29. Meet the Family
Chapter twenty-nine
Meet the Family
Kira
I didn’t have any clothes. All I had was the dress I had worn the day his driver whisked me away to the bridal store. So I showed up wearing my work clothes with Louboutin heels. After two days of making love, being mostly naked with my artist husband, I had forgotten the outside world. Under the light of the soft, warm lamps in the cottage that were plucked from a painting, it was easy to forget everything: Paradigm, and Blink.
It was so easy to forget my mission and to lose myself in the depths of Eoghan’s eyes, and his dedicated, overwhelming infatuation.
“Don’t move, my Muse,” he said, as I finger-combed my hair, trying to twist it into a messy bun.
He stood behind me, staring at my reflection. He brought his phone up, and took a photo. I tried not to smile.
True to his word, he started photographing me at random moments, forcing me to freeze mid-action, or to turn to look at him. In a single morning, he must have easily taken a hundred pictures on his phone.
He was so earnest and loving, so dedicated and passionate. I could see it in the way he sketched me. The way he always used the light that gave his images a glow of heaven, like it was a beautiful and glorious dream in an otherwise dark existence.
I felt… adored.
More importantly, I felt safe. In his arms, I was untouchable and protected from the suffering of the world, and I couldn’t help but fall madly for all that he promised.
Free to go put his own clothes on, I watched as he pulled up the same trousers he had worn to our wedding and cinched his belt. He pulled something out of a drawer, spun it in the palm of his hand, before letting it fall into two little pouches on his belt.
“Are those knives?” I asked, staring at them in wonder. He always had them on his belt, but I had never seen them up close.
“Aye,” he said, pulling one back out. “Dairo and I made them when we were young. Each of us made a pair, and we keep them on us, just in case.”
“In case of what?” I didn’t ask because I was naive. I asked because I thought that was what a normal woman would do.
“Don’t know,” he said, nonchalantly, as he held a blade out to me. “Maybe we fancied being sculptors, and this was something boys thought would be cool to do.” He playfully pounded his chest. “Made us feel like big men.”
I chuckled, taking the knife from him to examine it more closely.
It was more than just a childish project. The blade was exquisite and heavy, flat and weighted perfectly in my hand. A throwing knife, or fighting blade, that was so flat it could be concealed anywhere. On the handle was a celtic design that was etched by hand.
“ECG?” I asked, reading the letter out loud.
“Eoghan Cillian Green,” he said in an answer. His full name.
“Very nice,” I said, admiring the handiwork, and handing it back to him.
“Dairo’s got his own initials on his. ACG.”
I tilted my head. “ACG? Not DCG?”
“Dairo’s not his real name, you see. It’s Alastair. My uncle named him after my father when my parents didn’t think they could have children.” He adjusted his sleeves, folding them up to show off his thick, veiny forearms. “Alastair comes from the old name Alasdair. We Irish tend to chop a name in half, add an -o at the end and, voila! A nickname is born. Hence, Dairo.”
“What would your nickname be?”
“I don’t have one.”
“But if you did?”
“Wen… Wen-o.” He sounded uncertain, his nose wrinkling at the possibility. “I think Eoghan is already a nickname for something else. Who knows? I’ve never thought about it.”
“I’ll stick with Eoghan then, even though the spelling is outrageous.”
“It’s just Irish,” he chuckled, coming up behind me to place his hands around my waist.
“I hope you don’t want our kids to have such Irish-y, complicated names,” I said with a laugh, lightly running my hand down my stomach. He had filled me so much that I swear, I could already feel the beginning of life inside me. That was ridiculous, of course. There was no way to tell this early. Maybe Eoghan’s determination was rubbing off on me.
“If the child in your belly is a boy,” he said, putting a kiss on my neck. “I would like to name him Cillian, after my maternal grandfather.”
“Cillian,” I said, testing the name out on my tongue. “I guess I like it.” I looked down at the pouch of my stomach, then laughed at how silly I was being. “There’s no way there’s a kid in there yet. It’s way too early! You’re so full of it.”
He placed his hands over mine, cradling my stomach as if I was already pregnant.
“I only speak the truth,” he said gently. “Whether you believe it or not.”
I laughed, though it was half-hearted at best.
“And all the stuff about never having another, and…”
“Every word is truth.” His hands tightened around mine, not enough to hurt, but just enough to make his presence known. “Neither you nor I will ever have another. What we have bound together in our vows, no man, beast, or God can tear asunder.”
He pulled the sleeve of my dress down, revealing a bare shoulder, and he sucked on the skin there, drawing it between his teeth, creating another mark on my body.
