She continued, “When should we meet with them?”
I looked at Yates, and he offered me a head nod, letting me know he would set it up. “Yates will contact them and ask.” After he located the video he was searching for, no doubt.
Dahlia frowned, her eyes getting a distant glaze to them before snapping back to me. “How bad is the media going to be?”
“There are already local news vans outside the gates,” Yates muttered. Her eyes went wide, and I nearly hit him for upsetting her.
I squeezed her hand. “Security will keep them away, and we will just lay low for a bit until they get bored.”
“King, why did Dermot think national attention would cause a safety issue for me? What enemies was he talking about?” Her question was soft as she watched my reaction, almost worried about asking.
I hated that. She should feel comfortable asking me anything, even if I was shit at explaining.
An idea struck me.
“Yates, set up that meeting with Callum,” I instructed. “I’m running by my place with Dahlia. I want to show her something.”
Yates nodded, and I took Dahlia’s hand, sharing a look with the others as I walked towards her front foyer. I knew that I was taking the easy way out in a way, because showing her this was in some ways far easier than explaining it, and at the same time I had a feeling it would probably make it far more real.
Dahlia let out a happy hum as I opened the front door, but it was quickly cut off as her eyes jumped to the gates.
A ‘few’ trucks my ass.
Fuck.
I shook my head, glad security had put up blockers and forced them back a good amount, but they were still there. Visible enough to be a bother.
I kept her tucked into my side, opposite of the gates, as I led her towards my property. I tried to not think about the overwhelming urge I had to lock her in my house and keep her there forever. It wasn’t a healthy or rational thought, but it would keep her safe, and right now that was a major concern of mine.
Dermot wasn’t wrong. Dahlia was about to become a large target for most of our enemies, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it. Well, besides making it very clear that she was under Ross family protection. There would still be those that attempted to hurt her, and all of them would end up dead.
My lips pressed up slightly, thinking about an incident this summer when I proved just how far I would go to make sure someone respected Dahlia.
“Please!” The hoarse, exhausted voice cracked as I smirked at the clear pain there. Pain that was well deserved in my mind.
“Please what?” I asked curiously from where I sat comfortable in a leather armchair, looking over his half slumped over and bloody form in the wood chair across from me. The binding used to tie him to the chair was blood-soaked, and his eyes were both swollen shut.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” His thick Irish accent slurred as Dermot handed me a drink from the bar in the back of the room. The other men in the room were quiet and watching from the walls, silence filled with fear permeating from all directions.
“You didn’t know that the woman you were talking about was important to me?” I taunted, knowing it was bullshit. It may have been old-fashioned, but not many people kept photos of unimportant people in their goddamn wallet. I loved the photo I had of Dahlia in there. It was from that previous spring during a weekend trip we took into Savannah. Her smile in it was fucking glorious, and this asshole had not only tried to call into question my authority today, but then made a crude comment about her.
“I just assumed it was some girl you were fuc—”
My fist collided with the side of his head, hating the way he thought he could reference her. Honestly, even if the others weren’t watching and I wasn’t proving a point, I still would have beat the fuck out of him.
Leaning down, I gripped his hair and spoke softly. “You don’t ever fucking talk about her, and when you see her, when she comes here, which she will, you better not fucking look at her, or else I’ll remove your other eye while I’m at it.”
“My other eye?” His voice was broken as I looked to Dermot, his grin growing as he tossed me the tool I needed.
“Yeah, the other one.”
By the end of the night, I had made it clear the respect that Dahlia would be served. All too soon she would need to meet them, though I expected Danny and his one fucking eye to not meet her gaze or else I would make good on my promise. Piece of shit. He had been one of a few that had an issue with me starting to take my father’s place. I knew there would be problems since he had stepped back a bit in the past few years, but I planned on doing nothing of the sort. Rather the opposite.
Which was exactly why she needed to know everything. Because Dahlia may be my princess, but she was going to become the Queen of an entire criminal enterprise she wasn’t even aware existed.
I just prayed she wouldn’t hate me too much for keeping it from her. I would probably burn everything to the fucking ground if I ever felt like there was a chance of losing my small piece of heaven in this atrocious grouping of individuals that we called humanity. Just one more reason I was so protective over my family and her.
“What are you showing me?” she finally asked as we entered into my family’s home, the warm decor and soft hues highlighting Dahlia’s natural beauty. The woman seemed impossibly more beautiful every single day, and it was enough to drive a man insane. It was getting particularly harder now that Dahlia knew we had feelings for her, knew that she had a little bit of a hold over us, because I could see that coy side in her coming out. The one that was so fucking addictive that she had no idea. If she only realized how drastic her affect on us actually was, she would probably be terrified.