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“I’m fine though. Let’s just get back to the table and go. I’m tired anyway.” I keep my voice calm and my hand resting on his forearm. I feel him flexing, and I see the indecision in his eyes. He wants to teach Tommy a lesson, but it’s really not worth it. I can’t tell if Tommy is an asshole or if he just doesn’t have a filter. Either way, tonight is not the night to discover that.
“C’mon, Rafael. I want to go home.”
Aries lets go after a shove. He points his finger in Tommy’s face, an aggressive gesture. “If you ever disrespect your sister like that again, I’m going to fucking kill you and put you somewhere your daddy will never find you. Family or not. Got it?”
Tommy flashes that manic grin again, his teeth streaked with blood. “Crystal clear.”
Aries reaches back for my hand and pulls me next to him. I look over my shoulder and find Tommy’s gaze on mine, but there’s no malice. Just curiosity, which is not what I was expecting.
Just before we cross back into the bar area, Romeo comes flying toward us. His suit coat and tie are gone and his shirt is halfway unbuttoned. His eyes are wide and wild as they land on us. Dread sours my gut, and nausea climbs up my throat.
“What’s wrong?”
He exhales like he ran here. “Dad’s here. You have to leave. Now.”
My body freezes, a total ice bath to my system that was riding that post-orgasmic high only five minutes earlier. “What?”
“I thought you assured us he was out of town for at least four more days,” Aries growls.
Romeo nods. “Yes, well, he deviated from his plans, apparently. I’m not his fucking keeper, Rafe! Come on, we have to hurry.”
“I’m not leaving without the others!” I whip my head to Aries. “And Lainey!”
“Nic already went to them. He sent me here to find you guys. They’re already outside at the cars.” Romeo turns around and heads down the hallway we just came from.
Aries reaches out and grabs his bicep. “If this is a trap, I’ll put a bullet in your brain faster than you can blink.”
Romeo flicks his gaze from Aries’s hand to his face, his expression neutral. “Understood.”
Aries releases him, and we follow behind Romeo.
I clutch Aries’s arm with my free hand. “Why? Why would Vito come back early? Does he know I’m here?”
“No, and let’s keep it that way. He came back early to ‘share the good news,’” Romeo says as he pushes open the emergency exit.
We walk down the short alley, a town car waiting on the street. My men are standing around it, their posture rigid. “What good news?”
“He found Nico’s wife.”
EPILOGUE
JOSEPH KING
Commotion from downstairs drifts up to me in my study. This is my sanctuary, a place where I handle our business and allow my mind to rest. A room that’s completely mine, untouched by all of the women in this house.
My wife gave me our first two daughters one after the other, less than two years apart. And when my third daughter was born the following year, I told my wife we needed a bigger house.
This was the house she chose, and we moved in just before my fourth daughter was born. And by the time my fifth daughter came into the world with a set of lungs that would rival our neighbor’s roosters, I had this room semi-soundproofed.
Which means every time one of my daughters goes on a bender about one thing or another, I still hear it.
The sharp crash of glass breaking has me up and out of my leather chair in record time. “That better not be their Ma’s favorite glass vase.”
I thunder down the stairs of our three-story home in Ireland. From the outside, it looks like a traditionally-built home, but that’s an intentional image we do our best to cultivate and perpetuate. Our neighbors see what we want them to see: a father and his five daughters.
Not a man who has killed more people than his years with wild children who grew up playing with guns instead of teddy bears.
My foot hits the bottom stair when I hear another crash. “Jesus fucking Christ. Will you knock it off and stop breaking your mother’s shit!”
