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“Great crowd tonight,” he remarks, his gaze skittering over the throng of people down below. “Full of life, you might say.”
I bite down on my molars. Everything he says is interpretable. He makes it impossible to suss out just how much he does or doesn’t know. Is that a crack about Wren’s pregnancy? Is it just an off-the-cuff observation? It’s smoke and mirrors with this fuck. Always has been. Until the day I kill him, it always will be.
Downstairs, the band is playing hard. They have been for almost an hour and a half now. Which is about how long Wren’s been down there. I search for her in the crowd but I can’t spot her anymore. I turn away for one fucking second…
“Lots of beautiful women,” he adds.
Is that another jab? Is he trying to say something with that sideways glance of his? Is he here to goad or to spy?
I’ve had enough time since Elena’s death to give me some level of control. I couldn’t say as much in the days right after she was buried. If he’d come waltzing into my vicinity then, I’d have separated his head from his body. Recklessness be damned, consequences be damned, the inevitable war that would ensue be damned.
Now, though, I just breathe and tell myself to proceed carefully. Every word matters.
He seems relaxed. Too relaxed, in my opinion. It’s been years since we were last face to face, and we both walked away from that encounter with broken bones and bruises covering our entire body. The only reason war didn’t follow is because of my newly-formed alliance with the Zanetti clan. Cian knew that escalating things would only end in the destruction of his organization. So he backed off. Practically disappeared.
At the time, Aleksandr called it a victory. But me? I knew that it was merely a temporary respite. A time for me to lick my wounds and get my head on straight so that when I confronted him again, it would settle things once and for all.
Now is still not that time.
But I can feel it in the space between us, gathering energy, reminding us both that our past has yet to be fully laid to rest.
“Is there something you came here to say to me?” I grit out.
“Just wanted to say hello to an old friend.”
“‘Friends’ is a stretch by too much, O’Gadhra.”
He wrenches his attention away from the performance to look at me with a mock crestfallen expression on his face. “You wound me.”
“Not yet. But I will.”
He seems amused by the threat. That would infuriate me if I weren’t distracted by the fact that I still can’t spot Wren. Her friend is down there, grinding provocatively with some big, hairy beast with piercings all over his face.
Could she be in the restroom? That has to be it. I need to get eyes on her immediately. Pavel and Aleks are both here, each manning a different entrance, and I’m certain that if they’d seen her roaming, they would have informed me already.
But what if Cian did something to them? What if he knew we were coming and prepared a strike? What if he?—
The curtain rips open in the middle of my frenzied thoughts and Wren walks in. I sigh—relieved on one hand that she’s fine, and irritated on the other hand that she’s here. Impeccable timing, as always. The woman has a gift.
Cian turns around and Wren freezes. I’m having a hard time comprehending the look on her face. I’m still trying to puzzle it out when?—
“Cian!” Wren cries. “Oh my God!”
She rushes forward and throws her arms around him. Around Cian fucking O’Gadhra.
What.
The.
Fuck?
“Ay there, pretty lass.”
My body convulses from the inside. Pretty lass. He said that exact phrase every time he laid eyes on Elena. My fingers twitch but I refuse to curl them into fists. He may have his arms around Wren, but his eyes are on me.
Wren releases him first and takes a step back. Only then does oxygen fill my lungs, but it’s filled with bitter, black smoke. This motherfucker is a walking danger sign and Wren ran right up to him as though they were best fucking buddies.
“I thought I saw you down in the crowd at the beginning of the night,” she exclaims.
