Declan makes a face. “Light bulbs are bright. What’s the lass bloody like, Spider?”
We’re sitting in his home office in Boston, drinking scotch. It’s late, past midnight, but Declan doesn’t ever seem to sleep much. When I texted him from Logan that we’d landed, he instructed me to come to his house after supper so we could talk.
Now here we are, talking, but I can’t come up with much to describe my future wife.
I barely know the lass, for fuck’s sake.
“What difference does it make?”
He snorts. “Only the difference between misery and happiness.”
“Not everyone can have what you have with Sloane.” I add drily, “Or would want it.”
His blue eyes twinkle at the mention of his wife. “Are you saying my dear bride is a handful?”
“Handful doesn’t even start to scratch the surface. Your woman’s a bloody force of nature. Had us all eating out of the palm of her hand within a day after you kidnapped her.”
His look sours. “I’ll have you know, I was in complete control the entire time.”
I chuckle. “Aye, it sure looked it as you were tearing out your hair and screaming.”
His wife, Sloane, could easily rule the world if she wanted to. They met under unusual circumstances—he abducted her with a mind toward interrogation after she caused a shootout between our men and the Bratva (long story)—and he instantly fell under her spell.
As everyone does, man or beast.
When I said she was a force of nature, it was accurate. She’s an erupting volcano, a category 5 hurricane, and a magnitude 10 earthquake, all wrapped up in a body made for sin.
Like someone else I recently met.
Who I am not fucking thinking about, goddammit.
Except I am, because Declan says, “Did you meet Caruso’s sister?”
I glance up to find him looking at me with expectation. “Aye. Why?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Only that I’ve always wondered what the notorious Black Widow is like. Does she have the arse on her they say she does?”
“Whoa, hold on a minute. Black Widow?”
“Aye. According to the rumors, she killed her husband in cold blood.” He takes a swallow of scotch. “Not that he didn’t deserve it. Word is he was violent with her. By all accounts, he was a gigantic prick.”
I think of Reyna’s face when I asked if she was Mrs. something, the way she grew so angry. I think of how she was so upset about her niece not having a choice about getting married. How she scoffed when I asked what made her think the lass wouldn’t have a life of her own after we were wed.
Then I wonder about that tattoo on her ring finger, the small black line of script in the place where a wedding band would be.
I feel a sudden powerful urge to know what that script says.
I say absently, “Aye, she’s got the arse. And a pair of tits that could give a man a heart attack. And eyes like thunderclouds over a stormy sea.”
After a moment lost in thought, I realize Declan hasn’t said anything. I glance over at him to find him staring back at me with his brows raised, an amused expression on his face.
“Made quite an impression on you, did she, boyo?”
I scowl. “No.”
“Really? You’re sitting there spouting poetry about her dreamy eyes, and she didn’t make an impression?”
I drag a hand through my hair and shoot the rest of my whiskey. Then I admit reluctantly, “Aye. But only because of how much she hated me.”
“Hated you?”
I nod. “Wanted to douse me in petrol and light a match. And would’ve danced a jig as she watched me burn.”
“Why? What did you do?”
“Excuse me, but I didn’t do a bloody thing!”
“So she’s just a bitch, then.”
“Aye, she’s a bitch!” I pause, thinking of our encounter. “Can’t really blame her, though. She seems awful fond of her niece. Protective of the lass, almost like a mother. Couldn’t have been easy for her to have some strange Irishman clomping about the place and grilling the lass like she was up for an important job interview.”
“Which, technically, she was.”
I exhale heavily, suddenly exhausted. “And she passed. Let’s talk about something else now.”
“Are you joking? I’m having far too grand a time watching you squirm. Tell me more about the Black Widow. What’s her real name?”
I look at the ceiling, biting my tongue and knowing there’s no way out of this but through. My voice comes out gruff. “Reyna.”
“Hmm. Suppose it fits, what with her reputation.”
“You lost me.”
“Reyna means queen.”
