Chapter 32
THE WAY IT REALLY IS
RONAN
Istared at the text—the single text Laney had sent since running out of our wedding reception like a hunted rabbit—for several long minutes as the Rover idled in front of my father’s house in Brookline. “Looks like a party,” Mac observed.
I glanced outside, where several familiar cars lined the circular driveway.
Owen’s Mercedes, Liam’s Tesla. The Audi belonged to Liza, and I was pretty sure the new Porsche was something Shea had just picked up.
There was a staid Bentley at the far end I didn’t know, though I had my suspicions about its owner.
“Some party,” I muttered.
Not for the first time, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu. How many times had I taken extra minutes outside this house like a criminal about to go on trial?
I’d been summoned early this morning for a “meeting of minds,” in Dad’s words—otherwise known as a semi-public flogging for embarrassing him in front of Boston’s entire business class.
Honestly, though. Was he really expecting me to stay at the party, hobnobbing with Boston’s idiocracy while my wife ran away because of his treachery?
It took me all of five minutes to shake my siblings off like raindrops and run out after her, only to see her and Megan disappear into a cab.
They were quick, those two. Quick enough to hightail it to Seattle within a matter of hours—a fact I only discovered when Laney finally turned her phone on just long enough to send that text and reveal her location before she went dark again.
It was long enough.
“He did say he wants to ‘make things right,’ didn’t he?” Mac was carefully neutral in tone, even when I gave him a look.
“Mac, you’ve been working for us long enough to know exactly how often any member of the Black family legitimately wants to ‘make things right.’”
He was wise enough not to answer. Probably because he was the one who had been sent to bring me to heel.
“He has one chance to unfuck this,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if it was to Mac or to myself. “Otherwise, I’m out.”
“Out?”
I opened my door. “That’s right.”
I didn’t even bother waiting for Jenkins to open the door. I just strode into the gaudy old house like it belonged to me. Mac followed closely, feeling less like my warden and almost like a friend.
Everyone was waiting in the sitting room just off the back gardens that looked out over the pond.
Owen and Liam stood by the drink cart with Shea.
Liza, Dad, and Violeta were already enjoying their own cocktails by the window.
And then there was the likely owner of the mystery car: Bas fucking Huntington, sipping scotch in Dad’s favorite leather chair.
This wasn’t a peace accord. It was an ambush, just as I thought.
“Ronan.” The room quieted at the sound of Dad’s voice, and everyone turned to me. “We wondered when you’d show. Get a drink and have a seat at the table. We need to go over the Meráki acquisition.”
Owen grinned at the mention of the deal.
And that was all it took.
I crossed the room in three strides and delivered a punch that sent Owen and the drink cart flying to the floor.
“Fugg me!” Owen shouted from the floor, clutching his face through a river of blood. “You broke my fugging doze again!”
“Jesus, Rone.” Liam had already crouched down beside him, offering one of the bar towels to staunch the flow. It occurred to me that he hadn’t seen me like this in years. None of them had. None of them but Mac.
“The snake deserved it.” I shook out my hand.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a cracked knuckle in there, but I didn’t care.
“You just couldn’t bear that you got passed over when Brendan left, couldn’t you, Owen?
Or maybe it was that you couldn’t bear that I was actually fucking happy.
Either way, you went behind my back with your nose glued to Dad’s ass.
You sabotaged my marriage, used my wife’s company as a pawn in your little game to, what, prove some kind of demented loyalty?
You think our father gives two shits about that? ”
“Ronan!” Dad snapped.
“No, I did it to prove what we have all known from the beginning!” Owen shouted back through a bloody cloth held to his face. “That you are too much of a loose cannon to take over this company. It was just business!”
“No, it was my WIFE!” I bellowed.
Owen scrambled up from the floor. “Cut the shit, Ronan. You met her all of five minutes ago and married her on a whim to please the board. And you didn’t. Fool. Anyone. She’s a nobody. She doesn’t mean shit to you. Be a man and admit it.”
My fist was already balling up again by my hip as I readied for another hit. “You don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.”
“Ronan, calm down—” Dad tried again.
“You expect me to lie down and take it?” I reeled around to face him. “You taught us better than that, old man. You taught me better than that.”
“Watch yourself, boy.” This time, the order was closer to a growl. “Get control of yourself.”
But I wasn’t finished. “Honestly, what did you think would happen when you turned one of your sons into a weapon? I’m not like the others.
