LIAM
Igo to St. Patrick’s.
I spent the rest of Viktor and Caterina’s wedding reception trying to make up my mind. I know that signing the contract is no small thing. If I go back on it when I return to Boston, for any reason, the consequences could—and almost certainly will be—dire.
But by the time the happy couple is on their way out of the ballroom, I know that there’s really no choice. Whatever the consequences of this decision turn out to be—whether I’m forced to go ahead with marrying Saoirse in the end or whether I break the contract, those are problems for the Liam of the future to contend with.
Right now, if I want to keep the peace and maintain my hold over the Kings while I go and search for Ana, I have to do this. If not, I have no doubt that the threat Saoirse made on the balcony wasn’t an empty one.
If I leave in the morning without the contract signed, Graham O’Sullivan will call a meeting of the Kings without me, and I very well could come back to a civil war.
So while most of the other guests go off to enjoy afterparties in downtown Manhattan, Luca and Sofia go back home. Sasha returns to watch the kids while Viktor and Caterina enjoy a second—ostensibly better—wedding night than their first. I call my driver for a much less entertaining reason. Saoirse is nowhere to be seen and hasn’t been for some time—I assume she and her father are already at the church.
“Where are you off to? Early morning tomorrow, isn’t it?”
Max’s voice comes from behind me as I wait at the curb, and I glance over as the tall Italian comes to stand next to me. He’s dressed neatly in a black suit, the glimmer of a silver chain at his neck, his handsome features casual and easy as if there were nothing on his mind this fine night.
Knowing what I do of Max, that’s unlikely to be the case. But he’s excellent at hiding his emotions.
Truthfully, there’s not a man I know who isn’t.
“It is,” I confirm. “I’ve got some business at St. Patrick’s first, though.”
Max smirks. “Off to church? I didn’t think you were a particularly religious man, Liam McGregor.”
“I’m not.” I frown. “It’s Kings’ business.”
“Ah.” He nods, as if it makes more sense to him now. “Makes sense why Father Donahue canceled my meeting with him tonight, then.”
“Sorry about that.” I glance at him, entirely serious. “Trust me, I’d rather you have had your meeting, and I didn’t have to deal with this.”
Max shrugs. “I’ll speak with him when we get back. If anything, Viktor will just owe me yet another favor for helping you.” He gives me a wry grin. “That is, if I’m still welcome on this mission of yours.”
“Of course. I need all the help I can get.” I rub my hand over my mouth as the driver pulls up to the curb. “See you in the morning. At Viktor’s private hangar, bright and early.”
“Will do.” Max lifts a hand as I slide into the car. “Good luck.”
I grin at him with a humor that I don’t feel. “I’m Irish, man. I’ve got all the luck I need already.”
If only I really believed that. As the car begins to wind through the streets towards the cathedral, I don't feel lucky. The woman I want, a woman that I feel I’d started to fall in love with, was sold perhaps half an hour before I could have saved her. Now she’s somewhere in the world, going through god knows what, possibly even beyond my reach. I’m minutes from signing a contract that almost certainly will have far-reaching consequences, no matter whether I keep it or break it.
Except for Niall, I’m alone in the world. My relationships with Luca and Viktor are, at their roots, business relationships—there’s no denying that. We are friends, to an extent, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never be at odds again. There’s a burgeoning friendship with Max, but he has his own demons, his own ghosts that haunt him.
I can’t help but laugh. My enforcer and a defrocked priest are the two men I feel that I can trust most, and aside from that, the one woman I’d like to have at my side I might never be able to reach. Even if I do, there’s no guarantee she’ll want me or that she won’t be so broken that she’s beyond saving.
No, I don’t feel that the fabled luck of the Irish is with me at all, if I’m being honest.
The cathedral is glowing with a dim, low light as I walk into the nave. I see Father Donahue at the foot of the altar, talking quietly with a man who I can tell even from the back is Graham O’Sullivan, if only because Saoirse is next to him. She’s still wearing that same emerald green gown, her skin glowing nearly translucent, and she looks ethereally beautiful, like an angel or a saint.
This is the woman you’re supposed to marry.I can hear Niall’s voice as if he were next to me, murmuring in my ear.And you’re going to run halfway across the world for some other lass that you hardly know, who might already have forgotten about you?
I’m basing everything off of one chilly afternoon in a garden, a light in Ana’s eyes when she looked at me that I can’t shake, and those videos that Sofia showed me. I can’t stop thinking about the laughing girl with the dyed dark hair in the bar or the graceful ballerina who had captured my heart in a few seconds of watching her glide across that stage.
Whoever hurt her in the first place, whoever broke her spirit and put her in that wheelchair, I want to destroy them myself, piece by piece, as brutally as Viktor did to Alexei. And then I want to do the same to whoever is holding her captive now.
It doesn’t matter if he’s being cruel or kind to her; no man who buys another human being is worth anything but the bullet I’d put in his head to send him beneath the dirt where he belongs.
And if what I have to do to secure my position here while I accomplish that is sign this goddamn contract, then that’s what I’ll do.