"Oh?"
"Savannah Daniels. That’s her, right?"
"It is. How do you know?"
"She recently moved in beneath me."
"Unlike you to know that," I pointed out. I mean, I knew that but it was unusual for Conor to know too.
"Her dad got in touch with me. Asked for a favor."
"What kind of favor?"
"His wife was rushed to the hospital in Philly. He needed his daughter there, stat. I obliged and that was how I learned about Savannah."
"Very philanthropic of you," I murmured.
"Not really. He promised to send me tickets to a concert. It was the week before you darkened my door." Conor beamed. "That was an awesome show."
"Of course, her dad’s Dagger Daniels." I snorted. "noxxious. How could I forget?"
His chin jutted out. "You could have tried to score me some tickets from her before."
"What? While I was trying to convince her not to write that exposé? While also not killing her like I was supposed to? Yeah, Conor, you meeting her folks was my priority.
"Anyway, stop fucking talking. Look at her."
"I am looking at her."
"I mean, check her out."
"I did. She has nice tits."
I growled under my breath. "Conor, my patience is wearing thin."
"You’re not Da, you know?" He peered at me. "I’m not scared of you."
"Fucking should be."
His lips curved but he crouched down at her side, then pulled out his phone from his pocket. He turned the screen on, then pressed it to her mouth.
"She’s breathing, Conor. We don’t need to do that test," I said wryly.
"Just checking."
Okay, maybe he didn’t know anything about field medicine.
When he put the flashlight on, I watched as he shone that in her face, then he lifted her eyelids. Her pupils puckered, retreating into tight circles.
"I think that’s a good sign."
He turned the phone around then tapped the screen. When I heard a ringing sound, I folded my arms, waiting to find out who he’d called.
"Conor, there’d better be a good reason you’re waking me up at two AM."
"You wake up early, don’t you?"
"Not this fucking early. Each moment is precious, dick, and the first voice I want to hear when I wake up isn’t yours." Eoghan yawned. "What do you want?"
"Someone just fell down the stairs. Face-planted." I cleared my throat. "She knocked herself out."
Eoghan grunted. "Sounds like a dipshit move to me." He paused. "Wait. She? Hang on, where are you? I thought you were at Conor’s? There aren’t any steps there."
Ignoring his other questions, I replied, "There are from the helipad."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot you had one of those on your building. Conor, you weren’t trying to throw someone over the side, were you? Finn told me you asked about that."
Hell, this wasn’t the first time he’d verbalized it?
"Conor, we need to get you to a shrink," I muttered.
"It’s only for enemies. Jesus. You’d think you hadn’t killed anyone before." He huffed and folded his arms across his chest.
Ignoring his petulance, I told Eoghan, "She tripped, has some cuts and scrapes, but she’s unconscious."
"You don’t want her to be? "
"No."
"You’re not torturing her?"
"No." Torturing women was Da’s thing anyway. "She’s just unconscious from the fall."
"I’d hope she is, considering Conor just threw you under the ‘Murder One’ bus," he said wryly.
"I’m not worried about that."
Silence fell at my declaration.
Until they both decided to speak at the same time.
"Why the hell not?" Eoghan burst out.
"Did you want to kill her anyway?" Conor queried, calmer but no less confused.
"No," I groused, "I don’t want her dead. But she knows how things work in this world. She was well aware she flew too close to the sun last time. No way she’d throw us under the bus now."
Maybe that was wishful thinking, naïveté or stupidity, but I knew she wouldn’t.
Back in the day, she’d had every reason, every goddamn right to be scared of me, to go to the cops to try to evade the Firm’s reach, but she hadn’t.
She was too smart for that.
"There's a hell of a lot of information to unravel there, Aidan. How do you know her?" Eoghan demanded. "It sounds like you fucked her or something."
"I wish," I muttered, reaching up to rub the back of my neck.
It was freezing out here, but I needed the cold to stop me from getting overheated. Just thinking about the few times we’d met up was enough to give me a hard-on.
"You wish? You mean…" Conor paused. "You didn’t?"
"No."
"Holy fuck," Conor breathed. "She’s like your penguin."
"My penguin?"
"Yeah. They mate for life."
"Or in this instance, they don’t mate throughout life," Eoghan said with a cackle. "How can his soul mate be someone he hasn’t fucked?"
"Could you have said anything less romantic?"
Inessa’s comment should have been jarring, but I wasn’t surprised he was having this conversation in front of his wife, wasn’t shocked that he hadn’t left the room.
As one by one, my brothers all started getting hitched, I’d admit, seeing the differences between their marriages and our parents’ was refreshing. A bit of a relief as well.
My time was coming.
Da would expect it soon enough.
I could already feel the shackles closing around me.
Not because a wife was a ball and chain, but because of what that marriage would represent.
We might only be criminals to some people, but we were a dynasty too, and the heir to it was expected to wed and make little heirs of his own.
I was surprised I’d made it to forty-two without being forced down the aisle.
"Of course I could be less romantic if I tried," Eoghan pointed out, utterly without shame. "But I try for you. That has to give me some bonus points, surely?"
Inessa just snorted, but I heard shuffling, as if she were getting out of bed.
"That reminds me, we’re going on our honeymoon in the new year. Aidan, I’m covering your tracks, I’ll expect you to cover mine while I’m gone."
I blinked. "Da knows, right?"
"He does."
"Then what’s the problem? Even he doesn’t begrudge a honeymoon. Especially one that’s taking place months after the wedding," I said dryly.
"Who knows where he’s concerned. What I do know is that we’re getting our asses on that plane and not a fucking war with the Bratva or the Sparrows is going to stop our honeymoon. Ya got me?"
"I do," I agreed, because it wasn’t much to ask, was it? Every man and wife deserved a goddamn honeymoon. "I’ll cover you as much as I can."
"Thanks. Okay, so back to your penguin."