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“Fuck you,” my third and fourth daughters yell in unison.
I tip my head back in a sigh and prepare myself for the fight they’re gunning for. “Maeve,” I holler for my oldest child as I round the banister and head toward the living room and kitchen open floor plan. She’s the only one who can talk any sense into my Irish twins.
“You’re on your own, old man,” Maeve drawls from her laid-back perch on the overstuffed navy loveseat next to the TV. Her legs are thrown over the arm and she casually flips through a magazine like her sisters are just chatting about the fucking shitty weather we’re having.
“Some fucking help you are,” I grumble.
I should’ve known she could hear me over all this noise. After all, I’ve trained all my girls their entire lives.
Maeve closes her magazine with a thwack and pushes to her feet. She’s all coiled menace as she prowls toward me. I suppress the grin tugging up the corner of my mouth.
“Maybe you should be asking yourself why your children are ruining all your favorite things, Da.”
My head whips toward Ava as she smashes my favorite cigar ashtray. “What the ever-loving fuck are you doing?”
Ava and Keira turn to face me. They look so different, yet they couldn’t be more mine with the twin flames of malice shooting from their eyes and landing on my chest. “Oh? Now you want to ask questions, Da?”
I slow my steps as I approach them, much like you would a cornered animal. “Tell me what’s wrong like an adult and stop destroying my things like a fucking toddler.”
It’s the wrong thing to say, and I fucking know it before the last word leaves my mouth. Maeve laughs, the sound entirely too joyful when my other daughters hold my favorite rocks glasses above their heads before they let go. The glass sails through the air and shatters against our dark pine floor.
I’m seething, chest heaving and steam coming outta my ears.
“Ooh, are we breaking shit for fun again? Leave me some!” my youngest, Roisin, yells as she runs down the stairs, her footfalls loud and quick on the carpeted runner. “Fiona! You’re going to miss the fireworks if you don’t stop primping and get your ass down here!”
“I’m not primping, Ro. Some of us can’t just toss our hair in a messy bun and look like they walked off the runway,” Fiona hollers a second before her footfalls hit the stairs.
Roisin slides in the kitchen and grabs an apple, taking a huge bite as her gaze ping-pongs between me and her sisters. “We have the same hair, you know.”
Ava raises a wine decanter, her brow arching into her hairline.
“Maeve,” I grit her name through a clenched jaw. It’s a warning, one she rolls her eyes at.
She sighs and goes to stand next to her sisters, leaning against our island that seats eight. She tips her head back toward them and holds my gaze over the freshly picked daisies in the center of the island. “They found out about your little arrangement with Vegas.”
“Shots fired,” Roisin mumbles around a mouthful of apple.
I throw my hands up in the air before slamming them on my hips. “That’s what this is about? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Fiona scoffs as she leans against the island, next to her younger sister and stage-whispers, “What’s going on now?”
Roisin leans over and mumbles, “Fi and Ava are expressing their emotions about Da’s arrangements.”
I run my hand down my face and over my beard. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, girls.”
“Turns out, your children don’t like being auctioned off to the highest bidder, Father,” Maeve sneers my moniker like it’s poisonous.
I tip my face toward the ceiling and pray to their Ma to give me fucking strength. “I didn’t auction anyone off. I made an arrangement—”
“Arranged marriages might as well be an auction. You took the highest bid! You—you just promised us away like it’s nothing!” Ava shouts.
“I didn’t—”
“You did though,” Fiona interrupts me, her tone deceptively even. “You’ve promised us to strangers for the betterment of the syndicate.”
I reach for the calm that’s buried somewhere underneath layers of more volatile emotions and stare at my children. “We need heirs—several of them—and you all know it.”
Maeve throws her arms wide and spins a little. “You have five of them right here. Contrary to the patriarchal bullshit you and your buddies eat for breakfast, you don’t need a dick to be the boss.”