Queen. Why that should send such a jolt of lust through my veins, I have no idea.
I close my eyes and clench my teeth, trying to banish the thought of her.
My dick laughs at me and sends me a memory of her full, scarlet lips instead.
Suppressing a groan, I pour myself more scotch.
Watching me closely, Declan says, “You better not make that face outside this room, lad, or you’ll be begging your new wife not to cut your prick off.”
“I’m not making a face.”
“Your cock is.”
“Aye, well, he’s not the boss of me.”
“Let’s hope not. Stick him where he shouldn’t be, and you could start a war.”
I say through gritted teeth, “I’d never do anything to risk that. I know how important this deal is to you. To us. I won’t fuck it up over a piece of arse. Besides, like I said, she hates me.”
Declan lowers his voice. “Funny thing about women, though, Spider, is that it’s never as simple as it first seems.”
“Don’t I fucking know it,” I mutter, then take another big swallow of scotch.
I have a feeling I’ll be finishing the bottle.
5
Rey
For six entire days, I don’t speak to my brother. I can barely look at him either.
Which is lucky for him, because if I look at him long enough, I’m liable to scratch out his eyes.
The heartless bastard.
In the meantime, he’s been floating around on cloud nine, bragging about the match to anyone and everyone who’ll listen. He’s already had a meeting with the heads of the other four families to announce the news. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times.
And Lili, my poor darling Lili, has been locked in her room, crying.
I’m concerned about how hard she’s taking this.
Of course it’s horrible being no more to your own father than a pawn on a chessboard to be moved around to his advantage in Mafia war games, but it’s never been a secret that she’d be matched to a husband the way all the women in our family are.
Though I suppose cold, stark reality is always worse than the theoretical.
A man of flesh and bone is worse than the idea of one.
And an arrogant, swaggering Irishman is exponentially worse than them all.
I haven’t been able to wipe the memory of his smug smirk from my mind. The way he looked at me. The way he laughed at me.
The way he pulled me in with his eyes.
Those long-lashed, half-lidded eyes that burned and brutally mocked me.
If he’s anything less than an absolutely ideal partner to Lili, a Prince Charming she can eventually learn to tolerate if not love, I’m going to kill him.
Which basically means I’m going to have to kill him, because that insufferable toad of a man couldn’t be less of a Prince Charming if he tried.
“Reyna! Sei fuori! You’ve ruined it!”
Startled out of my thoughts by my mother’s sharp rebuke, I look down at the pot of boiling water in front of me. I’m standing at the stove in the kitchen with a wooden spoon in my hand and no idea how long I’ve been off in la-la land, brooding about Lili and the lout.
Long enough to overcook the pasta, evidently.
Leaning on her cane at the stove beside me, my mother crossly pokes me in the arm.
“Look at that soggy mess. Put it down the drain and start over.”
“Sorry, Mamma,” I say, sighing. “I’m preoccupied.”
Her gaze stays on me as I pull on a pair of oven mitts and take the heavy stockpot over to the sink. She watches me as I dump the pasta, refill the pot with hot water, and bring it back to the stove. She continues silently watching as I salt the water and turn up the heat.
This hawkish focus is nothing new. My mother is like one of those creepy paintings in a haunted house whose eyes follow you everywhere, looking right at you no matter where you’re standing.
Or where you try to hide.
“You’re right to be upset,” she says abruptly. “The Irish are despicable. To give one of them such a jewel is…” She curses in Italian, gesturing angrily.
“It’s not that he’s Irish. It’s that he’s a canaglia and a mascalzone with the manners of a barnyard animal. You should’ve seen the way he strutted around, pompous as a peacock.”
A peacock with size sixteen feet.
Shaking off the unwelcome memory, I continue. “I’ve never met anyone so horrid. He barged in here like he was Julius Caesar at the Colosseum, expecting us to shower him with rose petals and virgins.”
Under her breath, my mother says, “Not that he’d find any of those in this house.”