Page 29 of Fierce Vows

The same thought roils around the inside of my skull while Dom and Diego snarl at each other across my dining room table like feral alley cats.Their volume is enough to raise the roof.Regina we know is safe, if only for now, but my wife...I want her back and I’ll raise hell to see her safe at my side.

I’ll ruin myself and my family to have her back.

Some part of me knows that my father would approve of my line of thought.Armand Gallo doted on his daughter-in-law almost as much as the old man perved on her.It might seem disrespectful to think ill of the dead, but my father was no saint, and neither am I.

“Bribe everyone in sight.But it’ll be Konnor it leads back to.He’s got his hand in this, mark my words.”Diego plants a fist on my dining table.

Dom looks across at him in disgust.“Konnor has his eye on a different prize,” he says quietly as pride slices through my chest at his reserved demeanor.“He wants Rafe’s attention, and he’s got it.We start at the docks and work our way through the men.Someone saw something.If they aren’t talking then we aren’t pushing hard enough.”

“Bullshit.It’s a distraction technique.”

“Desperation and lack of fucks are not good bedfellows,” Dom counters.

Red suffuses Diego’s face, but it’s Roman who presses a hand to my wife’s lieutenant’s shoulder and taps once.Diego closes his mouth, thinks, and opens it again.“Hit Konnor’s compound.The enemy of our enemy and all...”he throws out unconvincingly.

It’s not a good play, and we all know it, but it’s not my impatience that’s worn through.Hell, I even understand Deigo’s need to rain hell on the Hennies.They have a lot to answer for, but Konnor is not the main problem right now.His retribution can come at a later date.

“Are you half as dense as you actually look?This is a man not to be underestimated.He won’t work with the enemies of our or his friends.”Dom glares at Diego, one hand already resting on the matching American Joe mirror pistols at his back.

Thalia stands behind his chair, watching the entire scene play out with a sense of serenity that leaves my chest aching for the significant absence behind my own chair.

A void with my wife’s name on it is etched across the air where she should stand, the hollow space in my arms where they should wrap around her warmth.I want to scream her name to the universe and beg for her back but none if it means anything if I don’t find a way to claim her again.

Unfortunately, that same thought hasn’t made it through the wall of testosterone building across my dining room table.

“I promise you—” Deigo starts, half-rising from his seat.

“Enough,” I speak into the French polished tabletop.“He’s blindsided us because we’ve forgotten to consider our friends when we count our enemies.”

But neither of them are listening to me.

“You don’t promise me anything,” hisses Dom, not heeding my warning.

I growl low in my throat, channeling the energy of the late father I summoned a moment before.“I saidenough,” I bellow, my roar echoing along the mansion’s halls.“If we can’t stop bitch slapping each other, we will lose more than a little face.Do you understand me?”I glare at them in turn, starting with Diego.“Grow up,” I snap at the man who should be protecting my brother-in-law.“Or I will remove you personally.And you,” I turn to Dom.“My father would be ashamed.”I pause to let that sink in.“Don’t let me join him.”

These tempered halls are bereft without Willow’s life force to fill them, or my sister’s infectious giggles and scheming.Our lives are emptied and meaningless without the women who define our purpose.I refuse to fail them by bickering like toddlers in their absence.Willow and Konnor may have forged a friendship I don’t understand.That might save her life, or my sister’s.It doesn’t mean it will save his in the long run.

Dom grinds his teeth while Diego freezes in place.But it’s Thalia who moves, sweeping in gracefully to place her hands on Dom’s shoulders, resting them lightly there.

“Listen to Rafe.He understands the stakes and the territory.He brought me life when I thought I was dead,” she says simply, and falls silent, though she doesn’t break contact with Dom.

He raises one hand to cover hers, resting his larger paw over her slim, scarred hand that has healed so many in my charge.My chest pangs again at her presence, her intervention.

“She’s right.”The words rasp from my chest, and I’m shocked it releases any sound at all for the ache there that spreads to my heart and across my back.

I’m sorry, Willow, for not being there.So fucking sorry.They will not survive for taking you.

I don’t let the thought travel any further.Right now I have to act.The time for planning is done.

“We need to give Singleton what he wants most.”I let the offer hang in the air between the man who is my wife’s brother’s keeper, and her first lieutenant.

Dom answers for them both.

“What’s that?”

I let the corners of my mouth tilt up into a smile I don’t feel.

“Me.”

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