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“My mother looked at you like she wanted to kill you?”
“She looked at all of us that way. Regrettably she was born with a conscience that my father could not beat out of her. And he really gave it his all.” He shrugged. The implications of his words would not move me. Though it seemed my mother and I had abusive asshole fathers in common, too.
“How much do you know about her?” He sat down across from his desk like the power I’d taken by sneaking in and sitting at his desk didn’t matter to him. As a gesture, I quite liked it. I just didn’t have time for this bullshit.
“I’m not here to talk about my mother.”
“Of course, you are.” He smiled at me like he knew me and I took another bite of his apple and stared at him until he blinked. “Humor me,” he said, tilting his head.
“She got tired of being a Morelli and left. Met my father in London. Had me. Died.”
“Oh, that’s only part of the story, I’m afraid. She was tired of us and of being a Morelli her whole life, but she did enjoy being rich. She didn’t leave until she fell in love with a boy my father did not approve of. Came home from some carnival with a diamond ring and a plan to run away with him. Her mistake was telling my father.” He took a sip of his bourbon and sighed. “The boy was killed and Gwen vanished. She wanted to be an artist or some bullshit. Truthfully, I barely paid attention.”
I resisted the images that unspooled in my head. The vision of my mother not as a faceless Morelli but a person wounded by them. In love with someone torn away from her.
A woman so conditioned to unhappiness, my father seemed like home.
“Why did you want Poppy dead or alive?” I asked.
“Right to brass tacks, I’ve heard that about you. You”—he pointed his finger at me over his cocktail—“did not make that easy for me in Ireland. Some of the best-hired guns in the world and you got yourselves out of it. Almost made me proud.”
“Why did you want Poppy dead or alive?”
“Who would have guessed Caroline’s little pet would be so elusive? Or, if Eden’s wedding pictures are the real deal, she’s your pet now. You have to be careful of those Constantine types. They’ll smile to your face and stab you in the back, wedding ring or not.”
I kept my mouth shut and promised silent bloody revenge while Bryant sipped from his tumbler and then smacked his lips. The asshole thought he was toying with me. I put my apple down in the middle of his desk, the juices dripping all over his important shit.
“You can believe the pictures,” I said. “Now answer my question.”
“Well, alive would have been ideal. But dead was not an insurmountable obstacle.”
I picked up my glass and heaved it across the room. It smashed spectacularly against the wall a few feet from his head. Bryant flinched, wiped bourbon off his cheek. And then smiled at me. Like my violence was further proof we were kin.
“Answer the fecking question.”
His eyes widened slightly and he lifted his hand. “I believed she had information regarding the Morelli family and property belonging to the Morelli family that I would like back.”
“She doesn’t have anything.”
“Well, it seems she has you,” Bryant said, smiling at me. “The Bulldog is on the end of someone else’s leash. I imagine Caroline is distraught.”
I stood and Bryant had the good sense to recoil in his chair.
“The senator was doing some…work for us.”
“What kind?”
“The sensitive kind. The expensive kind. But, this is all water under the bridge,” Bryant said, crossing his legs, waving his hand like his hunting Poppy down was nothing to be concerned with. “We’re family now. Let’s consider it a wedding present.”
I laughed in my throat. Wedding present? This guy was so full of shit.
“No? You aren’t interested in my gifts?” Something in his eyes got dark and hard and this man, I recognized. The evil in him. Rich. Poor. It didn’t matter. Men like him were all the same at their core. “Then how about this? Let’s call it a retainer.”
“For what?”
“For you. For your…services.” Bryant smiled in that way of rich men who were used to getting what they wanted.
My skin was suddenly too tight. Perhaps I should have expected this. He wanted violence. I wanted peace. “Why are you the one doing the hiring? Lucian is the CEO of Morelli Holdings.”
He scoffs. “On paper, perhaps. The board thinks they can use him. He’s a weapon in my arsenal, but I still control the family. And without having to babysit Morelli Holdings, I work on my own businesses on the side.” I knew all about Lucian and Leo. It had been a part of my job, knowing as much as I could about the Morellis. The family was fractured. Lucian had taken over the business. Leo had built his own small empire. The father was getting pushed out. “What if I don’t want to work for you?”
