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“Hi. I’m Isabella.” She practically pushes me aside.
She reminded me that her mother was gone. She now only has my ma.
“Nice to meet you, Isabella. I think we met when you were little.” My mother narrows her eyes at me. “Which wasn’t too long ago.”
“I’m twenty-one, Mrs. O’Rourke.”
“Aye. And I hearyou’reMrs. O’Rourke, too, now?” Another harsh stare. “Can’t have people confused. Call me Clara.”
“You can call me Izzy.” Isabella shakes my mother’s hand. “And Kieran’s room is very crowded with all his things. We’re figuring out which room here we want to make ours. Maybe knock down some walls and build one from scratch.” She eyes me with a silent threat of fucking contractors crawling all over my home.
“And I’ve been very busy, Ma. Let Isabella get dressed. We didn’t know you were coming straight here.” I steer Ma out of the bedroom with Riordan on our six and send one last grateful smile to Isabella before shutting the door.
Outside, my mother slaps me in the face. “That’s for getting married without me.”
My father’s take is much different. He squeezes my shoulder in the office. His old office. “Aye, smart move.” My quick grab of another don’s daughter impresses old Fergus O’Rourke. “You really think Parisi took the Russian girl?”
“It’s the only reason why Alexei would strike like that,” I answer my father.
“In my day, you called a meeting first. What has happened here?” he pushes out in a hoarse voice from vocal cords that no longer roar with orders and threats.
He handed everything over to me after I adequately proved worthy of his crown. We had several years of relative peace. By peace, I mean capos and their soldiers were only fighting it out over nonsense. Nothing rose to two dons going to war. Until now.
“How’s Ma’s MS?” I ask.
Da shakes his head and gives us a lengthy medical update that I don’t know what to do with. I think of Isabella, who lost her mother in the blink of an eye. I’ll have to watch mine die slowly. I’ve been telling everyone I need sons to signal that my legacy will go on. Now I have a wife that I’m taking my time to fuck and impregnate.
Rior and I give Da a few more details, conscious not to fill his head with anything sensitive to make him a kidnapping target of the Russians. Alexei accepted my rise to power, and as pakhan, treats me as an equal. Or at least a worthy adversary. I’m sure he’s heard I married Isabella.
That’s how in the weeds he is with searching for his daughter. He should have sent Grigori Laskin, his underboss, for a briefing the next day.
Ivan…
The Russian who tried to murder Isabella…
How do they fit into this? Are they a connected ploy to finish the job they started three weeks ago by blowing up her house? Or are they a sign that the Koslov Bratva is in as much disarray as the Italians?
Da, Rior, and I leave the office, walking out onto the patio in the yard, where Patricia sets one of the tables. The poor woman has to whip up something out of nowhere. But when I see a hefty food delivery at the gate, I smirk at her quick thinking to just cater this last-minute brunch for five.
Knowing I have to play a dutiful husband for the next hour or so, I pull Riordan aside. “Where’s Lach?” While we all usually show our faces in the office every day, Lachlan is unmoored and works on the streets.
“Lachlan is stalking an apartment in Brooklyn, searching for the driver of a truck with those pallets of stolen Italian marble we’ve been looking for.” Rior takes out his phone. “He’s got that taste of blood in his mouth. We won’t see him for a while.”
Outside, the sun blares hot, and I regret wearing a suit. I planned to be in my air-conditioned car all day, going to meetings. Not sitting outside having an impromptu brunch with my parents, who wanted to meet a wife I bought so a massive war would break out around us.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Isabella
Oh,fakehusbandofmine, I got you right where I want you.
Kieran’s mother, Clara, is a beautiful woman with golden-blonde hair. Wisps of gray frame the front of her face, but it works into the rest of her hair magnificently.
“That is a lovely dress, Isabella.” She eyes me up and down.
“Your son bought it for me.” That memory is a bittersweet mixture of our first kiss and the first real attempt on my life. “Not that I’m spoiled and demanded he buy me clothes. I lost everything when my house…”
Kieran clears his throat. “Ma, you know there’s sensitive information we simply don’t want to burden you with.”
