13. Overdue Good News
Chapter thirteen
Overdue Good News
KARA
The phone lands face down on the coffee table after I end the call with Allison Shaughnessy.
Talking to the wife of the disgraced mobster was not on my to-do list for date night. Fitz is spending some one-on-one time with Brice. Rory is running herd on Cormac and the twins are playing with Connor's daughter under his and his wife's watchful eyes.
Each of them has a four-person security detail with them as well, even Fitz.
"Come here." Mick maneuvers my body so my legs are draped over his lap where he sits beside me on the sofa. "That sounded productive."
"Define productive." I groan as he starts to knead the arch of my foot.
My husband has magic hands. Infinitely lethal and capable of giving pleasure with just as much skill.
"Anything that gets your clothes off while the chizzlers are occupied elsewhere."
"So, not that phone call." I relax back against the arm of the couch, reveling in the pleasure of his kneading fingers. "I thought we were eating out tonight."
"We can push our reservations back an hour."
"Once you get me naked, I'm not going anywhere and you know it." My husband of thirteen years does not do quickies.
He wrecks me. Every single time we make love.
One brow arched, he asks, "Is that a bad thing?"
"You know it's not." I sigh out stress I didn't know I was holding. "I'll make you a deal. Order us something we can eat in bed together afterward and I'll happily get naked."
Mick's eyes darken with lust. "Or during."
My core clenches and my clit throbs in trained response to my husband in this mood.
"Or during," I agree.
He lets go of my foot to grab his phone.
I make a sound of protest. "Never mine ordering. I'll do it. You keep doing what you're doing."
His smirk tells me he maybe planned that all along.
Shaking my head, I send a text to the guard at the gate to order from one of my favorite restaurants that does fondue with items cut perfectly to use our fingers for dipping. We have the gate guards make food orders for pickup as an added level of security.
"Allison wants to meet with me and áine." I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the woman's thought process. "Apparently, we're supposed to talk some sense into you and Wraith."
A sexy laugh rumbles out of Mick. "If you haven't managed that in all these years, it's not going to happen now, is it?"
"You don't need sense talked into you," I say more fiercely than I mean to. But no one gets to criticize my husband, even obliquely. "You're perfect just the way you are."
"For you," he says with deep satisfaction. "What's the plan?"
"I'll ask áine to join us here for tea."
"You want to interrogate Allison."
He knows me well.
"She been married to Kenneth longer than you've been married to me.
" I shift my hips, trying to alleviate my growing arousal.
"She'll know things she doesn't realize matter.
Maybe she noticed changes in his routine.
Maybe she overheard conversations. Maybe she knows exactly what he was planning.
" I shrug. "Or maybe she knows nothing at all.
Either way, I'd rather find out before the tribunal than after it. "
Mick's hand slides up my calf, and my legs part of their own volition. He stops at my knee though, his hand hot against my skin.
Wearing a summer dress feels like one of my better decisions right now.
"Do you want to use the talk juice?"
I think about it and nod. "I'll lace her tea with it."
"You're a devious woman, Kara Fitzgerald," he says, his Irish brogue thick. "It's one of the many things I love about ye."
Every single time he says those words to me, they hit my heart. Every single time. Maybe because I spent the first seven years of my marriage sure that he never would.
Now, I know he does and that I'm the only woman he ever could.
My husband's heart beats for me.
"Michael," I breathe as a peremptory knock sounds on the door.
"Who the feck is that?" Mick demands, giving the door a glare that would fell a man.
The knock sounds again at the same time as my phone buzzes with a text notification.
Fi: Open your door!
"It's Fi." I tug my foot from Mick's grasp.
Instead of glaring again, like I expect because coitus interruptus, he smiles. "Finally."
Well, that's not mysterious. At all.
He slides out from under my legs and stands up. "I'll let them in."
Them? Is Zoey with her? And how does Mick know? Fi didn't mention it in her text. In fact, my first thought was that she and her girlfriend had argued again.
I don't have any more time to ponder what's happening because Mick opens the door and Fiona practically bounces into the apartment, Zoey right behind her, her usually stoic face wreathed in smiles.
My breath catches. She looks radiantly happy and my little sister is glowing, practically vibrating with excitement.
I quickly stand, hoping I'm right about what Fiona's here to tell me.
For so long, my little sister had barely spoken above a whisper around anyone outside the family. She carried our grandfather's poisonous words like they were carved into her bones. Good girls didn't get shot. Good girls stayed where they were told.
Then she met Zoey and started changing. Mick's suggestion Fiona attend online therapy led to a lot of healing for my sister too, but love brought light to my sister's eyes
Seeing her now hurts in the best way. Because this bright and happy woman is who she was always supposed to become.
