10. Chapter 10
Callahan
Rory looked out the window at the passing lights and buildings, her breaths shallow and her hands clamped together in her lap. I could practically smell her anxiety.
I gently touched her shoulder and she jumped, her shimmering dress making a gentle rustling noise. Her glittering, melted honey eyes met mine and she gave me a shaky smile. She began picking at the cuticle of one thumb.
“You know, mo solas, I meant it when I said that I would not take an unwilling bride. If you don’t want to fulfill the contract, you only have to say so. I won’t send you back to them.”
Her chest expanded as she took a deep breath, the hollows of her collarbones becoming more pronounced. My mind wandered for a moment as I imagined running my tongue along that hollow, making my mouth salivate.
“I’m not unwilling,” she said quietly. “I was just thinking about Elio and Fern.” A small line appeared between her brown and her small nose wrinkled in the most adorable way I’d ever seen.
“You don’t need to worry about them anymore, mo solas. They won’t be hurting you again.” I reached with one finger and traced one of the thin scratches on her cheek. “Does it hurt?”
She shrugged one delicate shoulder, the bones standing out under her pale skin. “It’s not so bad. I wasn’t actually worried about them hurting me. I was just wondering what they’re going to do with all my belongings. All my clothes and recital outfits are really the only things I’m too worried-” She broke off and frowned as the leg I’d had resting across my knee hit the floorboard with a solid thunk and I sat up straight. “Are you okay, Mr.- uh, Cal?”
“Your- uh, fluffy skirts and those um- spandex shirts you wear when you dance are at Marino’s house?”
Her eyes flitted to the driver like he would have the answer. “Do you- um, do you mean my tutus and leotards?” I raised an eyebrow and she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a smile. “Yes, they’re in my closet at Elio’s house.”
“Go to the Marinos,” I barked at Seamus. He immediately clicked on his blinker to change lanes. As I pulled out my phone, Rory looked out the back window at the cars following, Lorcan and his guard in the one behind us and the other guards in the one behind that.
A pretty blush crept up her chest and pooled in her cheeks, curved around a gentle, shy smile. I admired her beauty while the phone pressed to my ear rang. When Connor picked up, I immediately ordered, “Get to the Marinos. I want you and a team of men there before Rory and I arrive. You are to pack her room. Start with the closet. Make sure you get anything a ballerina would wear. She can decide what else goes when we arrive.”
Connor listened as he barked orders in the background and by the time I finished, I heard car doors slamming in the background. “We’ll be there in ten minutes, Boss. Is there anything else we should get?”
“No, she can decide when she arrives. Do not let either of the Marinos in her room. If even one of her…recital outfits is damaged, I will hold you responsible.”
“Got it, Boss. On our way.”
I ended the call and Rory blinked at me with wide eyes. She didn’t say anything, so I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I like the fluffy skirts.”
She burst into laughter and smiled at me fondly. “They’re tutus, Cal. And the onesies, as you called them, are leotards. The tights are the hose I wear, these,” she held up the shiny shoe I’d given back, “are called pointe shoes.” She held the shoe up to her palm, the point of the toe - oh. Pointe shoes. That made sense, actually.
When we arrived at the Marinos, chaos was everywhere. One of my men was standing in front of the arched doorway to the sitting room off the entryway. Fern was behind him, screaming like a fecking banshee about my men giving her orders in her own home. Elio was storming around, demanding they leave his home. They couldn’t take anything out of his house, blah blah blah.
I entered the foyer with my hand on the bare skin on Rory’s back. When Fern screamed something unintelligible at her, she picked up the bottom of her dress and stepped a little closer to me. I wrapped my hand around her ribs so that she was cradled in my arm but could still move about freely.
“Where’s your room?” I asked her quietly.
She smirked. “Just follow the chaos, apparently.” But she pointed at a hallway that extended to the right of the stairs. I led her up the stairs, keeping an eye on her feet and a hand on her waist, since I didn’t trust the thin heels strapped to her feet.
Two more of my men were stationed outside her room and they both dipped their heads in greeting as we passed. Inside, Liam was carrying armfuls of clothes from the closet to the bed, where he laid them out carefully. Connor was putting together wardrobe boxes and his twin Carson was neatly hanging her clothing in the ones that were already put together.
Rory looked around with wide eyes, taking in the men packing her things and the organized chaos of her bedroom. She leaned into my side and whispered, “Have they packed my dresser yet?”
I laughed. “You can ask them, you know. You’re allowed to speak freely.”
She paused and frowned at me for a moment before dropping her eyes to the floor, her frown deepening. “That’s going to take some getting used to, I think.”
That gave me pause. “Have you not been allowed to speak freely?”
“Not really. I was usually told to hide in the back and make sure I didn’t embarrass anyone. When Elio had to bring me to occasions, that is…or when he knew I didn’t want to attend and just wanted to make me miserable, so he’d make me go anyway.”
I resolved right then and there that our marriage wouldn’t follow the standard rules of a marriage in our world. My wife, mo solas beag, would not be told to look pretty, keep quiet and mind her own business. She would lead our syndicate right alongside me. I would ask her advice, share in her opinions and make sure she knew she had value.
She would no longer feel like someone who didn’t belong. I would make sure of it.
