Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
PRIEST
A emon’s fist slammed into my face, and I barely had a chance to catch myself before stumbling back onto my ass.
I’d been expecting this visit since the moment I heard Ivy’s brother had landed in Philadelphia. Still, I made no move to avoid him or to defend myself. I deserved to have my ass handed to me by the head of the Murphy mafia.
“You. Motherfucking. Bastard,” he hissed, his eyes wild as he kneed my stomach. I doubled over, the breath stolen from my lungs. Another punch followed, this time to the side of my ribs, and I still did nothing.
The pummeling continued until I dropped to my knees. Fucking ironic, considering this entire thing started with me on my knees in front of Ivy, teaching her a lesson for her shenanigans in my brother’s casino. And now here her brother was, at the scene of that first encounter, laying me out.
But the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain I felt in my chest. I welcomed it. Relished it. It was what I deserved.
“What?” he snarled, looking at me like I was filth under his fingernails. He wasn’t far off. “Too much of a coward to punch me back?”
“Something like that,” I rasped.
Aemon hauled me up by my collar.
“You made my sister cry.” His words sliced through me. “You sick psychopath. Maybe you should have stuck to your nickname and become a priest.”
No physical beating could hurt more than the thoughts that’d been plaguing me. She accepted all my flaws and brokenness while I kept crucial information about her athair from her.
I dreamed of her face every night, of her expression before she walked away from me.
My stomach roiled.
I wanted her back. I wanted her in my city, in my house, in my bed. And she couldn’t stand to even look at me.
One bad judgment call had cost me the one thing I couldn’t live without.
And now I’d lost her, along with every other piece of me that mattered. It all lay scattered around her feet, following her around wherever she went.
“Fucking hit me,” Aemon growled. “Fight back so I can keep my promise to her and kill you fair and square.”
I flashed a grim smile. “If she wants me dead, kill me.”
His next blow sent a fresh burst of pain straight to my skull.
“She made me promise not to, you fucking asshole.” His mouth twisted, and he shoved me away with disgust, his jaw flexing. “You don’t deserve a place on this earth, never mind in her heart. Why in the fuck she still loves you, I’ll never understand.”
He was right. It would be easier if he killed me. But then his words sunk in and hope sparked like a flicker of light in the dark of a nightmare. Her heart… It was mine.
He kicked me, but I was too high on the realization that Ivy’s heart was still mine. She still loves me.
“I will fucking end you and your entire family. Tell Juliette I’m coming for her too for betraying her best friend.” His voice cracked on the words, his sister’s pain as raw as if it were his own. “We’ll never forgive you. Any of you DiLustros.”
That makes two of us. But as I said before, I wasn’t a good man, and I refused to give my wife up. I physically couldn’t.
So I would fight for her. It had nothing to do with the Murphy brothers. My loyalties lay firmly with the only woman who’d ever accepted me for what and who I was. All my faults and invisible scars. She loved—possibly still did—all of me.
Aemon’s face hardened. “If I ever see you near my sister again, I’ll kill you.”
Just the idea had my stomach churning all over again.
“Or we can make a business arrangement,” I offered, coughing out blood and wiping my shirt sleeve over my face.
He shook his head. “You have nothing of interest to us, not unless you’re ready to offer up your brother and his scheming wife.”
I wasn’t proud to admit—to myself at least—that if I didn’t have an ace card, I would consider offering him precisely that.
“How about something better?”
He scoffed. “Such as?”
Shifting to kneel on my knees, I gripped both my hips with white-knuckled fists. “A way to smuggle your product into continental Europe.”
He stilled. “Who said we want a way in there?”
I shrugged. “It’s what got your athair into bed with Sofia. He always wanted to expand, but she double-crossed him.” Surprise flashed across his expression. It wasn’t a well-known fact. There were only three individuals who knew that fact, and two were now dead. How did I learn it, you might ask? I hacked into my dear great-grandmother’s database that she kept away from her regular businesses. It was one of the most code-protected pieces of information I’d ever encountered. “She got knocked up, my guess on purpose, and instead used his little corner of coastal Ireland to move flesh from Europe to Russia and the States.”
I watched Aemon process the information, seconds stretching into minutes.
“And what do you want in return?” Before I could answer, he added, “Not my sister.”
It was a matter of saying the right thing. Words were currency in these parts. “Of course, if your sister doesn’t want me, I won’t force her.”
“Get me the contacts and a way to move my product,” he gritted. “And get me the dog my sister wants.”
He shot one last disgusted glance in my direction before he left. The door banged shut, and I knelt there, staring out the window for what felt like hours while a single thought played on repeat.
