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“We want Rory.” I cut in, crossing my arms as I met Cillian’s eyes with my own. The grin was gone, the easygoing mask he so often saw on my face. I allowed him to see the determination in my eyes as I bit out, “She’ll stay with us while we track down who put the hit out on her. Whoever is after her clearly knows where she lives, but they won’t know she’s with us. She’ll be safe and we’ll figure out who’s after her. But she stays with us.”
“I will not hand my daughter over as a bargaining chip -”
“She’s not a bargaining chip.” I couldn’t help the growl in my voice. Cillian thought we planned to use Rory as a guarantee for his protection, as a threat to use against him if he didn’t follow through with his side of the deal. What he didn’t understand was that Rorywasthe deal.
“That’s what you say,” Cillian scoffed. “But I know what truly matters to you. Your friends, yourown,as you called them. Rory isn’t yours. She isn’t part of that. And maybe you don’t plan to use her as a pawn, but allowing her to stay with you only puts her in a position to be taken advantage of in the future. Because it’ll be all too easy to sell out a woman you have no ties to.”
Keep her, keep her, keep her.Before Bex had even voiced the idea, the words had been on a refrain in my mind, every part of me itching to keep Rory at my side. I’d never felt so hungry for something, so single-minded in my determination. I wanted Rory, and I’d have her. I didn’t care what I needed to do, what I needed to promise, whose life I needed to take. So maybe that was why the words popped out of my mouth, as if they’d been waiting on the tip of my tongue the whole time.
“I’ll marry her.”
Chapter 8
Dev
The words fellout of my mouth and scattered across the room in slow motion. I watched as they tumbled from my lips, and it almost felt as if I could grab them from the air and gobble them back up if I was determined to. But I didn’t, allowing them to drift until everyone reacted, all at once, the room catching up with the words I’d spoken.
I barely registered Bex’s surprised laugh that sounded closer to a gasp or felt the stare of Alex’s eyes as they bored into the side of my head. I knew what they were both thinking: that this was very muchnotpart of the plan. In the hours we’d discussed all the possibilities of this conversation with Cillian and the bargain we’d attempt to strike, offering myself up at the altar surely hadn’t come up.
Everyone knew arranged marriages were common in the mafia, forging alliances through vows, a future, a shared bloodline. Alex and I had been invited to a few in the past, watching sheltered brides traded off to their enemies for an attempt at peace. Unlike the books I knew Rory enjoyed reading, they rarely ended in a love match. More often, they were a loveless prison for women raised to expect nothing more than a marriage arranged by their fathers for their own interests
That was very much not how we operated. Despite the work we did, the laws we broke, the people we threatened, stalked, and killed, we didn’t deal in treating people as objects.
But I couldn’t regret it. I couldn’t imagine any other argument coming from my mouth. It was as if all the gut instincts that I’d been following over the months fit together with sudden clarity.
Looking down the list of properties I’d been investigating for days and finding an apartment in John’s name, despite knowing he and his husband owned a home further outside of the city. Sneaking into the building and waiting in an empty apartment down the hall, peeking out of the peephole every time someone walked by. Feeling like I was meant to be there and understanding why hours later, when I watched Rory walk out the door with John by her side.
Getting the sudden urge to buy a home. Not the townhome I had owned, which Wren constantly referred to as a “consummate bachelor pad” but the type of home people put in magazines, the type of home that they grew old in.
If this was what it took to keep Rory by my side, to keep her safe while someone was after her, then that’s what I would do. So I didn’t respond to Bex’s shocked laugh or the questioning looks Alex sent my way while trying not to show his alarm to Cillian and his men. I kept my eyes on Cillian, allowing him to weigh the seriousness in my gaze as I waited for his response.
And when he finally asked, “Why?,” the worry that had started to turn my limbs to ice slowly began to thaw. Because a ‘why’ wasn’t a ‘no.’
I shrugged, the motion smooth despite the tension in my muscles, years of perfecting my mask of casual indifference making it all too easy.
“Like you said, Rory isn’t one of us. She isn’t part of our family.” The words felt sour on my tongue, and I pushed throughthem, attempting to get to my point. “If I marry her, she will be. We’ll be even more motivated to track down the fucker who’s threatening her, and she can stay here with us, safe, without you having to worry about us selling her out.”
“And what exactly do you get out of this marriage?”
It was a fair question. Cillian already agreed to our alliance; Wren and Ames would be given the security they needed while allowing the three of us to continue our work without constantly looking over our shoulders.
But it wasn’t one I could answer, not without slowly sifting through the colliding emotions that had been roaring through my blood over the past twenty-four hours. For the past few months, if I were truly honest with myself. All I knew was that I needed Rory by my side, that she belonged there, and if it took marrying her to keep her, then I would do it.
“What I get out of it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Rory will be safest with us, and if marrying her will keep her here, then I’ll do it.”
Cillian sat assessing me, looking closer at me than he had in years. We’d never had the closest relationship; he saw me as an extension of Alex, and I was usually content with flying under the radar. After all, Alex was the one he went after all those years ago, following our first confrontation at the tech company where Alex and I worked.
Cillian had shown up with a couple goons, threatening our boss, Rick. Apparently, Rick had borrowed - and failed to repay - quite a bit of money to the Irish mafia. The rest of the office believed Cillian represented an important, high-profile client, but Alex and I knew better. Like recognized like, and Cillian and his men were like us: predators.
Alex ended up going into Rick’s office, threatening to expose Cillian with the secret security cameras he had set up in his free time. He proposed a deal: allow everyone except Rick to leavethe building, and we’d turn off the cameras ourselves. Cillian took the deal, and we all left. Rick never showed up back to work.
At that point, Alex and I were already fast friends. So when Cillian approached him to replace his own shitty tech guy, Alex accepted and quickly brought me on to do the work that took place outside of a computer or an office.
So even though I’d known Cillian from the start, Alex was the one he had wanted. Even though he knew me, I didn’t think he’d ever paid all that much attention to me. Until now. I wasn’t sure if that put me at an advantage or disadvantage as I asked to marry his daughter. Probably an advantage, because if he knew the sheer possessiveness I felt toward Rory already, growing with every breath she took in my vicinity, he’d drag her in the opposite direction.
Cillian stood without an answer, shaking hands with Alex and Bex, finally turning toward me with his hand outstretched. Cillian gripped my hand hard, and I returned it with equal pressure, making sure my face remained unaffected as he attempted to shift my bones. If this was a test to marry his daughter, I’d pass it. I’d pass every test, every hurdle he put in my direction, as long as Rory stood at the end of it.
After a few tense moments, Cillian stepped back, smoothing his hands over his suit jacket.
