The Monster: A Mafia Romance (Boston Belles Book 3)

A few days after Aisling fled the cabin, Troy breezed into my office, tossing a newspaper onto my desk.

“Checkmate.”

I was sitting in front of a pile of Excel spreadsheets, trying to concentrate on the simple task of finding a way to help a client launder a couple of millions. Normally, I could do it with my eyes closed, hands tied, and dick buried deep inside a random. Shuffle the sum from place to place. Blow up expenses. Tamper with bank statements. Making money untraceable was an art form I’d perfected from a young age. It made me a darling in certain corporate circles. Nothing bought your way into a rich man’s heart better than helping him screw the IRS over.

These last few days, however, my head was so deep inside my ass, I was surprised I didn’t drop dead from lack of oxygen. My thoughts were on a loop, getting stuck on the same thing over and over again.

I saved Aisling.

Put my life in danger to keep her from harm’s way.

And what did the bitch do? She turned me down and cut me off.

I glanced at the newspaper Troy threw at my desk. The headline smeared in cheap, black ink.

Busted! Billionaire Gerald Fitzpatrick’s Mistress Writes an Explosive Tell-All!

Barbara McAllister’s testimonies could be a game changer for the royal American family. The company’s stock has dropped significantly since yesterday.

It did nothing to improve my sour mood, even though I knew, in all probability, that Gerald was on the verge of hurling himself out the window from the skyscraper he was currently holed up in.

Troy fell into the seat in front of me, lounging back, rolling a toothpick in his mouth.

“Time for a quick and efficient K.O., Sam. I will not sit here and watch you destroy a perfectly good family just because you have a boner for Gerald’s blood. Don’t forget your sister’s marriage and happiness is on the line, too. You are taking this God complex too far.”

“There’s nothing complicated about my godly gift to distribute pain. I’m merely giving Gerald what he deserves.” I dropped my pen, sitting back. “He—”

“Yes, I know. Killed your unborn brother. Made your mother leave you behind. No one is propositioning Gerald Fitzpatrick for knighthood.” Troy raised his palm up, cutting through my words. “Yet here you are, alive and fucking well, much to the Bratva’s chagrin. This means whatever damage he inflicted on you didn’t finish the job. So why don’t you get it over with, give him the final blow, call it even and move on?”

Because then I’ll have to face my other Fitzpatrick problem.

The pressing one I’ve been trying to ignore for weeks.

Their daughter.

Aisling stayed far away from me since she fled the cabin in the middle of the night like a dumb horror flick side character, the first to get murdered ten minutes into the film.

I knew she survived our little showdown because I drove by her clinic the following afternoon, just to make sure she hadn’t been chopped up by an axe murderer on her way out of the woods.

Her Prius was parked in front of the main door. She was alive, even if not well.

Consequently, she was also done with my ass.

“I want a confession,” I insisted.

“And I want to fuck my wife ten hours a day. Guess what? Looks like we’re both not getting what we want,” Troy snapped. “What makes you think Gerald is willingly going to come to you and tell you all about how he fucked your mother then fucked you over?” Troy stood up, spitting his toothpick on the floor. “Grow the fuck up, Sam. Your story doesn’t add up, and frankly, with each passing day, I’m starting to think there’s more to this than you’re letting on. You’ve never given a damn about Cat, and yes, she left you, but she’d tried to contact you and you shut her down without a blink of an eye. It’s not the first time you’ve been wronged by one of your clients. You are a pragmatic person. You take things in stride. This is a part of you I don’t know and don’t care to discover. Emotional, messy, and above all—strategically faulty. You are about to make some pretty grave mistakes if you are not careful. I can see it. Be upfront with Gerald or drop it altogether. But this is the last prank you pull on him. Your sister is married to his son, and now that Hunter and Cillian are watching their mother and paying attention, they’ll be on your tail in no time. You understand?”

“Are you done?” I asked, sitting perfectly still in my seat, rejecting any sentiment that stemmed from Troy looking royally and thoroughly pissed at me. This was a first. We’d had our arguments before, of course we had, but we always ended up seeing eye to eye. Not this time. “Because if so, you know where the fucking door is. I’m sorry the student outdid the master, but sometimes, old man, that’s just the way it is.”

He stared at me with a look of complete disbelief. Despite myself, I felt my stomach roiling, turning over and over, like it was folding into a small origami square.

