EPILOGUE
Ava – One Year Later
M y finicky son Alex finally falls asleep in his crib. I turn and bend down over his brother’s crib and lay a tender kiss on his sweet-smelling skin. “Good night, Luce.”
The name Alexander for my brother was never questioned, but I got flack for naming my other son Lucien after my father. True, he wanted to use me to pay his debts, but it’s tradition, and I didn’t want to be haunted by that name for the rest of my life. Aunt Helena approved since my cousin Lucia is a derivative of his name, too.
Griffin didn’t insist on an Irish name for his sons, as I thought he would. There are so many Irish males in our world between his brothers, his cousins, and his best friends the O’Rourkes.
All the good names have been taken.
Griffin’s father sadly passed away right after Alexander and Lucien were born. He got to hold my sons one time. Da Quinlan left this world with three granddaughters, four if you include Darcy, and three grandsons, one with his name.
Ma Norah refuses to move out of the Astoria mansion, even though her sons don’t like her living there alone. Personally, I think she loves the break and having the place to herself after raising six kids and then spending many years tending to her sick husband.
Norah Sullivan Quinlan isn’t going down a grieving widow. She, Clara O’Rourke, and Griffin’s Aunt Freye, Trace and Rhys’ mother, are going on a cruise next month!
We never had a honeymoon, but we’re traveling to Ireland as a family next summer with his mother. Griffin threatened that if I didn’t learn to drive by then, he was kidnapping me for a few days and teaching me on those windy roads in the Irish countryside.
A cruise, Ireland, right now, I just want my bed. And my husband.
Exhausted and drained, I amble up one flight of stairs to our primary suite. We converted the bedroom right below ours into a nursery with cornflower blue walls and thick white molding. I furnished it with a combination of modern black and white wooden furniture.
Faint lighting on the risers keeps me steady until I feel something soft under my bare feet. Thinking I stepped on a plush toy or a sock, I reach down to snag it. Rubbing it between my fingers, the velvet texture piques my interest.
It’s a petal.
A red rose petal.
Then I glance down and see the steps are covered with deep red rose petals creating a path that leads up to my bedroom.
Then the date hits me. It’s one year since the night of Rand Miller’s death. The night we found out we had these two beautiful boys coming into the world.
I’d already known Griffin and I would stay married, but hearing those heartbeats sealed the deal. I’d asked for a proposal with roses and chocolate before any of that and had forgotten about it, honestly. So much has happened that these small details get lost.
Most important in the months since Miller’s death was the CVM cult completely bought the story of his suicide. His father publicly announcing Rand’s struggles and vulnerability earlier the same day left little doubt that Rand Miller would end his own life instead of facing shame and accountability.
Shane was able to wipe out any cyber evidence that Miller targeted me for destruction, removing any hint of a motive.
As I climb the carpeted steps, the petals double and triple in amount, until they’re blanketing the entire landing leading to my bedroom. I open the door, and the room is bathed in candlelight from fragrant rose-scented candles, their flames flickering willowy shadows against the walls.
Griffin stands in the center of the room, dangerously sexy in an expensively cut deep gray tailored suit and holding a tray of...
Chocolate-covered strawberries.
“How long have you been planning this?” I smile, close the bedroom door, and saunter up to him.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I want in my mouth first, his cock or a strawberry. I know I’m getting both.
“Since you mentioned it.” He teases me with the tray piled high in dark, milk, and white chocolate shell-coated options over rich, juicy strawberries and different toppings.
“I mentioned it over a year ago.” I curl my fingers over the edge of the tray, trying to choose.
“When it comes to you, I remember every detail since the first night we made love eight years ago, siren. Remembering your request for strawberries and roses from a year ago was easy. I was waiting for the right time.”
I’d had a difficult pregnancy and spent the last three months on partial bedrest. That curbed our sexual activities. Griffin’s been wonderfully patient with me.
We’ve made love since the boys were born, but I’ve been self-conscious about my body. Gone is my SEAL-training buff physique. I’ve heard some women just never lose the baby fat.
I still teach classes at the O’Rourke Women’s Center and hope my mom-bod gives me even more street cred with the women I train. I look just like most of them now. Many are single mothers who struggle to balance their lives. Some are still with their rotten husbands who cruelly put down their bodies. After giving birth to their kids. Disgusting.
That’s where the similarities end. Griffin worships me. So, I fill my ladies’ wells with praise and encouragement.
I smile and reach for a dark chocolate-covered strawberry.
“Allow me, my beautiful wife.” Griffin snags it from the tray and brings it to my lips. “Open for me, siren.”
I take a bite, and the sweetness of the strawberry mixed with sea salt sprinkles over dark chocolate nearly brings me to my knees. Where I’ll be in a moment anyway, going down on the man I am madly in love with.
“Those are mine.” I point to the other dark-coated treats. “You eat the rest.”
“I’d rather eat you.” Griffin puts down the tray and kisses my neck. “I need you naked and spread for me, wife.”
“God, I want that, too.” I swallow the treat and start to strip.
“I’ll feed you more in the bathtub,” he says, letting me undress him out of his suit.
When we’re both naked, I lower to the carpet to take Griffin into my mouth, where I pleasure him until he’s panting and pulling my hair.
“Christ, that’s good. Too good.” He lifts me and brings me to the bed. Without any kind of warning, he buries his face between my legs. “I already loved this pussy, now I love it even more because my sons came into the world, right here. I made them here, and they were delivered to me from the same place. All from this amazing body.”
He peppers kisses on the faint stretch marks across my stomach while his fingers tease me. My fingers stroke his hair and I smile, at the matching raven tattoo he got behind his right ear for me.
