Liam
She left an hour ago, and I’m still standing at the window like a sap, watching the street like I expect her to come walking back up the sidewalk.
Taryn. My wife, who, this morning, offered to become a Trojan horse for my family’s enemies, then kissed me senseless before falling back asleep on my chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Like we were a real couple with a real future.
I’ve never wanted something to be real so badly.
And now she’s sitting in class like a regular student, pretending we’re not in the middle of digital warfare with a Greek faction that would slit our throats if they saw an opening.
I scrub a hand down my face. I called Rowan this morning and told him that I was worried the Greeks would make a play for her.
I simply told him I’d been watching her account and there had been activity.
He was quiet before he told me he’d send his sister to keep an eye on her.
As if Gráinne is capable of keeping her safe.
Then, he asked me if I had a tracker on her.
I don’t. But, I sure as hell will soon. At least she’s on campus. Surrounded by people.
I should be with her. Instead, I’m pacing our damn kitchen, trying to summon the courage to do the one thing I’ve been putting off since the second Ryan showed me what we were capable of:
Tell my father.
It’s not that I’m afraid of him—despite the fact that I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid him. But I can’t deny my anxiety. This is the first time I’ve actually had something to show him. A win. Something he didn’t orchestrate, didn’t command. And I have no clue how he’s going to take that.
Will he finally take me seriously? Or rip it apart out of principle—just because it didn’t come from him? I stare down at my phone and exhale once through my nose before hitting the call button.
It’s time.
“Son.” My father’s gruff voice answers. “Not in class?”
I hold in my sigh. Not a great way to begin this conversation. “No. I’m not. There’s a matter I need to discuss with you. Do you have time now?”
A beat of silence. “You don’t sound like yourself. Hold on.” I can hear him ordering people out of the room. “What’s going on, Liam?”
“I told you that I had access to the Greeks’ accounts. That I planted Taryn’s money as a way to get access. You never asked me about that access. Why is that?” I try to keep my tone even but serious.
There’s a pause. A long one.
“I didn’t think you were serious.” My father’s voice is flat.
“I figured it was bravado. A stunt to save face in front of the clans after the entire mess. I let them all think it was true because I also wanted to save face. But no, I didn’t believe you had gotten that far after you talked the lass into moving her money. ”
So, he believed the part about me being manipulative with a hair-brained scheme…just not the part where it worked. I hold in my sigh. “And Bobby?” I ask, jaw tight, waiting to see what his hacker has uncovered.
“He’s still working on it.”
I huff a humorless laugh. “That’s because he’s trying to walk through the front door, Da. Ryan built a tunnel underneath. We’re already in. We’ve been in.”
Silence. Then, “Ryan? Did you say, Ryan?”
“Yes. My little brother. Your son. The one you never thought was strong enough to join the business? He cracked their network in minutes. We’ve mapped dozens of accounts, pinpointed shell structures, and traced laundering trails that link back to that shipping company in Cyprus.
You know—the one you always suspected but couldn’t prove?
Well. It’s there. And, we have it in a chokehold. ”
“Jesus,” he mutters. I imagine him rubbing his face, pacing a room that was once full of men he just kicked out.
“I haven’t moved anything major yet. I wanted to be sure. Now I am. But we need to act fast before they lock us out. And Taryn—” My voice falters, then firms. “Taryn might be exposed.”
He curses. “What does your wife have to do with this?”
“She tried to move her money. The wrong way. She triggered a flag. They’re going to notice. And when they do, they’ll start asking questions, given the other traps we set up. I worry they’ll think it’s her. Or at least that she’s involved.”
“You’re saying they’ll come for her.”
“I’m saying I won’t risk it.”
Another long pause. Then, unexpectedly: “I’m coming to see you.”
“What?”
“I want to see the data. And I want to see my daughter-in-law.”
It takes me a second to process that. Not your wife. Not Taryn. My daughter-in-law.
“I’ll need to set up extra protection,” he continues, voice back in business mode. “No one touches her. She’s one of ours now. Family.”
For a second, I forget how to breathe. “You believe me now?” I half thought he was on his way here to slap me in person.
“I believe you have grown up faster than I thought.” He sucks in a breath. “And I believe I underestimated you, Liam. The rest is still to be determined. I hope I won’t be disappointed in what I find.”
“You won’t be,” I tell him with more confidence than I feel.
I hear him shuffling papers on his desk. Moving things around.
“We’ve got a few of their men,” he adds after a moment, almost like a casual aside. “Picked them up this week. Low-level enforcers. We’re trying to beat something useful out of them, but they don’t seem to know much.”
My stomach turns—not from the violence, but the futility of it. “We don’t need them at all. Ryan has everything. Every wire transfer. Every front company. Every goddamn IP address that pinged their offshore accounts.”
“That’s a bold claim.”
“It’s not a claim. It’s fact.”
He exhales heavily, then mutters, “It still rattles me, trusting a kid like him with this. I’ve never understood that boy. Doesn’t look you in the eye. Doesn’t speak unless spoken to. Half the time he seems like he’s off in his own little world.”
“Because that’s where he builds it,” I say sharply, defending Ryan before I can think better of it.
“That ‘little world’ of his is full of code and math and traps and logic that none of us can even begin to understand. You know why Bobby couldn’t get in?
Because he was too busy playing by the same rules the Greeks expected. ”
“And Ryan wasn’t?” He sounds skeptical.
“No. Ryan rewrote the rules. Quietly. For me. You think his brain doesn’t work because it’s not like yours.
But it works, Da. Christ, it works better than any of ours.
