“Well, I didn’t think Liam would be in the habit of dining with random blondes,” I snap. “I assumed you were his wife, yes.”
“And that’s why Idohave business with you,” she says softly. “I asked Saoirse to help me, but she wouldn’t. She only said that if I could convince Liam to leave, that he wouldn’t be harmed. But—”
“He won’t leave.” It’s not a question, though I hope he’ll reconsider for his own sake and his family’s, at the meeting I’m trying to arrange. “Anastasia—”
“Please, Connor.” She looks up at me with those huge blue eyes, and for all her lightness and laughter earlier, I can see something haunted in them. Not just what’s happening now, but things that have happened to her in the past. She looks as if she’s seen things, survived things that a person can’t ever quite escape, and it makes me the tiniest bit curious about her.
It gives me another glimmer, too, into why Liam might have been willing to risk so much for her. If she’s survived so much and still can speak for herself, advocate for her husband,live—then she must be stronger than she looks.
“Please,” she repeats. “I know you don’t really want to take over. If you did, you would have come back a long time ago, not just after Graham and Saoirse went to find you.” There’s the tiniest bit of acid in her voice when she says Saoirse’s name, and I find it amusing—and hard to blame her. I can only imagine the interactions they’ve had. “You and Saoirse are married. Congratulations. Just—take her, and go back to London. Go back to yourlife, the one that you clearly wanted more than to be here.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” I narrow my eyes, taking a step towards her, and she flinches the tiniest bit, but holds her ground. “You know nothing about who I am, or what life I lived before, or in London, or what I’ve done here since. You know nothing about Saoirse and I. We never met before tonight. So go back to your husband—”
“You don’t know anything about Liam since you’ve been gone, either!” she fires back in a low tone, her voice trembling slightly but firm. “He’s a good man, Connor. He doesn’t deserve the punishments he’s endured, the fear, the worry, all because he saved me and fell in love with me. Helovesme, Connor, and because he refused to give up on that, some of those men he’s tried so hard to lead want himdead? How is that right? Since your father died, he’s given everything to that table. He was willing to give it all—except for one thing. And that’s it? That’s all it takes?” She shakes her head in disgust. “He’s a good leader, Connor. A good man. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“The table won’t stand for a half-Russian heir.” I shake my head. “This is all beyond you, Anastasia, things you don’t understand. You can’t be expected to. But you can’t stand here and lecture me—”
“Just leave!” she bursts out. “You didn’t even want this! Justgo, and take her with you! Liamwantsto lead them, hewants—”
“If he wants it so badly, he should have thought twice before fucking it up.” My voice is a low growl as I look down at her, my gaze dark and angry. “And if you love him so much, AnastasiaIvanova, you’ll get him to drop all of this and walk away, before you’re a widow.”
She opens her mouth to say something else, but I don’t wait to hear it. Instead I stalk away, pushing past her to go back to my table, and my whiskey.
—
By the time I get back to the apartment, I’m well and truly drunk. I stumble inside, noting as I do that the lights are off and Saoirse is clearly not home.Where could she have gone?I think blearily, making my way into the living room and leaving the lights off as I sink onto the couch, staring out of the French doors to the Boston skyline beyond.
I lose track of time, sitting there, thinking about all of it. My life before leaving for London, which seems as far back and strange as to have belonged to another man entirely. My time in London, which seems to me, especially now, as the best years of my life—years that were entirely mine, unburdened by anyone’s desires or expectations except for my own. Years when I led men—because that seems to be something that comes naturally to me, by either birth or temperament—not because of my surname but because they met me, knew me, and judged me worthy to lead them.
Thatis what I want for the Kings. An organization where the men there prove their worthiness to be a part of it through action, courage and loyalty, not simply because their family name dictates that they should be there.
I want to make it my own. Different from what my father wanted, different from what the old Connor would have wanted. I want to live as myself, here, as much as I’m able.
That’s very much what Saoirse wants, too.
Deep down, in my drunken honesty with myself, I know that she and I are not so different. Both born into elite crime families, both firstborn, both with the weight of great expectations on our shoulders, both with our own desires and wishes that we’re trying to make a place for in a world that demands very specific things of us. And yet—
How can I ever trust her?How can I ever know her well enough to do so without letting her in to a part of me that I’ve never let anyone see? Without being so vulnerable that I risk everything?
Love is a weakness. I’ve seen it again and again, in men like me, better than me, worse. I’ve seen over and over the lengths men will go to when love is on the line, when it’s not only their own lives and their own duty that they’re fighting for. Others say that’s brave, passionate, romantic, but to me it seems unnecessary. Foolish, even. A conflict of interest that no one in my position should want.
I’ll never know if our father thought he loved our mother—he rarely spoke of her after she died, and I was too young to remember much. But I know he cared enough to blame Liam for her death. If he hadn’t cared, if she’d only been a tool to give him sons—a duty she fulfilled twice over—he might not have been so cruel to Liam. Liam might have grown up differently. He might not have craved love so much that he was willing to throw everything away, even his own life, with both hands when it was offered to him.
It does no good to look back. Only forward. You can’t change the past.
The door clicks open, and I straighten as I see Saoirse’s slender form stepping inside. She closes the door softly, as if she’s not sure whether I’m home or not, and I wait on the couch until she’s nearly in the living room, not noticing me.
“Saoirse.”
She gives a soft yelp at the sound of her name, jumping slightly, her hand going to her chest when she sees that it’s me. “Connor,” she breathes. “You scared me.”
“Where were you?” I stand up, hearing the slur in my voice as I move towards her in the dim light from the city outside, and I see her mouth twist at the sound of it.
“Where wereyou?” she counters, her voice prim and her chin tilted up, as if she has as much of a right to question me as I do her, and I feel a pulse of anger at her insolence.
She moves as if to push past me, but I block her, my body suddenly very close to hers as I touch her face. “Stuck up princess,” I murmur, turning her with my hand on her chin so we’re both standing parallel to the French doors, the light of the city illuminating the lines and shadows of her face. “Are you happy now?” I stroke the side of her cheek, hearing the thickness of my words, how clearly drunk I sound, and beyond caring. “Now you have it all, princess. Money, inheritance, power. Or won’t you be happy until I’ve killed everyone who’s ever gotten in your way?”
Saoirse flinches, her eyes narrowing as she pulls free of my grasp. “I don’t want you to kill anyone,” she says coolly. “I wanted you to come back here so you could take what was rightfully yours.”