THEY GOT A DRINK at a corner bar and took their time wandering along to the restaurant. What was there to rush for? Everyone would still be there when they arrived. Who would dare miss the harlot’s entrance?
The banquet hall teemed with people, though it was probably just her imagination that every eye in the room landed on her the moment she stepped inside. And with an older man, gasp, where was lucifer? Just how many men did she have?
Luckily, her father chose that exact moment to get in her face.
“Where have you been?” he snapped. “Did you disappear with him?”
“I disappeared with Strat,” she said. “I’m surprised you noticed I wasn’t here.”
“You made a farce of a somber event.”
“How?” she asked, frowning. “I didn’t make a farce of anything. It’s only because of me that any of this shit is organized.”
He blinked in surprise. “You curse at me? Today?”
“Dad, aren’t you sick of this hostility between us? Live and let live.”
“You don’t—”
“Can we take today off? Avoid me if you want.”
“So you can indulge your betrayal?”
“Emotions are high—”
“For once in your life, think of your family. How does it look? You walking into the service with that man?”
“Me,” she said. “I walked in with him. No one asked you to join us. The world knows, Dad. Why shouldn’t the man I love support me on this difficult day? Didn’t you always say I should be with a strong man? What was it you said I needed?” Her eyes went to their top corners as she searched her recollection. “A real man. Someone with a… clear head? Smarts? Bold?” A fake smile spread across her lips. “Full marks. My guy hits all those markers and then some. Toss another couple at me, I bet he’ll pass those too.”
“L… love?” he said and shook his head. Trust him to have only heard part of her statement. “This is—it’s an insult to everything my father died for.”
“What did he die for, Dad? If you know, if you’re so sure, tell me. What did Grandpapa die for?”
“It wasn’t for this. It wasn’t for an abuse of your position in—”
In the same moment he stopped speaking, fingertips trailed down her upper arm. No need to check who could make her shiver like that. She swayed back, resting her weight on his body.
“Go relax, Macushla.” Twisting to peek up at him, his cool gaze remained on her father. “I’ve got this. Strat.”
Her friend put an arm around her, and she went with his guidance. If Conn wanted to speak to her father, there was no reason to stop him. Maybe he’d have more luck. She’d been trying for a couple of decades and hadn’t yet broken through to him.
“I can’t even look.” Her elbows landed on the bar as Strat reached over to signal the bartender. “Is it carnage?”
“Something stiff and Irish,” Strat said, ordering drinks.
She blew out a laugh. “Maybe if we were alone. But in front of all these people…”
Strat rubbed her back. “They have to face off sometime. Better in a room of people where they should keep their pistols in their holsters. You must’ve known this would happen.”
“I haven’t had time to… It didn’t occur to me that this would ever happen.”
“Are you sorry it did?”
Turning her gaze up to him, she didn’t have to think twice. “I don’t know how I ever lived without him, Strat.”
His scrutiny narrowed like he really wanted to look into her. “How much faith do you have in him? How much do you trust him?”
“Completely.”
“Family comes first. His family.”
“Yes, and I will never ask him to act in any way that could hurt the family. They’re my family too. They’re your family. We’re family.” She took his hand. “Are you sorry? Outing us to them? If you want to walk away—”
“I never would,” he said, swiping his thumb across her cheek. “Not sure I’d trust you to play nice with anyone else.”
“True. You already know my secrets. No chance I’m opening up to anyone else.”
“Do you tell McDade your secrets?”
She straightened when the bartender put two glasses down. “Some of them.” She raised her glass to his. “Sláinte.”
They both drank. Strat sipped, she tossed hers back in one and discarded the empty glass on the bar.
“No prizes for guessing what you withheld. If you want to be part of the family, he has to know everything. That’s the price of admission. Your business becomes his. Everything. Especially something that could come back to bite you on the ass.”
“It will not come back to—”
“The history of people being bitten on the ass by secrets they’ve said won’t be found out doesn’t land in your favor, Scamp. The truth will get out eventually; it always does.”
“You’ve told me that before.”
“Apparently, you weren’t listening. Trust me, Scamp. I can keep you safe from street scum and traitorous assassins. The guy in your bed?” His head shook. “I can’t keep you safe from that.”
Their gazes locked, but the assessment only lasted a few seconds. Strat nodded behind her and she turned to Connel directing her father through people and past tables toward them.