He offered me a noncommittal grunt and dashed away, leaving the faint scent of his cologne and a hell of a headline on the newspaper.

I turned my attention back to the Excel sheet, noticing, for the first time, a company trip to the Maldives I could use to max out the expenses proportion. An easy eight-hundred-thousand-dollar hole in the budget to throw the IRS off.

I started making the necessary moves.

Gerald would pay for what he did with his blood.

Even if it cost me my relationship with my adoptive father.

After working into the wee hours, I stopped by the card rooms again, checking on the tables, making sure we were making killer profits before locking up my office door.

The night turned from black to blue by the time I made my way to my (newly fixed) Porsche. I unlocked the doors and put my hand on the handle when the cold barrel of a gun dug between my shoulder blades, biting into my skin.

The voice that came after it was unmistakable.

I would recognize it anywhere because I’d spent nearly a decade listening to it wail.

“Busted, kiddo.”

Gerald.

“Now get into the car, nice and easy. I’ll take the passenger’s seat,” he instructed, his voice and the gun quaking with both adrenaline and fear.

I lifted my hands haphazardly, smirking.

“Do you even know how to use a gun, Gerry?”

“Don’t call me Gerry.” He dug the metal into my skin. “My name is Gerald. You’re the only person to call me Gerry, and I despise it. I only let you get away with it because I thought it was a term of endearment.”

“You were wrong,” I deadpanned.

“Tell me about. In the car. Now. No funny business. I will shoot to kill, Brennan. You’ve left me with nothing. Not my family, not my business, and not my pride.”

I slid into the Porsche calmly, not breaking a sweat. My fear of being shot by him was somewhere below zero. Firstly, because I didn’t think he had the guts to pull the trigger, and, secondly, because even if he did shoot, which was unlikely, he would miss. He didn’t have a steady hand, and all I needed was one small error to snatch the gun from between his sweaty fingers.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I didn’t care if I died. I never was much of a fan of living in the first place. I enjoyed very few things, and one of them was Gerald’s daughter, who did not want anything to do with me anymore. My fault, of course, for pushing her away, knowing beyond reasonable doubt that her family would never let her flaunt the help in high society.

“Put the gun down, Gerry. I’ll take us to your apartment, but not because you’re threatening me with a gun. I can grab it from you blindfolded with my arms tied behind my back. I’ll come willingly because I’m interested in what you have to say and how much you know,” I said, my voice soaked with amusement. It was high time we had a conversation about what mattered.

“B-b-bullshit!” he stuttered. “You will do as I say because I—”

I had no interest in letting him finish that sentence. I turned around quickly, elbowing the gun and sending it careening across the road. Gerald let out a high-pitched moan of surprise, making a beeline to seize it, squatting down to the ground. I was taller, leaner, and faster. I sauntered my way to him as he bent down to take the weapon, pressed my loafer onto his hand—breaking a few small bones in the process, no doubt—just as his fingers curled around the base of the gun.

I smacked my lips together.

“You rich pricks aren’t very good at listening.”

“You will do as I say, goddammit!” He wiggled under my foot desperately. I grabbed him by the shirt, dragging him toward my car as he kicked and grunted in annoyance, pocketing his gun after checking if it was cocked (shocker: it was not).

I hurled Gerald inside and slammed the door, getting into the driver’s seat next to him and starting the car.

“Where to?” I grumbled.

“The penthouse. The one Hunter and Sailor lived in before moving into their own house.”

I nodded, noticing that he shook beside me. Unbelievable. I put his daughter through so much shit, and she always gave me one hell of a fight. But this guy, he couldn’t even sit still without wanting to piss his pants. I didn’t know where Aisling got her strength, but it sure wasn’t from her fucking parents.

When we got to the penthouse and Gerald pushed the door open and started his verbal diarrhea, I pressed my finger to my mouth then started looking around the living room to see if it was bugged. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t. I sat at the dining table, smiling sardonically at him.

“You may continue with your meltdown now, Gerry.”

Gerald erected himself to his full height, jutting his chin out, trying to appear braver than he was. The weight loss made him slightly less deplorable physically, but I still knew that behind the exterior was a man who deserved a slow and painful death.

“You’ve been caught, Sam Brennan. I set a trap for you, and you fell for it,” Gerald boasted, still standing up, for some reason beyond my grasp.

