Page 31 of Stolen Mafia Vows
“You know all about her family of course.” Pa hits me with it at the third hole.
“Her family?” I straighten. The ball sitting on top of the tee is temporarily forgotten.
Ruairi’s mouth twitches into a half-smile. “You didn’t even ask her name before you fucked her all over the country?”
“Ruairi!” Pa’s eyes flash his way, and my brother shrugs. It’s been said now. No point trying to take it back or pretend that it was a joke. He turns back to me. “Emily Murray-Keegan. Her maternal grandfather is Caelan Murray.”
Caelan Murray. His brothers requested a truce between the Murrays and the Byrnes after he was incarcerated. They realized that he was a monster when he almost killed his first wife—Emily’s mom.
Fuck!
When they find out that Emily is passing on a glittering career to be with a Byrne, they’ll soon change their mind. Having my knees broken and being tossed into the sea with an anchor chained to my ankles will be the easy way out. Not that I’ll get a choice.
“She never said anything.”
I’m rewinding back through the days and nights we spent together, driving from one village to the next, talking, laughing, fucking. Did she fail to mention it because I never gave her the opportunity? Or was it because she assumed I wasn’t one ofthoseByrnes.
The rivals.
“She doesn’t know.” My father leans casually on his golf clubas if we’re discussing Gran forgetting to serve peas with his dinner the night before.
“She doesn’t know about us?”
“About any of it. Her pa insisted that she grow up oblivious to the fact that he’s an enforcer and that her brothers run one of the biggest organized crime mobs in New York City.” My father eyes me coolly, gauging my reaction. “Emily Murray-Keegan isn’t a mafia princess in the true sense of the word. She was never going to be married off as part of a contract. She has no idea what she was born into.”
Emily Murray-Keegan.MyEmily. A mafia princess.
The thought of her being handed over to any other man, let alone a mafia Boss who speaks with bullets instead of words, makes every muscle in my body clench.
“So, what are you saying?” I finally form the words and say them out loud.
“I’m saying that, if you like the woman, this could be our opportunity to form an alliance that will benefit both families.” Pa’s eyes narrow as he speaks. He isn’t expecting me to be on board with his scheme until I’ve had time to process the information.
“If Ilikethe woman?”
My fist tightens around the handle of my golf club. I would never raise it to my father, but right now, I could carve chunks out of this immaculate green and it wouldn’t even begin to smooth out the anger bunching up around my shoulders.
“Why don’t you say what you mean, Pa? You don’t care about our feelings. You want me to hold on to Emily because it servesyour agenda. Be honest. You look at me right now, and you see the bright lights of New York adding some zeroes to your already healthy bank account.”
Ruairi sucks in a sharp breath. “So what, you just fucked her for a bit of fun, and now it’s time to move on?”
My father doesn’t even bother rebuking him this time.
“Fuck off, Ruairi.”
“I rest my case.” Ruairi spreads his hands wide. “Anyone can see that you’re besotted with her, so what’s the big fucking problem?”
“The big fucking problem is that you want me to use her to take down her family and expand our glorious fucking empire.” My jaw is so tight I have to grind out the words.
“Okay, okay.” Pa stands between us, arms extended like a referee in a boxing match. “You can shut up and let me speak,” he says to Ruairi then turns to me, “and you can calm the fuck down and hear me out.”
I back off, but I don’t unclench my fist from around my club. I have no intention of completing the course. I want to get as far away from them as possible and clear my head before I speak to Emily.
“You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.” Pa speaks slowly, as if I’m five years old again and finding a gun in his study for the first time. “I don’t want to take down the Murrays. Give me some fucking credit for wanting to keep my kneecaps intact. I want to form an alliance with them. They might be content with their lot in the Big Apple, but I bet they wouldn’t say no to a little extra work coming their way from across the ocean.”
“So, what do you want in return?”
“It works both ways. We scratch their backs, and they scratch ours. How can they refuse when their princess is smitten with a Byrne?”
