This is my plight, and I’ll never be able to outrun it. If I was ever to slip away and return to the brothers I love so dearly, it would only mean that they would have to go to war with these savages. I can’t have their blood on my hands. But I sure as hell can threaten to have Tiernan Kelly’s.
By suggesting that he is somehow in breach of the treaty, he knows that his life would be forfeited if the other families were to find out about it. It might be the most despicable lie I’ve ever inferred, but it’s the only card I have to play in this twisted game of ours.
“Is that your only complaint, wife?” he whispers the last word with acidic bitterness.
I let out an exhale and square my shoulders, making myself look more confident than I really am.
“I had no hand in my fate, but I am woman enough to face it head-on. Hate me if you must, but don’t despise me for following to the letter of the sacrifice that was forced upon me. This marriage might not be the one I dreamed about when I was a little girl, but it’s the one that will ensure that thousands of lives will be spared. Are you so proud in your arrogance that you would risk the lives of so many just to get rid of me? Because I’m not. I will not be responsible for death knocking on my family’s door and restarting the Mafia Wars just because your hatred of me prevented you from fulfilling your duty.”
After my long rant, his eyes take on a different hue to them. He twirls a loose strand of my hair around his finger, making my breath catch in my throat when he gives it a gentle tug.
“Always so selfless. So pure. So self-righteous. If that’s what you want me to be, then I guess I can be that, too.”
I lower my eyes because I know he can’t.
Men like him are born and bred to not show mercy. Selflessness to them is a sign of weakness. Only brute force and ruthlessness have any part in our world. I know that much.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asks, taking a small step back and allowing air to fill my lungs.
“I don’t know you well enough to say either way.”
“Oh, you know me. I think you’ve known men like me for most of your life. And you have managed to learn how to bend them to do your will, haven’t you, acushla?”
“Can a man bend to a woman?” I arch a brow. “I’ve never seen it done before.”
He runs the pad of his thumb over my full lower lip, and again I feel an ache in my lower belly.
“Depends on the woman.”
“What a fierce creature she must be then to hold such power over a man.”
“Yes. Beautiful, too.”
My throat dries as his eyes soften, but all too soon does this one moment of vulnerability vanish into thin air, bringing forth the Irish king yet again.
“Meet me at my office at three. No later. And alone.”
The sudden change in topic alarms me.
“Why?” I stammer nervously for the first time since we started this fight.
His upper lip curls.
“Do you think I’m asking you to come into the city because I want to kill you?”
“You’ve been adamant that I stay locked away since I got here. Only leaving me to go out once with Colin as my personal shadow. So, excuse me if you asking me to come into the city unattended doesn’t raise my alarm bells.”
“I will not kill you, Rosa. Not today anyway.”
My shoulders stiffen, and my heart stops.
Which means he’s thought about it.
Killing me, I mean.
Not that the thought hasn’t passed my own mind. It would be easy enough to get rid of me. I’m not a fighter. All I have are my brains and foolish bravery. There are so many ways someone could get rid of an unwanted spouse without getting a divorce. He could hire an outside assassin and say that I was a casualty of an unnamed rival trying to take him out. He could throw me into an institution for the mentally ill, saying I lost my mind somehow, or he could lock me away in a grand house and forget my very existence. All three are preferable to divorce in our world.
Ironic how I’m fighting tooth and nail for the last when he was about to offer me just that.
“I expect you there at three, sharp. Don’t be late.”
And with that order still hanging in the air, he leaves me standing all alone in a boxing ring with about thirty male pitying gazes on me.
At a quarter to three, I arrive at the public square right in front of one of the largest skyscrapers in this city.
Kelly Enterprises.
That’s what the world thinks my husband does. Build gigantic skyscrapers.
The Kelly name in Boston is synonymous with being real estate moguls. They build monstrosities like these and sell them for a pretty penny. Sure, they also have their hands in other pockets, such as tech, media, publishing, and other avenues, but real estate was where they made a name for themselves.
A clean name bought with dirty money.
Not that I can throw rocks on their glass roof when my own family’s source of income is less than exemplary.
Wearing a vintage white Gucci dress and Jimmy Choo high heel boots, I walk into the building like I own the place, even if, in part, there is a bit of truth to that statement now that I’m married to Tiernan. Knowing I have any ownership of such a cold thing is demoralizing, to say the least.
For me, this soulless building is just a reflection of the soulless man who actually has a personal interest invested in it. However, I’m sure that one of the reasons behind him spending so much time in his high castle is because it just gives him another way to look down on everyone else.
A few minutes later I arrive on his floor, and tell his pretty receptionist at the front desk that I’m here to see my husband. She quickly jumps out of her seat and leads me to a private boardroom, nervously offering me a variety of fancy lattes or coffees on the way there. It seems working for Tiernan isn’t a walk in the park either by the way she’s trying her very best to accommodate my every need in hopes that my husband will get wind of how affable she was.
I graciously decline and thank her for her help.