16. Finn
Chapter 16
Finn
“What?” On instant alert, I drop my utensils and reach for my gun as I scan the other tables. “What is it?”
Riley shakes her head, moisture gathering in her eyes.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I made her cry? Again?
“I’m sorry about earlier.” She dabs her eyes with her sleeve. “I know I shouldn’t have called you for help.”
I have absolutely no idea what this woman’s talking about. Not a clue. “What?”
“Troy’s my ex. There’s no reason you should’ve had to get involved with him. I know I… crossed a line.” She blows out a breath. “I should’ve been able to handle him myself, but I just panicked. I?—”
“Riley, stop now before you really piss me.” Checking my rising temper, I gesture to her plate. “Food’s getting cold.”
“What if something bad had happened?” She sniffles, ignoring me. “You could’ve gotten hurt or been arrested. All because of me, when we’re not even…”
“When we’re not what ? A real married couple?” I set my jaw. Those words make my tongue fuzzy.
The frustration on Riley’s face softens to glum resignation. “Right.”
I want to grab her shoulders and shake her. Put her over my knee and spank her. I want to kiss her again, for worrying about these meaningless, insignificant things.
She opens her mouth once more, but I don’t give her a chance to speak.
“Stop. Don’t ever apologize for calling me when you’re in trouble. You did the right thing.”
“What?” Shock manifests on her features as she blinks at me with teary blue eyes.
Beneath the table, my hands curl into fists. If Thomas Brennan were standing in front of me right now, I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself from punching him in the face.
“As long as you’re my wife, even if you’re just filling in, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Those words itch my throat like a cough. Why do I say things like that? And what if I’m not able to keep that promise?
This time, when our eyes meet, the sensation is different. Heat crackles in the air between us. Riley’s eyelids lower to half-mast, her full lips parting as she stares at me. I wonder what’s on her mind when color brightens her cheeks.
All I can think about is Riley’s sex toy. I saw it by accident while supervising the pickup crew at her apartment. When they were removing debris and damaged furniture from her bedroom, I spotted the purple dildo among the discarded things strewn about the floor and kicked it into her linen closet before any of the guys caught me gawking, but…
Images of Riley using that toy on herself keep hardening my cock. I swallow so hard, I have to clear my throat.
She hits me with a shy smile. “I feel the same way.”
I choke. “What?” Surely she can’t read my thoughts.
“As long as we’re in this mess…well, I’ve got your back.”
A strange weightlessness balloons in my chest, like someone’s pumping my lungs with hot air.
For a while after that, we fall into easy silence. Once we clean our plates, the waiter brings us two slices of the key lime pie I’ve been fantasizing about since we walked in.
I love key lime pie. It was my mother’s favorite dessert. She was an avid baker, and everything she made was mouthwatering.
Riley pushes the plate with my slice toward me, and as she pulls her hand back, I catch a tiny whiff of her lavender scent from her wrist. I didn’t miss the lavender candles in her apartment either.
I taste the pie. Tart lime mingles with cream on my tongue. “Why, uh…”
Riley’s eyes pop to mine. The sight of that dessert spoon sliding between her lips shoots a bolt of lust through me, and I have to avert my gaze.
“Why what?” She licks her lips after tasting the tart dessert.
“Why do you like lavender?”
The face she’s making…I’ve seen it before in the interrogation unit. An expression that reads, do I want to tell you the truth or not?
She’s deliberating.
Riley presses a napkin to her lips, cautious and thoughtful, and then answers me in a way I never expected.
“Night terrors.” She sets the napkin down. “I had them when I was really small. They went away as I grew up, but after what happened with Troy and Red Hill three years ago, they came back…”
Night terrors. My chest twinges when I imagine the toddler version of Riley, shivering, her little face scrunched in fear.
“Lavender has calming properties by itself, but it works especially well for me because it’s also my…my mom’s favorite scent.” She pushes her long hair behind one ear. “She used to be the one to wake me from my nightmares. Anyway, she always smelled like lavender. That’s all.”