“You already said,” I yawned. “Care to elaborate?”

Gerald leaned forward, pressing his fingers to the oak dining table as he spoke.

“When you asked me to give you a list of all the women I’d had an affair with, I got suspicious. It seemed farfetched, and as time went by and you dragged your feet about my little problem, I got even more suspicious. You’d never failed a mission I’d given you before, and suddenly, you didn’t have as much as a lead. I couldn’t understand why you left me to drown. Then the poisoning happened. And the cufflinks …”

“Christ, Gerry, I was there when all of this happened. Get to the juicy part. My time is precious.” I looked around, wondering if he had any good coffee.

He straightened his spine.

“Aisling made me do it. She told her mother and me what to do, that way we could know for sure.”

“Made you do what?” I spat out, losing patience.

The mention of her name made me nauseous. This was outrageous. I couldn’t be nauseous. I wasn’t a fucking damsel in distress.

“Plant a bug. A mole. A trap. See, Aisling said that the only way to outsmart you is to beat you at your own game. Together, we found a woman from my past—Barbara McAllister, in this case—and had her assist us. We knew if you contacted her, that would mean that you were after my throat and not those who harmed me.”

I stared at him, speechless.

Aisling played me.

And she fucking won, too.

She loved me, yes, but not so much that she was blinded by my actions.

Even more than her affections for me, she was loyal to her family, and hell if it didn’t make me miss her even more.

“The newspaper—” I started.

Gerald shook his head, walking over to the coffee table, picking up what looked to be today’s newspaper, tossing it into my hands. I picked it up and glanced at the headline.

Keaton Hints at Firing Clayborn After Elections: What’s Next for the White House?

Motherfucker.

“The headline was fake.” I let the words churn in my mouth, deciding I fucking hated how they tasted.

Gerald plopped down next to me, rubbing at his face tiredly as he reached for a whiskey with two tumblers at the center of the table, pouring us drinks. I took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up, making myself comfortable. This bullshit wasn’t going to be over anytime soon.

“Quite.” He nudged my drink in my direction, his fingers still trembling. “I didn’t believe Aisling when she said you were probably a double agent, so I came to see you a few times at Badlands. Each time, I turned around, losing my nerve. But I noticed the same newspaper was rolled and left at the entrance each time, so I figured that was your media outlet of choice. From there, faking a headline wasn’t too hard.”

Then Troy picked it up at the entrance to my club, on his way in, and showed it to me.

Goddammit, Nix, you’re a clever one.

“Now, Barbara McAllister is a college friend. She is not at all what you believed her to be. But for the purposes of helping me, she put on a show. Her sister has an address in a shithole part of the city. I added her name in the lease, knowing you would find her, see the poverty she so-called lives in, and decide to press her because she is easy prey,” Gerald continued.

“Aisling said that if I gave you information that didn’t match what you’d find on your own, it’d raise a red flag and you’d take the bait. She was right.”

“Did you decide to do all this or did Ash?” It seemed like a sophisticated operation, and Gerald was only good for managing a company that’d been handed to him by his own father. Even that, he half-assed. Cillian was a much better CEO than Gerald ever was, something Gerald secretly resented his son for.

“Well, Aisling did, bless her heart. She is my child through and through, that one. So delicately cunning. So smart.”

So hot.

Though I doubted he’d appreciate that specific input.

Gerald took a sip of his drink, his shoulders rolling as he visibly relaxed.

“Aisling knew Barbara would stand out with her zip code. We wanted to ensure you’d approach her, so we made certain her address led to a trailer park. You took the bait. When you called Barbara, Aisling and I instructed her beforehand. What to say. How to act. We couldn’t chance her blowing her cover. She did a remarkable job, didn’t she? And by the end of the day, you were already on the phone with publishing houses and literary agents, hooking her up with people who wanted to hear her story about the sordid Gerald Fitzpatrick. The new Jeffrey Epstein, right? The fall from grace of the tycoon who wanted too much from too many.”

This was pretty much spot-on, so I couldn’t dispute it. I played into Ash’s hands, and even when we’d met, even when I’d been balls deep inside her, when she cried my name, when she told me she loved me, when she offered me herself on a silver platter, she still plotted against me.

Tried to uncover the truth.

Was an active participant in our mental chess game.

