29. Darragh
Chapter 29
Darragh
L ess than four hours later, Rowan and I are on a private plane to Halifax.
“So. You’re engaged. Should we drink to celebrate?” Rowan tips his head towards the bottle of whiskey and glasses beside us. We’re seated on tan leather seats with a table between us.
I don’t even know if this is something to celebrate. For me, getting married was essentially considered a death sentence up until now. Tying myself to a woman who could influence me, change me, break me…
It’s stupidity of the highest order.
But I can’t see any other choice anymore. Valentina’s barely done shit besides hate me and come for me and somehow that was already enough to trap me.
Trap me in this fucking mess where I’m obeying her father’s commands like a dog.
I don’t bother answering. And I don’t bother drinking, either. I’m not going to get a lick of fucking sleep for however long this Halifax business takes, so I figure I better keep my head clear other ways.
The flight from Toronto to Halifax is only a little over two hours. We land on a private runway outside the city. As soon as we’re off the plane with our stuff, the change in the air hits me. Salt.
The first time I ever came out east and saw the ocean, I thought I was back in Ireland.
Rowan’s arranged for a car to be ready for us. We put our stuff in the trunk and he gets in the driver’s side. I have some calls to make.
Before I can actually make one, my phone rings.
I glance down at the incoming call as Rowan begins to drive, and I let out a short breath of a laugh. Of course, Grandda would be calling me now. He could probably fucking sense how much of a mistake his grandson was making from all the way across the ocean. I swipe on the call icon and raise the phone to my ear.
“Hello, Grandda.”
“Darragh.”
Every time I hear his voice, his accent – so much stronger than mine – a cutting nostalgia takes hold. My time in Ireland was not particularly good.
But it made me into the fine specimen of the monster I am today.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask, looking out the car’s window. Endless green, stained black by the bleeding night.
“Heard you were headed out east.”
“Keeping tabs on me then, are you?”
“O’Reilly let me know you were coming out to see him.”
O’Reilly is one of my grandda’s oldest and most trusted Canadian contacts. He helped me find my feet out here.
“We’ve got business in Halifax.”
Grandda grunts with interest.
“What kind of business?”
“Business with the port.”
How much should I bother telling him? I don’t suppose there’s any sense in hiding things now. He’ll find out I’m engaged soon enough.
“I’m cutting a deal with the Sicilians.”
There’s silence for so long on the other end that I think the line may have gone bad. But then there’s the whistling inhale through a nose that’s been broken one too many times.
“What kind of deal?”
“Helping them move product through the port.”
This time, it’s an actual whistle I hear on the other end.
“Shit,” he says. “How much of that pie are you getting?”
“In terms of money?”
“Of course, in terms of money,” he scoffs. He gives a gruff laugh. “What other terms are even worth consideration?”
I want to laugh, too. If he only knew.
“I’m not getting paid.” I say it out loud and realize I truly don’t give a shit that I’m not getting any money out of this deal.
“What?”
He sounds just as shocked – and, frankly, appalled – as Vinny did when he asked me why I’d do this out of the goodness of my heart when I don’t have one.
“The Titones have something else I want.”
“What the fuck else could the fucking Sicilians have that you want?”
A siren.
“An alliance.”
“The fuck you need an alliance with them for?”
“Russians are getting uppity in Toronto. Bikers getting frisky in Montréal. We can support each other.”
“Support each other,” he says with a damning sort of irony. “Yeah. And who’s gonna support you when Vinny Titone stabs you in the fucking back?”
“I have good enough reason to believe he won’t do that.”
“Oh? And what reason might that be?”
“Because then he’d be down one very rich and powerful son-in-law.”
Quiet swearing. Rowan takes a turn through dark, rolling countryside. I wait.
“You’re marrying that Titone girl. The blonde one.”
“She’s a brunette, actually.”
What I wouldn’t give to bury my hands, my face, in those strands right now.
“Darragh…”
“It’s a political alliance,” I say, tension snapping throughout my back. My temples ache. “Nothing more.”
Nothing more but obsession come to fruition. Nothing more than needing to own her in all ways. Nothing more than maybe even losing myself in the process and knowing there’s nothing I can fucking do to change it now.
“I’ve warned you,” Grandda growls. “This is folly, mo gharmac . You’re already making deals for the Sicilians out east and you’re not even getting a piece of that action? And to top it all off, they’re paying you with a bride?” His voice goes hard. Hard as when he told me to get back up after he hit me. “I taught you better than that.”
Yeah, well. He never taught me what to do when your enemy’s daughter sinks her claws into you…
And never quite lets go.
“Like I said. It’s political.”
“You’re just like your da,” he spits out, and for too long a moment all I can see in my own reflection in the car window is my father’s mottled face above me, hanging from a beam. “I warned him, too. Just like I’ve warned you. Don’t do something stupid, Darragh.”
He hangs up just as Halifax appears in the distance.
I grip my phone so hard I’m half-surprised the glass doesn’t shatter and split open the side of my face. Lights and signs dance in the distance, but I barely see them with the rage smoking across my vision.
“Boss?” Rowan says a few minutes later when I’m still staring forward, still clutching my phone in a death grip against the side of my head. I snap my fingers open, knuckles cracking, and let the phone fall.
I don’t have the time – or the room in my head – for this shit.
I have a port to secure.