I shouldn’t have asked. She won’t even meet my gaze now.
Way to go, jackass.
“Can I ask you something?”
Asking questions is dangerous. What we’re doing right now feels precariously close to… bonding . I need to shut this down, but my curiosity about her overrules my rational thoughts.
“Shoot.”
“It’s about your tattoos.”
A harmless enough conversation topic. “Okay.”
She points to the numbers on my right forearm. “Are these…dates?”
“Anniversaries.”
“They’re only a few days apart.”
The concentration in her eyes lessens my resistance, until I realize I want to tell her the truth. Even though that means she’ll be able to see all of the broken pieces of me.
I glance down at the tattoo that has her fascinated, 11-11-91 and 11-14-91 .
“Got them when I was eighteen.” I still remember how that tattoo parlor smelled of roses and cigarettes. “One for my mom. One for my brother.”
Riley goes quiet and pensive, the way people do when they know someone close to you died. Pity usually pisses me off, but that’s not pity in her eyes. It’s concern.
She drops her gaze. “Your dad told me.”
Confounded, thirteen-year-old-boy fury engulfs me. “ He what ?”
“When we danced at the wedding. He told me then.”
I knew it. I knew my old man told her things he shouldn’t have that day.
“What the hell else did he say?”
“Nothing, I swear.” She offers a small smile. “He just…welcomed me to the family. That’s all.”
I don’t even know how to react to the way she scrambles me up inside.
After a while, she points again. This time, her fingertip touches my skin, lighting a dozen sparks inside me. “What about this one?”
My blood runs cold. I don’t have to glance down to know which tattoo she’s curious about. In this moment, I realize letting her ask about my tattoos is a mistake I’m going to regret.
“Why a marigold?” Her lips lift at the corners.
What am I doing? I never talk to anyone like this. Not about my past, my pain, my secrets…
Who cares? Riley won’t be in your life that long anyway.
That melancholy reminder motivates me to continue this strange honest streak I’m on. Why not? This could be my last opportunity. Harper could return any day, and everything I experience when I look at Riley will disappear from my world.
Just like she will.
“See this?” I point to the inch-long scar next to the tattoo. Rubbing my thumb against the scar always takes me right back to the night I got it. This is one of my only memories of Brianne that remains untouched by regret. “When I was still new as an enforcer, I was assigned to work security at the Diamond Club.”
Riley nods like she remembers too. Like she was there. Maybe she was. It’s easy to forget Riley’s past role as a Gallagher informant.
“And one of the most popular entertainers they had back then was this…smart, funny woman I used to see around sometimes.” Brianne’s blue eyes shine like sapphires in my memory. “We weren’t friends. I didn’t know her personally. But one night, I could tell she was worried about something. Something had her scared.”
Riley perches her chin in her palms.
“I later learned she was being followed.”
“Someone was stalking her?”
I nod. “A Diamond patron kept harassing her after-hours.”
There’s one kill I’ll never regret. Pulled the trigger in that guy’s mouth and slept like a baby.
“So what happened?” Riley’s voice leads me back to the story.
“One night, I went after her, and she stabbed me in the arm.” Still makes me laugh, but I don’t in front of Riley. “She thought I was the one who’d been following her.”
“Why’d you really go after her?”
Wasn’t expecting her to ask me that. “To make sure she was okay.”
Riley listens intently, her blue-eyed stare as big as a child’s at story time
To someone who’s seen and been involved in as many dark, disgusting things as I have, her sweetness steals my breath. I’m a nuclear wasteland, and she’s a wildflower, miraculously unaffected by my toxicity.
She sips her water. “And then what?”
“I asked her to go out with me.”
Begged is more like it , as Brianne liked to say.
Riley whispers, “What was her name?”
