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“Welcome to the family, Katriane.”
“Oh…” She sounds surprised, like that part hasn’t hit her. “Thank you. You can call me Katya.”
“Let’s hear Alexei out.” Riordan gives her bloody wedding dress a concerned once-over. “Do you want to change your clothes?”
“I have nothing else with me.”
“Then, considering the circumstances, wearing a wedding dress splattered with the blood of a dead man who hurt you might work in our favor.”
Our…My strategic-thinking brother is already on board.
I follow him to Kieran’s office, where I hear yelling in both Irish brogues and Russian accents. For a second, guilt fills me. Since returning from the training camp, I swore an oath to fix problems for my family. Eliminate them. Not make them again after the disaster I escaped at age eighteen. With this marriage to Katya, I’ve broken that promise.
Riordan throws the door open, and the room, filled with my three other brothers, turns silent as I usher Katya in.
“Katya, you are getting an annulmentright now,” Alexei fires. “I assume you didn’t violate my daughter and consummate the marriage on the way over here, you animal.”
“Hey!” Kieran barks, standing in front of his desk. “You do not callmy brothernames inmy goddamn house.”
“I can handle a little name calling, Kieran.” I wave him off. “Is that all you got?Animal? Youdarecall me an animal when the man you forced her to marry did this to her.” I point to her damaged face.
Alexei glances at his daughter with cold blue eyes. If I know this man and his backward thinking, he wants to blame her. He looks around at five O’Rourke men who clearly think differently and wisely says nothing.
“I thought so,” I grouse at him.
“The man I chose for her was helping me find my daughter.” He bemoans, “Myotherdaughter. Have you all forgotten Anastasia is still missing? Now the team Rahil gave me is leaving for Moscow. Katya is all I have left. Give her back to me, and I promise, the next man will not lay a hand on her.”
I don’t believe him for a minute. “She’smywife now.”
“Enforcer…” Koslov tilts his head at me. “You do not want a wife. We all know your past. Your history. I appreciate you playing knight and shining armor to my daughter.” He turns to Kieran. “With all due respect, King O’Rourke, a marriage between my Katya andanyoneneeds my approval. Youknowthis.”
Kieran exhales, and I hate that he’s considering Alexei’s words. We live by a code. Hecanforce me to annul this marriage. “Lach,” he says to me with dread in his voice.
I pull my gun and shove my wife behind me. Alexei takes out a knife and Maksim makes the deadly mistake of aiming his gun at Kieran. That has the rest of the guns in the room clicking to life.
Katya shakes, holding on to me from behind. I worry she’s been raised to be so compliant that she’ll pull away and run back to her father, rather than watch a room full of alphas fight it out. Over her.
Priscilla, Riordan’s wife, who I didn’t even notice because there are so many hulking O’Rourke men in that office, steps forward, speaking Russian. Alexei stares at her in amazement.
Fuck, she’s blowing the secret we all agreed to keep about her.
“Pris,” Riordan cries out, and goes to grab her.
She changes to English, but speaks in that sexy Russian accent she used as an undercover FBI agent for months. “Close your mouth, pakhan. You are not going crazy.”
“Pasha?”Maksim slurs.
“Da,” she taunts them.
“Not anymore,” Riordan barks, pulling her to his side with his free hand. “Her name isPriscilla O’Rourke.”
“And before that I was Priscilla Cage, FBI,” she announces in the Irish brogue she freely speaks with now because she is one of us.
Alexei pales, looking sick, but Maksim snaps. He lunges for her. Before anyone gets off a shot, I take out his left kneecap. Just his leg because Ican’tkill him. The same way he can’t kill me.
The room erupts in chaos. Eoghan and Balor leap in front of Kieran with their guns trained on the pakhan, which is anothermassiveviolation.
“Quiet, everyone!”I point my gun at Maksim’s head. “You, suck up the pain, you pussy. Priscilla, don’t.”
