Page 99 of Stolen Mafia Vows
“Sir, I promise you that I never arranged a meeting with your son.”
“Don’t fucking ‘sir’ me. Ruairi wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Pa,” I intervene. “Ruairi didn’t lie to you. He believed that he was meeting Caleb Murray, but his correspondence had been intercepted by the woman you shot. Olivia Dragonetti.”
He shifts his gaze to Olivia’s body on the decking behind the Murray family. “Dragonetti…”
I watch him trying to match her bedraggled motionless corpse to the poised young woman he met with in Ireland. The woman who promised to help us expand our empire. The woman who, unbeknown to Ruairi, offered him New York in exchange for his life. He meant nothing to her. He was simply a sacrifice to appease the mafia gods and deliver Caleb Murray into her hands.
“She might not have pulled the trigger, but she gave the order for Ruairi to be killed so that she could frame Caleb.”
He licks his lips, his body stalling while his brain tries to process the information.
“Why? Why should I believe a Murray?”
“Because it’s the truth.” Terry has left Emily standing between Cash and Bash and is approaching Pa with his hands raised above his head. “Go ahead and shoot me if you don’t believe me, but before you do, I need your word that it ends right here.”
Pa hesitates. “Terry Keegan. The Murray enforcer. Of course you’d lie to protect your family.”
Terry keeps walking. “You’re right. I’ve lied to my daughter her entire life because I thought that was the only way to protect my baby girl. I’m not proud of it. But I would do it all again to keep her safe. You’re grieving. I don’t claim to understand what you’re going through, but I’d be fucking raging too. I’d want heads to roll. But I won’t let you take the wrong life.”
He is standing directly in front of Pa now with his hands still raised above his head, shielding Caleb.
“Caleb didn’t murder your son. If you shoot him, it won’t bring you peace. Think about how you’ll feel when you realize that you got it wrong.”
“A life for a life,” Pa mutters. “You know how it goes.”
“Sure, I do.” Terry lowers his hands slowly. “But I won’t let you touch my kids. They’ve got a whole future ahead of them. Give them a chance to get it right, to learn from our mistakes. I wanted to kill Eoghan for marrying my baby…”
My eyes meet Emily’s from across the decking, and the love I see in them makes my chest swell. There is hope for us yet. She hasn’t completely written me off.
“But I realize that I was wrong. They love each other, and I’m not going to stand in their way.”
A noise to my left snags my attention. My hand reaches for my gun as Ilya Kuzmin appears from the side of the house, but I remember dropping it when I dived into the pool to save Emily. His eyes are glazed, his face a ghastly shade of gray, as he takes in the scene around the pool and settles on Olivia’s body.
What happens next is over so quickly that I barely register Terry lunging in front of my father as gunfire cracks open the night sky.
My father watches the enforcer crumple to the ground at his feet in slow motion, while Ilya’s body jerks and twists itself into unnatural shapes as bullets from the foot soldiers’ weapons enter his body.
Someone screams. Emily runs to her dad and tries to shield him with her own body. I go to her and pull her into my arms, stroking her hair and holding her close while she sobs against my chest, and her brothers take control.
Emily is sitting by her dad’s bedside when I walk into the hospital room, cradling his hand in hers.
Her smile lights up her face, filling me with warmth. I cross the room and kiss her on the cheek before turning my attention to Terry.
“Is that it?” he asks. “Is that all she gets, a peck on the cheek?”
I smile. “I’ll save the rest for later.”
Emily’s face turns pink, but her green eyes are sparkling, and I’m reminded again that there’s something different about her. It’s almost imperceptible, like she maybe altered the color of her lipstick, if she were wearing any.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Terry.
“Fit as a fucking fiddle.” The bandage wrapped around his chest and the drip in the back of his hand tells a different story, but he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. “So, don’t go getting any ideas about taking my daughter back to Ireland.”
“Dad!” Emily purses her lips, but her smile can’t be contained.
She has obviously made her peace with the discovery that she’s a mafia princess. This life and the dangers that come with it can have that effect on a person, especially when they almost lose someone close to them.
