18. Chapter 18
Grace
“It’s going to be okay, Grace. You can do this.
You’re a grown-ass woman, and you can’t get in trouble anymore.
You’re fine.” My hand shook on the doorknob.
Opening the front door I had opened an infinite number of times in my life suddenly felt impossible.
I knew what was waiting on the other side of it. I took a deep breath.
One, two, three.
“There she is!” My mom came rushing from the dining room, and my ears started to burn. Had they been talking about me? When I saw my brothers and Enzo exchange glares behind her, it was all the answer I needed.
“Sorry I’m late.” I gave my mom a hug, kissing each of her cheeks. “It was a long day at work.” And I didn’t want to face the inevitable.
My mom waved her hand to dismiss the apology. “Oh, honey, you know it’s fine.” I knew it wasn’t fine. I knew they were standing around waiting for me, and when Aurora and Nellie walked out of the kitchen with platters of food for the dining table, I knew they had been waiting too long.
“It’s absolutely not fine.” Giaco shrugged Enzo’s hand off his shoulder to step forward. He postured over me like I was one of his captains and was in trouble. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?” My voice was shriller than I anticipated. “Nothing is wrong with me!”
His chest heaved with frustration that was reflected on Ronan’s face next to him. It was chilling that Enzo was the calmest when he was normally the one known for being so easily riled up. “Do you want to try that again?”
“What, you all beg me to date someone, and then I do and you don’t like my boyfriend, so suddenly, I’m a big fuck up?” I willed my breath to stop shaking before it made its way into my voice. Ronan stepped forward.
“Of course we don’t like your fucking boyfriend,” he growled in a tone that made my stomach spin itself into knots. “You knew we wouldn’t like him, didn’t you?” Of course, I did.
I crossed my arms and cocked my head to the side. “If you don’t like my boyfriend, then maybe you shouldn’t also date him.”
“Grace, you better watch yourself.” Giaco only ever gave one warning.
This time, I was willing to call his bluff.
I puffed my chest out and stepped forward, triggering a nervous response from both Nellie and Aurora.
They set the platters down and hurried to join us, each looping their arm around my brothers to calm them down.
When neither of them relaxed, the tension in the room grew impossibly thicker.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?” Nellie asked, patting Ronan’s forearm. “Our wedding was perfect. Nothing bad happened. Can’t we just all calm down a little bit and hear her out? He seems nice.”
“Stay out of it, Nellie.” When Ronan snapped at her, she dropped her arm and stepped back, clearly not willing to put up with the sharpness of his tongue. Even as he addressed her, his glare didn’t leave me. “We need to talk to our sister.”
I looked at my mom, hoping she would step in and end the conversation like she had so many times.
She was historically the peacekeeper—the one who refused to allow an argument to ruin a family dinner.
What did it mean that she wasn’t stepping in tonight?
Instead, she quietly stood off to the side, almost pretending she couldn’t hear the cross lecture I was going to get.
You two look so cute together.
“Do you understand how serious this is? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Giaco asked, like he was already planning my funeral.
“Connor wouldn’t hurt me.” I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
Ronan rolled his eyes, and when he stepped forward, the temperature around me dropped, like he brought an angry cold front with him.
I held back a shiver, feeling it tear through my core in a nervous rush instead.
“And what if he hurts your family?” he asked, starting to circle me like a shark. “What if he has hurt your family?”
“He’s not like that.” I believed with everything I had that Connor wasn’t like the Cassidys.
“You sound awfully confident for a little girl who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. This life isn’t a safe one. It’s dangerous, Grace, and I want you to stay as far away from it as possible.” Giaco pursed his lips in a way that dared me to argue with him.
“You know if he does, I’ll kill him.” Enzo cracked his knuckles, like he was tempted to do so anyway. He wiggled his brow with an even mix of frustration and excitement—like he welcomed the challenge.
“He won’t! And I’m not a little girl!” My heartbeat pounded defensively against my eardrum, and it felt like my mom’s large dining room was shrinking around us—like the vaulted ceilings were half the height.
Giaco grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose angrily and shutting his eyes. Ronan stepped forward, taking a deep breath that didn’t remove the irritation from his face. “Grace, do you know how stupid you’re being about this?”
“Stupid? Stupid!” My jaw dropped, and I cringed when my voice cracked. “You don’t even know him!”
“We know enough to know he’s dangerous.” Ronan was convinced whatever he knew about Connor was more accurate than the version of him I’d come to know—the Connor who was as protective as he was possessive, who brushed my hair out of my face with his fingertips like I was made of porcelain. That man would never hurt me.
“So. Are. You,” I huffed.
“He isn’t remotely as dangerous as I can be.” Enzo used his right hand to punch the palm of his left.
“You’re not even listening to me!” I threw my hands in the air. What was the point of continuing the conversation? “You’re so set on hating Connor. Do you even care what I want?”
My mom and sisters-in-law were silent while all three men looked at each other and back to me. “No,” they all said at the same time.
“I can’t believe this,” I grumbled under my breath. I no longer had an appetite, and where my nerves had been before I walked into the house, there was only anger. Giaco’s face was like stone, but Ronan sighed, letting his slip just slightly. He was always the first.
“Listen, we only care that you’re safe. He’s not safe.” He tried offering me a gentle smile I assumed was supposed to show me they were just trying to be good brothers, but I scoffed.
I shook my head. “No, you don’t give a shit about safety. Not at all. You care that I obey you without question.” My eyes started to sting with tears I was determined not to cry. “Not anymore. I make my own decisions.”
“Not when it comes to this.” Giaco was curt, and I resisted the urge to stomp my foot, knowing it would only set me back.
“Seriously?” I shrieked. “This is so unfair! Aurora and Nellie both married dangerous men, didn’t they? I mean, for Christ’s sake, women burned their bras in the nineteen-whatevers for this!”
All three men tilted their head to the side and lifted a brow like they had choreographed discernment. “What the hell are you talking about?” Ronan asked.
“They burned their bras for the right to vote, not the right to get themselves killed fucking around with the Irish mob.” Giaco narrowed his eyes. “You have the right to vote. You don’t have the right to risk your life with this guy. Break up with him.”
“No.” I turned around, taking a bold step in the opposite direction of the meal at the table—the one my mother hadn’t surprisingly demanded our attention toward yet.
Maybe she was as mad as they were, or at least torn between having a daughter who was disgracefully single and one who was supposedly in danger. “I have to go.”
“Grace,” Ronan said while I dodged his reach for my arm.
“Where are you going?” my mom spoke up for the first time since I’d walked in, and I refused to turn around. I knew the disappointed look on her face would convince me to stay for a meal I had no desire to eat anymore. “It’s family dinner!” she called again when I opened the door.
I shook my head and took the first step over the threshold. “I’m not hungry.”
“Grace.” Her voice was more stern that time, but I didn’t stop.
“Sorry, Mom.” I looked back over my shoulder at the tornado of tension swirling inside the doorway. “But I’m not staying here so they can treat me like a child.”
“Grace!” my mother yelled again. Behind her, I could hear Giaco grumbling with frustration the whole neighborhood could probably feel.
“She’ll be back. She’ll do the right thing.”