Chapter 3
Blaine
“You what?” I stared at my father, a bottle of beer frozen halfway on its way to my mouth.
He shot me a cold look—the one that I’d learned to take as a warning early on in my life. “I’ve arranged a marriage for you. It’s a business deal with the Clery family from Belfast. They’ve been pushing for our help up north, and we unfortunately owe them. This is the best way to pay our debt without actually giving them anything of real value.”
Apart from one of his sons, of course. Not that William Steel had ever seen any of us as much more than business assets.
I slammed the bottle of beer down on the kitchen counter, unable to keep my infamous temper fully in check. “Why the fuck me? Do I really strike you as the best husband material around?”
My father raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re my oldest available son, so the task falls to you. Besides, married life might do you some good. There’s no reason to kick up a fuss about this, Blaine. You’re going to go to the church, you’re going to marry the girl and sit through the reception so the Clerys can show off their new connection, and then you can do whatever the hell you want, as long as you make sure your wife doesn’t get herself killed by any of our enemies along the way. Though it would suit you to breed a couple of heirs while you’re at it—it’s way past time one of you began expanding the bloodline.”
I bit back a snide remark about me being the oldest available son. If he hadn’t sent Jeremy to the U.S. to strengthen his business ties across the pond, and Isaac wasn’t in jail, then I would have been third down on the list of sons to get married off to improve the business. Not to mention I had absolutely zero intention of “expanding the bloodline.” Ever. But I knew better than to challenge him. He would send every ounce of his considerable power to back me against any of the other crime families in town. Hell, he would even back me against the police if need be, but cross him… Cross him, and it no longer mattered that we were blood.
I’d learned that much from what happened to Isaac.
I took a swig from the beer bottle, suddenly itching for something stronger. “When?”
“Next Saturday.” My father got up from the barstool he’d been perched on without ever taking off his coat. Then again, it had taken him less than ten minutes from stepping through my doorway to completely and irrevocably fuck up my life, so why bother getting comfortable, right?
I gritted my teeth to stifle the black rage churning in my gut while he made his way out of my kitchen and to the front door. When his gloved hand touched the knob, he paused for a moment and looked at me over his shoulder, steel in his eyes and his jaw set in a way I recognized all too well from my youth. My hands clenched as if to brace for a beating, even though it’d been years since I’d grown too big for that particular brand of incentive.
“And Blaine… if you fuck this up, you’re going to be sorry.”
I stared mutely for several long minutes after he’d left, too stunned to move.
I guess it wasn’t a huge surprise that it was now my turn to get dragged to the sacrificial altar for “The Family,” but never in a million years would I have imagined it would be as a fucking groom.
The thought of being tied down and responsible for a bird had always filled me with cold dread, and the fact that my upcoming marriage was a sham didn’t make me feel any less shackled.
Finally, blessedly, anger drowned out the mixture of emotions coursing through me, its hot embrace allowing me to break free of the trance-like state my dear father had left me in.
Whoever the little cunt was, I wasn’t about to change my ways. If she had hopes of taming herself one of Steel’s sons, she was in for a nasty surprise.
I liked to drink, I liked to fight, and I liked to fuck every female that crossed my path, and if she wanted to be part of the Steel family, she was going to have to get used to that.
And maybe if I was lucky, she’d get fed up and get this fucking disaster of a marriage annulled.
I grabbed my leather coat and pulled out my phone, calling the twins as I slammed the front door shut behind me and headed down the stairs.
Time to get shitfaced and find a small-time gang dumb enough to challenge a Steel.
* * *
“You look like absolute shit.” For a man who’d kept me company during most of my weeklong bender, Liam’s voice was much too cheerful. I sent him an annoyed glare, which I immediately regretted as the sunlight caught my eyes and shot a bolt of pure agony directly into my brain.
Even his unruly, ginger hair looked offensively chipper.
“You really should have thought this through,” his identical twin, Louis, chimed in. “How are you going to satisfy your wee Irish lass tonight when you’re so hungover you look like you’re about to pass out?”
“Poor girl’s in for such a disappointment—if she’s desperate enough to agree to marry you, she undoubtedly needs a good rogering. Heck, she might even be a virgin! You really should bring your A-game, brother.” Liam grinned.
“You two fuckers better just shut up and thank your lucky star that it’s me here instead of one of you,” I growled, though the twins obviously didn’t share my lack of amusement. Of course, while they were standing by my side as the guests found their seats, I would be the one to swear sacred vows to a woman I’d never even met before, while they got to continue on with their lives as they pleased.
“To be fair, it would have been Marcus before either of us,” Louis said, slanting a look at our only other, present brother. “For once, being the youngest of the bunch paid off.”
“Ha, can you imagine them trying to marry some poor girl off to Marcus, though?” Liam snickered. “Eh, no offense, man.” The last part he mumbled, the perpetual laugh in his voice dying to a cough.
I glanced at Marcus just in time to catch the dark look he sent our way before once again looking straight ahead as if lost in deep thought.
Most sane criminals in town—and quite a few law enforcers—would make sure not to get in the way of a Steel, but Marcus had a way of making people cross the street just by looking at them. Of course, his reputation as a complete sociopath didn’t help matters much.
Even I didn’t really know what went on behind his blank expression, but I’d been to clean up a few of his messes along the way, and knew that he had some demons, for sure. He didn’t just kill—he butchered.
“God, the Clerys are such a bunch of pricks,” Louis muttered, and my attention was drawn to the front row, where a bunch of strangers filed in across the hall from our own father and stepmother. “Look at those smug smiles—they really think they hit the jackpot, eh?”
I didn’t answer, but despite my blinding headache, I couldn’t help but frown at the older man as he stared up at me like I was a prime cow up for auction. Undoubtedly the father, as he looked especially pleased with himself. Yeah, the Clerys obviously thought this marriage was their way up in the underworld, even if my own father saw it as nothing more than a means of placation.
My musings were interrupted when organ music abruptly blared through the church, cutting through my suffering brain like a saw. I winced and looked up just in time to see the doors at the other end of the aisle crack open.
“Here we go—time to get hitched, brother.”
I didn’t know which of the twins spoke, but I didn’t turn my head to find out. My eyes were glued to the double doors and my heart suddenly decided to work overtime, pounding behind my ribs as if I’d just run a fucking marathon.
The doors opened fully, and a lone woman in a hideous white dress and a long veil covering her face stepped through.
I had a vague notion that it was odd her father wasn’t walking her down the aisle, but my pulse thundering in my ears drowned out the thought quickly enough. Even my palms were clammy.
Fucking great. I already hated whoever she was for landing me in this fucked up situation—the fact that just seeing her walk toward me had the power to damn near bring on a panic attack didn’t make me any more of a fan. I liked being in control, of myself and my surroundings, and right now, I was neither.
I didn’t give a shit if it was unfair—I blamed her.
It wasn’t until she was right in front of me that I realized she was looking down at the floor behind her veil, and how badly her hands were shaking as she clutched her bouquet.
A nudge to my side from Liam made me step forward to greet her, and it was then that she finally looked up and I saw her face.
My heart gave a violent spasm before it dropped all the way to the bottom of my Italian leather shoes.
I knew her.
And her name wasn’t Aignéis Clery. It was Holler. Mira Holler. My fucking shrink.
* * * *