“Ten a.m.” He sounds full of regret.
It’s a three-hour drive to Cork. At this rate, he’ll only get a few hours’ sleep.
He slides back into the bed, and to my surprise, pulls me against his chest. “This was lovely. Thank you.” He kisses the back of my neck.
I’m tempted to ask his name. But the next thing I know, he’s snoring. I cuddle against him and fall off, too.
When I open my eyes again, he’s gone…
CHAPTER ONE
Ewan - Present Day - New York
“Forasix-foot-six,terrifyingmonster, you’re having a good time at my sister’s wedding, aren’t you?” I sneer at the enforcer.
Lachlan O’Rourke, with a scar across his left cheek, and more on his body from what I’d heard, quirked a rare smile my way. “You Quinlans throw a good party.” He shoves a tortellini in his mouth, barely chews, swallows, and adds, “Plus, you know why I’m here. Why not make the best of it?”
When I saw Lachlan earlier, I nearly lost my breakfast, a sinful amount of food my sister’s fiancé’s family had laid out in one of the villas in this majestic hotel, The Sterling. I heard the morning food orgy was a tradition, starting with their cousin’s wedding over a decade ago.
I’m not thrilled my sister is marrying a billionaire actor. I tried to marry her off to Lachlan’s brother, only that ended in disaster.
Kieran O’Rourke accepted my decision to stand by Siobhan’s refusal to marry him with a stone-cold look on his face. He probably sent his brother to send a message that he’s not happy with me at the moment.
Something I have to rectify since a majority of our investigation business is for his family. “What are you going to tell your brother?” I ask Lachlan casually.
“Your sister is married, and it’s time to move on.” He shrugs. “Kieran’s got other things to worry about right now anyway.”
“Since when are you so practical?” Running a security firm, with the most powerful Irish family in Astoria as the main client, makes me question anything that sounds too good to be true.
The glare Lachlan lays on me brings me back to reality. “The Russians will be out for blood soon.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I say, dreading every syllable. While I stand here in a tux at my sister’s wedding, a war looms in our quiet neighborhood. “Stasia may be dead?”
“Nothing’s true unless we find her body.” The coldness in his voice cuts through me.
“What does Riordan say?” I ask about Kieran’s second-in-command, the strategic-thinking brother.
Lachlan lowers a thick, dark eyebrow at me. “Are we friends now? We were supposed to be family…” His gaze tracks across the dancefloor to my sister, who looks gorgeous in her wedding dress.
“We both know if Kieran demanded the match with Siobhan, he’d have told me so.” With a knife to my throat.
Of course, her telling us she was pregnant with Grayson’s baby, which turned out to be a lie, meant we weren’t handing over our sister to the most powerful Irishman in Astoria with another man’s wee one in her belly.
With a tight throat, I say, “Let me remind you, my other sister, Norah, loved Kieran. And he loved her. Losing her was devastating enough for my parents.” A situation I made worse when I told Kieran he could have Siobhan in Norah’s place.
Prompting her to take off to Los Angeles, using her American name, Sabine.
Lachlan shows an ounce of sympathy. Seven years ago, our lives were very different. Kieran worked for his father, and peace lingered on the streets of Astoria between the Irish, the Italians, and the Russians.
That peace now hangs on by a thread.
Stasia Koslov, the oldest of Alexei Koslov’s two daughters, went missing a few months ago. Alexei’s sons were murdered abroad in a train ambush. Stasia has a wild streak many people don’t know about. Doing security for the O’Rourkes, it’s my job to know everything about their dangerous enemies. I didn’t envy Koslov’s security team trying to control Stasia.
Every move the Koslovs made, rubbed my skin the wrong way. They are preparing for war, if I had to bet on it. My spying tells me they don’t buy the narrative that Stasia ran off because she didn’t want to be handed over to a monster. No one had been targeted yet by Alexei as a potential match for Stasia, which is strange since she had just turned twenty-one.
Something pricks me, letting that thought filter through my brain. I stare at Lachlan, who’s moved on to the mini-cheeseburger station.
“What?” he asks with his mouth full, but that doesn’t detract from the women watching him with awe and lust.