And it had me being grateful that I never made a promise I couldn’t and wouldn’t keep...
Not everyone has to like you. Just be you. You’ll find your people.
Twenty-Eight
Camille
I knew Brennan’s father by looks alone.
Even in his late sixties, Aidan Sr. was an undeniably handsome man.
It was almost perverse that he could be so attractive, that Brennan and his other sons could be too, considering their work.
They had blood on their hands, on their hearts and their souls, but their faces were angelic. At least, if angels had the kind of faces that you wanted to kiss.
Not that Aidan Sr.’s made me want to get kissy with it, but it certainly made it easier for me to understand how Inessa had fallen for Eoghan so fast, and why, with Brennan, all of these bewildering desires were flooding me to the point of being overwhelmed.
How could any mortal resist a fallen angel?
His grin of welcome morphed into a frown of confusion as he looked me over, his eyes narrowed. From that in-depth scan, I was aware that he knew who I was. He recognized me and he didn’t approve of my presence here and what it might mean that Brennan would bring me here on a Saturday night for a meal with his folks.
For all that he was insane, he was evidently shrewd.
“None of that, Da,” Brennan rumbled, his voice low and deep. The warning clear, and all the more soothing to me for that.
I peered up at him, finding comfort in his proximity. Finding comfort in him, truth be told. In this, the land of my father’s enemies, it was nice to have a friendly face close by.
“None of what? Why’s she here?”
“Aidan? Are you interrogating our Bren on the doorstep? What’s the matter with you?”
The waspish grumble had me tilting my head so that I could see around Aidan better. When I found a woman, all curves and red hair, a face that would have been pretty when she was younger but was stunning now, I knew this was the famous Magdalena O’Donnelly.
The woman Aidan Sr. had gone to war over.
God only knew how many men were dead because of this man’s love for his wife.
It would be romantic if it wasn’t also depressing.
“The matter is he’s brought someone with him,” was Aidan’s retort.
Lena frowned, but her gaze drifted to mine. “Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you’ve got to say, Ma?” Brennan chided, but his tone was softer. Gentler.
With his father, he was brisk and to the point. Not necessarily argumentative, but borderline aggressive.
It was quite apparent that my husband loved his mother.
“You should have told me you were bringing company.” She barked at Aidan, “Let them in, man. What do you want them to do? Camp out on the doorstep? They’ll catch their deaths in this cold.”
Aidan grunted but shuffled backward, his unwillingness clear even as his hands went to my shoulders to help me out of my coat.
I turned to look up at him, and whispered, “Thank you.”
I’d learned over the years to face a predator with strength so I looked him right in the eye until he arched his brow, seeming to understand what I was doing.
He broke eye contact first, but that was less to do with how impressed he was by my ballsiness, and more to do with Lena calling out, “Aidan, give the girl room to breathe.”
Though he backed up, taking my coat with him, with his other hand, he reached for mine, twisted it around, and pursed his lips as he cast my Band-Aid-covered palms a sharp look.
“Da, leave it alone,” Brennan rumbled, making me wonder if these O’Donnelly men were some kind of mentalists. After all, I’d gone through an adolescence with no one in my family recognizing what I was doing, yet they’d learned the truth in a shocking amount of time.
Aidan grunted under his breath, but backed away, moving toward a closet in the hallway where he placed my coat.
Brennan passed the bag he’d been carrying over to me, and I smiled a little awkwardly at the gimlet stare Lena cast my way.
“Let me introduce Camille to you, Ma,” Brennan said gruffly, his hand entwining with mine as he tugged me into his side.
The instant I collided with his heat, a strange welter of relief filled me.
Like I was safe.
Like, even though I was with two of New York’s most dangerous clan leaders, he’d protect me.
I wasn’t sure he’d ever know how much gratitude filled me at that moment. How, in those seconds, where he could have tossed me to the lions, he earned something that couldn’t be bought.
He’d wanted my trust.
He’d said he wanted my loyalty.
But in that simple move, he earned them.
Or the seedlings of them, at any rate.
