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“What is it?” Saoirse asks, stopping in front of her brother, Paddy, and hugging him. She greets each of the brothers the same. A hug, a kiss on the cheek, and a squeeze to their bicep. Paddy, then Declan, then Sean. Callum is last.
He doesn’t stand the way the rest of them did. Instead, he pulls her next to him, then extends his hand for Haley to sit on his other side.
Sean lets out a low huff. “Get on with it, brother.”
Callum shoots Sean a glare. He’s the patriarch of the group. The oldest, the one named after their father, the one who handles stress the best. He was molded into the man he is, born to wear the crown, and it shows.
While Saoirse is the baby of the family, Sean is the youngest son. His lack of respect toward Callum right now isn’t truly that. It’s more that he doesn’t see the chain of command that naturally occurs in organized crime. To him, Cal is his brother and that’s it.
“Haley and I have an announcement to make now that the dust has settled. We wanted to be sure we were in the clear first,” Cal says.
The arm that was draped over Saoirse comes to pull Haley closer to him. He squeezes her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You tell them, love,” he says, his tone softening.
He’s patient with her, unlike he is with anyone, even the family. He knows what she’s been through, what she needs to cope with her trauma.
Haley clears her throat. “Your brother knocked me up.” She sighs, bringing her hand to her face.
Cheers erupt, and I join in with a clap. A smile spreads on my face with excitement. Paddy’s son, Owen, is the first of the next generation of Murphy kids, but Cal’s child will be the one who takes the reins, so this is big news.
“There’s more,” Callum cuts in over the congratulations and excitement.
“More?” Saoirse asks. Her green eyes are lit with excitement. “Oh, is it a girl? We know already?” She claps, barely able to contain her excitement.
I’ve seen her with Owen. She’s a doting aunt, and the preview of what she’ll be like in motherhood makes my heart squeeze with an ache. She won’t be the mother of my children. It’ll be a little Corbin Jr. running around, that I’ll have to watch grow up.
“No, it’s not a girl,” Haley says, a weak laugh leaving her lips. “It’s two girls. We’re having twins.”
“Oh, fuck,” Sean says, fist-pumping the air. “The patriarchy is about to be a matriarchy.”
“Long live the queens,” Saoirse says in agreement.
“Congrats, Haley,” I say.
Once everything calms, Callum clears his throat, the smile on his face replaced with a solemn look. He’s about to slam us with bad news. I’ve always preferred bad news first, then being hit with good news. It makes the bitterness go down better with your spoonful of honey.
But Callum likes to uplift. He gives you the things you want to hear, makes you passionate about it, and then he burdens you with the heavy shit. I think he does it because it makes you want to fight to keep the good. Like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit.
“What’s wrong?” Declan asks, leaning forward so his elbows are resting on his knees.
“Sean and I spoke with Hugh about an hour ago, finally.”
My face heats. What the fuck excuse could he have for abandoning Saoirse? And I know it must be an excuse because if he didn’t have one, the men would be holding this conversation in a warehouse standing in a pool of the fucker’s blood. I lick my dry lips.
“He was attacked last night after I spoke with him,” Sean says.
Paddy curses under his breath. “Italians?”
“He says they were Russian.”
“I thought we were at peace with the Russians and the Italians,” I say, pushing off the wall I’d been leaning against. “So the same night Russians broke into Saoirse’s home, Hugh was attacked by Russians?” I ask, drawing a conclusion that seems to be right in our faces, even though no one is acknowledging the coincidences. There are no happen-stances in organized crime. Whoever hurt Saoirse was also behind whatever happened to Hugh.
I’m determined to get to the bottom of it, to bleed out the man who hurt her, if Callum hasn’t already.
“How does Hugh know they were Russians?” Declan asks.
“They were speaking it when they cracked his head against the pavement,” Sean says. “And before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I checked the surveillance. The things they were saying were indeed Russian, and about Saoirse.”
“You speak Russian now, bub?” Declan asks, shooting a glare to his youngest brother. “That’s news to me.”