You always want to talk about soldiers? About assets?
Ryan is a one-man war machine. And he doesn’t need blood on his hands to take an empire down. ”
There’s a pause on the line.
“That sounds like pride,” he says, almost amused.
“It is,” I admit. “He’s my brother. And right now, he’s holding the fate of the Greek financial network in the palm of his hand.”
He’s silent again.
“We can do this, Da. We can cripple their laundering operations. Shut down their access. Confuse their crews. Throw their upper echelon into chaos while they scramble to regain control.”
“And then what? What would you do next?” It sounds like a genuine question. I’ve piqued my father’s curiosity.
“Then we decide how we want to hit them again—after they’re disoriented. We take territory back. We plant disinformation. We make it look like they’ve been played by their own men. We control the narrative.”
He huffs. “Since when are you a strategist?”
“Since I realized smiling doesn’t earn me a seat at the table. A lesson I learned from my father.”
Another pause. Then, his voice is gruff, “Have your brother get everything together. I want to see what he’s got when I get there. If it’s real, I’ll let him do it.”
“You’ll let him?” I snort. “He’s already done it. He’s just waiting for me to say the word.”
“And are you going to?”
I pause at the question. It’s not the vehement order I expected. Not the ridicule asking me who I think I am. There is no reprimand. My father is not shouting his authority. No. He is seriously asking me what I plan to do.
I glance at the clock. Taryn’s in class. Ryan’s probably pacing in front of his monitors, dying to unleash hell.
“I will,” I say. “But I do want your eyes on it. You just told me not to give you another reason to be disappointed in me. In either of us. Let me show you before I pull the trigger.”
“Fine,” he grumbles. “I’ll get a plane in the air. Have security tighten up. I don’t want any mistakes with her safety.”
My jaw tightens. “There won’t be. She’s my wife. I’d kill them all before I let them touch her.”
“Spoken like a true McGuiness,” he mutters. “I swear to Christ, these women make us daft.” Then he hangs up.
I fall back onto my sofa. My hands are shaking.
Adrenaline. I fire off a text to Ryan and lean my head back against the couch.
I give myself one moment to breathe. Then I’m up and moving, grabbing my coat, keys, and a protein bar I’ll forget to eat.
I could stay home and wait. I could call Taryn and ask where she is.
But neither of those options sits right with me. I want to see her.
I end up parking on the edge of campus, near the old science building.
Finding her isn’t luck. I may have glanced at her calendar once or twice.
Or ten times. I know what class she has next, and I know that she likes this courtyard, especially when the sun’s out and the weather is warm enough.
She’ll sit on the stone bench she claims warms her ass like a seat heater.
Sure enough, there she is.
She’s sitting with one leg pulled up, balancing her tablet on her knee, ear buds in, pencil tapping lightly against the corner of her mouth.
She’s not dressed for anyone but herself—ripped jeans, a sweatshirt I’m pretty sure came out of my drawer.
I didn’t even see her grab it this morning.
Her hair is pulled up, messy but perfect.
Every now and then, she mutters something and jots a note.
Jesus, she’s beautiful. Not in the lipstick-and-lace way that most girls at St. A’s try to be.
Taryn’s beauty isn’t curated in the way these girls aim for.
No, she’s chaos wrapped in confidence. Even reading, she looks like my destruction.
And I’ve never wanted anything more. I barely notice that her friend sits at her side, lost in her own textbook. My wife is the only thing I see.
It’s wild how fast everything’s changed.
Just weeks ago, my biggest decisions involved whiskey or beer and whether to make the first move or wait until a girl came to me.
And now? Now I’m married to the most stubborn woman on this campus, leading a takedown of the Greek mob, and about to introduce my autistic little brother to my terrifying father as our best strategic weapon.
And the crazy part? I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.
Because Taryn’s not just walking beside me.
Yeah, I’ll admit it—she’s dragging me forward.
She’s like an electric current under my skin that keeps me from getting too comfortable.
She challenges me. She checks me. She makes me want to be the kind of man who could deserve her.
Who could challenge her. And, yeah, occasionally, she makes me a little unhinged.
I take a step closer, not ready to interrupt her—just wanting to be near her when a voice behind me breaks the moment.
“You keep watching her like that, people are going to think you’re her stalker instead of her husband.”
I turn slowly, already recognizing the low voice before I see the face. Theo Nicopolis is leaning against a lamppost like it’s a fashion shoot, hands tucked into his coat pockets, an easy smile on his lips. Too easy.
“You following me now?” I ask flatly.
“Nope,” he says, pushing off the post. “Just happened to be walking by. Serendipity, huh?”
I don’t buy it. He’s too slick, too composed. Theo doesn’t bump into people. He positions himself.
“What do you want?”
He tilts his head, watching Taryn for a moment. “She’s turned out to be quite the wife.”
My jaw tightens. “What’s your point?”
“Just that pretty girls make tempting targets. Especially when they’re bold. Especially when they’re too smart. That kind of brightness draws attention.”
“You trying to tell me something?”
Theo’s gaze flicks back to mine. Any trace of charm is gone. “No. I wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. Why would I tell you to keep your eyes on her, Liam? We don’t alert each other to threats.”
He pats my shoulder once—friendly, almost—and then strolls off down the cobblestone path like we just shared a weather update.
I look back to Taryn. She hasn’t noticed me. Hasn’t noticed him. She’s still focused, still scribbling, still making the world bend to her will in small, quiet ways.
But my stomach roils. Because Theo didn’t offer a threat. He offered a warning. And I don’t think it was for show.