“We got three offers from three different publishing houses,” I said tersely, trying to understand how they managed to cover the last part of their plan.

This was why the headline made sense. Because Barbara told me she had taken one of the deals. That she was going to write the tell-all. The plan was to have Gerald beg me to step in. I, in turn, would have a confession from him, throw my weight a little around Barbara, pay her to keep her mouth shut, and the whole thing would be canceled.

Then, depending on Gerald’s version of what went down between him and Cat, I planned to shed some Fitzpatrick blood. Not a lot. Just enough to satisfy my bloodthirsty nature.

“You didn’t get an offer from anyone.” Gerald shook his head. “Your calls to the publishers went straight to Emmabelle Penrose’s phone.”

I could feel my face morph from anger to disgust. I was played not only by Ash, but by that airheaded Barbie.

As if hearing my internal thoughts, Gerald offered a quick nod.

“Aisling didn’t want you to recognize her voice. She had your calls redirected to Emmabelle’s phone each time you made an inquiry. And once the so-called contract between Barbara and the publishing house of her choice was signed, you were out of the loop. You only ever saw the contract. You didn’t actually speak to any of the people Barbara had spoken to.”

That was true. The minute I hooked Barbara McAllister up with a so-called literary agent—who was probably Emmabelle, too—I stepped aside and tended to my own business, secure in the notion everything would run smoothly.

“How did Ash redirect the calls to Belle?” I narrowed my eyes at Gerald. Everything seemed too flawless to be done without any help.

Gerald smiled a smile that sank into the pit of my fucking stomach.

No.

“Yes,” Gerald replied, and I realized I said the word out loud. “She used the man who knows how to be Sam Brennan better than Sam Brennan—Troy Brennan.”

For the first time in a long time, I had nothing to say. Nothing other than where the fuck was Aisling? Why wasn’t she the one confronting me? Only the answer was obvious. She didn’t want anything to do with me. Every time we were alone, I’d somehow find a way into her pants before pushing her away and telling both of us it would never happen again.

Fucking pathetic.

And this time I didn’t mean her.

“If it makes you feel any better, your adoptive father had no idea this had anything to do with you. He would never betray you like this. Aisling told him she needed a few certain numbers to be redirected to Belle because, as you know, Belle is the owner at Madame Mayhem, a local nightclub, and she said someone was trying to target the club and write a damning tell-all about the managers and goings-on inside,” Gerald continued, taking another generous sip of whiskey.

I took a drag off my cigarette. My drink remained untouched.

Through the curtains, the oranges and pinks of a winter sunrise colored the sky. I tapped my cigarette to the side of my lip, mulling it over.

“It was airtight,” I said eventually.

“Yes,” Gerald agreed. “Aisling did all the leg work. When Troy asked why she didn’t come to you directly to deal with the publishing companies, she explained that because she was infatuated with you, she wanted to limit your communication to the bare minimum.”

She even used her weaknesses to her advantage.

“We communicate often,” I bit out harshly, childishly, the need to fuck her over right back overwhelming me. “If that’s what you want to call it. So where is this Barbara woman now?”

I knew where she was going to be soon.

Six feet under.

Actually, that wasn’t true. I wasn’t going to kill Barbara, but not because she didn’t deserve it for double-crossing me. I wasn’t going to kill her because it was obvious Aisling fucking Fitzpatrick was going to go after my ass, knowing I had one hell of a motive. It wasn’t a cold day in Hell, but finally, I found someone who held me accountable for my actions.

It wasn’t the police, the sheriff, the FBI, or the mayor, although all of them had tried.

It was a petite Irish girl with a smart mouth and eyes like bluebells who wanted to give me everything she had until I made it very clear to her I wasn’t worth any of it.

“That’s a great question.” Gerald grinned smugly, his face so punchable I was surprised it didn’t curve inside out.

He snapped his fingers, and just like that, Barbara materialized from the hallway, no longer looking like a day-shift stripper. Her hair was coiffed back, her attire a black velvet Prada suit and Chanel purse.

Yeah, she definitely didn’t need any food stamps or half-finished cigarette packs.

Barbara smiled at me apologetically, giving me a quick nod.

“I wanted to be here just to say I was sorry in person. I never meant to complicate things for you, Mr. Brennan, but Gerald is an old friend, and when he told me he was in trouble, I simply couldn’t turn my back on him. Surely, you can understand.”