I planned on taking what was mine if it killed me. I’d get on my knees and get my wife back and show her exactly how sorry I was.
I couldn’t live without her light.
Three weeks of pure hell.
I didn’t know how to get rid of this pain, this edginess beneath my skin, without resorting to violence. But for Ivy, I’d try anything.
It was how I’d found myself in Ireland, with my binoculars and a pair of Wellingtons, reduced to collecting intel from Murphy Castle’s tree line like some Peeping Tom.
But as per usual, after trekking an hour each way through the woods, I only glimpsed my wife when she passed a window or stepped onto her balcony with her afternoon tea. I didn’t fucking like it. Why couldn’t she come onto the grounds and enjoy some fresh air?
“You look like shit.” Dante sank into the chair opposite of me outside the dingy little inn on the outskirts of Dublin.
“Why are you here?” I muttered, my eyes locked on the fire flickering in the massive fireplace, not bothering to look up at him. “Aren’t you breaking some mafia alliance or some shit?”
“No more than you are,” he pointed out. “Besides, the Irish pricks know I’m here. They called me.”
Now that piqued my interest. “What about?”
Dante arched his eyebrows. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Hm, let’s think about it.” I groaned. God, please rid me of my annoying family. “My wife killed their father, which, somehow, they’ve come to terms with. My brother is lurking on their territory. And no, before you ask, they haven’t come to terms with that.”
“I don’t have time for this. Get to the point,” I spat. I’d been in a foul mood since my wife left me, so it was best Dante stayed away. Unless he wanted to die.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “From where I’m standing, you have nothing but time. You haven’t been to Philly in weeks, apparently happy letting the Corsicans poach your territory.”
It would seem among this clusterfuck, I forgot to mention the agreement I reached with Sébastien. No matter. I didn’t give a shit about anything anymore.
I picked up my glass of Macallan whiskey and shot him a dry look. “Dante, whatever it is you have to say, do it quickly and then get lost. I’m a busy man.”
I drained the whiskey in one gulp. “First things first, Wynter asked me to deliver your package.”
It didn’t surprise me that she sent someone in her stead. Basilio mentioned she had been feeling sick in these early weeks of her pregnancy. I just wished she’d sent her husband rather than my brother. At least if I decided to kidnap my wife, Bas would be on board. Dante not so much.
“Thanks.”
“Jean-Baptiste teamed up with Bogdan.”
I arched my brow. “Your point?”
“Fuck, brother. We can’t have the Serbian mafia roaming Philly, and Jean-Baptiste is up to no good. Rumor is he’s running an underage prostitution ring.”
Now that perked me up. Finally, a good excuse to dish out some beatings. Maybe I’d pop back to my city and torture Jean-Baptiste a bit. Fuck, that sounded like a good plan, but first, I had to go back and get a glimpse of her .
I stared at my empty glass, wishing the alcohol would numb these feelings. It was so much better when I felt nothing.
“It’s still morning,” Dante remarked, nodding at my empty tumbler. “Don’t you think it’s a bit early for that?”
I didn’t give two fucks.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
He stared at me, then rolled his eyes. “Not funny.”
“I thought it was.”
Dante’s face was calm, but disappointment washed over him and slammed into me. “This is not how you’re going to get her back.”
I drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair, contemplating whether I should have another shot of whiskey. “And pray tell. How do I get her back? Or maybe your wife knows?”
“For Christ’s sake. Between both of you moping like you’re headed for your own funerals, I’m going to lose my fucking cool.”
I drummed my fingers on the glass. “When did you get so fucking dramatic?”
“Since I’ve been getting daily calls from the Irish pricks threatening to kill our entire family, since my wife’s routine of crying herself to sleep began, and since my brother has given up on life altogether. Like I told Juliette, crying—or in your case, stalking—won’t fix this. Do something.”
Fuck, I needed another drink. I raised my hand and flagged the waiter-slash-inn owner for a refill. He appeared within a minute. At least he understood the assignment.
“Christian, are you even listening?”
I snorted. “The whole fucking inn is listening.”
Dante’s face fell and he stood up. “Fair warning: if they catch you on their property or territory after tomorrow, they’ll kill you.”
My jaw clenched and a vein throbbed in my temple. I downed my whiskey and got to my feet. Hope flickered on my brother’s face, but my next words instantly extinguished it.
“I guess I better make the most of tonight.”
I shrugged on my jacket. There was no time to waste; I had a promise to keep.
For better or for worse, she was my wife, and while she might not want to be around me right now, I’d be there for her.