Chapter 2
2
GAbrIEL
W hen I was young, I despised Celia.
She was just too much. She was—and still is—painfully quiet around her father and Royal, hiding so much of herself, but there was this sly, manipulative way she looked at everyone. Around my younger brothers, she was bubbly, with a carefree, wild laugh. They were enamored by her. She tried to charm me, too, but she couldn’t succeed.
Sometimes I’d caught her looking at them with the same sly, manipulative look, and it’d made me want to tear her head off her shoulders before she could ruin their lives.
And then, of course, she did.
When Celia had gone, I still sat across from Malvalio. His overgrown boy of a son, playing grownup in an expensive suit he couldn’t afford on his own merits, lingered by the bar cart. Royal was smirking as he poured himself a drink that wouldn’t sharpen his already questionable intellect.
Mal leaned back in his chair. “We’ve formed quite the unlikely alliance.”
“You mean because you ordered my little brother murdered?” I leaned back in my chair, relaxed as ever. “Well. I did notice that he was a moron.”
For Celia .
Mal let out a bark of a laugh. The surprised sound was hoarse, as if he were out of practice. “You entertain me, Gabriel.”
I was entertaining? Let him see me that way if he wanted.
The arrogance of the Carmichael family would be their downfall.
“I have to admit, I regret what I did now,” Mal said. “I’m sorry for my harsh response.”
I didn’t think the man could surprise me, but an apology certainly did. Even if it was a tame one given what he did.
“Why is that?”
“You’ve become such a good ally,” Mal said. “No one imagined your family rising to prominence the way they did back then. You were cool in the face of loss.”
Translation: I hadn’t started a bloodbath of my family’s men against his .
We hadn’t been powerful then. We would have lost.
I waved off the compliment. “You know what they say about me, Mal. I am a psychopath. I was only moderately attached to my brother to begin with.”
His smile widened. “Some say psychopath . I say practical.”
I shrugged. Call it whatever you like .
It all boiled down to my willingness to spill whatever blood was required.
“I wanted to protect my daughter’s honor. To preserve her for the man who would one day be her husband, and at the time, I didn’t imagine that could be your younger brother. But now…I would make a different decision. I would be honored to have her marry into your family.”
“My brother would still have been a moron if he was alive.”
Mal’s lips curled up at the corners. “But it would have cemented the alliance between our two families.”
I would never understand the sentiment, useful as it was. Did he really think Celia as my sister-in-law would’ve brought me under his control?
Did he really think Celia as my wife would cement my loyalty?
“I agree our alliance could be strong.”
“Do you like my daughter?” Mal asked bluntly.
“Does that matter? I’ve never met a woman who seemed to be my match.”
Mal smiled indulgently. “Men like us don’t want women to be our match. We want the same thing from them we want from everyone else—respect, fear, service.”
Mal thought he and I were just alike. How droll.
“Perhaps.”
“You need a wife who is well-versed in our ways and prepared to become a good wife, to support you in your business.”
“With all due respect, Mal, this feels like the start of a sales pitch.”
“It’s not a sales pitch. I’m offering you something precious. My own incredible, beautiful daughter.”
Royal was standing to his father’s side, so Mal didn’t see him roll his eyes slightly before he took a sip of his bourbon, hiding his expression.
Fucking asshole .
“Celia is lovely, but as you’ve said…I’m looking for support in my business.”
“I wouldn’t send my darling girl into married life without a dowry, of course. I was thinking about the gun-running side of my business.”
I’d built my family up on the illegal arms trade. It was only avoiding open war with Mal that had kept me from expanding further.
I leaned forward, not trying to hide my interest.
“But of course, I would expect your help in dealing with…threats to our combined family.”
The two of us continued our negotiations for the next hour. It was only when Mal was smiling, certain he had won, that I admitted, “If you gave our marriage your blessing, I would certainly be interested in marrying Celia.”
“Excellent. I’ll arrange dinner so you can spend more time together, yes?”