“Everything okay?” she asked, not convinced by their expressions that the matter was closed.
With a slight jolt, her father stopped, and Conn’s hand dropped.
“Sersha…” her father said, and she just stood there waiting. “I… I’m sorry.” And her jaw dropped. What the hell was—“What I said was inappropriate, your relationship is none of my business.”
“I… what?” She couldn’t… Had she hit her head? “What?”
“I’m sorry. I love you…” Glancing at Strat and Conn, she didn’t even know how to respond. “I’m proud of you.”
“You’re… Oh my God.” This was Connel, all Connel. She didn’t exactly believe her father was sincere, but fuck, it was a wonder to witness. “Thank you.”
The astounding shock that almost decked her was watching her father look to Connel for the nod before walking away.
“Whoa,” Strat said. “That’s a neat trick.”
“What did you say to him?” she asked, moving against him. “How did that…?”
Strat handed three fingers of whiskey to both her and Conn. “Threaten him with your enforcers?”
“Didn’t have to,” Conn said, touching his glass to hers when she raised it. “I’m good at what I do.”
“I’ll say. Wonder what else you can make him do,” Strat said. “Remind me never to cross you.”
“I don’t think you ever planned to.”
“Boss?” Niall’s appeal brought them around. “Entertainment’s here.”
“Entertainment?” she asked as the lieutenant stepped aside. Through the vast windows at the front of the building, trouble brewed. “Oh, shit.”
Swerve and Vex got out of a car on the opposite side of the broad street.
“Fuck.”
“We’ve got this,” Connel said, handing his glass to Strat.
She caught his arm. “Baby.” When he looked at her, she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want him to get hurt, to go out there and brawl or… “Remember your audience.”
He came to kiss her head before urging her back against Strat. The men made eye contact then Connel was striding away, Niall with him. With a glance at this guy and that, they followed their leader.
Razer, Jagg, Ford, oh shit, if Vex called in his troops…
“Let them be, Scamp,” Strat said as the McDade crew walked out onto the road to meet Vex and Swerve in the middle, literally stopping traffic.
Not one horn blared. Cars kept their distance and seemed happy to do so. Locals, obviously.
Conn and Vex, toe to toe. The room held its breath. People weren’t even subtle in standing up to watch what they could see and not hear.
“I just got him out of the interrogation room,” she murmured, holding her glass to her chest. “I don’t want tonight to be bail.”
“Welcome to your new life, Scamp. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’d bail him,” her friend teased. “Not him.”
“Thank you, Strat.” She swallowed some more liquor. “That makes me feel so much better.”
He laughed. “Come on, you don’t laugh about it, you’ll go crazy. Your guy’s smarter than to rumble with a wraparound audience. And a blue one at that.”
“Conn can’t use what he knows about Vex in front of Swerve.”
“Because Swerve is Silvio’s lackey.” Silvio being the don and Vex’s father. “What does Ire know about Vex?” After a second of eye contact, she drew her eyes away. “Strange to see the two of them together, Vex and Swerve.”
“I’m not reading too much into that. It’s better that Silvio sent Swerve than came himself.”
“You sure? Swerve isn’t known for his self-control.”
“He doesn’t have to be—” Outside, Ford stepped up beside Conn, Jagg not far behind. “Go, Strat. That’s your boys.”
She took the glass from his hand.
“I can’t leave you.”
Imogen rushed over. “Dad, get out there. Stop this!”
“Fuck,” Strat said, scooping both women against him to hurry them across the room. “Cop!” Her brother was literally coming out of the restroom, thank God, and hadn’t seen the show yet. “Do not fucking leave them.”
With that, Strat stormed across the room to go outside.
“What is going on?” Lachlan asked, following everyone’s focus. “Shit. Fucking Ire McDade—”
“No, actually,” she said, giving Imogen a glass. “He’s defusing the situation.”
“Since when is he a mediator?”
“Believe it or not, he’s an excellent negotiator, and he’s aware of the audience.”
“Oh, so if it wasn’t for the audience—”
“He doesn’t need violence to handle Evander Manzani.”
“How do you know?”
She smiled, very aware of the intention of her brother’s question. “Because he’s a professional.”
“Oh, a professional? Ire McDade? A professional what? Criminal? Gangster? Thug?”
“He is an entrepreneur; a business owner.”