“Please, Griffin,” I beg him to finish me off.
He licks me to a fever until I’m sobbing with pleasure.
“I love it when you come in my mouth.” Griffin climbs on top of me and enters me smoothly, but soon pistons his hips in a rhythm that makes me lose my mind again.
“Fuck, this is so good. I love you,” he breathes against my neck.
“I love you back, brat.” I use my favorite nickname for him.
“Now you’re in trouble,” he groans and picks up speed, a pace that finishes us both.
Panting and sweaty, he rolls over but pulls me on top of him. I’m on birth control so we can plan our family going forward. I love my sons and want a few years with just them until we expand our brood. Which I know we will.
Griffin was meant for this even if he didn’t know it and never saw himself getting married. Although he confessed that he lived with the idea of being alone easily for years because he never could get me out of his mind.
Griffin is secure on his throne and contractors break ground in a few months on the new UN building. A COO manages much of the business end in the office with Kai Powers while Griffin makes surprise CEO appearances. He prefers to spend his nights on the streets with Connor and the enforcer team.
Our arranged marriage created a solid peace between the Irish and Greeks, but an Albanian cell has slithered in and has been causing trouble. Just another day in the mafia world.
“How about that bath?” Griffin asks, kissing my nose.
“Yes, please.” Despite my body feeling like it weighs a ton, Griffin lifts me easily.
We’re steps from the bathroom when his phone rings which it usually does right around now. The life of a busy emperor controlling his empire.
I think he won’t answer it, given this is our special time, but with a nose wrinkle, he swipes the screen. “Connor, what’s up? I’m in family mode with Ava.”
Connor’s voice comes through the phone, and when Griffin’s face falls, I lean in to listen.
“I have Garrett Donnelly in my tunnel. You should get down here,” Connor says and mutters a summary of what Garrett did that landed him in the Quinlan torture tunnel. “His father already found out and is on the way.”
“Are you sure Garrett sold those guns he said the Feds seized to the Albanians?” Griffin asks, his voice tight.
“My team followed him,” Connor replies. “Shane is going through his phone. Aw fuck, Old Man Donnelly is here already.”
“Put Richard on the phone,” Griffin says.
“Griffin, son, there’s been some kind of mistake.” An older man with a gruff Irish accent cuts into the conversation. “My boy—”
“Your boy was caught red-handed.” Griffin puts the call on speaker so I can listen. “He told me to my face that ATF seized an entire truckload of guns that cost tens of thousands of dollars when he really sold it to the Albanian cell. He’s not a boy. He’s a fucking man. And a thief. You know better than anyone what people like us do to thieves, Mr. Donnelly.”
“Our family goes way back, Quinlan,” Richard Donnelly gets snippy.
Griffin mutes the phone to update me. “Richard worked for the O’Rourkes, too, when Kieran’s father ran the family. They’ve been a thorn in our side forever. We act like friendly rivals on the outside, but Ewan loathes Richard Donnelly.”
“I will pay back whatever you lost,” Richard quickly offers when Griffin unmutes the line. “Let me discipline my son on this one.”
“Not good enough,” Griffin bites out.
Richard stays quiet for a moment and after an audible throat clearing, says, “Then I will offer you something else to prove we’re loyal to you, Quinlan. Can I meet you in your office tomorrow?”
“No. Talk to me now. What do you propose?” Griffin shakes his head like he can’t believe he’s entertaining an alternative to what would be a very harsh and painful punishment for Garrett.
“My daughter Neve,” he says, low and controlled. “She just turned eighteen. She’ll make a fine wife.”
Griffin mutes the phone again. “What the fuck?”
I’m not shocked. History repeats itself. I understand mafia dynamics. Even though I hate the idea of a young girl being forced into marriage. But the Quinlan men are fine human beings.
Even if they are savages on the outside.
“He’s putting his daughter in your hands,” I lend my two cents. “It’s an offering. Collateral. It will keep Garrett honest, knowing at any time you can—”
“We’d never hurt a woman like that,” Griffin snaps.
“Griffin?” Richard’s voice draws my husband’s eyes to the phone. “Are you still there? We’ve had our differences in the past, but you know the value of our pure blood. And Neve is still a virgin.”
Griffin pinches the bridge of his nose. The mention of pure blood twitched my husband’s jaw. There’s more to that Donnelly family. Richard thinks his daughter’s virgin hand in marriage will make up for Garrett’s betrayal.
This should be interesting.
“Put Connor on the phone,” Griffin bites out through clenched teeth. “I’ll have him join us tomorrow and—”
“No. He’s an animal. This torture tunnel is disgusting. I was thinking...Shane would be a good match for my Neve.”
“Hold on.” Griffin gasps, covering the phone. “Fucking fuck.”
“What’s going on? Talk to me.” I gently hold my husband’s face between my palms.
“Shane has a... history with Neve’s older sister, Lennox,” he says.
“Ok,” I whisper, knowing by his reaction something went wrong. “Where is Lennox then? What happened between them?”
“ That’s a long story.” Griffin gets back on the phone. “I’ll be at your house tomorrow, Donnelly. But Garrett stays in my custody until we settle this.” He hangs up and tosses the phone. “I have to pass on that bath, love. I need to have a difficult talk with Shane.”
Thank you for reading the Brutal Collateral, Book One in the Quinlan Empire Series.
Shane’s ‘wrong bride’ Irish Mafia Romance Savage Promises is Quinlan Empire Book 2
(Keep Scrolling for a sneak peek!)
Cormac and Scarlett’s Professor/Student Dark Irish Mafia Romance is Rules of Redemption , Astoria Royals Standalone Edition Book 4