“Marigold-Juliet Brianne Vandercluft.” Despite the pain, saying Bri’s name seems right.
Never talking about her makes me feel like I’m six feet under too. But none of the guys knew her very well. Bri never really warmed to them, and she made us get our own place, so talking like this with Riley is the first I’ve really spoken about my late wife in years.
“Was she also a member of the British royal family?” Riley lifts her eyebrows and glances at the table between us. “With a fancy name like that, I mean.”
I chuckle. “She did come from a fancy family.”
“Really? Then…”
I can practically read her mind. “How did she end up dancing at the Diamond?”
Riley waves away the question. “I’m being so nosy. Ignore me.”
“I couldn’t ignore you if I tried.”
Her eyes snap to mine, that same heat from earlier still vibrating between us.
“Your wife.” The words tumble from Riley’s lips as if by accident, her eyes still stirring through mine. “She was a lucky woman.”
Those words sink a sword through my heart.
Riley’s meaning courses through every fiber of my being. She’s trying to give me a compliment, trying to say that something in me is worthy. That doesn’t stop my demons from rising from the depths.
My darkness comes along, tightening my muscles and coiling around my neck like a cobra made of grief, depression, and violence.
“You’re wrong.” Even to me, my voice sounds dark and scary. “Brianne died because of me. She wasn’t lucky.”
My tone shuts Riley up.
Good. She needs to hear this.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Angel. Your sister isn’t lucky to be engaged to me.” I squeeze the dessert spoon in my fist so hard it bends. “And you’re not lucky to be filling in. You all have terrible luck. That’s the only reason any of you ended up with your lives tangling with me . Got it?”
Riley rolls her lips together. While she’s visibly unsettled by my words, unsettled isn’t good enough.
“Do you know what this is?” I snap. She doesn’t move or make a sound in reply. “Answer me.”
She takes in the shaky black ring inked around my wedding finger, then submits her guess with a weak voice. “A widower tattoo?”
“And do you know what this means?”
“That…your wife died?”
“Wrong.” I flex the finger at her. “This tattoo means my wife was brutally murdered . Do you understand?”
Riley swallows but stays silent.
“This tattoo is a sign of vengeance. Only men who avenge their slain wives have it.” I grit my teeth, my scar pulsing. This always happens when I think about the dead man who gave it to me.
Her mouth gapes open. “How?—”
“The kind of ring they give you,” my forehead pinches together as rage courses through me, “depends on how your wife was killed.” I twist my finger at Riley. “You see these ridges?” There are six in all. “They represent the number of pieces her body was cut into.”
Riley gasps and covers her mouth. “I…I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.” I drop the mangled dessert spoon. It clatters on the table. “There’s nothing fucking lucky about being my bride, so don’t ever say something like that to me again.”
We were having a fine night until I torched everything to the ground and incinerated all the lightheartedness.
I shove aside the pang of regret. She’ll be safer now that she knows to keep her distance.
But when I force myself to look at her, I don’t find terror on her face. I find confusion. Like she’s sorting through a theoretical math problem in her mind. She starts playing with her fingers, even biting her lip.
“ What ?”
She jumps as if I’ve caught her red-handed.
Frustration ripples through me. “What the fuck is it?”
“I just…” She clears her throat. “I have another question.”
Oh, for the love of god. “No. No more questions.”
She fidgets with her borrowed wedding ring. “I’ll trade you.”
“Huh?”
“You can ask me as many questions as I ask you. You just have to answer my questions honestly.”
She can’t be serious.
I squint at her and realize I’m wrong. She’s completely serious. What question could be so important that she wants to strike a deal with me? And why doesn’t she seem the least bit afraid of me, even after I turned scary a few minutes ago?
She baffles me.
I release a breath. “What’s your question?”
She starts to fidget with her napkin. “Can I ask why you want to marry Harper?”
“I don’t. Next question.”
When Riley’s jaw hits the table, I realize I’m being an asshole again.