It was unnecessary, but I nodded curtly.
Our marriage would mean nothing to me, but perhaps the facade would please Celia.
CELIA
I didn’t dare question my father’s plans, but I had the most unsettled feeling.
I’d once fantasized about marrying Gabriel, sure. But that was before my father demanded his brother’s death.
I’d briefly lost my mind talking to Gabriel, but my father’s presence had snapped me back into the Stepford wife mode that Gabriel seemed to find so boring. Which was good. I did not need his attention.
I spent the week thinking we were back to normal. “Normal” was unpleasant, but at least it wasn’t dangerous.
Then I was informed we were going to dinner with Gabriel Caruso.
Our cozy dinner for four—since Gabriel had no family left—wasn’t that intimate, considering the number of men standing around the outer edges of the otherwise empty restaurant. Caruso had brought a dozen of his own men, and my father’s bodyguards and lieutenants were stationed around the room as well.
It seemed the romance was between my father and Gabriel, since Gabriel didn’t talk to me. I amused myself with that thought and with my truly delicious steak and an equally delicious red wine. Royal glared at me occasionally, and I smiled back at him blankly—especially as the red went away—because why was he angry? Did he dislike the idea of losing his favorite punching toy? Perhaps his irritation was because our father seemed to find Gabriel much more interesting than Royal.
Part of that dynamic had to be because Gabriel was the son of a rival family, once almost vanquished and now rising from the ashes. But part of it had to be that Royal was boring as fuck, like most arrogant assholes.
Halfway through dinner, I excused myself to the bathroom. There were no other women in the entire building—well, maybe back in the kitchen—so I was alone in the restroom.
Or so I thought.
I was re-applying my lipstick when one of the stall doors creaked open behind me.
I jumped, sending a ragged streak of red up my cheek like a wanna-be joker. I turned, already smiling and ready to make a joke about my outsized reaction to whatever female chef was emerging.
But it was a man in a mask who stepped out of the stall.
A strangled sound emerged from my throat, but nothing that would raise alarms.
He raised one finger to his masked lips.
I froze, like a terrified deer. I tried to find his eyes behind the mask, but there was nothing but darkness.
A sharp noise at the window caught my attention.
Another man in the mask. He pulled back his fist and slammed it into the window, and glass shattered.
Panic fluttered wildly in my chest.
The masked man who was next to me turned back. The world shifted to slow motion as he reached for me.
I careened out of the bathroom, a wild thing taking flight.
The hallway beyond the bathroom was a blur. I didn’t even remember which way to turn to run back to the safety of my father—the first time I ever would’ve run to him—and instead I found myself in the huge, industrial kitchen.
I ran through the empty spaces, past a tray full of elaborate desserts left to be served, though all the staff were gone.
The man in the mask rushed through a door across from me.
He was between me and safety.
I tried to scream. Another desperate, barely-there huff of air.
It was like my voice, rarely used and never raised, wasn’t my own now.
He held out a placating hand.
I froze, trying to decide my next step.
When he lunged, so did I, committing to a wild, desperate flight.
Since he was in front of me, I turned back, toward the emergency exit door. Going out into the alley was dangerous, but security should be outside.
I reached for the emergency exit door.
He slammed into it, closing it shut. It wrenched out of my fingers, and I cried out in pain.
The door flew open again.
And then suddenly, there was a man in the doorway.
A tall, muscular man.
I collided with his chest in my desperate flight, and he caught me around the waist, steadying me.
He raised his gun, squeezing off two rounds. The attacker stumbled back, then fell, leaving blood streaks across the stainless steel.
“Are you all right, Celia?” the man asked me.
My knees were shaking, my legs about to give out.
Warm green eyes met mine, and then he was scooping me up into his arms.
“You’re all right, you’re safe,” he murmured as he held me up against his chest. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”
Soon the room was filled with my father’s and Gabriel’s men, but I clung to him, without even knowing his name.