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“What?”
“He’s your older brother, respect him.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Fine. If you don’t want to marry Melody Giovanni, then you can marry Ms. Colemen.”
“That’s like asking if I’d like to be run over by a train now or later! I don’t want to get married until after I take over. It shouldn’t be a clause for me to become the Ceann Na Conairte.” He had all these damn rules. He forced me to learn everything under the goddamn sun, yet he still treated me like a child.
“Giovanni or Colemen?” he asked as though he were bored.
“I—”
“I won’t ask you again. Giovanni or Colemen?”
“Fine, Giovanni. I’ll wait for the train. Maybe I can think of a way out of this contract. I don’t know how you can trust them with the amount of shit that the Italians have put us through. Now I’m supposed to lie next to one. ”
“At least you’ll have good food,” he replied.
“We have chefs for that—what are you looking at?” I moved over and saw a map on his desk. It was new trade routes for our supplies.
“Oh, well look at that, you can hold the girl talk for a moment,” my father said.
Asshole.
PRESENT
I stood out on the balcony staring up at the moon with a bottle of brandy in my hand. Drinking straight from the bottle, I shivered as Mel’s warm arms wrapped themselves around me. Without saying a word, I stood and enjoyed the warmth of her presence. I’d been feeling cold and nothing could warm me up like she could. Drinking didn’t help, tears burned, but she and Ethan were it.
“I know I have to be stronger, I have to be a leader,” I whispered to her, “but I—I…”
“I get it, Liam. Everything will be taken care of tomorrow, you just have to show up.”
No.
Shaking my head once more, I turned around to face her.
“I need you to give me the speech.”
“The speech?” she questioned, confused.
Looking down, I swallowed and tried to form the words. “Tomorrow, I need to not only be the head of this family, but the leader of the entire Irish clan. Plus, your people will be there on top of that. I can’t weep; I can’t be anything except strong because all eyes will be on me, but right now, I can’t even breathe. So I need you to do what you’ve always done and tell me the truth. You tear into people and lay everything on the table. I need that. I need to know how you functioned after Orlando died. You cried for one night and the next you were using him as bait. And I know you, you loved him, you are not as cold as you want people to believe. You were in pain. I need you to speak to me, because apparently I can’t speak for myself. “
“My father and I had relationship that was much different than—”
“Mel…wife…please.”
She wiped the corner of my eyes and took a deep breath before she stepped away from me.
“You have tonight,” she said stoically. “That’s it, one night. You can cry, you can scream, you can curse God. But when the sun comes up, you need to get your shit together, Liam, because that is the price of being the boss. We don’t get to grieve with them. We do not get to lie in bed all day, we do not get to worry about the ifs, ands, and buts.
“Sedric is dead. He’s not coming back, and neither you nor I have the power to change that. You will wake up, and for a moment you will forget that he is gone, and just when you’re about to smile, it will hit you. A song will play, or you will eat his favorite food, drink his favorite brandy, go to his favorite place, and the pain will rip through you, but you will have to deal with it. We have to; we are going to hold this family together because without us, everything falls apart. Everything he worked for and gave his life for will be meaningless, and if that happens, then Sedric would’ve died for nothing. That bullet was his last gift to you, and you have no fucking right to waste it. We bend, but we not break, and when we snap back, someone always suffers. Tomorrow, we will make sure that the message is clear: we can never be broken.”
When she finished, I pulled her to me, and allowed the bottle to fall and shatter. Kissing her, I picked her up by her thighs, intent on showing her just how much I loved her. I had already wept in the morgue and cursed every deity known. Right now, I just wanted to make her scream my name and lose myself in her.
PAST
I held her hand, trying to rush her into my room as she giggled. We were both a little tipsy, but who cared? Besides, it was my last real night of freedom. Just as we made it to my room, I saw him turn the corner into the hall. He looked up at us both from the book in his hand.
“Busted,” Natasha giggled.
“Go in,” I winked at her, and she smiled before she did as she’d been told.
Turning back to my father, I watched as he continued his path until he stopped at my side.
“How much do you care about her?” His monotone voice reached me as he flipped through his book.
“Dad—”
He glared, cutting me off.
“Look, it’s my last night before I meet Melody. I’d like to have some fun, if you don’t mind. It isn’t serious. I swear, the moment we sign the contract, my loyalty will be to her and this family.”
“The family should already have your full loyalty,” he countered.
“You know what I mean.” Or at least I hoped that he did. I knew what was likely going through his head.
“She’d better not get pregnant or I will kill her myself. I’m doing this for your future…one day you will thank me, son,” was all he said before he continued on down the hall.
Thank him? Yeah right.
MELODY
Wrapped in his arms, I listened to him breathe as he played with my hair and stroked my hand. The sun was slowly beginning to peek into our room, but we laid still, fighting the evidence of a new day. Sadly, there was no stopping our alarm. Taking a deep breath, he sat up and ran his hands through his hair before he stretched. Then he turned to me.
“Olivia?” he asked.
“Dead. Neal killed her. I took care of the rest. Pity, because I’d planned to bury her alive.”
“No,” he mused. “It was better that Neal did it. She didn’t deserve any more of our time. She was nothing and died as nothing. Her name will never be spoken of again. What of my father’s funeral?”
“It’s at eleven a.m. and the memorial is going to be near the Illinois River at LaRue Pine. Everything’s already been taken care of.”
“I want to wear a—”
“Fedora?”
He looks at me oddly, but nodded. “Yeah.”
Sitting up, I got out of bed and walked over to his closet. “I had Fedel go out and get some, along with a few suits choices.”
There were five different outfits I had put together for him, and all of them had a matching fedora.
I felt him come up behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me to his chest.
“Pick whichever one you like, I also had some brought in for Neal and Declan. I have dresses for Evelyn as well. Breakfast is at—”
“You did all of this?” he whispered, as he kissed my shoulder.
I smiled as I turned back to him. “Coraline helped.”
