Page 61 of Iron Blade

Dairo elbowed me in the side, giving me a sly wink.

The bastard knew… of course, he’d figure it out.

“I hadn’t noticed.” I took a drink of the Redbreast 21. My father’s drink of choice.

If I drank anything else, he would have slammed a bottle against my skull and told me to man up. My beloved absinthe would have been a shame to his eyes. But Dairo? Well, he could drink a martini, and it would all be fine.

“Really, I could almost see all the way to her…” Dairo grunted, when I kicked him under the table.

He was right. I knew that he knew she was doing it for me. But the shorter the skirt, the shorter my patience. She wasn’t like Kira, with her long, elegant skirts that reached below her knees, emphasizing the rounded curves of her hips. The way her body cinched and tapered at her waist and knees, her narrow shoulders giving her the world’s most perfect form.

Ruben couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful body than hers. I was sure of it.

“The next time I return,” I said, into the awkwardly silent room as Malinda pushed back in through the butler door with the last two plates. “I’ll be bringing a woman.”

Malinda stumbled, and almost dropped the plates.

I resisted the urge to reach out and catch her. She’d just read into it too much.

My father ceased his masticating and glared at me with his dark eyes - black all the way through the Irish, like my own. I had the misfortune of being made in his exact image, and I hated it.

“What’s her name?” He leaned forward, his eyes looking at me for something. I wasn’t sure.

I was thirty seven, and I was overdue on the marriage front. He had bothered me about it for a near decade, before counting it amongst one of my many failures.

“Kira,” I said, hoping that he would confuse it for the Irish version of the name.

I didn’t want questions. Not right now. Not when she still hadn’t said yes.

If I was a patient man, I would have waited until I was sure of her answer. But I felt rushed. I needed her bound to me. I needed it more than my next breath.

My father hmmed” in satisfaction, probably picturing some light-haired waif with blood as green as the islands we hailed from.

“It’s long overdue.” My father continued chewing. “You’re no spring chicken, and we need heirs.” My father’s eyes cut to Dairo and narrowed. “And spares.”

I bristled, knowing that if he had his way I would have been the spare, and Dairo the man built in his own image. Then again, Dairo wanted nothing from this life. At least not yet.

Dairo would come back. He’d stand by my side for the great war. The war that ended the mafia clashes and allowed us to reign supreme. But he wouldn’t stand by my father.

“Mum’s ring?” I said, by way of a question.

My eyes lifted to Aoibheann.

“The emerald?” she finally asked, her eyes turning to me.

I was immediately struck with how green her eyes were. How it contrasted strongly with her red hair. In another life, she would have been pretty. But not in this one - the one where she was a pale comparison to the woman who came before her.

“She should have it.” Her hands came together in front of her, as though she was saying a prayer. “It will bring you both good fortune.”

As the words passed her lips, the windows rattled as the wind howled through the trees. My breath caught in my throat, as Aoibheann lifted her face to the heavens, her eyes closed, as if the air was speaking to her, placing voices in her head.

Aoibheann was a strange, frightening woman.

My father grumbled “Witch.”

I would echo the sentiment if it wasn’t insane.

She ignored my father, much in the same way he largely ignored her. The way the rest of us ignored the strange specter of a woman who walked around this house.

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