“I mean, how did he take you and bring you here? You know...the way every Shay man kidnaps a woman and keeps her until she marries him. It’s tradition. Grandpa took Grandma from the side of the road, and Dad took Mom from her house one night. Did Uncle Connor get creative with you?”
Tradition? My brow furrows as concern fills my chest. Mitchell and Amos kidnapped their wives? “Isaiah,” I slowly get out, “you mean theyactuallykidnapped them?”
“Yes,” he replies just as slowly as if I’m touched in the head. “Grandpa had a judge marry them at his house. Grandma didn’t even get to meet my dad until after she was married.”
A fog comes over me as I try to process what I’m hearing. It sounds like Amos isn’t Corina’s birth son. But Connor is? I’m so confused. “And your dad did the same to Mercy?”
“He was her landlord.” Isaiah frowns as something occurs to him. “But he still won’t tell me exactly how he did it.”
Unease creeps over me, unwelcome goosebumps crawling over my arms. What kind of a family have I married into? Vaguely, I hear Connor and the boys traipsing up the hallway. As soon as I see him, I blurt out incredulously, “You have a tradition of stealing women?”
His tanned face pales at least two shades lighter, shock slackening his jaw, then he glares at Isaiah. “Really?” he says in a clipped voice. “You told her?”
Isaiah audibly swallows as his gaze darts back and forth between us. “Oh, shit.”
Chapter twenty-two
Connor
Thisisit.
It’s finally happening.
It’s almost freeing now that Isaiah let the cat out of the bag. This kitten, though, isn’t fucking going anywhere.
“I’ll...see you guys later,” Isaiah stammers, belatedly waving his silent phone like a lifeline. “Gotta get home before Mom starts to worry.”
“Drive carefully.” I barely hear the door latching behind them, completely focused on Rosanna as I am. She’s pissed. Matter of fact, now I see where Anamaria gets her little glower from. But maybe I shouldn’t mention that to her.
“What the fuck, Connor?” my petite wife hisses at me from the couch. “Please tell me this is a huge misunderstanding and that I didn’t just hear a sixteen-year-old boy—mynephew, for God’s sake—tell me that his family kidnaps women and holds them hostage to force them into marriage!”
“Kitten,” I begin carefully, “let me tell you what he meant by that.”
Her eyes narrow. “Don’t you fucking ‘kitten’ me, Connor Mackenzie. What in the everloving fuck is going on here?” Her sharp tone catches Toto’s attention, his ears straightening and jaw stilling as he tries to process the situation.
I can’t have this. I reach for her but stop short when she flinches away from me, her fingers clutching the arm of the couch and feet poised to run.What the fuck?
“I’m not going to fucking hurt you. I’m not Silas.” The name is a foul taste in my mouth, and I’m irritated and wounded as fuck that she thinks I could ever lay a hand on her that way. Especially when she saw my anger at the markshe’dleft on her.
I ease beside her as she crosses her arms and looks to the bedroom. Of course her first thoughts would be for our sleeping babies. “It’s okay, Rosanna,” I cajole, gesturing to the side table. “Our phones are here charging and we’ll be able to see and hear them if they wake up.”
Of all the worst fucking times for this to happen. I’d wanted to casually bring this up in a post-sex haze when she’d be all loose and relaxed. Not when she’s overrun by all these postpartum hormones and the both of us are touch-starved for the other. Slowly, so as not to spook her, I slide my hand over hers.
“No.” Hiding her hands under her arms, she glares at me, gray eyes turning into stormy seas. “You don’t have to hold my hand to tell me the truth. And you said you’d never lie to me.”
“Fine.” Blood pulses in my temples, but I force my face into a calm expression. “It’s true.” My words hit her hard. Maybe even harder than the cutting ones Silas threw her way.
“I don’t—what do you mean?” Bewilderment with a hint of fear crosses her face, and I don’t fucking like it.
“Don’t be afraid.” My fingers itch with the need to hold her. “Come here, baby. Slow your breathing. Everything’s okay, I swear. It’s not as bad as it sounds.” She doesn’t resist me much as I pull her into my lap or brush a kiss across her slack lips. I only mean to comfort her, but when I open my mouth further, tongue seeking hers to reassure her of my love, she seems to come to herself.
“No—Connor...” She squirms on my lap, but it only serves to thicken my erection as her ass rubs across it. “Let me go.”
“Calm down, Rosanna, and listen to me. I’m only going to tell you if you let me hold you.” To soften the blow, and to keep her from running. When her body relaxes slightly, I confess. “Isaiah was right, but I swear to you that it’s not something we do on a whim.”
Well, not entirely true. More like we don’t do it to every woman we meet. “When a Shay man meets the woman he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life loving, he...he’s overcome with the desire to love her and care for her.”
My little kitten seethes in my arms. “So overcome that he has to kidnap her? Isaiah said Mitchell forced Corina to marry him before she ever met Amos, and Amos—Mercy’s fucking landlord—apparently did the same thing to her.”