You made sure of that. I wasn’t raised to kowtow and obey orders and play by the rules in hopes of winning the game—you taught me to play dirty.
You taught me to take a fucking punch and give it back ten times over.
You taught me to lose control, you piece of shit, not hold it together.
And my ability to do that for this family is what has made you so successful year after year after year! ”
“That’s enough!” Dad shoved up from his chair, face reddened with his signature rage even as he teetered slightly. Eighty-something or not, he was still a big man, once the size of the rest of us, hunched only by age and the frailty of his recent condition. Even so, the lion was out now.
But for once, I was ready to face him.
“Daddy, you need to calm down too,” Shea tried from her seat.
“Your heart, amor,” Violeta called. “The doctors say no stress.”
“I’m out.” I turned on him. “You orchestrated this. The acquisition, the announcement at the reception, all of it, all just to prove you still control me. Well, I only came here tonight for one reason. To tell you I’m done.”
The words rang silently around the room, bouncing off the glass windows and wood furniture. Everyone froze, like they honestly couldn’t comprehend the words.
When my father spoke again, it was through his teeth. “Done with what, exactly?”
“Done with you. Done with everyone here.”
I looked around the room. To Owen, sneering through his bloody nose, to Huntington, watching the events unfold like an official at a tennis match. To Violeta’s vapid expression, Mac’s assumed neutrality, Liza’s wary observation. And yes, to the clear disappointment on both Liam's and Shea’s faces.
But no one, not one of them, had stood up for the woman who had become the most important person in my life.
And no one knew me like she did.
None of these people, my own blood, could understand.
“He’s joking.” Owen was now focused on pinching his nose. “That’s what he does. Jokes, bluffs, manipulations. He’s not going to walk away for a woman. Blackguard is the only thing that has ever mattered to him.”
I laughed, a harsh sound that was foreign to my ears. “And that, brother, is how I know you have never understood me at all.”
I yanked out the ID badge I’d brought with me from the house. The keys to the penthouse. Every remnant of this life I could find.
Then I dropped them in a pile on the coffee table in front of my father.
Dad stared at them like they might catch flame.
Owen shook his head. “Un-fucking-believable.”
“You never know.” My voice was level now. Almost peaceful in its resolve. “It could happen to you, too. And when it does, it’s going to kick your ass so hard that a broken nose is going to feel like a day at the fucking spa.”
I turned to leave.
“Ronan.” My father's voice was sharp. “If you walk out that door, there will be no one to protect you.”
I froze and spoke without turning around. “Protect me from what?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
When I finally did turn, like a Yoyo slowly being recoiled on its string, the answer was all over his face. Curiosity and fear played across the others’—all except Huntington, who was as hawkish as ever.
Dad was the only one who knew everything.
Brendan knew some, of course, but he wasn’t even here.
But my father was the one who had picked me up from the gutter after my first big bender.
Had shown me one path where I was condemned to whatever consequences awaited me there—consequences he could easily enable.
DUIs, charges for possession, maybe even intent to distribute.
Maybe I should have been suspicious that my own father was less concerned that his kid was doing drugs and more interested in how to leverage that situation.
But at the time, I just wanted to avoid prison. Or worse.
“This is what you’re cut out for,” he said the first time he brought me to Vegas to do his dirty work. “This is how you’ll be of use.”
Now he was threatening to blow over the whole house of cards if I stepped out of line.
And to my surprise… I felt nothing.
No fear. No loyalty to this family. No obligation to stay and endure and be the jester, the fixer, the fuck-up they all wanted, no, needed me to be.
All I felt was the space where those things used to be. And the place where something so much better, so much bigger had developed in just a few weeks.
Laney's eyes glowed in the back of my mind, as bright as any diadem of stars.
“Do your worst,” I told him. “I’d rather lose everything than lose her.”
This time, when I turned to the door, I kept going, catching glimpses of Owen’s naked shock and Huntington’s clear interest as I went.
Maybe I should have done more. Maybe I should have stayed, figured out how to combat the threat of my brother, or maybe the man who clearly wanted to ruin my family from within.
But I couldn’t find it in me to care any fucking more.
“Ronan!” Shea was perched on the edge of her seat, gripping the arms like she was physically stopping herself from following me.
I almost reached out. She was so young. Maybe it wasn’t too late for her to break free too.
“Please stay,” she called. Then, more hesitantly: “What do you think you’ll do now?”
Maybe not.
I straightened my shoulders with resolve. “The only thing that matters. I’m going to find my wife.”