“No offense.”
“What do you mean, you don’t want to marry her?” Riley’s gobsmacked by this, which means she, like all the men in the Gallagher clan, finds it unbelievable that I’m not drooling over Harper Brennan. “Why not?”
For starters, the idea of taking another wife makes me want to claw my own eyes out.
I shrug one shoulder. “Your sister’s not my type.”
“She’s everyone’s type.” If the circumstances were different, I’d laugh at Riley’s indelicate snort. “She’s bubbly, exciting, fun. Do you have an aversion to blonds or something?”
Despite my foul mood, my lips twitch. “No, I don’t have an aversion to blonds.” Hell, Riley’s blond too. They’re identical. Both beautiful women. But with Riley, I feel like I’m fucking soaring, and Harper…well, I don’t feel anything for her.
“So you don’t…I mean, you’re not…in love with her or anything?” Riley’s face pinkens again.
I can honestly say I never expected we’d be having this conversation tonight, though I’m starting to realize the importance of it.
I sit up straighter when I realize how my relationship with Riley pans out from here depends a lot on this conversation. “In love with her? I hardly know her.”
She swallows, and I’m struck by the sudden urge to lick her throat. “You’ve been engaged for months.”
“I can count all the times we’ve been in the same room together on one hand.”
“Okay, well,” Riley pinches that necklace she’s always wearing, “I know it’s an arranged marriage. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t love her or at least aren’t…attracted to her. Crazier things have happened.”
“I swear, Riley, I am not in the slightest bit attracted to your sister. And I’m pretty certain she doesn’t have feelings for me either.”
The waiter walks by, and I stop him to ask for a new spoon. After he comes back with the replacement, I level Riley with my gaze.
Her expression remains skeptical, and I need her to believe the truth in my words.
“One day, my dad comes to me and says he and Thomas have made a mutually beneficial arrangement. That my marriage to Harper will hopefully produce an heir and eliminate any potential problems of marrying an outsider.” I scoop up a bite of my pie, taking a moment to collect my thoughts as I chew. “This…arrangement made both of our fathers happy, so I went along with it.”
Riley hits me with the trickiest question yet. “And when she comes back…you’re still going to marry her?”
Ouch. “I think the better question is whether Harper has any plans to marry me.”
Riley frowns as if that reply doesn’t please her. She presses her lips together, hesitating. “Last one.”
I roll my eyes. “Doubt it.”
She ignores my remark. “Have you…not that it’s any of my business, but…”
“Spit it out. I’m not going to bite.”
Not that I’d be opposed to biting her. Just not here, in the middle of a public café.
She flushes, and I want nothing more than to explore just how far that rosy blush goes. “Have you…you know…been with a lot of women since your last wife?”
My eyebrows fly up my forehead.
Didn’t see that one coming.
“I haven’t slept with any women since Brianne died. Haven’t wanted to.”
Except for you.
Riley startles. “Oh.”
My answer means something to her. I’m just not sure what. “I think it’s my turn to ask the questions.”
She twists the edge of her napkin. “Okay.”
“Tell me more about you.” My voice dives an octave. “Have you dated anyone recently?”
I don’t realize I even care until the question tumbles from my mouth. I have no right to feel so possessive of her, but I do.
Riley shakes her head again. “I, uh, swore off relationships after what happened with Troy.”
A fountain bubbles to life between my ribs. We’ve both been single for the past three years, entirely deprived of others for the same amount of time.
What’s more…since she swore off relationships the same way I did, I must be the first person who’s interested her in all this time, the same way she’s the only one who’s made me feel anything in ages.
I grip the table to stop myself from reaching for her.
I need to stop fantasizing and come back down to Earth. I’m thinking crazy thoughts.
So we’ve kissed a few times. And every occasion was fucking incredible. But Riley’s not part of the mob anymore. If she ever dates again, no doubt it will be normal guys. Non-murdering, non-violent, non-mafia guys. After the last one she was in a relationship with, who could blame her?
