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I’d only made it down a few halls when I heard my name called out, and I reluctantly stopped. Forcing all of my hatred for the man who belonged to that voice away from my expression, I turned to face my dad.
Mick O’Sullivan. Mickey to those closest to him—to those who used the darkness of the world to conceal their sins.
CEO of an empire.
Boss of the Holloway Gang.
Heartless bastard.
“What are you doing coming from the rooms?” Before I could respond, he stalked toward me. “Let’s go. Meeting is starting.”
“But I—”
“Come on, Princess,” he said as he passed me. He turned, his million-dollar smile on display.
A smile that could charm almost anyone. Almost.
He was in his early forties—my parents had been teenagers when they’d had the twins, and then me—but you wouldn’t know it looking at him. Men Mickey’s age only looked the way he did when they were on the silver screen.
Or if they’d sold their souls to the devil.
With his looks and smooth words, he could lure the purest hearts to do the darkest deeds, all with that smile on his face.
It was why no one had batted an eye when he’d killed the old boss and taken his place twenty years ago. People fell over themselves to work for him.
“This is all going to be yours one day,” he continued, his deep voice booming throughout the large hall, as if he was trying to sell me on the idea. “You need to sit in on as many of these as you can. You can’t expect Kieran to run it all by himself.”
But Kieran wasn’t supposed to run this world.
Then again . . . neither was I.
We’d had plans and made promises—promises he’d broken years ago.
My dad’s smile abruptly vanished when I didn’t move or respond, and a look entered the ice-blue eyes identical to mine. “Lily,” he demanded in a low, even tone.
He was done being nice. Done pretending to care.
I walked in his direction without a word, then followed him to the meeting.
Of the dozen or so men that worked for Dad and Kieran and still spoke to me, only a few mumbled quiet hellos as I walked into the room behind my dad, still unsure how to handle being near me on this day even after four years.
If I was allowed to come and go around the property, I was sure it would be different.
There wouldn’t be weighted silences that fell over rooms when I walked into them, or the worried stares that accompanied it. Wondering if I was okay but too afraid to ask.
There wouldn’t be the uncomfortable waves of tension from the rest of the men—the ones who would rather I’d actually been in the ground than locked away on the back of the property. Some because they felt my presence was a risk to their lives. Others because they would’ve followed Aric to their deaths, and they blamed me for living just as my mom had.
There wouldn’t be the slanted glares as their anger boiled just beneath the surface, waiting for a time when they could repay me for the unfair card they felt had been dealt to them.
But to touch me would evoke a wrath not one of them could survive.
And they respected Kieran as much as they feared him.
I took a seat between Beck and his younger brother, Conor, as they spoke to the guys next to them, and looked blankly ahead waiting for the meeting to start.
“No girls allowed,” someone jeered from the other end of the room.
A few of the other guys laughed mockingly, but not nearly as many as usual when I sat in on the meetings.
