Page 19 of Mine
My eyelids fall shut.
It’s not forever. It’s just part of the game plan.
Hiding here with Dominic is the only way to stay safe right now.
I haven’t lost my way. I’m just taking a different route.
9
DOMINIC
Iglance at the chunky timepiece on my wrist as I breeze back down the stairs and into my office. I have a shipment coming into the docks at six thirty. I should be there myself; it’s a big one, but I don’t want to leave Aoife here alone. Not just because I’m frightened she’ll make a run for it either. She’s had one hell of a fucking day, and I’m determined to make her transition here as easy as possible.
I need her to go through with our wedding.
I need to enrage Rory Kavanagh.
I need him to take this so personally that he comes for me with both barrels. And for that, I need her—and the biggest ‘fuck you’ of a wedding we can come up with. Which is why I just phoned The Shelbourne and provisionally booked the 25thJuly. Nine weeks should be enough time to plan a party—and to convince my family Aoife and I are madly in love.
I pullmy phone from my pocket and ping Ciaran a text.
Can you go to the docks?
Three dots appear instantly.
Busy. Getting to know your new bride?
I fucking wish. An image of her full breasts spilling over her dress bursts into the forefront of my mind. Nope. Don’t go their Dom. Do not go there. This is an arrangement. Nothing more. She’s too young. Too damn good. The way she was even considering sacrificing herself to that monster for her father proves that. If it were up to me, I’d string him up by the bollocks, but sadly, that’s not what she wants. And as the saying goes, happy wife, happy life, right?
I fire off a quick reply.
None of your fucking business.
Please tell me your wife has some hot friends. You know it’s my duty to bang a bridesmaid.
Do you ever think with anything other than your dick?
Not if I can help it. What you gonna tell Frankie?
Nothing yet. As the saying goes, it’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, right?
As the oldest Kincaid,and the one not currently rotting in prison, like my father, Frankie considers himself the head of this family, even though he emigrated to the States forty years ago. He operates a large scale business operation in San Francisco, similar to what I run with my brothers here. Frankie helped us orchestrate the entire takeover from the previous Syndicate when we came of age. While I’m grateful, I’d prefer if he stayed the fuck away from Dublin.
Because Frankie drilled his single, unbreakable rule into us long before we were old enough to understand why it mattered. If you put a woman in your name, you do it because you chose her—and she chose you. Anything else, in Frankie’s book, makes you no better than the men we burned out of this city.
And while I’m ridiculously attracted to the woman who ran into my bar today, the main reason for our union certainly isn’t love.
It’s to kill Rory Kavanagh.
Marrying her is a power move. A statement. But now we’re going to be living together for the foreseeable future, I have to form some sort of bond with her—because both of our survival depends on it.
I spendthe rest of the afternoon in my office making calls. Cathal and Owen located Tommy O’Shea and took him tothe safe house. My men have been to Aoife’s house to locate passports, hers and her father’s. Turns out it’s on Greenhills estate. What a shithole. It’s worse than the one we were raised on—and that’s saying something.
Tommy O’Shea has been briefed—and by briefed, I mean advised of his options—which, considering how he treated his own daughter, are exceptionally limited.
All in all it’s been a productive day.
I’m grinning to myself like a fucking madman as I set the table in the dining room overlooking the twenty foot glittering pool positioned at the back of the house. My eyes linger on the expensive scented candles Sheila insists on dotting around the place. For some reason it seems fitting to light them. Perhaps my brothers are right. Perhaps I am a romantic fucking psycho.