Only I couldn’t.

Because I didn’t have any real friends. Only people I had business with and met with socially—only to make sure they didn’t screw up any of our mutual business shit.

“Well played, madam.”

She smiled and dashed out the door after saying her goodbyes, leaving Gerald and me to face each other. I took out another cigarette, waiting for the question on the tip of his tongue.

“So now it’s your turn to tell me … why?” he asked quietly, dropping his elbows to his knees. He looked broken. Wilted and weak and somehow still angry.

“Why did you put me through this? Why did you take everything I’ve ever cared for? What did I ever do to you, Brennan? Up until two months ago, I would name you as one of my closest business partners. Openly.”

Openly my ass. If he was so open about his business with me, he wouldn’t have forbade me from taking his daughter out for a coffee.

Not that that was what I wanted.

Or had anything to do with this bullshit.

“I found the letters,” I said, flicking ash into an ashtray on the table. “Catalina’s letters. Back in November. The old bat finally conked out, and her neighbor invited me to sort through her shit and see if there was anything of value there. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t. But she kept the letters to you. The ones you redirected back to her. And your photos together…” I took a deep breath “…and the pregnancy test. I know all about what you did to her, to me. How you drove her away from me. How you killed the child in her womb. My brother. I know everything. Everything. Everything.”

I said it three times, so he’d understand I meant business.

Gerald stared at me for a long beat. When he finally opened his mouth, no words came out.

He started to laugh.

Cackle was more like it.

And I mean, really go at it, slapping his thigh as he tried to regulate his breath, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, shaking his head.

“You bought that bullshit?” He heaved. “Are you serious, son?”

“There were pictures, Gerald. Lots of them. Of you and Cat together. By the way, you should probably stop the habit of documenting every single fuck you have with women who are not your wife.”

The pictures were genuine. They were real. And they were damning. I knew a photoshopped work when I saw it, and this wasn’t it.

So why was I feeling like an idiot right now?

“No, I did have an affair with Cat, I’m not going to deny that part. Hell, Sam, you were a child, barely even old enough to wipe your own ass. I didn’t know you. And Cat was a gorgeous woman in her prime. Besides, she needed the money, and I paid her well for her … uh … company.” He looked away now, rubbing the back of his head.

There was no well-mannered way to point out someone’s mother was a whore, so I didn’t necessarily fault him for that. He carried on, exhaling quickly.

“I had an affair with her, yes, but everything else was a complete and utter fabrication. Catalina was never pregnant with my child, and I never raised a finger to hurt her. I did not cause her to miscarry. When we started seeing each other, she told me she had her tubes tied after she had you. I asked her to show me the doctor’s note—I knew Jane would rip my head off if I ever got any of my mistresses pregnant—and Cat provided it to me within the day. Not only that, but I went ahead and double-checked it with her OB-GYN.”

“Then what the fuck was that pregnancy test?”

“My guess is she took it from one of her friends. Catalina had a lot of friends in the … uh … industry she worked in. Kept women who messed around with rich men. We provided for them, but the main incentive was, of course, to fall pregnant with our children. That would tie us to them for life.”

I did not take that into consideration.

“So you are saying she was never pregnant with your child?” I drawled, trying to keep my cool.

He finished his whiskey in one go. “Correct.”

“That’s all nice and well, but I distinctly remember Cat coming back home around the time of the alleged miscarriage, disoriented and bruised. I remember her crawling into her bed, curling up into a ball, crying. I remember her being ushered to the hospital in an ambulance. How would you explain that?”

Gerald stared at me through beady, liquid black eyes, his lips sneering in distaste. “Does the name Donnie ring a bell?”

I shook my head slowly.

“Tall, muscular, an underwear model type. He was Cat’s real boyfriend at the time. The man she fucked without leaving an invoice on the nightstand afterward. Real good-looking guy, I’ll give him that, but he never came to terms with what she did for a living. Every now and again, he would rough her up if she showed up to meet him smelling like the man before him. As it happened, that man before him that night was me. I know, because I met your mother at the hospital and even paid for her hospital stay. I told her to press charges. She didn’t want to. I still have the receipt for that hospital bill, and I can show you none of the things listed there have anything to do with Cat’s womb or any of her reproductive organs.”