I doubt she’s itching for another made man. Ever.
Our sexual chemistry is undeniable, but that’s as far as it goes. That’s as far as it can go. And maybe now is a good time to get that out in the open.
That’s what I’m thinking, but my mouth says, “Type.”
“Hmm?” Riley cocks her head as if she misheard me.
“I want to know the type of guy you like.”
Riley blanches as if I’m holding a gun to her head. “The last guy I liked…” She trails off and piles her spoon and napkin on the dirty plate.
If she starts reminiscing about Dipshit Sullivan, I’m going to break something.
She chews the inside of her cheek. “He’s part of our world.”
A five-alarm fire erupts in my mind. I bite back a growl.
Who the fuck is it?
“Bobby Burns.” All the women used to throw themselves at him. He’s been married for two years, but he could still be the one.
Riley pulls a face that gratifies me more than it should. “That guy isn’t a man. He’s a dog .”
“Patrick Hines.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I barely ever saw Patrick. He didn’t ever live on the estate.”
Her eyes round, and she flinches like she revealed too much.
Shit, that does narrow it down.
In my mind, I picture Riley pretending to be her sister, yakking with my friends in the kitchen this past Sunday.
A red haze creeps across my vision. Those fuckers.
My pulse throbs in my temple. “It’s Rory, isn’t it?”
Riley laughs—actually laughs— in my face. “No.”
“Darren, then.”
Her smile widens. She’s enjoying this.
I want to fuck that smile right off her face.
She gives her head a little shake. “Not into guys with serial killer vibes who play with explosives either.”
I lace my fingers on the back of my neck. Fuck. If it’s not Rory or Darren, that leaves Cian, and that’s the worst news of all. Cian looks like a damn sculpture at the Met. I might as well be Quasimodo compared to him .
“I have to say I’m disappointed.” I exhale. “Cian’s the obvious choice, but I didn’t think you’d pick him.”
Riley’s smile grows even more. She’s rubbing this in.
“It’s not Cian.”
“What?”
Riley leans closer. “I never said it was one of your friends. Besides, I’m not into pretty boys.”
Relief buzzes against my skin. At least the clown my sweet little wife used to like isn’t one of my best friends.
I still want to find out who it is and remove him from this planet.
Our waiter reappears with a deck of playing cards, and Riley takes the opportunity to distract us both, which is for the best. She teaches me a card game she learned from some of the children housing with their mothers at the shelter where she works.
Even though she kicks my ass, I actually laugh and enjoy myself.
It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed something that didn’t involve torture or eating a sweet confection.
I’m having so much fun that the hours fly by, and the next time I sneak a glance at Riley, her face is glowing. Beyond the windows, the city’s reawakening, washing us and the streets outside in a soft haze.
I can’t believe we’ve been here all night, talking and laughing like two regular people without a care in the world.
The more time I spend with Riley, the more time I want to spend with her. And that’s a dangerous thought.
I set the cards down. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Riley’s tucking the cards back into the box when another smile spreads across her face. “Never knew you could laugh.”
“I never knew you were so competitive.” I slide out of the booth, and she follows. “But I should’ve guessed.”
“Why do you say that?”
I smirk, pulling a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. “You never like to give anyone else the last word.”
“Wow. Now I know what you really think of me.”
We’re standing too close together, and my defenses are low.
Somehow, within the last twenty-four hours, I’ve started thinking of Riley as mine. I need to get my head on straight before something bad happens. Again.
I step away from her. “I’ll go get the check.”
She nods. “I’ll wait by the door.”
While I’m at the counter adding a tip and signing the receipt, the door jingles open behind me. I hear Riley talking to the only other patrons this diner has seen since one this morning, and when I turn around, I spot them.
An older couple.
Every thought in my head fades to white.
Elaine and Fitzwilliam Vandercluft.
My former in-laws.