"Kara!" She throws herself into my arms.
I hug her tightly. "What's going on, hon?"
Before she can answer, we both gape in amazement as Zoey pulls my husband into a hug. "Thank you."
"Congratulations," Mick says.
I blink. What does he know that I don't and why does he know it before me?
Zoey glances toward Fiona before looking back at us. "I suppose we should actually tell them."
Fi takes both of my hands. "I'm getting married."
For one ridiculous heartbeat I simply stare at her. Then I squeal.
Actually squeal.
Because for the first time in too many generations to deal with my sister will be the first woman in our family to marry for love and not mob politics.
"Oh my gosh!" I pull her into another warm hug.
She laughs against my shoulder. "I know. I'm so happy, Kara."
"I know, Fi." I kiss her temple. "You deserve to be."
She clings for another second before stepping away.
"When?" I ask, assuming it was just now, but then how did Mick know to congratulate them?
"Zoey finally asked an hour ago after telling me she couldn't answer my proposal yet when I asked her over a week ago." Fiona's voice doesn't reflect even a little anger at that, but there's definitely exasperation there.
"You proposed?" I ask Fiona and then frown at Zoey. "And you waited to say yes?"
Zoey's stoic mafiosa mask slips over her face again. "I didn't have a choice. I needed Miceli's permission."
That brings me up short. I look between them. "Permission? But why would Miceli hesitate. We already have blood ties between our families."
Our cousin Róise married Mick almost six years ago.
Zoey shrugs. "I'm a Costra Nostra made woman. Marriage alliances happen all the time." She glances at Fiona with unmistakable affection. "Marrying someone outside the famiglia isn't the unusual part."
"It's that you won't be bringing Fi into it," I realize.
"Exactly."
Fiona squeezes my hand. "Miceli agreed to make Zoey's assignment to the Shaughnessy Mob permanent."
My eyebrows shoot up. "Really?"
Zoey nods. "He also gave me his word that so long as our families remain allies, he'll never try to use me to spy on the Shaughnessys."
I smile because Fiona is smiling. Because this is everything she wants. Because Zoey loves her enough to ask the Don of the Genovese for permission to do the unthinkable: be seconded to the Irish mob permanently.
But beneath all of that another thought wedges itself into my mind. So long as our families remain allies.
Some caveat.
Zoey must read something on my face because she says quietly, "The truth is, if our families go to war, I'm the first one they'll kill."
Silence settles over the room. Heavy. Painful. Every person standing here understands exactly why. A made soldier who belongs equally to two enemy families belongs to neither.
This is our world.
But Zoey cannot be our enemy, not when she's family.
I look at Mick, my eyes filled with an appeal I don't even think about trying to hide.
He gives me that reassuring smile he reserves for me and our children. "It won't happen."
Zoey looks at him.
"We aren't just allies, we're family, Zoey." His voice is calm, absolute. "That means something to both Miceli and me. As long as he and I are still living, the Genovese and the Shaughnessy clan will never go to war."
Something inside my chest loosens. Not because of what he says. Because of what he doesn't. He's already spoken to Miceli.
Of course he has.
And they made vows between two powerful men leading their own syndicates that they are more than allies. They are family.
He'd made certain the ground beneath Fiona's feet was solid before she'd ever stood on it. It's what he does. He quietly removes dangers before the rest of us even know they exist.
Fi wipes the moisture away from under her eyes and slides and arm around Zoey, holding her beloved close. "I told you he'd say that."
"You did." Zoey slips her own arm around Fiona's waist.
I grin. "So..." I deliberately look at Fiona's left hand and then Zoey's. "No rings?"
They both laugh. "We wanted to pick them out together," Fiona says.
"I'm happy for you," I tell them both. "So happy."
"We are too," Zoey says, emotion making her voice crack for the first time that I've ever heard.
"We should go tell da and Hope," Fiona says.
"And your gran," Zoey adds. "I know all about the box she'll give you before our wedding and I promise you'll never need it."
My heart constricts with joy.
But it's nothing compared to the bliss suffusing my sister's face. "I have no doubts."
Totally wrapped up on each other, they head toward the door.
Mick opens it for them. "Congratulations," he says again.
"Thanks, Mick."
The apartment falls quiet after the door closes.
I slowly turn toward my husband. "I cannot believe you didn't tell me about this."
"I thought Fiona should know she was getting proposed to before you."
"Maybe," I have to admit. "I still expect you to make it up to me."
"Do ye now?" His Irish brogue is thick again.
And I soak my panties, knowing what that means for me.