Chapter 3
EILISH
He didn’t see you.
You had your hood up.
The cameras were disabled.
He does. Not. Know.
I’ve repeated these four lines to myself over and over like a mantra ever since I ran down 5 th Avenue last night.
I breathed them in and out fervently, like a prayer, as I lay wide awake in my bed all last night in the Upper East Side brownstone where I grew up.
They’ve been on a constant loop all day today as I went to morning classes.
It hasn’t done a thing to help.
My hands are shaking. My skin feels too tight for the pressure in my veins. My eyes dart side to side with every step, as if I’m constantly waiting for Gavan to lunge out at me from behind every tree or corner to murder me for smashing his father’s priceless egg.
I shiver as I replay the stabbing jolt of pure fear when he grabbed me, and the terrible, sick-making sensation of the egg slipping from my fingers.
To my son. All of my love .
Dread pools in my stomach as I shuffle out of building that houses the market strategies class I just completely zoned out through. This is not good. Like, it could start an all-out war not good.
Except, he didn’t catch me last night. He wasn’t waiting for me at my house, or at school this morning, because—
He didn’t see you.
You had your hood up.
The cameras were disabled.
He does. Not. Know.
I keep saying it as I head off to go meet Callie and Dahlia for lunch. It still doesn’t do a thing to calm the jangling, twitchy feeling of impending doom screaming inside my head.
* * *
I’m a block away from the restaurant Calliope on the Upper West Side, Callie’s all-time favorite Greek spot in New York that she swears isn’t due to the fact that it’s literally her name, when my phone rings. I glance down, my brows drawing together when I see my uncle’s name on the screen.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
Though they were technically married—for the second time—six months ago, Cillian and Una are just now finally taking the time to escape for a real honeymoon. Currently, they’re about a week into a month-long stay at a castle somewhere in Ireland.
Of course those two wouldn’t go to a beach resort like normal people. Of course Mr. and Mrs. Donnie Darko are spending their honeymoon in a 13 th -century tower somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, in County freaking Kildare of all places.
Cillian chuckles. “I just wanted to check in. Everything good?”
I swallow thickly. “Mm-hmm. Great.”
“Great.” He clears his throat. “Actually, I’m not just calling to chat. We need to talk.”
My heart drops. I can feel my face go white. A naked chill rips down my spine as I come to a dead stop on the sidewalk.
“ Oh ?” I choke.
Oh God, he knows. He knows I’ve basically thrown our family into war with the freaking Reznikovs by breaking into —
“Do you and Brooks McKinnley still talk at all?”
The panic from a second ago evaporates. Or rather, is drowned in the tidal wave of disgust and churning anger simply hearing that fucking name brings out in me.
“What?” I blurt, my vision dotting. “No,” I mutter coldly. “Not at all.”
Not since that night, four years ago.
“You dated for a while in high school.”
It’s not a question. He knows this.
Cillian didn’t raise us. He didn’t even live on the same continent as us.
Nor is he remotely the warm and fuzzy type of uncle who keep up with things like boyfriends and goings-on in our lives because he wants to chat about it.
No, he keeps up with those sort of things because he’s a methodical, calculating machine more than he is a man.
The most human I’ve ever known him to be is since he’s been with Una.
Even so, he was more of a father to Neve and me than Declan— may he burn in hell —ever was.
When I don’t respond, he continues.
“You know his father, obviously?”
I swallow. Yeah. I know him. As if it would be possible to know Brooks McKinnley and not hear—usually from him, repeatedly—about his father. Senator Harrison McKinnley is very wealthy, extremely powerful, and a favored probable pick for a presidential candidate in another election cycle or two.
He’s also, by all accounts, just as much of a slimy douchebag as his son.
“I do.”
“And have you heard that Senator McKinnley has recently assumed the chairman position on the newly minted Senate Committee on Organized Crime?”
I nod to nobody in particular. “Also yes.”
“I figured as much.” I can hear the slow intake of air as he draws on the vape he’s been using lately to quit cigarettes.
My brows knit. “So…what’s up?”
“I want you to know it kills me a little to have to even bring this up to you, Eilish.”
He sighs heavily.
“Brooks and his father reached out to me last night to posit the idea of you and Brooks marrying.”
The breath leaves my body in a rush. My knees buckle, the very ground under my feet sways, and it feels as if a knife has been jammed between my ribs.
“Eilish.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” I’m finally able to mumble.