She didn’t expect Lachlan’s laugh to be so genuine. “By day, maybe.”
Nearby, Whisper turned her back on the scene, squeezing her eyes closed.
“Whisper,” she called, getting the woman’s attention, gesturing her over. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not watching.”
“I see that. Why not?”
“Because I—”
“Before, uh, this is my brother,” she said, cutting Whisper off. “He’s a cop. Vice.”
That cooled Whisper’s focus.
“Thank you for being so subtle in telling her that, sister.”
“Why are you not watching?” she asked. “Because Raze told you not to go out there?”
“You know, he’s not wrong,” Whisper said, taking her glass. “Sometimes I just can’t help myself.”
“Oh, we have movement,” Imogen interjected.
Yes, Vex and Swerve returned to their car. The McDade side didn’t move, didn’t flinch until the car disappeared around the corner. When their boots were back on the sidewalk, traffic started again, moving as if nothing had happened.
What would they have done if Connel and his people hadn’t shown up?
Imogen and Whisper both hurried away, presumably to meet their men.
“What does he have on him?” Lachlan asked, though his gaze was set in the distance.
Was he asking or was that rhetorical? “Who have on who? I don’t know.”
“Stay here. I’m going to talk to Dad.”
Great. Yeah, go have fun, that wasn’t a conversation she wanted any part of.
“Sure know how to throw a party, McLeod.” Tom Rigger. From the paper. Propping up the bar. “We’ll fill column inches with this.”
“Oh?” she asked, strolling to the bar next to him. “You really think you want to do that? Exploit the death of a respected alderman and your colleague’s loss for your own gain? Maybe it’s professional progress that interests you. Take a leap. Imagine the progress of what happens to you if you upset me. How does that factor into your career plans?”
“Threatening people now?” he asked, smile on his face.
“You just threatened me! What do you call talking about printing my family’s grief? Isn’t that a threat?”
“Scamp!”
Strat called from a dozen feet away where the McDades congregated, sitting, spreading themselves out without opposition. And there, at the head of it all, was her guy.
“Enjoy the show,” she said to Tom and went to the table.
Strat gave her shoulder a squeeze when she nodded in thanks. Whatever happened, she’d get the skinny later.
Dropping onto the couch by Connel, she exhaled. “God, I wish bad things on that guy. Pain, torture, death. Asshole.”
“Which guy?” he asked, his hand sliding up her thigh.
“Tom Rigger.” She nodded in his direction. “He works at The Chronicler.”
“Niall,” Connel called toward his guy.
Why did he…?
Niall approached. “Boss?”
When the next words out of Conn’s mouth were in his mother tongue, she sensed trouble.
Wait. “No,” she said, twisting to land her hands on her guy. “I didn’t mean literally.”
“No?” he asked, a twitch of his head.
“No,” she said, erasing her worry to smile. “No, baby, it’s venting, not a call to arms.”
He nodded Niall away with a minute movement and the guy complied.
“Be careful with that tongue, Macushla.”
“I’ll reserve it for doing this.”
Boosting up, she kissed him, quickly slipping her tongue between his lips with a passion probably better reserved for their bedroom.
Yes, she had to watch what she said, but damn if there wasn’t something seductive about a guy who’d do anything for her. He hadn’t even asked why, just prepared to fulfill her wish.
“My new favorite hobby, doing that with this audience,” she said, her lips still near his. “What did Evander want?” Though the answer was obvious. “How did you get him to go with Swerve watching?”
“You trust me?”
“You know I do.”
Tipping her head forward, he kissed her hair. “Then trust me,” he murmured against her.
Drinks were poured and passed out, the noise level rose. Strat stood with the expansive group. Like she could read his mind, she sighed. He didn’t have to look at her all disapproving like that. Yes, there were things she needed to tell Conn. There just hadn’t been… time.
“To Alderman McLeod,” Conn said, raising his glass. “Without him, we wouldn’t have our Bluebell. Sláinte.”
The group reciprocated and drank.
Dropping her weight against his upper arm, she waited until he’d swallowed before speaking. “You know you just thanked my grandfather for having sex.”
Without shame, his eyes found hers. “As it’s our responsibility to do the same.”
“Ire!” someone called and he shifted closer to the voice while sticking next to her.
The same? They were supposed to have sex? No problem there, but… had he just implied they’d have kids? This day could not get any heavier.