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Cheryl assured me we could fight them. Marriage to a criminal didn’t make me a criminal by association, but the one that stung the most was Richard. Losing his respect and regard fucking hurt. I’d worked my ass off to build this company up to fifty employees from nothing. We’d worked with major studios and the biggest producers, and pivoting from special effects to animation was an opportunity to move up a level in this business.
Those fucking Irish boys. I pressed my palms into my eyes to stop tears from dripping down my face and messing up my make-up.
It was fine. This was fine. We’d make up for the lost contracts in other ways, and this would just be a less profitable quarter than the last.
Fucking fine.
37
RIAN
Two weeks. It had been two goddamned weeks, and the three of us were falling apart. Barely a day went by without a fight, and Liam had to tear Cormac and me apart when we’d come to blows the day before.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “What do you mean, you’re cutting out early from dinner with Zhang?” I snapped at Liam. When he’d excused himself from the table, I’d done the same, meeting him outside of the coat closet as he accepted his weapons back.
He shrugged, sliding a handgun back into the shoulder holster he wore under his suit jacket. “I want to be in bed by one. You gotta fuckin’ problem with that?”
“Yeah, I gotta fuckin’ problem with that.” I slammed my hands into the wall on either side of his head, my forehead inches from his. “Zhang is going to give us millions of dollars in exchange for the gun running arm of our gang and you can’t fucking stay for drinks?”
Liam turned his head away from me, hiding his green eyes. “I said I have to be home by one. I’m leaving.”
I turned on my heel and stormed away. Whatever the fuck was going on with him, I wasn’t going to figure it out by slamming his head into the wall, no matter what my instincts were screaming for. With a sharp tug on my jacket to straighten it, I strode back into the backroom of the restaurant where Zhang held court.
“Cormac, Liam’s going to need a hand this evening. Would you mind accompanying him to his next stop?” I asked, keeping my smile pleasant.
To his credit, Cormac rose and took his leave without question. I could count on him to find out what the hell was going on with Liam and report back.
“My apologies, Adam,” I said to Zhang. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Adam looked at me through his deep brown eyes. “I was thanking you, Rian, and your spouses.”
My bitter smile hid the ache in my heart. I raised my glass in a toast. “To marriage!”
Zhang clinked his glass against mine. “I hear you’re also getting out of the import business entirely these days.” He referred to drugs we brought in through Southern ports and distributed overland up through the state.
“That’s correct.”
He tilted his head. “Do you have a buyer?”
I grimaced, cutting my eyes around the backroom, where his staff were in and out, and his second-in-command still lingered. Handing all of our illegal business to Adam Zhang would give him a lot of power, no matter how much he paid for them. Going straight would be worth it, though, if it meant keeping Ginevra safe.
“I’m entertaining offers,” I answered. The cash flow from selling off these arms of our business would defray the losses we’d taken from Antonio’s warehouse fires.
We toasted each other and continued to drink late into the evening. At 1:05, my phone pinged.
Cormac: You better get the fuck home right now.
Rian: ??
Cormac: Home. Now.
Adam raised an eyebrow. I showed him the texts and shrugged. “I gotta go.”
He just laughed. “Your family life seems more complicated than it has to be, my young friend.”
I clapped him on the back. “Not that much younger than you, Adam.”
Twenty minutes later, I sped into our garage, then barreled up the stairs. The house was dark and empty. “Where the fuck are you?” I bellowed.
