Chapter 3
Two days after sending Zander to the afterlife, I was in my own personal brand of hell.
“Stop moving, or I’ll stab ya with a pin,” the seamstress snapped when I readjusted my weight again.
She had thick gray hair wrapped tight in a bun just as stern as the glare she threw at me from where she knelt on the floor. The handful of pins looked more like fangs in her wrinkled mouth than anything else, and the fabled Irish temper was heavy in Gretchen’s personality—though I wouldn’t say either to her face. I might have been the ruler of a crime syndicate, but I didn’t usually go after pain unless it was in the sparring ring, and those pins hurt. “You have to be the worst client we have. Saints preserve us, stop fidgeting.”
Never mind that I’d been standing like a statue for an hour while she pinned and adjusted a dress that, weeks ago, had been perfectly tailored. Grief had taken a toll on my body, and apparently, it constituted a fashion emergency.
You must always look perfect, Marianna. Nothing less will do.
I hated that my father’s voice was still so heavy in my ears when he’d been gone for so long.
One of the many lessons I’d learned at his knee was to use what I had. Men could be manipulated with a soft word and a gentle touch. The same went for ruling an empire in a man’s world. To get what I wanted, I had to walk a tightrope of illusion.
I had to look beautiful and powerful but not too much of either. I had to be strong and ruthless but not psychotic. I had to be alluring but not too sexy. And everything started with my appearance.
There were entire closets in the Marcosa mansion curated by stylists, where every piece was purchased with intention for the mask it represented. Angelic clothes for peace talks and discussing treaties, power suits for political moves, and rows upon rows of tactical clothing for hunting those who came against me. That’s when looking unhinged worked in my favor. Unless I needed to look differently, I had a fresh manicure, light makeup, and silky-smooth waves at all times. It was just another part of the costume I wore to survive.
I shifted again, and Gretchen looked fit to kill. “I swear to Christ, girl. I’ll?—”
“Stab me, and I’ll stab back,” I snarked. Not that I would. We had a tentative truce, Gretchen and I, though sometimes she forgot that. She was also one of the few people in our world who could threaten me and survive, and that was mostly because Greyson was in his own room trying on his tux. We’d learned early that he needed to be separated while Gretchen and I talked.
Someone tsked behind me, and I searched the mirror until I found a halo of short brown curls and sea-glass-green eyes glittering with laughter.
“Be nice to Gretchen, Mari. Not only is she the only one who will work with you anymore, but she’s the only one who can tailor your dress in time. Unless you want to look like shit for your opening?” Ash said it like a question, when we both knew it wasn’t.
“You wouldn’t let me look terrible, regardless, Aislynn. Everyone already knows I tapped you for the design. Besides, I only want the best, even if she does spend half the time damning me to eternal flames.” I threw her a smirk, and we both laughed.
Aislynn O’Bannon was the fashion designer for Seattle’s elite. Everyone clamored to her for charity galas and bespoke suits, frenzied at just the thought of getting on her wait list. She was also a friend and an unwilling occupant of the underbelly of our city, thanks to her father. Sean O’Bannon was head of the Irish mafia in Seattle, and she was his only daughter. Lucky her—or, really, lucky me since I got to count her as one of my people.
Ash tipped a perfectly arched brow and pointed one gold-tipped nail my way. “Maybe I won’t let you go looking like a troll, but I won’t have you harassing my staff either. Play nice.”
“Maybe if she stopped threatening me, I’d behave better.”
Aislynn ignored me, smiling kindly at her employee. “Gretchen, why don’t you go get a coffee while I help put Ms. Marcosa in the right mind-set for alterations.”
Gretchen huffed, glaring again as she left the room, muttering.
“I’m definitely her favorite.” Turning back to my friend, I realized I’d missed something. “I like the hair, by the way. Got sick of the Merida name-calling?”
Ash had received the brunt of her Irish heritage with pale, freckled skin and the bright-red hair of her father’s people, but what had once been long red corkscrews down to her hips was now a bob of brown waves that stopped above her collarbone. It looked great, but the suddenness of the change felt out of character for my slow-adjusting friend.
