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She growled at me as she always did when I blew something off. When she pulled back, she cupped the side of my face like our mother always had when we were kids and fell from a swing or a tree. “You look terrible. You’re going to bruise.”
“You haven’t seen the worst of the bruises,” I laughed and she scowled at me.
“Why aren’t you at the hospital?” Her demand was par for the course. “You could have internal injuries from the impact. You could have ribs sticking into your lungs and you’re going to bleed to death. You could have a concussion. Where the hell is your wife? Why isn’t she here taking care of you? Take off your shirt so I can see the extent of the injuries. If you don’t allow me to help you, our mother will kill you and you know it.”
Both Constantine and I laughed. “Always the tough girl,” he said.
“Yes, she is.”
“Don’t either one of you give me any shit,” Danika growled. “This is serious. Daniel could have died.” I sensed she’d noticed the picture, her gasp of horror as dramatic as my sister had always been. “What the hell? Who did this?”
“Likely the same person who tried to have me killed.”
“This is outrageous,” she continued. “You need to do something about this, Constantine.” She held up the photograph briefly for my brother to see before tossing it back where I’d placed it.
Constantine took a deep breath. “Motherfucker.”
“I’m fine. Both of you. And the photograph is nothing more than an attempt to push my buttons so I’ll do something stupid. That’s not going to happen. I’m banged up to shit and I’ll ache like crap in a couple hours, but I’m the lucky one.”
“So you refused seeing one of the paramedics,” Danika snapped, acid in her tone.
“Yes, I did,” I told her. There was such a strong connection between us that we didn’t really need to say anything to each other, but I poured another drink, handing it to her. “I think you need this more than I do.”
“You’re incorrigible. Where is Maria? Does she know about this?”
“The photograph, no, and she’s not going to hear about it either.” Unless it came directly from me. “She’s resting upstairs. I don’t think she’s used to near death experiences.”
Constantine was slower to advance, but nonetheless concerned. “Well, she’s not supposed to lose her new husband on day one after the marriage.”
“I’m not sure she cares,” I said absently, laughing until it hurt too much to do so after seeing the expression on my sister’s face.
“Men,” she huffed.
“Brock remained at the scene?”
“He’s at the hospital. Possible broken arm. I sent a couple of the guys to keep watch and bring him back,” I told him. “I need to speak to Roger’s mother.”
“I’ll take care of that. What the fuck happened, bro?” Constantine asked.
“I think that’s fairly clear. We were blindsided,” I answered, gently pushing my sister away. I needed that damn drink to calm my rage, let alone hopefully soothe my aches and pains. “That means I was either followed or someone knew I was going to a meeting.”
Danika gasped. “You don’t think someone betrayed you from our employ. Do you?”
“I don’t know what to think at this point, but it was no accident. They wanted me dead.”
“I’m so sorry about Roger,” she said, reluctantly letting me go.
“Yeah, it was ridiculous to lose him.” There were no words to adequately explain how I felt. While I didn’t know the lives of every single employee who reported to me and certainly not nearly that many inside the large corporation we owned, that didn’t mean we hadn’t attempted to promote the organization as family oriented. That had been our mother’s doing, her insistence we handle operations like a Fortune 500 company something my father had adhered to, including bonuses when justified and presents for the children of the workers.
Sure, we were dangerous and ruthless, but that didn’t mean we had to be inhuman.
At least most of the time.
Granted, what I had planned for the fuckers who did this wasn’t just something most people would call inhuman, it would be abominable.
And well deserved.
“Do you think it’s the Irish goon who did this?” Danika asked. There wasn’t a single thing she didn’t know about inside our family, the beautiful woman exactly like our mother.
