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Dev startled at her open words, and I laughed at the surprise on his face as he stared at the woman who stood half a foot below him, talking so directly about the murder he and the people around him usually spoke around in vague terms. Naomi had never been one for subterfuge, which I’d always appreciated, even if I saw her and Cormac less than I should since moving into my apartment.
“I don’t need thanks. I’d do anything to protect Rory,” Dev said with a small smile, his cheeks darkening as I stared at him in shock. Was heblushing?
I stood in shock as Naomi chatted with Dev for a few minutes, asking about his business and the weeks we’d spent together. Cormac couldn’t keep anything from his wife, and neither could I; he’d spilled the beans after the marriage had been arranged, and I’d had to talk Naomi down from coming to pull me from the house herself, assuring her I’d been fully on board with the plan.
She’d been checking in every couple days, texting or calling to make sure that our arrangement hadn’t turned into a hostage situation. In that time, she’d grown to adore Dev and his friends through the small snippets I shared, and had since become irrationally convinced that we were a love story in the making, a subject I studiously ignored and deflected every time she brought it up.
After only a handful of embarrassing stories and promises to have dinner with the family after the attempted murder businessdied down, Cormac dragged his wife away, as she reminded Dev that, “Just because you saved my daughter’s life doesn’t mean I won’t end yours if you hurt her. You two will make beautiful babies; I’m waiting for grandchildren!”
“So that’s Naomi,” I said with a chuckle at Dev’s shell-shocked look. “If you think she’s a lot, just wait until you meet my brother. Speaking of…”
I glanced around, looking for the most important person in the room, and one of the only ones who’d been impudent enough not to offer the bride and groom congratulations.
My eyes finally landed on my little brother, who sat at one of the long tables across the courtyard, leaning on his elbows as he listened to someone with rapt attention. His dark hair flopped across his forehead, his matching lashes so long they almost tangled in his bangs. We looked nothing alike, his mother’s genes making his hair and eyes dark, while I’d inherited Cormac’s red hair and freckled skin. At least, that’s what we always told everyone, when they looked at the two of us in confusion when we were introduced as siblings.
Half siblings, I’d say with a practiced laugh, injecting just enough humor into the words to put people at ease.
As the story went, I was a nobody. The child resulting from a fling Cormac had years ago, who he raised on his own while serving at Cillian’s side. And later, with the help of Naomi. Callan was the golden boy, the product of a happy marriage and the one being groomed to take Cillian’s place when he came of age, since to the public, Cillian had no children of his own to take over the family business.
The lies were safer than the truth. That we weren’t actually related, just pretending to be. That it was all part of the farce my father had created when I was still in utero, the same sham that had Cormac walking me down the aisle instead of my actual father.
But despite being a lie, Callanfeltlike my brother in every way that mattered. He was raised alongside me as a brother, and he had actually thought we were related until he learned the truth in middle school, when he could be trusted to keep the secret.
I’d changed his diapers as a kid, helped him learn how to ride a bike on the long driveway of the compound, leading him down to the gate and back while our security details kept an eye on us. I’d moved bedrooms in the compound to get closer to Callan when he was a toddler, so that he could crawl into my bed more easily when he had nightmares.
Callan was my best friend, the only friend I’d had until now, and the primary reason I hadn’t completely lost my mind growing up in the compound. He knew all my secrets, and I knew all of his, the two of us close despite our six-year age difference.
But my brother was also my complete opposite, reckless and daring when I’d never had the opportunity to be. He reveled in the chaos that came with my father’s business and had not only been groomed for the position, but thrived at the minor jobs my father had allowed him to take over the years as he got older. Unlike me, he’d never minded lying, and made friends -onefriend, at least - despite his rough exterior.
Callan was in college now, pursuing a business degree at Dad and Cormac’s insistence, allowing him to get legal business sense in his head alongside all the illegal dealings he’d grown up with. Both my father and Callan’s had multiple legal businesses in town, which served as a measure of cover from most people knowing about his illegal business dealings. Restaurants, apartments, and office buildings explained away a measure of his fortune, though anyone who dabbled in the darker dealings in town knew who Cillian truly was. Soon, they would know Callan as well.
But for now, he was just a college student, still my little brother, not yet the mob leader he’d become. So I didn’t bother to soften my punch when I slugged him in the shoulder, my fist making a better impact than usual thanks to Dev’s weeks of training.
“Ouch, big sister,” he grumbled, rubbing his arm before brushing out the wrinkle his ministrations caused. “You could’ve wrinkled my suit.”
He looked much too fashionable for a teenager, his dark burgundy suit jacket unbuttoned over a silky black shirt that matched the color of his hair. He wore a long black jacket over the entire ensemble, chunky black boots peeking beneath his pant legs.
“You would’ve deserved it for not wishing your only sister congratulations on her wedding day,” I chastised even as I hugged him. While Callan had slid in just as we were finishing family pictures, he’d disappeared just as quickly, failing to both wish me congratulations and officially meet my husband. It also hadn’t given me nearly enough time with him.
Even though he went to the same small, local college I had, which sat just outside of the city, it wasn’t the same as when we were children. When our bedrooms were next door to each other, and the two of us ate dinners together, got into shenanigans around the compound. I’d missed the feel of his long arms wrapped around me, the familiar, earthy smell of him.
We’d seen each other at Christmas, of course, but the text messages and short phone calls we’d had lately weren’t enough to quell the loneliness that had set in when I moved out and he went away to college a couple years later, both of us on our own for the first time. Then again, Callan had his best friend, Grey, at college with him, the two of them undoubtedly getting into trouble of their own.
I finally let Callan go, and he caught sight of Dev over my shoulder, smirking at him with interest in his eyes. “Ah, the illustrious brother-in-law. The hero who saved my sister’s life when sheran from her guards,” this time, I was the one being chastised, and I had the decency to wince at the worry in Callan’s voice.
“Devraj Shah,” Dev reached a hand out, sliding it smoothly into my brother’s palm, the silver of Callan’s rings glinting against his fingers.
“Callan Yamada-Byrne,” Callan said in return, pumping Dev’s hand a few times as he looked him over. “We’ll be working together in the future, I’m sure,” Callan said smoothly, adding without preamble, “Since I’m the heir to the McLoughlin business.”
Dev and Xander shot the two of us surprised looks, and I belatedly noticed the lack of Wren and Bex at the table. I had mentioned Callan to Dev before, referring to him as my brother and Cormac’s son, but I’d kept his future status to myself. There were years left before he’d take over for my father, and his status as heir wasn’t yet common knowledge.
“Cillian has always been full of surprises,” Dev said with a laugh, his arm going around my shoulders to pull me closer, as if emphasizing the surprise I was when he found out about me. “Either way, I look forward to working with you in the future, both as a business partner and a brother-in-law.”
Introductions aside, Dev and I settled at the end of the table, allowing Callan and Alex to pick up the conversation we’d interrupted. Apparently, Alex and Ames had been telling the story of how they met.
I watched Callan as he chatted easily with the couple, Alex describing all the morally corrupt ways he won over his fiancée. Callan grinned at the most inappropriate times, the gleam in his eye enough to tell me he was taking mental notes for later.
“Would you change anything you did? When you were trying to win her over?” Callan asked, gaze calculating, as if the answer mattered.