Suddenly, I had a really bad headache. Because through foggy memory, I did remember Donnie. A tall, blond fuckboy. I remembered internally referring to him as Captain Potato Head for having the combined IQ and wit of a used condom. He was the first person to give me a cigarette.

“Hey, Cat’s kid, bring me the pack of Marlboros over there, will ya?”

I did as I was told, mostly because I was too distracted to tell him to fuck off. The man left the pack open, jerking it in my direction.

“Here, boy, take one. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Oh, you will, buddy. With your fucked-up life, cigarettes are a question of when, not if.”

“Explain the letters.” I turned to Gerald, the biting pain of being played closing in on my throat again. This time not by Aisling, who was at least smart and intelligent, but by Cat, whom I wouldn’t trust with a goddamn Snickers bar.

All the pieces of the puzzle were falling together.

“Easily, Sam.” Gerald poured himself more whiskey, seeming more relaxed than he had in weeks. I knew he was telling the truth, and it fucking killed me. “Sometime after Donnie roughed her up, Cat realized her line of work was just too dangerous. She asked me for money. A lot of it. To keep silent. I said no, and that’s when the blackmailing began. Each and every one of her letters was part of an extortion scheme. She threatened to out us, to spread terrible lies, to ensure Jane knew about what we were. What we did. She wanted to skip town, but she never wanted to take you, Sam. You weren’t in her plans. Not even for a second. At some point, I realized she wasn’t worth the heat I was about to get from Jane. I became open to giving her money. I kept asking her how she could leave you behind. Tried to convince her to take you with her—kids need their mothers. By God, Sam, she just wouldn’t. Finally, I handed her 150k just so she would shut up and leave me alone. I remember the day she left. She was so happy, and you know what, son? So was I. She almost cost me everything. I’m not going to lie, Sam, seeing the back of your mother as she skipped town was one of my favorite sights. It should have been a happy day for you, too.”

I began peeling the soft paper around the cigarette pack, feeling like a thirteen-year-old again.

“You never told me about your history with my mother,” I said coldly.

“No. Not because I did something horrible to her but because I didn’t want you to think I see you as the spawn of this money-grabbing idiot. I didn’t want our professional relationship to be tainted by that. Besides, I truly didn’t and don’t see you as Cat’s. You are a Brennan through and through. A Brennan is the best thing a person in Boston can be, other than a Fitzpatrick. You had a good childhood once she gave you up. You shouldn’t be thinking about her. Not for one second.”

“I don’t,” I hissed. “I’m thinking about how you wronged me.”

“I didn’t know you,” Gerald emphasized. “You were a kid. Still, I felt some sort of responsibility toward you. After I’d heard Cat had left, I looked you up. Found out that Sparrow sent you to this fancy Montessori school. I had my driver drive around it sometimes to see if I could spot you during recess. Sometimes I did. You sat in the middle of a circle, and all the boys looked up to you, captivated by you. You became strong, and prominent, and unbeatable. After a while, I was satisfied with how it all turned out. Pleased with my decision to give the wretched woman what she wanted to leave you behind. It worked out well for you.”

“So well you later on hired me as the help.”

“No, as my fixer,” Gerald corrected. “A savvy businessman whose expertise I needed and was willing to pay for handsomely. Admittedly, I wasn’t surprised to see you on my doorstep. I stitched together the Sailor and Hunter plan with Troy, tightening our ties with the Brennans had always been the plan for me. You were too prominent a family in Boston for me not to acknowledge you somehow. But I hired you because you were the best in the business and not for any other reason.”

There was silence. I knew more needed to be said, but I wasn’t sure what. I believed Gerald, and that should have been enough. I should have felt some sort of relief or contentment with this information.

Cautiously, Gerald continued, drawing a circle with his index finger around his tumbler of whiskey.

“But I have a feeling this doesn’t have much to do with Catalina and me. You wanted a reason for me to become your enemy. Otherwise, you would have come straight to me with those letters. What’s going on, Sam?”

And just like that, he hit the nail on the head.

I created this mess.

Troy was right.

Gerald was right, too.

I wanted it, needed it, manufactured it the day after I slept with Aisling to distract myself from the hard truths.

Aisling Fitzpatrick could never be mine.

She was too innocent, too precious, too blue-blooded for a man like me.

I couldn’t have her—and not just because her family paid me not to.

