Page 7 of Beyond Rosy Irish Twilight

“You shouldn’t have taken this job,” Patrick sighed. “I knew it was wrong to get involved with Rafe. Didn’t I tell you he was bad news?” he asked, pacing the room.

“We can debate this until we’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t matter. We’re already involved in this. We need to make the best of it and move on.”

“Yeah, move on to a life where you’re tied to a woman you don’t even fucking want.”

I sighed, slumping in my chair. It didn’t fucking matter what I wanted at this point. I needed to survive the job, and now the only way to do that was to marry this chick and keep her alive. Easy peasy.

“Look, we need Buchanan. He’s basically offering us full access to The Syndicate. Yes, his demands are high, but if we can pull this off, the job will be done sooner than we thought.”

Patrick sighed and took a seat. “Alright, where’s the wedding?”

I tossed him the card I’d received today for my own fucking wedding. It was at a Catholic church. I wasn’t Catholic. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I believed in God.

He snorted as he read it. “The man is involved in every sordid illegal trade, yet he’s holding his daughter’s wedding in a Catholic church.”

“He’s keeping up appearances. To the rest of the world, he’s just a self-made man.”

“Through selling women and children,” Chase tacked on.

“He doesn’t personally do the selling,” I corrected.

His brows shot up in surprise. “Are you on his side now?”

“No, I’m keeping all the players straight in my mind. He’s still a piece of shit, but I have to remember he’s just into money laundering.”

“That’s not any better,” Chase offered.

“No, but it’s how I can marry his daughter and not want to put a bullet in his head. Alright, where do we stand on our shipments?”

“Everything’s been delivered on time and we’ve had no complaints. The men are happy with the increase in pay and throwing in housing was greatly appreciated. Adam is proving to be very useful.”

I nodded, satisfied the men were coming around. It was easy enough to offer up these benefits to the men. It was blood money and I wanted nothing to do with it. Besides, they took all the major risks, guarding the shipments and taking the risk of getting caught by the police. They should reap the rewards while they still could, because when I took them down, they’d all be looking at the inside of a prison cell.

As for Adam, I was uncertain what to do with him when this was all over. He was the first to pledge his loyalty to me. He hated the way things had been run, and even had a few ideas on how to work with the men to pull them around to our side. He was stationed in Canada, overseeing all trade so that I could be out making deals. So far, he’d proved invaluable. It made it hard to turn on him when the time came.

“We need to discuss where you’re going to live,” Patrick brought up.

“What’s wrong with this place?”

Granted, it was nothing special, just a two bedroom apartment in a nice building. But I didn’t need anything more than that.

Chase looked at me like I was crazy. “You’re going to marry the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the country and you’re going to make her live here?”

“Is this not good enough for her?” I retorted.

“Not if you want Buchanan to take you seriously. You can’t afford to fuck this up.” He leaned forward and tossed some papers at me. “I already took the liberty of picking out a house for you. It’s already fenced in on twenty acres. We can easily put in all the security we’ll need and put guards on rotation. Plus, we can patch into OPS, which will help if we get sucked in any deeper.”

“This is a fucking mansion,” I snapped.

“And you’re going to need it,” he reminded me. “There are servants’ quarters over the garage where the guards can stay. Patrick and I can stay in the bedrooms on the first floor, that way we’re always around when you need us. It won’t look suspicious this way.”

I tossed it down and stared at him. “Fine, put in an offer.”

“I already did,” he grinned. “I told them we needed to close immediately. It needs to be ready when you return from your honeymoon.”

“My what?” I asked, staring at him incredulously.

“Hey, it doesn’t have to be for long, maybe a week, but you can’t marry her and then just shove her in a corner. This has to happen. You’re the dumb fuck who agreed to marry her.”

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