Aislynn wrapped a brunette strand around her finger and shrugged. “I needed a change.”
The fact that she wasn’t meeting my eyes set off every protective instinct in my body.
My eyes were glued to her as she circled me, muttering about darts here and seams there. Her loose ivory shirt was slit to her belly button, the champagne-colored bra underneath showcasing the long expanse of her torso. Slim-fitting brown pants showed off her lean build, while a plethora of leather cuffs, gold necklaces, and rings finished the outfit. She looked fashionable and artsy, which fit her personality perfectly, even if it was as far from the mafia princess wardrobe as she could get. Which I was sure was the point. But the outfit was exactly what she’d normally wear. Nothing off there.
Looking past it, I couldn’t see any extra bruising, and she wasn’t favoring one side of her body over the other. She wasn’t even hunched in on herself, so I had to assume she wasn’t injured or nervous. The part of me that had once longed to leave my life behind recognized the same desire in her, though.
Aislynn’s only non-fashion goal was getting out of the life before her father married her off, and she was getting tired of waiting. She wasn’t scared; she was ready to leave. Desperate to run. Knowing that, I shoved aside my initial panic. She would tell me if she needed me to get her out sooner than we’d planned. Until then, I had to trust that she knew what she was doing better than I did.
“Everything looks nearly finished. I’ll give Gretchen a break, and then we should be done in a flash.”
Grey stepped into my fitting area, his long fingers deftly buttoning the jacket of his tux. A quick sweep of the room had him chuckling under his breath. “Run her off again, reina? I’m not surprised.”
I flipped him off, tilting my head as I looked him over. The near-black suit fit him perfectly, showing off powerful thighs and shoulders that most people didn’t know he had. With his tousled hair and the pocket square that matched my dress, he looked downright edible. I loved and loathed it in equal measure. “You look amazing, Greyson. Great job, Ash.”
“I know.” She turned to fix the little green handkerchief. “Well, what do you think of your girl?”
Grey’s eyes sparkled as he took in my dress. After much deliberation, we’d gone with a simple floor-length velvet gown. The scoop neck bared me all the way from the tops of my shoulders to the crest of my breasts as the soft fabric hugged my figure tightly. The emerald green glowed against my tanned skin and the peekaboo of chains woven through my dark hair. It was elegant and sexy, and with the gold jewelry we’d picked out, I looked every bit like royalty.
“Grey?” I asked when he didn’t speak. For whatever reason, I was nervous about what he thought. I couldn’t care less what anyone else thought of my outfit choice, but a big part of me wanted Grey to like it.
His eyes caught me, and oh, they burned. The sight of heat in them made me shiver, and he smiled, that small tip of his lips that was just for me. He traced my body and left it tingling, looking at me like I was his. It was a fire-and-brimstone kind of lust. Eternally damning.
The moment stilled, and we stayed wrapped in each other as everything else faded away. I could see the war in him even from across the room. The way his hands clenched to keep from reaching for me, the tightness in his shoulders and jaw. The thread he held himself back with was razor-thin and fraying.
When he finally spoke, it was with a rasp that made my entire body clench. “You’re breathtaking, though you always are.”
The sound of a phone ringing in the other room broke whatever spell we were under, pulling us back to where we were. Grey turned away, and all at once, the heat and warmth he gave me were gone and the cool mask he wore for everyone else was all I could see. I hated it. I wanted that warmth. I wanted to burn like Icarus, even for just a moment.
I shook myself, pushing the thoughts of Grey away. There was no Greyson for me, and there never would be. Maybe I needed to get laid, to put him back in the friend zone and get rid of the tension that racked me constantly.
The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. I could call up an old flame or go to one of our clubs and pick someone up for the night. Yes, I’d get Grey out of my system, even without having him. I could do that. I had to.
And if a small part of me whispered, it won’t help, I ignored it.
Focusing on the moment, I nodded to Ash, flicking my eyes to the door where Grey was already flipping the lock. We waited as he ran his phone over the walls, vents, and windows. When he was sure we weren’t being recorded, I turned my focus back to Aislynn. “What’ve you got for us?”
