Chapter 4 #2
“If I had to guess? Territory. The DiMichelis control the port access the Kozlovs need to expand their operations. With Francesco out of the picture, they probably expected the whole organization to collapse.” Wolfe's eyes lift from the laptop.
Blue, like mine. Like our mother's. “I’ll bet they didn't count on Dad swooping in with a marriage contract.”
“Lucky us,” Cillian mutters.
“I'm building a file on Viktor's movements, his people, his patterns. If he makes another move, we'll see it coming.” Wolfe pauses. “Assuming Dad shares what he knows, which he won't.”
“Yeah, whatever intel he had will go to the grave with him,” I say. “Keep digging anyway. Quietly, though.”
“Always.”
I pull out my spoon. The ice cream is melting, and I hate when it gets slushy.
But I eat it anyway because the alternative is thinking about Viktor Kozlov, my father and his manipulations, and the fact that the woman I’m about to marry is walking straight into the crossfire without knowing the half of it.
“So what’s she like?” Cillian asks. He’s always been good at diffusing tension. And with a father like Eamon Molloy, tension is like a roommate that doesn’t pay the rent. “In person. Not in Forbes.”
I think about the way Adriana stood in that cafeteria with her arms crossed, back straight, a hard glare that could slice through glass.
“She’s…” I pause for a second, trying to think of the exact word to fit her in those moments. “Terrifying.”
Gavin snorts. “Loch thinks she’s terrifying. This is the same guy who dislocated a dude’s shoulder in an MMA bout last month.”
“That’s different. That guy was trying to hit me. She’s trying to out-think me. It’s worse.”
“Worse how?”
“Because she’s winning.” I scrape the last bite from the bottom carton.
“She negotiated her own terms for this sham at four in the morning wearing a bloodstained gown while her father was in a hospital bed hooked up to machines that were breathing for him. She didn’t cry.
She didn’t beg for an out. She looked our father in the eye and called him out on his bullshit. ”
“You like her,” Cillian says with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“Fuck off. I’ve known her for twelve hours.”
“Didn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t know her well enough to like her.
I know she’s smart. I know she’s strong.
I know she built a $300 million company from scratch because she refused to live off her father’s dime or his name.
” I pause. “And I know she’s about to have her entire life ripped apart because of my family, and that makes me want to put my fist through a wall. Or Dad’s throat. Maybe both.”
Nobody speaks for a long minute.
Gavin, God bless his twenty-one-year-old inability to read a room, breaks the silence first.
“So on a scale of one to ten—”
“I will fucking end you,” I growl.
He holds up his hands. “Fair enough.”
Wolfe closes his laptop. “For what it’s worth, her firm’s security protocols are better than most Fortune 500 companies. They weren’t outsourced or inherited. She designed the framework and it’s solid.”
I look at him. “How do you know that?”
“Because I tried to find a vulnerability and couldn’t.” Wolfe’s lips lift into a rare almost-smile. “She’s smart, Loch. Smarter than Dad is giving her credit for. That might be the only advantage you two have as a married couple.”
Yeah. I’m starting to figure that out.
The sun drops in the sky. We stay at the bar until early evening.
I choose coffee over whiskey when Cillian pours rounds for everyone.
The constant banter between my brothers, the easy laughs, the relentless ribbing…
it almost feels normal, like those first few months after Mam died, when we’d all pile into my bedroom and just exist together there because being alone was worse.
I was seventeen when we lost her. Gavin was ten.
He didn’t understand what happened, just that Mam was gone and nobody would, or could, explain why.
I was the one who sat up with him every night for three months, teaching him how to breathe through the panic attacks, how to count backward from a hundred when the nightmares haunted his sleep.
I was a kid raising a kid because our father was too busy running an empire to notice his youngest son was falling apart.
Some things don’t change.
“Ronan called,” Cillian says as I’m pulling on my jacket.
My chest tightens. “And?”
“He’s pissed. More than usual. Said Dad is giving you everything he earned.”
“Fuck him. He can take it up with Dad.”
“You know he won’t.” Cillian looks at me, and for a second, his relaxed bartender act drops.
Underneath it is a twenty-six-year-old who’s seen too much and carries way more than he lets on.
“And you know this is just gonna be more fuel for his fire.” His shoulders slump.
“You guys need to work things out, once and for all.”
“I’m not the one who created this whole shit storm,” I say. Anger bubbles in my veins. “Ronan made his bed. Chose his master.”
Cillian sweeps a hand over his head. “You know, we all suffered, Loch. Everyone deals with things their own way. And he’s always been—”
I lean in close and hold up a hand because I’m finished with this conversation. “C, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a fucking asinine way. He picked his poison. I’m done.”
Frustration flickers in his eyes. "Fine.
But Loch, you're about to walk into a war zone.
The Russians, Dad's scheming, a wife who doesn't trust you, and Ronan sharpening his knives?
" He shakes his head. "That's a lot of battles to fight on your own.
You might want to think about shutting one of them down. "
"Ronan can shut it down any time he wants."
"So can you."
I grab my jacket. "I'll see you later, C."
"Yeah." He doesn't push it. "Be careful out there."
I tap the bar twice and head for the door.
Outside, the bluish orange dusk settles over the Southie rooftops, the air warm against my skin. I head toward my Audi R8 parked at the curb.
My phone buzzes with an incoming message and I pull it out of my pocket, furrowing my brow at the unknown number.
I open the text.
Mr. Molloy, this is Adriana DiMicheli’s assistant. Ms. DiMicheli has requested a meeting tomorrow at 10 AM to discuss your arrangement. Please confirm your availability. An address will follow.
Her assistant. Shit. I don’t even qualify for a personal text.
Jesus, she’s already running this like a business deal. Working through her people to schedule time with me to talk about the contract, like we’re lawyers negotiating terms or whatever.
My lips curl upward.
Good power move.
I type back two words.
I’m available.
I pocket my phone and click my alarm as thoughts of Adriana wallpaper my mind.
Somewhere across the city, she’s probably color-coding a spreadsheet of demands and drawing up contingency plans for every possible outcome of tomorrow’s meeting.
Because that’s what she does. She prepares. She strategizes. She controls.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, Cillian’s voice whispers, “You’re already in over your head, brother.”
He’s not wrong.
But the thing about being in over your head is that you have two choices — drown or learn to swim.
And I’ve never been much of a drowning man.