He would cut his name into my skin if he could.
“Assuming we survive my family,” he finally said, burying his forehead into my hair, his eyes shut.
His arms tightened around me, until he made it hard to breathe. He was holding me like I was dangling on the edge of a cliff, and if he gave up an inch, I’d plummet out of his grasp.
“How bad could it be?” I finally asked, and he loosened his embrace.
Again, I was asking a question that I already knew the answer to. It could be fucking bad. Really, really, really bad.
But if Dairo was any indication, then it could be manageable… right?
Dairo came with a black Cadillac a few minutes later. Eoghan walked me out of the cottage and to the car. His expression was dark, like he was walking us to our death. Dairo opened the windows and leaned out of it, looking us over as we approached.
“Did you have a nice vacation?” Dairo asked, just as Eoghan greeted, “What’s the craic ?”
The two of them paused, just looking at one another, and I wondered if there was some kind of weird telepathy they were sharing because they had an entire conversation just from the changing expression of their eyes.
Eoghan held my hand as I got into the back seat. Instead of going around the car to go to the other side, he simply shuffled in behind me until we were plastered together. I tried to scoot to the other window seat but a single look from Eoghan made me pause.
He put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him.
I suppose this was something I would have to get used to. Eoghan Green did not want to ever have space between us.
It was a swoon-worthy trait to find in a husband.
“Did you have a good honeymoon?” Dairo asked, his eyes peering at me from the rearview mirror.
“Aye,” Eoghan answered for the both of us.
“Did you talk it out?” Dairo asked, cryptically.
“Talk what out?” I whispered.
Was Dairo asking if we had discussed the mob? Was he suspicious of me? Did he know me from somewhere, or any of the others I associated with? Was he on to me?
“Oh, you know… married life,” he groaned, as he rolled us out of the driveway, the gravel crushing under the moving tires.
“ éist do bhéal! ” Eoghan said, his fist clenching on his lap as he glared at his cousin through the rearview mirror.
I had no idea what that meant, but it quieted Dairo, who put up one hand in the space between the seats as if he was surrendering.
“ Mea culpa ,” he said, shaking his head.
That phrase, I knew. It was Latin for “my mistake”. It might have been sincere if not for the slight roll of his eyes.
“Bloody hell, Eoghan,” he said under his breath, as he turned out onto the main street and down the road. “I feel like I'm watching a train wreck.”
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I could guess from context.
Eoghan hadn’t told me he was in the mob. He didn’t tell me he was the heir to a crime family, and now he was taking me into the lion’s den “unprepared”. Of course, I wasn’t totally obtuse, or ill-informed. But I had waited, assuming he would confess. I should have been prying the information from him during our two days in the cottage, but I had been… distracted.
Eoghan’s insistent passion had made little time for eating, much less any deep discussion about family syndicates.
We rode silently down the street until we turned up a drive, towards two tall iron rod gates. It looked like something out of a gothic tv show. The tops of the rods didn’t have roses and spades, unlike the walls around the cottage. No, it was topped with the benign looking four leaf clovers, with tiny daggers spearing between them.
Men in black uniforms stood with weapons at the ready, in full kit, with radios on their armor.
Dairo rolled down the window and the guard immediately stood at attention, rendering a crisp salute.
“Mr. Green,” he said, before he gestured wildly for the men to let us pass.
They didn’t even check the backseat to see me and Eoghan, but I guess it didn’t matter. If there was a Green in the car, then they would back off.
I didn't have to pretend to be scared of these men, I just was.
I was walking into the lion’s den, and the prince of the pride had his paw draped over my shoulders.
“Eoghan,” I said, as the guards lined up, and rendered a salute to the passing car as the black gate opened. “Why do you have guards?”
Confess to me your sins! My heart was crying for him to talk to me, not just because of my job but because I was his wife. He should tell his wife about these things before bringing her over for dinner!
“Hush, love,” Eoghan said against my temple, holding me close. “I’ll explain later.”
But he wouldn’t. I was sure of it. If he was going to tell me, he would have said so in the two days when we were so beautifully alone.
An ominous, sinking feeling weighed heavy on my gut as I looked around at the rolling lawn that led up the hill to the great, red-brick estate at the top of the hill. I knew it from the photos I’d received from Blink.
But the photos didn’t convey the strange heaviness that existed in the air. This place felt weighted, like there was a terrible, malignant spirit in the air that was pushing us down into the ground.
“What is this place?” I said in a frightened sigh.
“It’s home, sweet home,” Dairo said, his bitter sarcasm evident in his rough exhale.
