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“Good. Because I’m fine.”
The look in Eve’s eyes tells me all I need to know. She disagrees. And how can I really blame her? She has been there for my rawest moments. For the times when the shell cracked away and I was nothing but raw nerve and emotion. She has seen the depth of my inhumanity, so how can she think I’m fine?
“Don’t make dinner plans tonight.”
She tilts her head, eyebrows pulled together.
“I have a reservation for us,” I say. That’s not entirely true. I don’t have any yet, but I will. “You won’t need to wear anything too formal, but I’ll pick you up at seven. Does that sound okay?”
“Yeah, great.” She smiles, clearly relieved to have a change of subject. “Are you leaving?”
“I have to take care of a few things.”
Eve runs her finger across the grain of the table nervously. “Can I come?”
For a moment, I imagine Eve in my meeting with me, standing by my side while I talk with my father and our soldiers. The thought is nice, but my father would never let her sit in on a meeting. Especially after the wedding. We still have little idea how or why the Irish mob got through our defenses, so no one outside of our circle can be trusted.
“No, sorry,” I say, hating the way her shoulders droop in disappointment. I grab my plate and back away towards the door to the kitchen. “But I’ll see you at seven.”
She smiles and waves me away, and I go, fighting the urge to turn around and finish what we started on the kitchen counter.
* * *
The meeting lasts all day. No one knows anything concrete, but everyone has ideas about how the Irish found their way into the wedding, and regardless of how they think it happened, every soldier is out for blood. We lost good men yesterday. The Volkov soldiers want retribution.
“We have to attack,” Gabriel says, slamming his hand down on the table and then glancing towards me to make sure he didn’t step over a line.
“But we can’t risk losing any more men,” I say. I’m not usually the voice of reason, but this is a delicate situation. I’m not sure what will be uncovered. If Benedetto did play a role in this, I’ll have to figure out how to proceed with Eve. I don’t think she had any idea about the attack, but what if she did? What if she fooled me? How will anyone be able to take me seriously as a leader if I could be fooled because of a beautiful face? “We have to go in with a plan.”
We already have men posted up at all of the known Irish hangouts. We need eyes and ears on their movements, making sure nothing is out of the ordinary. The attack at the wedding was small—only three men—meaning it could have just been a precursor. So, if they are meeting anywhere in large numbers, we’ll have advanced warning.
“We need to get one of their men alone,” my father says.
“We can’t exactly walk into their headquarters,” I say.
He nods, his tongue running over his teeth, and sits up, elbows resting on his knees. “They came into my home and shot at my family. They didn’t play nice. So, neither will we.”
The men cheer at that, banging their fists on the tables and stomping their feet.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
My father shrugs. “We’ll attack their men in their homes. In their beds. We’ll take them captive, torture them, and find our answers.”
The men whoop and holler at this idea. I don’t like the idea of setting a precedent of attacks at homes anymore, but I know my opinion will be overruled, so I stay quiet. The afternoon is spent deciding on our target and figure out how to gain access to him. The entire meeting, I’m checking my watch. I managed a reservation for dinner at seven-thirty, and I don’t want to be late. As soon as a plan is decided, I stand up.
“You have somewhere to be?” my father asks.
Everyone hears him, but the soldiers have enough sense to turn away and pretend to talk with one another.
“I do, actually,” I say. “Eve and I have plans.”
Disapproval is clear on my father’s face as he wraps an arm around my shoulders and leads me towards a back hallway. As soon as we get there, he lays a hand on my shoulder. “Have you consummated yet?”
I understand immediately what he means, but the question surprises me. “What?”
“Have you fucked the girl?” he repeats, probably thinking I’m too thick to know what ‘consummate’ means.
“I don’t see what that has anything to do with anything.” My evasion is obvious.