Before I could comment on Elio’s treatment, she walked to her dresser and pulled open a drawer, pulling out a folded shirt before she opened another drawer and pulled out two black scraps of lace. She quickly wrapped the lace in the shirt as if the image of that black lace against her pale skin wasn’t burned in my mind.
She grabbed a pair of jeans off the bed and then said, “I’m going to change in the bathroom. I’ll be right back out.”
She disappeared behind a closed door and I turned to my men. “Any issues when you arrived?”
“Marino tried to stop us, saying everything she owned had been bought by him and she wouldn’t be taking it with her. We made sure to correct his misunderstanding.” Carson grinned at me menacingly.
“Good. Contact Elliot and tell him we need more security around the east and south locations. I want more cameras, stronger security on the doors and ask if he has any new alarm programs. Tell him I want no room for mistakes.”
He opened his mouth to speak but the bathroom door opened and Rory appeared with her dress hung over her arm and her strappy heels dangling from one hand. He closed his mouth before he said, “You got it, Boss.”
“You don’t have to censor your words around Rory. She’ll be just as much your Boss as I am once we’re married.”
The heels in her hand hit the floor with a clatter and she stared at me with wide eyes. Connor chuckled and said, “I’ve already contacted Elliot. I left him a message but called Nate, too. Nate said he will send a team out tomorrow morning, but that he’s been placed on a security detail for a senator and his family.”
When she stopped beside me, I moved to take the dress from Rory but she wrinkled her nose. “I actually don’t think I want to take this one. Elio bought it for me because he’d intended for me to wear it to an event he knew I didn’t want to attend. I snuck out beforehand and he-”
She broke off, her eyes flicking from the sparkly dress to Connor, who had just finished taping up another box. “Well, he wasn’t happy that I’d defied him.” Color rose in her cheeks and I wondered what Elio had done to her for that defiance. Different scenarios flashed through my mind and each one made me angrier than the last.
She pulled a pair of black sneakers with white laces off a shelf in the closet and pulled a pair of socks out of a small basket next to the shoe rack. She sat on a bench and pulled the socks and shoes on her feet. When she stood, the difference between the elegant, formal woman she’d just been, the graceful ballerina I’d seen the first time I met her, and the casual jeans and sneakers she wore now was enough to make my lips curl.
I held a hand out for her to join me by the door and she grabbed a thick sweater off the bed before she wrapped her hand around mine. I asked, “Is there anything else you want left behind?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and looked around the room. “Could we just bring it all and I can decide what to keep and what to get rid of later?”
“If that’s what you wish to do.”
I told my men to do as she wanted and pulled her from the bedroom. When we reached the entryway, Fern was still ranting to Elio, who sat stoically in a leather wingback next to a roaring fireplace. As we passed, he told Fern to be quiet and spoke to me.
“Mr. Byrne, we have business to discuss.”
I stopped and turned Rory so that we were facing him together, my hand finding its favorite place at the small of her back. Her shirt was just short enough to expose a strip of skin above the waist of her jeans and the warm skin made my fingers tingle.
“Do we? I thought we’d settled our business at dinner. If not before your daughter acted like a feral beast, then I’d certainly made myself clear after.”
“Please come in and sit. I’d like to renegotiate the terms of the contract, now that you’ve chosen to wed Aurora instead of my Fernanda.”
I looked to Rory who gave me only a small arch of a brow, apparently willing to let me take the lead here.
But I was determined to show her that her input was not only wanted, but valued. So I stayed quiet and waited for her to answer my silent question.
After a moment of examination, she pursed her lips to hide a small smile and nodded. I guided her into the room and sat on the little two-person couch across from Elio. Fern stood behind him, still wearing that ugly brown dress with her arms crossed over her too-large, too-fake breasts, a sour, childish look making her plain face even more unattractive.
Elio cleared his throat. “So, when Fern was to fulfill the contract, I knew that there was a chance of a child being born to unite our families and I knew that there was…no chance that child would belong to anyone else.” He seemed to flounder for a way to politely question Rory’s virtue and I ground my teeth together. Rory stiffened by my side. “Since I’m not confident in Aurora’s…activities, I wish to add a clause to include the tradition of the sheet presentation.”
If Rory had stiffened before, she turned into a wooden plank next to me now. I grabbed her hand and forced her stiff fingers to lace with mine, rubbing my thumb in gentle circles across the back of her hand.
“That is an antiquated and humiliating tradition. Not every woman bleeds their first time, and even if she does, it is usually barely a smear across the sheets. Besides, my sheets are black.” I smirked at Rory who didn’t even acknowledge me. She looked at our hands, locked together. Her knuckles were white with the force of her grip.
“Even so, I insist, as is my right as her…father,” he finished lamely.
He wasn’t wrong. It was his right to make this request and I sighed through my nostrils. “Fine. Add the clause and send me the new contract. Rory and I will have it signed and returned to you by the end of the day tomorrow.”
Elio frowned. “It’s not customary for the bride to sign the contract, nor is it necessary. I don’t need to explain to you that our wives hold no power within our businesses.”
“That’s where you are wrong, Elio.” I kept my voice firm and pulled Rory to her feet next to me. “Rory will have just as much a say in our lives, our marriage and our businesses as I do. My wife will be an equal, not a thing to flaunt when needed.” I led Rory to the front door. “When my men are finished packing Rory’s belongings, they’ll be out of your hair. I’ll expect the contract tomorrow.”
I led her through the door without saying proper goodbyes.