Page 24 of Reckless Seduction
“You’re welcome, dear.” She nods her head. My stomach growls, my cheeks heating at the loud gurgle echoing in the room. “Lunch is being served. Let’s not keep my son waiting.”
Her son.
My smile drops at her words, my stomach turning queasy. There is no doubt I’ll soon be face-to-face with Liam Kavanaugh, head of the Irish Mafia.
The man who will ultimately decide my fate.
Well, shit.
EIGHT
I can still tasteher on my tongue.
That delicious nectar could sate a thirsty man on the brink of dehydration in the desert. Bailey is perfect. A goddess. I’ll happily spend the rest of my life buried between her thighs if I can get away with it.
“Do you think she’ll be of use?” My father sits down at the head of the family table. Sundays are meant for family. If you live under his roof, you attend lunch and dinner without question. The world better have ended if it is missed. Not that any of us would. The only person exempt from weekly family time is our mother, and good riddance to that.
Our sister Ava was thrilled about having a weekly family day since she was never allowed to linger with the Wards growing up. She’d been isolated most of her life before meeting Dashkov, and even now, I can sense that my sister still has the feeling of lingering isolation she is trying to shake.
Unfortunately, her being here also means that her Russian dick of a husband has to come too.
Just what we need.
“I doubt Bailey be giving us any insider secrets,” Kiernan admits, his voice pulling me from my thoughts. “But we can tryto see what we can get out of her. Tell her what we know about him. Make her see that he’s not some knight in shining armor.”
“What if she already knows and is complicit?” My father raises a good point. We know little about Bailey. It is possible she is in on what her adopted father does in the shadows. “Her career choice in investigative reporting could be so that she can report back to him on what she finds. Make the charges stick? Maybe plant some false leads that lead to arrests. It would be a boon for Crowe to have something like that work on his side.”
“I don’t think so,” I tell him honestly. “Out of all the reporters we know, her articles are the least biased.”
“You should ask about her father’s involvement with Toph Eriksen.”
That comes out of left field.
“No one asked you, fucker,” Kiernan growls, earning a stern look from our father.
“Kiernan,” Ava hisses, but the Russian doesn’t seem perturbed. He is probably used to being insulted.
“Not polite to eavesdrop,” Kiernan snarls.
Matthias smirks, taking his seat next to Ava, whose place has become on our father’s left side. A place that would normally be reserved for our mother, but she hardly ever shows up at family dinners, and my father couldn’t care less if she comes.
“Your voice carries like a spoiled child begging his mother for candy at a grocery store. Trust me, there was no need to eavesdrop.”
Well, shit. Shots fired.
I can’t help but laugh while my brother glares at the man, his own lips twitching mildly, trying his best not to react.
“Whatever,” he mumbles petulantly and takes a sip of his beer, his eyes on the elevator.
We were both reluctant to leave Bailey with Dani. Our cousin is an amazing doctor, top of her class in med school, but she is abit rough around the edges. Dani is used to dealing with Fuckers in the emergency room at Harborview Medical, and when she isn’t doing that, she is attending to the wives and girlfriends of our men, and that means she has to have a certain hardness to her.
Especially since she takes after her mother in the looks department. Most of the wives and girlfriends don’t want her anywhere near them because it means their husbands or boyfriends will see her.
Petty bitches.
Dani is also a mafia princess. Her grandfather was my grandfather’s brother, my father’s uncle, and that means she is royalty, and that pisses some wives off for sure. She doesn’t have to earn her place or marry into it. Whoever she marries will be below her in rank, since we don’t hold women to a lesser standard than men like theBratva.
MostBratvas.
