Chapter 15

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Oh no. It's the consequences of his own actions.

Rowan

Did you have fun? Did I have fun gallivanting with a woman less than two-thirds my age who seems to think running a crime syndicate equates to having a party? Before my organs committed mutiny and I received a brutal reminder that I am, in fact, almost forty, was I having fun?

In a puddle of people and noise. With the vague promise of information looming beyond every activity Briar coerced me into.

Did I have fun?

Do I even know what fun looks like?

The dim glow of the only lamp I use in my bedroom surrounds me as I swipe through the photo album I just bought on my laptop. I don't know why I cared enough to remember the site every attendant after every roller coaster directed us to when we turned down getting immediate prints.

In the picture I'm staring at now, Briar and I are on a roller coaster that's just come over a hill. My stomach knots with the memory alone, but my attention is locked on our joined hands. Raised high. Fingers trapping mine and forcing my arm above my head, Briar is screaming. Excitement ripples in her blue eyes as she looks toward the next part of the track.

In perfect contrast, I'm tense. Half-scared, half-baffled. Looking directly at her.

Right now, it's late, or early. I'm not completely sure. All I know is that I brought my laptop up to my bedroom with the intention of finishing the updates I started in my office, then falling asleep with work. Romantically.

I don't know where in my exhaustion I found myself buying a dozen pictures instead.

Swiping to the next one, I find Briar laughing.

Even though she knew I'd have a reason to kill dozens of people in a matter of hours, she's laughing.

In the next photo, someone is actively throwing up behind us, but she remains blissful.

Briar scares me.

But she doesn't invoke the same fears my parents instilled in me. The fear she causes starts as a tingle at the base of my spine. It's…invigorating, in a way. It begs me to challenge it. It leaves me feeling anything but the subdued dread my parents used to control me and everyone else in Veleno up until the very night they disappeared.

"Cutting off fingers," I whisper, letting a breath puff from my nose.

My traitorous lips tip at one corner.

"Putting them in a jar."

What even is she?

Take a deep breath, and let yourself exist. It's allowed.

An angel?

You could have had dozens of pinkies to put in a jar. Then you could have put that jar on display. Are you picturing it? The pinkie jar? Isn't it the cutest decoration you can imagine?

A demon?

Running my fingers through my hair, I swipe to the next photo—which happens to include less vomit. That's nice.

She's…nice.

Refreshing in simultaneously the worst and best ways.

Her smile haunts me long after I force myself to set my laptop aside and switch off the lamp light. Flying from one end of the room to the other, Bugsy trills, perching somewhere on my dresser and knocking on the wood with his beak. He garbles, "It's bedtime, Bugsy. Settle down. Settle down." A trill, then, "Do you want to lose a finger—or a toe?"

I sigh.

Lethal. Unafraid. Confident.

Happy.

Somehow, I need to package Briar's essence up and use it to turn this fractured family around.

?

Fingers laced atop my office desk, I watch Briar and maintain my composure. I understand what I'm asking of her is unreasonable, but the stricken look she's giving me creates a solid unease in my gut.

Smile choked away, her wide blue eyes fix on me—aghast.

Internally, I put a tick next to my name on a mental scoreboard. For some inane reason, subverting her expectations and leaving her speechless feels like the biggest win I've had in months. Maybe years. "Was I unclear?" I ask. "Or does this request make you uncomfortable?"

Her shoulders bunch as she lifts her delicate hands to her lips.

A shock spears through me, and I erase my imaginary win.

"You want me to move in with you?" Her eyes gloss, shining. "Oh, baby. You do love me."

The back of my throat stings, and for the first time since I assembled this dastardly plan, I am second-guessing my sanity.

I didn't plan this. Somehow, she did. But if that is the case, why?

I thought I knew my reasoning—keep her close enough to study, see if her magic might extend to my family while she's here—but what in the world could her reasoning be?

Why would anyone want to move into a volatile base? We don't know how long we'll be chasing the Maxim Project. Who in their right mind would agree to live with someone they barely know atop a minefield of uncertain characters?

Is this the power of an extrovert? Do they just willy-nilly go with whatever flow as they strike up conversations with grocery store clerks?

