Chapter 2
TWO
Fucking hell.
“How did it go, son?” my father asks from behind the counter of our family bar, McDonoughs.
He bought the building and named it after my godfather, Seamus McDonough, the man he’s looked up to since he was a child.
But I think that is just a front for who he really named it after.
His first love. The woman who disappeared.
The one he keeps wrapped up in his heart where no one else can reach.
He has a bar towel thrown over one shoulder, his matching green eyes finding mine while he stacks clean glasses on the shelf below the counter.
It is well past two in the morning, and none of us have gotten any sleep.
I left Kiernan and the fiery reporter to their own devices.
Last I checked, she is still knocked out cold in Kiernan’s trunk while he waits for the cleaners to pick up Jimmy’s body.
We have ample employees to do cleanup at the bar, but my father always makes sure to be part of the grunt work. He once told me that if a leader cannot do what he asks of those who follow him, then he is no leader. He’s a dictator.
Hard work, he’s always said, builds character. A genuine leader is never afraid to get his hands dirty. It’s what his father taught him, and what I know I will one day teach my children.
If only my mother held the same values.
I watch her out of the corner of my eye as she twiddles away on her cell phone, completely ignoring the surrounding workers, who are cleaning up after the late night.
She rarely works unless my dad threatens to cut off her credit card. I love my mother, there is no doubt about that, but she has never been the mother my grandmother was to my father.
“The cleaners are taking care of the mess at the club,” I murmur so we aren’t overheard. Most of the workers in the bar are part of our operation, or we are family to them, but it still pays to be cautious. Hopping behind the bar, I grab a clean dish rag and proceed to wipe down the sticky bar top.
“Oh, honey,” my mother chastens lightly, her eyes flitting up from the screen of her phone. “You don’t need to do that. That’s why we have employees.”
Employees who are already hard at work and chomping at the bit to go home to their families.
“I like the work, Ma,” I tell her. She huffs a bit before waving her hand dismissively at me, her attention back on her phone. “Seriously?” I mutter beneath my breath.
“You mother will be your mother.” My father sighs, the muscles of his jaw visibly tightening.
Unlike mine and Kiernan’s, my father’s Irish accent isn’t as rough.
We spent years studying and training in our homeland, learning the family business, before coming back to America.
My father never had the opportunity because of the clan wars that drove his father off the island. “How is your sister?”
“Dashkov says she’s tucked back safely in his penthouse.” I keep cleaning. “From what I heard, the two had some pretty strong words on the dance floor before she stormed off.”
My father chuckles. “She’s got her mother’s temper for sure.” His smile falls, his eyes becoming haunted, like looking into a fractured mirror. It doesn’t take a genius to know he is thinking of Katherine McDonough, Ava’s mother.
It is still hard to believe that I have an older sister. She isn’t much older than Kiernan and me—just a few months, which means I can still pull out the “nearly your older brother” card when I need to.
It isn’t a secret that my mother isn’t my father’s first love.
Kiernan is dead set on the fact that my father only married our mother out of duty, and I can’t find a reason to disagree with him.
The pair are polar opposites. After Saoirse was born, they even stopped sharing a bed.
Hell, they barely share a house any longer now that we are all nearly grown.
Nearly three weeks ago, we rescued Ava from the hands of Christian Ward, the man she believed to be her biological brother for years. She is terrified of him. I don’t blame her. The man has a sick, perverted obsession with her that borders on psychotic.
The surprise on my father’s face when Vasily Ivankov darkened our doorstep, alone and unarmed, had been earth-shattering.
That one had balls of steel, which was the only reason my father heard him out rather than simply shooting him and dumping his body in Lake Union.
Another sister.
At first, I thought the man was trying to blow steam up our asses, but there was no denying the truth when he pulled out her picture. Fuck. Ava could be our triplet. We look that much alike, with our ginger hair and vibrant green eyes.
Then he told us a story.
Her story. As much as he knew, anyhow.
Where she’d been. How she’d gotten there, and it made my blood boil. Still does.
In the Kavanaugh family, we have one saying.
A statute we live by. Fola roimh gach ní eil.
Blood before all else.
She’d been Elias Ward’s prisoner. Locked away, believing that the family she had didn’t care about her.
They beat her.
Used her.
God knows what else Ward did to her before handing her over to Dashkov as a fucking bargaining chip to save his pathetic son’s life.
Cac. Fuck.
Elias Ward was lucky he was already dead.
“We do have a slight problem, though.” I clear my throat, setting down the towel on the bar as I turn to face my father. “Someone saw us take out Jimmy.”
My father pauses in his cleaning, looking at me askance.
“Did you take care of them?”
I duck my gaze away from his, heat blooming up my neck in shame, but I’m not second-guessing what we did. It was the right thing.
“No,” I admit, swallowing back the lump in my throat as I prepare myself for his disappointment. “She’s… Kiernan’s taking her upstairs.”
Leaning back against the bar opposite me, he crosses his arms against his chest, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“It’s a woman?” he asks. I bite my lip and nod. “If you keep her, you know what is expected,” my father warns me, his gaze hard and serious.
“Yes, sir.”
“You and Kiernan will be responsible for keeping her in line.” He turns back to finish putting away the glasses. “She needs to understand this lifestyle and what she’s given up in exchange for her life. If she escapes and goes to the cops, it’s on your heads.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” My father gives me a curt nod, but I breathe easier when I don’t see any disappointment in his eyes. Simply a warning. “Now, bus those remaining tables. Natalie had to leave early. Text your brother and tell him to report to me later when he is finished getting the girl settled in.”
And just like that, I win.
Sort of.
I smirk at the thought of training her to be the perfect mafia match. My hands on her porcelain skin, punching, caressing, tweaking. Will she take my punishment with regality, or will she fight me? Fight us? God, I love a good fight, but there is something sweet about a woman who submits.
The image of the brunette on her knees before me has my cock twitching, and suddenly, I wish I was the one upstairs instead of my brother.
He has everything to gain from beginning her training.
The reporter, however, will forfeit everything she knows.