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Konnor does his best to constrain his curiosity. Our business dealings never take much time—usually we spend the aftermath drinking ourselves into a stupor. Not this time. No, this time, too many things have changed. I’m praying I can rectify one wrong by giving him the thing that will calm our waters.
The funny thing is I know he’ll accept my offer. Hell, he’ll even be surprised and perhaps grateful.
No matter what I do today, it won’t change a damn thing between us when all is said and done.
We might walk from this place as friends. Drinking buddies. But at the end of the day he will still take something from me, when I least expect it.
A veritable thief in the night.
But Konnor Hennie doesn’t walk on fucking water, and the waters around Rhode Island are mine.
“An eye for an eye. Have you met my brother?” I offer Enzo a genial nod.
The front of his shirt is strained in a growing pool of blood while Roman flays him one nick of a thousand owed at a time.
Konnor does a masterful job of keeping his expression blank. “You never said,” he murmurs.
I shrug. “Family bastard. Keeping it all under the rug. He’s yours,” I add my offer almost as the afterthought that it’s not.
“Mine.” Konnor stares at me hard. His throat works.
“For the brother you lost.” I keep my tone soft, reverent. “I am sorry, Konnor. Willow is too. We offer you repayment. He was the one who ordered the hit after all.”
I let out a short breath and manage to take the next though my heart thumps painfully hard in my chest. Willow shifts against me but I dig my fingers into her waist, willing her still. Despite knowing I’m marking her skin beneath her clothing, that I’m hurting her, I don’t let up. She stills in the circle of my arms, and gives into my pain, leaning her sweet weight against me.
Utter perfection.
Konnor watches the subtle interaction with a careful eye, missing nothing. We’ve been friends, known each other far too long for our interactions not to be layered with subtext several decades in the making.
“We’re becoming the old men we hate,” he says. He offers me a smile that transforms his face from the dangerous psychopath he is to the charming family Irishman who could be misconstrued as cheeky at best. “I’ll take the asshole you don’t want off your hands,” he says softly, but his eyes harden and fix on me. And you still owe me a debt.
The scene plays out as I expect, and I give him a single nod, recognizing the payment isn’t complete. Nor did I expect it to be.
“Then this is done.” My clear voice echoes around the warehouse. “We’re even.”
Konnor’s mouth tips up slightly at one side, knowing my lies are for the benefit of my gathered family.
“Fuck you.” My brother spits blood on the floor between us and I’m not sure who he’s addressing.
I watch him dispassionately, noting the whitening pallor of his already pale skin beneath dark hair that matches mine, though he lacks the laugh lines Willow has etched single-handedly onto my face these last months.
“A pity we can’t stay.” I hold Enzo’s gaze a second longer, while my stomach churns.
Death will come for one of my people eventually in the form of a dark Irish archangel at a time of his choosing, and short of starting a turf war with my best ally on the Island, I won’t be able to stop him. I don’t know if I’ve just given away the best bargaining chip in my hand, or removed a thorn from my side only to gain a new one.
“Sure,” Konnor drawls.
He nods to one of his men at his back, standing in a semicircle. A shot goes off and Enzo’s head half shatters all over the place like an overripe melon. Blood and gray matter sprays in a hundred directions at once, and for a second even I’m stunned.
Roman breaks the silence with a raspy laugh that bounces off every surface.
It’s my turn for my eyebrows to rise sky high as my protégé—baby brother, perhaps?—prods Enzo’s remains into Konnor’s man’s waiting arms.
One brother in exchange for another.
I smile at the dichotomy of it all, releasing Willow. I’m bereft the moment I let her go—God, please not her. Don’t let him take her—and take a step toward Roman who reaches out as if to grasp my shoulder in a familiar gesture. That I might have broken that barrier with Willow’s approval leaves my chest aching.
A pity, because we never get to embrace.