Briar begins pacing. "I'll need to pack, tell Lace, situate a place for Cupcake to stay with me." She sets a finger against her chin. "I should bring Chip, but separating him and Lace won't go over well, and she needs to take care of things in my absence." Laughter bubbles out of her, straightening the hairs on the back of my neck. "Oh, who am I kidding? We should begin merging our families anyway. With Granger and that riffraff gone, there's plenty of room here for new members. We can do an exchange. Lace can come here. Aster can manage The Giungla in our absence. Everyone can begin familiarizing themselves with one another. Then, by the time the wedding rolls around, we'll already be one big happy family."

I bristle. She's delusional. Is that part of the magic? Delusion? "Briar, I am only inviting you. For a limited time. And our involvement ends after we subdue the Maxim Project."

"Of course. Of course." Her lips part as her gaze darts to me. "But you said, ‘Beloved, I cannot bear that we are apart any longer. Move in with me.'"

I said, I need to keep an eye on you. Make arrangements to move in.

Sagging, I plaster my hand to my eyes and wonder why I thought this was a good idea. Possibly, it has something to do with the consistent three hours of sleep I've gotten every night for eight days.

Last week's situation with Granger has left me scrambling to reassemble my routines and balance this family yet again. Choosing to nix our most profitable rackets after my parents vanished was tricky enough. Managing to get above water after losing yet another chunk of manpower is another thing entirely.

Throughout every number crunch and realignment, my brain fixated on Briar and a single, pertinent question concerning her: How?

How does she do everything she does while looking like a pixie stick? How does she get her family to respect her every whim? How does she convince her leading officers to sit through PowerPoints about theme parks? How, how, how?

So, somewhere in the exhaustion, I made a decision I already regret.

If the princess is allowed to take me on picnics, drag me to theme parks, and make herself my fake fiancee, I, too, can impose preposterous demands.

The goal is simple: I want family. Loyalty. Laughter. Uncanny warmth in the darkest places.

Something like stability.

I want The Casa to feel as safe as The Giungla.

To achieve that goal, I need to analyze Briar and answer key questions: Are her tactics universal? Can she work her magic on my family, too? Or is she, and everyone else in her family, just plain insane?

"It's decided, then," Briar continues although nothing has been decided. "Lace and Chip will come here to stay with me, and Aster will manage The Giungla."

"I think you're misunderst—"

"What are we going to do when we have children?" she muses.

I choke on my words as my mind turns to static.

Merciless, Briar continues, "We have a surplus of leadership with the both of us and our underbosses already. Merging our families doesn't just mean choosing between them. At one point, their job will go to our child." She claps a hand to her mouth and fixes her eyes on me. "Or our children. Rowan—" Tears glisten in her eyes. "—what if our babies hate each other because one wants all the power to be theirs?"

Containing myself, I shove my fingers back through my hair. "Briar. We are not going to have children."

"I want at least one."

Sheer incredulity takes hold of my brain, and I stare at this woman's sincere expression. She…wants to have a child? In this economy? In this world?

In the mafia?

The longer this conversation continues, the more regrets I have. I should have known better. She's not something brilliant with effective tactics that I can learn from and implement. Taking care of Granger was a fluke. She's just impertinent and mildly insane, playing house in the worst setting imaginable.

When did I wind up in a romantic comedy?

Even as a headache crawls up my neck, I feel compelled to repeat, "We are not going to have children together, Briar."

Her arms fold. "Sometimes children happen, Rowan. We don't have to try for one if you're adamantly against it, but I'm not going on birth control, so either you do, or you start accepting your fate as a father."

My fate, huh?

I do highly doubt red strings of fate are real, but if they were, they absolutely don't tie our pinkies together.

It's too late to back out now. Briar will do whatever she wants, regardless, and if moving into The Casa was somewhere in her chaotic plans, nothing I say now will stop the inevitable.

I had not woken up this morning prepared to contemplate fatherhood.

Yet, here we are.

"Make arrangements for your things," I mutter. "You'll be taking the room next to mine."

"Your room."

I grimace. "The room next to mine."

"Yours."

Our eyes hit one another, violent.

"Princess…" I hiss.

"We've already shared a room before. People know we have. It would be weird to not continue. Raise questions. We need to be a believable couple, Rowan."