“This is a question, not a decree. I just want to get a read on how you might feel about this. That’s all .”
I nod, my mouth dry as the events of that awful night rush through my head. As my body remembers, and curls in on itself. As fury rises like bile in my stomach.
I clear my throat, shoving the nightmares from my head.
“With Harrison being the chair of the organized crime Senate committee, it’s either a threat, or an olive branch,” I begin.
“I agree,” Cillian growls.
“And given Brooks’ and my…” I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting back the urge to puke. “ History , I’d bet on the olive branch.”
“You should know this isn’t the first time this idea has been floated.”
My mouth twists with nausea. “Seriously?”
“Yes. It came up before, when you were still in high school. Something tells me Senator McKinnley is more than a little interested in aligning himself with a family like ours.”
“As a shakedown, or for mutual benefit?”
Cillian grunts. “I’m guessing the latter.
He’s ambitious to a fault. Guys like him are never satisfied.
Even being a goddamn Senator and Presidential favorite in a few years isn’t enough.
I don’t know if it’s ego, greed, a lust for power, or all three, but I think the good Senator wants to get his hands a little dirty.
And given the position he’s just moved into, and the sort of information he may be able to offer us—”
“It makes sense,” I blurt out, mechanically. And suddenly, armor, mask, and all, I’m slipping right into the role I play in my family: the smart, good, crossed T’s and dotted I’s, logical Eilish.
Cillian sighs. “You really are the business-minded one, aren’t you.”
“I’m just looking at it objectively. To align our family with that sort of power, especially if he’s probably going to be president? That’s just smart.”
Cillian doesn’t say anything for a full fifteen seconds.
“To be clear, I am not asking you to do this.”
“I—”
“And this isn’t a decision we have to make today. I just wanted to float it in your direction. We can talk more about it later. Even if ‘later’ means after Una and I get back.”
I nod in a daze. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
“Everything’s fine, though?”
“Mm-hmm!” I smile wryly. “Say hi to Una for me.”
“Will do. Talk to you soon.”
After I hang up, I stare at the phone for another few seconds.
This is my fate. After all, despite all my schooling, and excellent grades, and early acceptance to a prestigious business school, I am still at my core a mafia princess.
And this is the fate of mafia princesses: marriage as a bargaining chip. For power. For peace. For allies.
I mean, Neve did it, out of a sense of duty and loyalty to our family, marrying Ares to stop a war between us and the Drakos family. I should do the same.
The difference is, Ares turned out to be Neve’s soulmate. Brooks McKinnley is not, and never will be, that to me.
He’ll always just be the man who hurt me.
Cillian’s words and flashes of the Brooks nightmare are still churning in my head as I step into the restaurant.
“Over here!”
I turn to the voice, quickly shoving all of that somewhere into the recesses of my mind as I smile at Callie and Dahlia and head over to their table.
Dahlia gives me a weak smile as she pushes a plate of baklava my way. Given that the sticky dessert is legendary at this place, I know it’s a peace offering for ratting me out to Callie.
“Mate, I’m so fucking sorry.”
I could try to stay mad. But honestly, it’s a little impossible to do that when you’re talking about Dahlia Roy.
The daughter of a French housekeeper and a Saudi billionaire who abused and impregnated said housekeeper, she’s honestly a force of nature of a human being—fearless, unshakable, and very smart.
She’s also absolutely gorgeous, with her mother’s green eyes and freckles and her father’s dark hair and tan complexion.
She’s also even smaller than I am, which is saying something, and when that’s combined with that posh little English accent of hers, it’s almost too cute to stand.
All the same, I glare at her as I sit across from them, because I feel I should at least make her squirm a little .
“Honestly, I dragged it out of her,” Callie shrugs, sipping her overly milky and, knowing her, probably way too sweet iced coffee.
“Bullshit.”
“No, really—”
“It was me,” Dahlia pouts, ever truthful to a fault. “I was just really worried about you.”
“Well, she’s not in jail,” Callie mutters, eyeing me. “You didn’t get arrested, right? You never texted me back about that.”
I roll my eyes to cover the chill that ripples down my back. “No, I wasn’t arrested.”
Dahlia chews on her lip. “Did you…I mean, the initiation…”
“It was a bust,” I mumble. I haven’t actually heard from Britney today. But given that I never checked in with her last night, or sent her any proof about the egg, I think it’s safe to say she’s used my application to the Crown Society for toilet paper by now.