The extra money didn’t matter much to me. But also because I couldn’t give her all the things she needed—monogamy, a wedding, a family, children. And most importantly because I knew being with her would put her life at risk.

She is already putting her life at risk, doing what she is doing. She could end up in jail tomorrow, which means you played savior Jesus for nothing.

The truth hit me hard.

I wanted Aisling Fitzpatrick.

There were no more distractions.

No more excuses.

No more reasons to stay away.

Especially now, when both Gerald and I had each other by the throat.

It was time to make a bargain.

“You deprived me of my mother, Gerald, and I deprived you of your sanity for weeks. I think it is high time we cut a deal.” I sat back, nailing him to his seat with a stare.

“Don’t turn this around on me, Brennan. You were caught red-handed, meddling with my business and ruining my relationships with my loved ones. I know it seems like Jane and I have a lot of issues to work through, and truth be told, ours is less than a perfect marriage, but I still care about my wife. I love her in my own way, and I am definitely not impressed with the way you interfered in our marriage.”

“Regardless of that speech, the truth of the matter is, I have a lot of dirt on you, Gerry boy, and I fully plan to unleash it if I don’t get what I want. The letters are still real. The pregnancy test is still in existence. All those things you ran away from with Cat are now in my possession, and trust me, I make my birth mother look like a kitten in comparison.”

He groaned, rubbing his face tiredly.

“What is it that you want?”

“Your daughter,” I replied simply.

He laughed. This time it came out metallic and scratchy. His whole body rejected the idea. Like a failed organ transplant.

“You’ll never stand a chance with my daughter after what you did to us. This is the ultimate betrayal. She cares for her mother dearly, and in her eyes, you are to blame for the destruction of her family. In fact, I will be meeting her for breakfast in…” he flicked his wrist, checking his Rolex “…about two hours to tell her all about this little conversation. I cannot give you what is not up for offer.”

“Leave the persuasion to me,” I clipped. “Give her your blessing to be with me.”

“My blessing?” he spat out, his eyes widening. “You tried ruining my life!”

“You ruined mine first.” I waved an impatient hand his way, standing up and collecting my things.

“I’m paying you extra to stay away from Aisling!” He shot up to his feet, jabbing a finger in the air in my direction.

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about my bank account. I’ll survive without it.”

“It’s not your bank account I’m worried about. It’s my daughter.” He paused, a flicker of interest crossing his face. “How well off are you, anyway?”

“Triple digit millions well off. Your daughter will be provided for.”

“You will not have her!” he cried desperately. “Aisling is beautiful, smart, delicate, and well-bred. She—”

“Is also fucking single because the only man she wants is forbidden,” I cut him off, shouldering past him toward the bathroom, where I yanked his gun out of my pocket and wiped it clean of my fingerprints with a towel. “You are doing her a disservice by interfering with her love life. She knows what she wants.”

“And you?” He eyed me skeptically through the bathroom mirror. “Do you know what you want?”

Yes.

I wanted Aisling.

I met his gaze head-on in the mirror.

“You will tell her she has your blessing to date me. To be with me. To marry me,” I enunciated. “Understood?”

He looked close to hitting me. It surprised and delighted me to know Gerald cared so much about his daughter.

“She is my flesh and blood,” he hissed.

“Don’t remind me.” I pretended to gag. “Look, I don’t need your dirty money. I plan on courting her and touching her—a lot, in ways you don’t want to think about—and I would like to do that very openly. She deserves dinners, and restaurants, and vacations. Things I cannot give her in secret. You either roll with the plan or I run you over. Your pick.”

“I have conditions, too.”

I put his gun down on the sink’s edge, turning around and folding my arms over my chest. “Let’s hear them.”

“I’ll be going back to Avebury Court Manor in a few to give Jane and Aisling a rundown of everything we discussed. All facts. You will not deny what happened. You will own up to tampering with our lives. To poisoning me. To dragging out those awful pictures.”

It seemed straightforward enough.

“You will also hand me back my cufflinks. My family heirloom.”

I gave him a curt nod. “That it?”

“No. One more thing. If you hurt her …” He didn’t finish the sentence, shaking his head to rid himself of whatever horrid image played in his mind.

“I will not hurt your daughter.”

“I’m already regretting this bargain.”

I turned around and left him there.

Now there was only one slight matter.

The matter of making Aisling not hate me with a burning passion of a fucking million suns.