She completely planned this. From day one. I am livid. And exhausted. And irritated. And a sliver impressed. Taking a deep breath, I settle the buzz of my nerves. Everything is fine. This is fine. I can work with plans. I like plans. "It makes sense for you, as the fiancee of a crime boss, to have your own, adequate space."

"The room next door will be perfect for Cupcake. Chip and Lace can babysit her. Snakes have very particular living requirements."

I stand. "So do I. They involve sleeping in my own bed and not finding unmentionables in my drawers."

"Your bed is big, baby."

"Absolutely not."

She marches up to my desk. "Don't be a big baby."

"You can't get everything you want just be being a stubborn irritation."

Her lashes flutter, and she laces her fingers behind her fluffy mess of a skirt. "Oh? Can't I? I think I can. When you don't have any boundaries, people stomp all over you, pet. I can make you lie down and roll over if I want. I can even convince you to do it gleefully. With enough time. The kind of time I'll have, now that we're living together."

"Doubtful." I plant my palms on my desk.

"I'll click-train you with good boys until you fall right into line. It'll be grand. You won't have to think anymore." Her head tilts. "Just make your cute little posters and bark when I say so."

"You aren't the only one familiar with mind games, princess."

"Perhaps not. But am I wrong to assume I'm the only one familiar with beating them?"

Reaching, I fit the heat of her chin against my palm. My thumb traces the soft line of her jaw as her muscles ease. Some depraved part of me wants to take her up on this challenge. The concept of abuse to the point of submission is nothing new.

But she's terrifying in all the ways I've never known before.

The way my parents controlled, hurt, and scarred me left me grappling for a place to exist where I wouldn't find agony around the next corner. I relished outgrowing their physical training, even though it meant I'd perfected becoming the emotionless husk they wanted. Briar makes me want to push back, prove her wrong, watch her confidence shatter.

I want her to apologize and relent.

I want to make her concede.

I really must be my father's son.

"We are not sharing a room. That's final."

"We are. That's final."

Exasperated, I say, "This isn't a game. I appreciate that you don't find me threatening, but—"

"You do?" she asks, voice soft, eyes somehow sincere.

"Why would I want to be the kind of man a woman fears, in any setting? That is the last thing I want."

Calculations stream through her beautiful blue eyes as she lifts her hand to mine. Hesitant, her fingers skim the pulse in my wrist. "Please? You're asking me to live in an unstable place with weapons everywhere." When she blinks, a fragile glass tear traces down her cheek, and my innards turn over, knotting. "I feel safest here with you."

Her tear dampens my thumb and dissolves my willpower—along with my logic. "Fine," I mutter. "We can share my room. I'll get a cot moved in there. Somehow. Discreetly. We will not be sharing a bed. I don't trust myself."

Every speck of emotion drains out of her as she twists my hand off her and pops up onto my desk. Checking her nails, she says, "That is the problem, isn't it?"

Did she just…

Sagging into my chair, I scrub a hand down my face. "What is wrong with you?"

She beams at me over her shoulder. "Nothing."

"I don't buy it."

"Sweetheart, I could sell you chewed gum, and you'd happily buy it."

The throb of my headache is swiftly removing my will to live. "I mean it, princess. I do not trust myself. If you have anything resembling a soul, don't make me become the kind of man I hate."

Leaning across my desk, she grips the arm of my chair and drags me up to her. Our lips inches apart, she whispers, "It sounds like you're ready to blame me for actions you'd commit."

"You aren't exactly acting like an unwilling temptation. I would never ignore your no. It's the yeses that concern me."

Her gaze falls on my lips. Her thumb traces in the wake of her attention. "I really like you, Rowan. You should trust yourself a little more. And perhaps locate a boundary or two." Her eyes deepen and darken, ocean blue, the sky after a storm. "If I crawl into bed with you when you've told me no, what will you do? Setting a boundary is not about controlling someone else. It's about making your response to abuse clear."

My immediate thoughts of what I'd do aren't anything I am willing to say aloud. Once I've parsed through them, however, all I can come up with is: "Just. Don't."

Her lips touch my forehead, and the sensation is something more gentle than anything I have ever known before. She says, "We'll work on it."

After Briar slips away with a promise to return with her things, I lift my hand to my head.

It…burns.