Page 85 of Iron Blade

I swallowed hard, unsure of what I wanted to tell her. She’d have to meet my father and be presented in front of our army? She’d need to learn about the Mob, the Mafia, and the Bratva? The underworld where I made my life? She’d need to understand the world she had entered, and promise never to leave.

Because she couldn’t leave, now that she was my wife.

Because I was a monster.

I had bound her to me, making her a target for our enemies. And even the sharks that circled around her were a ploy to keep her close. If there was danger all around, and I was her only safe harbor, then she’d have to cling on to me, like I was a raft and she was adrift at sea.

Chapter twenty-nine

Meet the Family

Kira

Ididn’t have any clothes. All I had was the dress I had worn the day his driver whisked me away to the bridal store. So I showed up wearing my work clothes with Louboutin heels. After two days of making love, being mostly naked with my artist husband, I had forgotten the outside world. Under the light of the soft, warm lamps in the cottage that were plucked from a painting, it was easy to forget everything: Paradigm, and Blink.

It was so easy to forget my mission and to lose myself in the depths of Eoghan’s eyes, and his dedicated, overwhelming infatuation.

“Don’t move, my Muse,” he said, as I finger-combed my hair, trying to twist it into a messy bun.

He stood behind me, staring at my reflection. He brought his phone up, and took a photo. I tried not to smile.

True to his word, he started photographing me at random moments, forcing me to freeze mid-action, or to turn to look at him. In a single morning, he must have easily taken a hundred pictures on his phone.

He was so earnest and loving, so dedicated and passionate. I could see it in the way he sketched me. The way he always used the light that gave his images a glow of heaven, like it was a beautiful and glorious dream in an otherwise dark existence.

I felt… adored.

More importantly, I felt safe. In his arms, I was untouchable and protected from the suffering of the world, and I couldn’t help but fall madly for all that he promised.

Free to go put his own clothes on, I watched as he pulled up the same trousers he had worn to our wedding and cinched his belt. He pulled something out of a drawer, spun it in the palm of his hand, before letting it fall into two little pouches on his belt.

“Are those knives?” I asked, staring at them in wonder. He always had them on his belt, but I had never seen them up close.

“Aye,” he said, pulling one back out. “Dairo and I made them when we were young. Each of us made a pair, and we keep them on us, just in case.”

“In case of what?” I didn’t ask because I was naive. I asked because I thought that was what a normal woman would do.

“Don’t know,” he said, nonchalantly, as he held a blade out to me. “Maybe we fancied being sculptors, and this was something boys thought would be cool to do.” He playfully pounded his chest. “Made us feel like big men.”

I chuckled, taking the knife from him to examine it more closely.

It was more than just a childish project. The blade was exquisite and heavy, flat and weighted perfectly in my hand. A throwing knife, or fighting blade, that was so flat it could be concealed anywhere. On the handle was a celtic design that was etched by hand.

“ECG?” I asked, reading the letter out loud.

“Eoghan Cillian Green,” he said in an answer. His full name.

“Very nice,” I said, admiring the handiwork, and handing it back to him.

“Dairo’s got his own initials on his. ACG.”

I tilted my head. “ACG? Not DCG?”

“Dairo’s not his real name, you see. It’s Alastair. My uncle named him after my father when my parents didn’t think they could have children.” He adjusted his sleeves, folding them up to show off his thick, veiny forearms. “Alastair comes from the old name Alasdair. We Irish tend to chop a name in half, add an -o at the end and, voila! A nickname is born. Hence, Dairo.”

“What would your nickname be?”

“I don’t have one.”

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