Page 27 of Dearly Betrayed

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I was going to. I hoped I’d find a better time to do it, but here we are.”

“You negotiated that point without saying anything.”

“Rian Grady added it in at the last second and I agreed with his logic. You’re still wounded from what happened.”

“He’s not?”

“His family lives there.”

“I live there too.”

“It isn’t the same, Jayson.” Adler’s shaking his head and I can tell I’ve already lost. When my brother gets like this, there’s no reasoning. “Fallon will stay here with you in the Sunrise for the next year. After that’s done and everything overseas has cooled off, the two of you can go back if that’s what you want to do.”

I get to my feet. My head’s ringing. I can barely believe this is happening, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Adler’s the Don, and he does what’s best for the family, regardless of how it might affect everyone else.

Regardless of what his own brother might want.

“I won’t forget this,” I say softly, staring into his treacherous face.

“I know you won’t.”

I place my glass on his desk before leaving his office. In the hallway, I lean back against the wall, jaw clenched shut.

I could defy him. Return to London and my old life. Go back to my friends, my soldiers, and resume acting as the head of the Costa family’s European enterprises. But that would only force Adler to rebuke me, and could lead to an ugly battle, one neither of us could afford to lose.

The Don can’t look weak. That’s the only real sin he can commit—the sin of weakness. Which means I will either obey, or there will be consequences, whether I’m his brother or not.

No, I won’t forget this. Now I understand the order of things and where I fall in them. It was bad enough, forcing his marriage on me, but at least I understood that.

This is unforgivable. I walk away from his office, seething, in search of a way to blow off some frustration.

Chapter13

Fallon

Iwander around the Sunrise trying to get a sense of my new home.

It’s chaotic. Lights, sounds, no sense of direction, no sense of cohesion. The layout is a nightmare, designed to confuse. It doesn’t loop around, barely makes sense. I wander from bar to bar, from grouping of slot machines to more slot machines, past table games and more bars and restaurants, past the flows of tourists and gamblers, past the employees that barely look in my direction.

I live here now, and even though I spent four years of my life in America already, this place is totally insane.

It’s like a shrine to American capitalism gone insane. Like some kind of mutated money-god, a monster consecrated to pure cash. I feel lost in a way I’ve never experienced before, so small and swallowed-up.

Dublin’s a city of history. Dublin’s an old city, but it’s also my home city. I know it better than I know anywhere else, and even though it’s cold and dreary and rains all the time, and there’s an ancient pub on every corner, half of them flooded out, the other half filled with stories that are either completely fabricated or half-true at best, those are my stories, my people, my moldy walls and cheap cider.

My family’s there, my entire world. I feel dizzy thinking of that. I can’t call up the aunties, can’t go to meet an uncle for fish and chips, can’t watch the footy matches or sing the songs I’ve always sung. Forget friends, forget warmth. Even if Dublin gets freezing, this place is much worse.

“Fallon!”

I barely hear my name over the noise.

“Fallon!”

I look around, frowning, until I squint through a pair of pillars holding up a big black fence. Inside the little courtyard it forms are more table games, all of them empty, the dealers looking bored. But one of those dealers is waving at me, and it takes a second to recognize Casey.

She looks different in her work clothes. A simple button-down, her hair pulled back. She’s grinning huge, sitting back on a tall stool while all the other employees are standing, looking bored. I approach, glancing around as if lightning might strike me down for passing over an invisible line and entering the special fenced-off region.

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