Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
He stepped into her, pulling her against him. “Fuck no, I don’t want you to take that deal. I want you to stay.” Aiden gently touched her bandaged arms. “Though you’d be safer accepting that money and getting the hell out of Boston—and New York.”
“Maybe.” But maybe not. There were a lot of things to fear from the world if someone looked closely enough, and she’d spent most of her adult life doing exactly that. The crime statistics in most major cities were enough to keep a person up at night.
She laid her head on Aiden’s shoulder and inhaled the clean woodsy scent of him. She had no business feeling safe in his arms, but that didn’t stop the sensation from curling around her again. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Charlie…” He kissed the top of her head. “You’re right. I’ve already set some things in motion to figure out who the responsible party is. It’ll be taken care of.”
It’ll be taken care of. Those words could only mean one thing.
Aiden wasn’t going to hunt down the evidence and call the cops. He was going to deal with it outside the law. The same way we’re dealing with Dmitri Romanov. She took a shuddering breath. Crime statistics aside, she was lying to herself if she said that things were the same here as they were in the rest of the country. Boston might have law enforcement and lawyers and judges, but none of those people played a part in dealing with enemies on O’Malley territory.
She shivered. Right now was her opportunity to suggest he try something new—like actually calling the cops—but when she opened her mouth, that wasn’t what came out. “Okay.”
“Trust me, bright eyes.” He tipped up her chin and kissed her. “I’ll keep you safe.”
God help her, but she actually believed him.
* * *
Aiden found his father sitting with his mother in the library. He stopped in the door, struck by the fact that they looked old. Rationally, he knew they were almost sixty, but there had always been something ageless about both of them. The events of the last few years would be enough to age anyone. Even Aiden had new lines around his eyes that had never been there before.
His mother looked up and smiled. “Aiden.” She stood, and he crossed the room to give her a hug.
“Mother.” It was probably better that they were both here for this, because he didn’t doubt that his mother was capable of pulling the same shit Seamus had earlier. “Father.”
Seamus hadn’t stood, and he didn’t do more than nod now. “I trust you’re not going to do something reckless.”
“Reckless like offering my fiancée a million dollars to break off the engagement?”
Aileen turned to Seamus. “A million dollars? Are you serious?”
“She made a tough bargain.”
Aiden’s control snapped at its leash, but he fought back the anger as best he could. Punching his father in the face might feel satisfying in the moment, but ultimately it would cause more problems than it solved. So he sat down on the couch across from his parents with a perfectly contained demeanor. “You haven’t been in Boston for over a year—either of you. I don’t fault you the need to get away, but the fact remains that I’ve been running the O’Malley enterprises in the meantime. Though you seem to be under the impression that I’m going to ruin everything, the world hasn’t ended in your absence. Coming back here to resume control is out of the question. Meeting with gunrunners behind my back is out of the question. You’re putting our men in a hard situation, and this push and pull for leadership is going to get our people killed.”
Seamus lifted a single eyebrow. “Which is why you should step aside immediately.”
Aiden gritted his teeth. “Which is why you will go back to your early retirement in Connecticut.”
“Son, you know damn well that’s not going to happen.” His father leaned back and crossed his ankles. “You mishandled the Romanov situation. We’ve dealt with that Russian bastard time and time again, and nothing we’ve done has made the slightest impact on him. It’s time to face the fact that he’s a bigger fish than we are.”
The sheer lack of trust in Aiden made him see red. He’d successfully managed Romanov for well over a year, holding him off until things were in place to move. He hadn’t done that by being a fucking coward. “Sacrificing Keira is not the answer.”
His mother touched Seamus’s leg and leaned toward Aiden. “Have you asked your sister what she wants?”
He didn’t have to. Aiden already knew what Keira would say. He’d seen her face the night Romanov sent his delightful little note with the ultimatum in it. A year wouldn’t have changed how his sister felt about the entire thing. “She’ll marry him just to end it.” That was why he’d fought so hard to allow her the ability to choose—truly choose—without the threat of potential war hanging over her head.