works. It was undisputable.”
A flash of respect sank into his eyes as he nodded slightly. “Have to give the girl credit. She certainly used your little poker game's rules to her advantage.”
I shifted my head from side to side, silently thinking about what she originally wanted.
“What was that?” my brother asked, reading me as easily as I would read him. One of the perks of growing up and working together for almost thirty years, we had an uncanny ability to see through each other's masks.
I blew out of breath. “The only thing I could do was amend her original favor,” I admitted, since there was no use in lying to him. “And I took the best option for all of us.”
“You mind explaining how this is best for us? I've already heard through our sources that O'Brien is furious. He's no doubt planning an attack. Hell, he might try to make it look like you forced her into this marriage, and that will give him grounds to take her back by force.”
My hand balled into a fist atop the desk, and I shook my head. “I'll kill him before he gets to her.”
My brother's eyes widened, and he studied me for a few heartbeats. “What was her original request?” he asked instead of addressing the more complicated matter, which was me getting territorial as fuck.
“She wanted me to... ensure that her value would be stripped, and she wouldn't be able to be sold off to another family.”
“She wanted you to fuck her?” He tilted his head. “And you married her instead?”
I ground my teeth together as I took a deep breath. “Fucking her would’ve given Doyle grounds to at best lock her away for the rest of her existence. At worst, make her death look like an accident. I wasn't about to put her in that position, especially when she was so frantic and thinking that was the only way out.”
Dante looked at a loss for words, something he usually never struggled with. My brother loved to talk more than anybody I knew. “And you haven't fucked her yet? Even after marrying her?”
“I haven't touched her,” I said.
