Cathal Chapter 1 #2
“He asked if I knew a way to get in contact with the Hounds. I told him I didn’t, but I’d look into it.
But that wasn’t his main reason for reaching out.
He had another request. Before I tell you what it was, I want you to know that I told him it was impossible.
I asked you here to help brainstorm other ways to protect them until they’re strong enough to withstand the onslaught on their own.
Faolán thinks in a year he’ll be ready to do that. ”
My brother, Aidan, interrupted anything else he planned to say.
“Dar, you’re killing us. What does he want?”
Dar gave him a quelling look, which didn’t do much, not that it ever did unless Darragh used his ceannaire-an-teagh laigh, the leader-of-the-family voice.
“They asked me if one of my brothers or cousins would be willing to agree to an arranged marriage,” Dar dropped on us.
The outburst was immediate and loud. Outrage was one of the strongest emotions.
Others were surprised and even amused. People talked over each other, making an unintelligible racket until a sharp, ear-piercing whistle cut through it, causing us to quiet down.
The whistle came from Gianna, not Darragh.
Gia was my cousin Rian’s wife. She sat there, shaking her head at everyone, rubbing her very pregnant belly. She was two weeks away from her due date for their first child, a daughter.
“God, it’s like having a conversation with my dad and brothers. Jeez. Okay, now, one at a time. I want to hear everything. I’m nosy,” she said with a grin, looking sweet and unassuming.
Anyone making the mistake of assuming she was fragile would soon see the error of their thinking when she kicked their asses.
She had been a bounty hunter with her family before marrying Rian.
She worked security on the back end for our family since she got with Rian.
Gia was a cybersecurity genius and one helluva fighter.
Several teased her, making her smile and laugh. Rian hugged her and whispered in her ear. Her interruption made the comments audible.
“Has he lost his mind?”
“Doesn’t he know O’Sheerans don’t do arranged marriages?”
“He must be truly desperate to suggest that.”
I had to agree that Faolán Bragan was crazy and desperate.
Everyone in our circle knew that every O’Sheeran marriage, whether past or new, had been love matches.
Everyone’s goal in my generation was to marry our anamchara, soulmate, like our parents and grandparents had.
Six had done just that, and all the rest wanted to do the same.
Hell, even I did, though in my case it wasn’t something I saw as possible.
My sexual proclivities would take the right-minded person to accept and take part in them. I also wanted loyalty, love, respect, and monogamy. I wasn’t asking for much, was I? I almost snorted. Yeah, all those pretty much guaranteed I’d never find an anamchara.
That depressing thought had been running around in my head for a while, but it had doubled since Christmas at home in Ireland.
I tried to reconcile myself to the fact that I should accept that I’d be the only one who didn’t marry and have kids.
I wanted to pretend it didn’t matter or hurt, but I couldn’t.
For the next half hour, I listened as everyone went around and around trying to think of other ways to help the Bragans. A few ideas were thought of, but none of them, even if combined, would come close to the protection that having their name tied to ours would provide.
“I've gotta ask, since I’m curious. Which Bragan woman does he want us to marry? The ones I recall aren’t single or were rather boring the last time I met any of them,” Rory blurted out.
Rory was the one closest to me in several ways. He dabbled at Wicked occasionally, but he wasn’t as hardcore as I was.
“He offered his daughter, Bronagh,” Darragh replied.
“Bronagh? Hell, I forgot about her. No one has seen her around for years. Honestly, I thought she was dead,” Rory added.
“According to Faolán, she was raised away from the family for her protection. His older brother was the head of the family when she was growing up, and he wasn’t the nicest of the bunch, even to his family.
Faolán kept her out of sight and hoped out of mind.
Her career is outside the family businesses.
After boarding school, she went to college and then moved out on her own.
She ended up in Florida. Not sure why she chose here.
With her dad at the helm, he wants her closer, but she refuses.
“I knew she was here, but she never caused issues, so I left it alone. Faolán said that even though she stays out of their business, she still cares about what happens to her dad and some of her nicer family members. He kept assuring me she would do her duty and that it was a marriage in name only for a year. Once he’s stable, they'll get a quiet divorce, and both parties will go their separate ways. Oh, and he promised an airtight prenuptial would be part of the deal to protect our interests,” Darragh tacked on.