“We won’t be here long, love,” Eoghan said, his hand tightening around me, as if he was scared I’d float away. “We’ll live in Manhattan, mostly, and only come here when we have to, I swear.”
If this place didn’t have the stench of evil, then what reason would he have to swear that I wouldn’t have to spend too much time here? What frightening things happened here? Could the rumors be true?
No, I still refused to believe it.
Not of Eoghan.
I gripped his thigh, my fingers turning into claws as I drew myself closer to him. As if he could feel my anxiety, he wrapped both arms around me, his hands crossing over my chest as he pulled my back to his chest.
“It’s alright, love,” he promised. “It’ll all be alright.”
That sounded like something you’d tell a person right before things became unimaginably not alright.
Dairo parked the car in the driveway, where another armed, black-clad, uniformed man stood at the porch, with white balustrades.
Eoghan let me go, and got out. The moment his touch was gone, I missed it, wishing I could stay close to him. He held the door open and extended a hand to me, his eyes blank as he stared at the front door, waiting for me to make a move.
I swallowed, taking his hand.
Blink would have loved this - being in the den, and doing what spies do. But I wasn’t one of them. I was never meant to be. I was supposed to launder money and that was it. But now, I was deep in a world I didn’t understand, scared out of my mind that my training might not be enough.
I took Eoghan’s hand, letting him pull me from the car. He closed the door, wrapping an arm around my waist as he walked me up the steps.
“Mr. Green,” a man said, snapping his heels together and rendering another salute.
Eoghan waved a hand, allowing him to go about his business.
This was far more military than I thought they would be; it showed more discipline than just a gangster. Certainly more discipline than the Italians, by far.
“It’s like you have a whole army,” I said, trying to sound breathy and surprised. Like I hadn't expected it.
“We’re just safe,” Eoghan said, letting my waist go and taking my hand as we climbed the steps to the white porch, then to the stained-glass double doors of the enormous mansion. “Pay them no mind.”
Dairo gave a snort as he pushed open the front doors, entering without a word.
The great foyer was intense. It was large, with a vaulted ceiling, and a grand, wooden staircase that led to an exposed landing of a second floor that led into darkened hallways on either side. To my left was some kind of formal living room, with a grand piano beneath large paintings of green hills and stormy seas. To my right were doors that looked like they opened to a library or office. There was a great wall with a dark stained board and batten on the bottom, and a deep green wall above. There was a strange, large rectangle on the wall, as if there had been a framed painting there once, that had been removed, leaving a permanent change in color where the sun hadn’t faded the green paint.
What image had been there, before they removed it? I wasn’t sure. Whatever it was hadn’t been replaced or covered up.
A man appeared like an apparition on the top of the staircase, and the two men, Dairo and Eoghan, stepped in front of me, as if to protect me from him.
“Eoghan,” he said with a deep, ragged voice. “And who is this?”
The man was white-haired, his skin wrinkled with age. He wore a formal suit that looked like it was made from the richest wool. A pocket watch dangled from his vest, a gold chain swinging into his pocket.
“Father,” Eoghan said, his arm out to his side, as if keeping the man from reaching me. “This is Kira. I told you about her the last time I was here.”
“Keira,” the man said my name slowly, as if it tasted sour in his mouth. “She doesn’t look like a Keira.”
Was it strange that I could hear the extra letters he placed in my name? No, he wasn't saying Kira, but the much more anglicized, Irish Keira.
“Well, it is,” Eoghan said, reaching back to take my hand. He looked at me apologetically, mouthing an “I’m sorry” before he turned back to his father, our hands united. “Kira Green.”
The old man glowered, his nostrils flared, and his anger palpable in the static between us.
“Green, is it?” he snarled. “What is the meaning of this, boyo ?”
His eyes were as black as Eoghan’s, but with a hint of menace that I didn’t understand. His eyes flicked down to the ring on my hand, and he growled.
“Is that my wife’s ring?”
A timid, red-haired thing came out from the shadows. She was pale, covered from the neck down in a black dress, like she was going to a funeral. A fancy funeral. On her fingers were a myriad of rings, with stones of every color, and her wild, curling hair of red made her look like she was on fire. It was… haunting.
“It is her ring,” the woman said in a lilting, sweet, Irish accent. She looked down at me with sympathy - or was it just pity? - in her green eyes. “It belongs on her hand. That is what the spirits say…”
Her words were cut off, when the man I knew to be Alastair Green struck her with the back of his hand. She was so small and waifish that she flew with the strike, hitting a nearby wall, a small landscape painting coming off its hook, and smashing into the ground.