There was a reason we only worked with Ash, and it wasn’t just because of her talent.
She frowned. “Nothing concrete, but I don’t think we had anything to do with Rey’s death. Da hasn’t mentioned making moves your way, nor has he been planning them behind my back. Hell, even my brothers have been subdued.”
I wasn’t surprised. Everyone had liked Rey. Even the O’Bannon boys, who’d been hellions since their first breaths, had loved him. He was the sunshine in our wicked lives, the one most likely to make everyone laugh. That was why his death had been so heartbreaking. Besides being my underboss, a position that admittedly had its own enemies, he had been too well-liked in the city for the assassination he stole from me. It wasn’t fair.
The pang in my chest reminded me it was my fault he was gone.
“I figured, but I appreciate your checking for me.” I wanted her to keep an ear out for more information, but I couldn’t ask. She was already putting her life at risk by giving me any insight into her family. The O’Bannons weren’t the type to let bygones be bygones. If they caught Ash conspiring with us, she’d be dead before we had a chance to save her.
“Everyone’s out of sorts waiting for you to make your move, so I doubt I’ll be able to get anything else out of them without raising suspicion, but I’ll see what I can do.”
That was more than I had any right to ask for. “I appreciate it. Any chance you’ve heard whispers of a new player on the scene? Goes by the name Cash.”
Despite being plugged in to every dark network in the northern hemisphere and half of the southern, we’d found no mention of a Cash from any of Grey’s sources. He’d even spent the last few days checking in with every informant we had both above and below board, and not a single breadcrumb led to Cash or the Aces. Grey wasn’t used to failing, and it was putting him in a pissy mood.
Ash screwed up her face as she thought back. I wasn’t surprised when she shook her head. “No, but I can ask around.”
The last thing I wanted was her sticking her neck out for us even more, but truthfully, we needed the information. If they’d already staged one assassination attempt, another wasn’t out of the question. We needed intel before I found myself in a body bag.
“Do what you can, but be careful. There’s something big coming, and I don’t want you getting caught in it. If you get into trouble, you know what to do.”
We had an in case of emergency plan, but it was a last resort. It would blow not only Ash’s cover, but ours too. The last thing I needed was a war with the Irish, but Ash had been a good friend and a seriously helpful informant. If that was the cost for her safety, I’d pay it ten times over to make sure she lived.
She gripped my shoulder, shaking me a little. “I’ll be fine, Mari. I promise.”
That wasn’t a promise she could rightly make and we all knew it, but I let it slide. Ash smiled and clapped her hands with a wicked grin.
“Let’s get Gretchen back in here.”
We finished the fitting in record time, with only a little sniping and a few drops of blood to season the air. With Aislynn’s reiteration that the dress would be ready for opening night come hell or high water, Greyson and I left.
Moore and Tennessee surrounded us on the street, eyes peeled for any threats while we waited for the car. I didn’t like moving with a whole host of security, preferring the most trustworthy of my enforcers to act as bodyguards. It wasn’t the most strategic move, especially with an active threat on my head, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t the type to keep just anyone around me.
Basking in the fresh spring air as long as I could, I inhaled with greedy lungs. We’d been under strict lockdown since Rey died, and even my walks around the Marcosa compound were restricted. Sure, I could change the rules for myself, but then the rest of my crew would think that we were safe when we obviously weren’t. If I wanted them to listen, I had to follow directives too.
Sometimes it sucked being the boss.
To my dismay, Geneva pulled the car up less than thirty seconds after we stepped outside. I slid into the back seat, grumbling and wishing I could roll down the window for one more minute of air.
Sighing, I turned as Grey closed the door behind him. “Anywhere else we need to go?”
I wasn’t interested in stopping at the club until it was ready for guests. Otherwise, I was bound to lose my shit.
He pulled out his tablet and swiped through it. His brows furrowed as he swiped back and forth a few times before his shoulders stiffened. Finally, he put the tablet away and answered shortly. “No, we can head home.”
Right, because that didn’t sound ominous at all. “What is it, Greyson?”
He glanced over at me, that cold mask perfectly on display. “Your brother is home.”