“He’s really sweetening the deal, isn’t he? Is she ugly or deformed? Or dumb as a rock?” my brother, Shane, asked, grinning. Our mam, mom, hushed him as she gave him that look that shut all of us up. She’d perfected it when we were kids.
“How did I know you’d ask that? Well, you judge for yourself. I asked Cody to find out what he could about her. Not so much that any of you marry her, but if we thought of another family willing to take her in, I wanted to have it. And looks aren’t everything,” Dar reminded Shane.
I admit, I was curious to know what she was like. Especially since I hadn’t seen her since I was a teenager and she was a small child. I remember a bunch of dark strawberry-blond hair, and that was it. She had so much of it that her hair overwhelmed her face and body.
Darragh tapped the iPad screen he had brought with him. At the opposite end of the table, the overhead projector used for these situations projected a picture onto the wall.
I heard low whistles and murmurs. I sat there, not moving.
Not a sound came out of me. Staring back were eyes even bluer and more piercing than mine.
Her skin was as pale and blemish-free as the porcelain dishes our mothers guarded fiercely at home, since they were heirlooms. Her face was a perfect oval.
Her blue eyes dominated her face, but not in a bad way.
Gently arched eyebrows, the same shade as the hair on her head, and long lashes tipped in gold framed those incredible eyes.
Everything about her was delicate, from her brow to her nose and even her lips, with the lower one fuller than the top.
And her body was filled out in all the right places, but she wasn’t excessively curvy.
She was more on the slender side, but her breasts filled out her top very nicely.
“There’s no way she’s related to Faolán. He’s dark, and let’s face it, not even decent-looking,” Cillian said.
“That may be, but she takes after her mother, who was one of the kindest women I ever met. Say what you will about Faolán, but they were deeply in love. When she died, it hit him very hard. Bronagh is their only child,” Maeve, Darragh’s mom, said.
Her words triggered a memory of a woman who looked like Bronagh at a function attended by all six of the top Irish Mafia families in the States when I was young. The woman was beautiful, with a sweet smile, and she was carrying a baby. That had to have been the mom.
“Faolán never remarried and was never seen dating a woman after he lost Riona. He threw his heart into his daughter and the family businesses,” Patrick agreed.
“Maybe we open it up to extended cousins or connections we trust that she’s open to a marriage of convenience. Ask if anyone is willing to do it. Would that be enough of a connection to us to scare off the vultures until Faolán stabilizes things?” my cousin, Fallon, asked.
“I don’t know. But maybe if we can combine that kind of marriage with the other things mentioned, it might add up to enough. If we’re all in agreement to try that, I’ll call and let Faolán know we’re willing to do that for him,” Darragh offered.
We discussed for about ten more minutes before we ended the meeting.
Everyone had agreed with the last idea. I hadn’t said yea or nay.
Leaving the conference room, I couldn’t seem to shake the uneasiness in my stomach.
It hadn’t been there before the meeting.
On the drive home, I wondered how Faolán would take the suggestion.
?
Hours later, I sat in the Command Center, CC, which was the brain not only of the Hounds of Justice’s work but of all things we wanted kept out of reach and out of the sight of others.
It was an underground nexus beneath the main house, where all three sets of parents and our granny lived.
All fifteen of us children had been raised in that massive house.
Today, the main house sat surrounded by the individual homes we had all built once we became adults. Access tunnels from each of our homes fed into the system, leading to the CC and to escape tunnels off the compound. We often had gatherings at the house and family meals at least once a week.
I was restless and came down to see if anything was going on. I’d gone to Wicked for a bit to see how the night was going. I’d worked the majority of the day there, so I only stayed a couple of hours and then left. If I’d been in the mood to play, I would still be there, but I hadn’t been.
I knew what was making it impossible for me to relax, concentrate, or fall asleep.
I kept replaying in my head this afternoon at headquarters what Darragh shared about the head Bragan’s request. I almost texted my cousin to ask what Faolán Bragan said when he called.
I stopped myself because it wasn’t really any of my business.
Why should it matter to me whether or not he accepts?