“Shut your mouth, witch!” he bellowed, his finger wagging at her, before his terrifying expression turned back Eoghan.
He came down the steps, and the wood beneath him creaked like it protested his presence.
Eoghan and Dairo stepped closer to each other until their shoulders touched, taking up the space between me and this man.
“How dare you bring her here?” Alastair said, his venom going straight to his only son. “How dare you place your mother’s ring on her hand?”
He came to a stop between the two cousins, and I shuddered as those black eyes turned to me.
“She’s not even Irish!” He turned his hateful eyes to Dairo, who stood between me and him. “And where were you when my son was acting like a complete fool?”
“I was at the wedding.” Dairo’s voice was even, but I could hear his restraint. He would have shouted it if he could.
I knew, in a way, that Dairo wasn’t defending me. He was defending his cousin. The two were closer than brothers, and that gave me a little flicker of happiness. Eoghan had someone in his corner, in a family that obviously treated him like shit.
“I was happy to be there,” Dairo said, his uncle deflating slightly at the defiance. “They’re a good match.”
I felt, as much as I saw, Eoghan’s shoulders come up in a defensive stance, his hands on either side of him loosened, ready to fight if he needed to. As if they were synchronized, Dairo followed his lead. Were the two men ready to take down the head of Green Field’s Enterprises, for me? Probably not.
That was something that wasn’t in Paradigm’s report on the elusive Green family.
“She’s my wife,” Eoghan snarled back. I felt like I watched two dogs circling, looking for dominance. “And that ring belongs to her now.”
I stared down at the emerald on my hand. What was the significance of this thing, other than it had been his mother’s? Was there something I did not know?
Don’t be stupid. There’s a million things you don’t know about this shadow world.
“You fucking eejit!” Alastair’s fist came at Eoghan’s face, slamming into the side of his right eye socket. I heard the sickening crack of bone, as his head turned to the side. But Eoghan didn’t move apart from that. His feet planted firmly, his shoulders stiff, as he slowly turned his face back to his father.
“Stop!” That was Aoibheann, coming from the wall, and to the balustrade of the landing, hovering over us as she reached out with her pale, porcelain arm.
The house around us seemed to dim, like a malignant specter was haunting the place, showing its displeasure at the conflict before me. I hoped that whatever ghost was wafting in these ancient walls was on our side, and not on the side of the insane Alastair Green.
As if to justify my thought, the wind started howling outside, swaying the building, as leaves and debris rattled against the windows.
“She is his wife!” Aoibheann Green stepped forward from the wall she was leaning on, and held out her hand. Her haunted, breathy voice made me shiver, as it looked like she was commanding the wind itself. “And it has been blessed!”
Was she casting a fucking spell? What the hell was going on?
“They have made vows that no man can put asunder!”
Alastair turned to his wife, his caterpillar brows furrowed, and his hands out at his side as if afraid of the spirits she was conjuring. There was genuine fear across his face as he stared at his wife.
“Any man who comes between them shall be cursed.” Her voice took on an ethereal, angry air like Galadriel as she hovered over the evil Ring.
Then the wind died down as quickly as it came, and Aoibheann fell to her knees, like she was exhausted.
Alastair stood perfectly still, as that husband and wife stared at each other.
Eoghan didn’t miss a beat. He wrapped his arm around my waist, and the other under my thighs, as he carried me bridal style up the stairs, taking them two at a time, Dairo hard on his heels. The two of them gave Aoibheann a wide berth, as we turned down the hall, and behind a door, into a grand room.
Eoghan flopped on a bed, me still on his lap, as Dairo shut the door, leaning against it as if he expected someone to try and break it down.
“Christ,” Dairo said, slamming the back of his head against the door. “It’s fucking strange to be home.”
“I’m sorry, Kira,” Eoghan said, placing his head into the nape of my neck.
He was calling me by my first name. He hadn’t really done that much until now. It was always Miss Kekoa this, and Miss Kekoa that. Then, it was Mrs. Green, or simply… wife.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a huff against my skin.
“She’s not a witch,” Dairo said, letting out a little laugh, his eyes not quite on me, but certainly lingering in my direction. He was speaking to me. “That wind was in the forecast this morning. And the way the house sits, you’ll always hear a slight whistle, before it picks up. It was just a show.”
Dairo smirked, as he chuckled lightly.
“She is a witch,” Eoghan said. “And it’s best never to cross her.”
“Bloody superstitious Irish,” Dairo retorted.
All the while, I said nothing.
Because I had no fucking idea what I had just walked into.