He broke the union of our hands and instead, covered my shoulder with his arm, tucking me even deeper into his hold.
I didn’t know where he ended and I began as I faced his mother, who merely pursed her lips and said, “Brennan, son, if you didn’t think I figured that out the second she crossed the threshold, you must think I’m going senile.” She tipped her head to the side. “What I’d like to know is why you brought Inessa’s sister for dinner with your parents?”
“If you’re so smart,” he jeered, but there was a grin on his face, “then I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“What I’m figuring out is that you’ve done something damn foolish,” was her waspish retort, as her gaze drifted over to her husband who was somewhere behind us.
“I hate it when you do this,” Aidan grumbled. “It’s like the two of you speak your own language.”
Lena snorted. “Not our fault you can’t keep up.”
Aidan heaved a sigh as he passed us in the wide hall, then moved to Lena’s side. In a way that mimicked Brennan’s hold on me, he slipped his arm around her waist and tucked her into his side.
His mouth brushed over her crown as he kissed her, his eyelids fluttering closed as he did so. It was strange to meet the man the city both revered and feared, and to see him so evidently in love with his wife after all these years. He breathed her in as he held her close, like he never wanted to let her go.
Touched, I bit my lip, both charmed and a little awestruck by the sight of such devotion.
They knew I was Russian. Knew I was Bratva. Yet Aidan still showed me that side of himself, of their relationship.
In my world, that was a weakness. Something to be exploited.
And while I was sure Aidan Sr.’s world worked the exact same way, he didn’t care.
That strength—or insanity—made me relax some.
During the ride upstate, Brennan had told me he was going to paint us as a love match to his parents, and I realized that was the smartest way to go. If Aidan could look and hold and touch his wife the way he did, then surely he had the closet heart of a romantic?
“What’s going on, son?” Aidan asked after he focused on us again.
“I’d like you to meet my wife.”
A wave of emotion flashed over Lena’s face, but Aidan’s scowl would have had me backing up if Brennan hadn’t tightened his hold on me.
I peeped up at him, saw he wasn’t frightened of that scowl, and I was overawed by how in control he was, how unafraid. It wasn’t an act, he wasn’t faking it until he made it. He wasn’t scared. Genuinely.
If anyone knew what the man was capable of, I had to reason it was his sons, but Brennan stood there, uncowering as he murmured, “We met at the Jupiter Wells party. The one you forced me to go to because Aidan was sick.”
Aidan’s scowl darkened. “Meaning it’s my fault?”
Brennan smirked. “I guess. Not my fault, is it? Look at her, would you? An angel come to Earth. How couldn’t I make her mine?”
How was it that he called me an angel when I’d just likened him to a fallen one?
As I peered up at him, I saw that smirk, but deep in his eyes, a glimmer of something stole m
y breath, because it made me think he wasn’t bullshitting them. That he really meant what he was saying.
Wishful thinking?
Or serendipity?
His words, however, triggered more silence until Aidan snapped, “She can’t be your wife.”
“Why can’t she? Got the marriage certificate to prove it.”
Before my eyes, Brennan pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it to his father.
Aidan scanned it like it was a ten-thousand line contract when, really, it was barely anything at all. I was the one who’d know—I’d read the damn thing before I signed it.
“There’s no fine print, Da,” Brennan said wryly, seeming to think as I had—that he was looking for an out. “It is what it is. Camille’s mine now.”
Three words.
Three.
Not the ones most women wanted to hear—I love you.
But a possession of ownership all the same.
Inside, something tightened and then relaxed. Like, at long last, I’d found exactly where I was supposed to be.
I’d found someone who’d call me his.
I settled deeper into his hold, moving into his side like we were meant to be, and I tilted my face against the thick cable knit sweater he wore, nuzzling my nose against it and inhaling his purely masculine scent.
At that moment, I knew I’d found my place.
A man who declared to his parents I was his? A man like this, with a family like his?
Like he’d told me...
There were no take-backs.
No divorce.
This was forever.
I was his, forever.
Until death did us part.
Those vows... they meant nothing to some people, but not to Brennan O’Donnelly.
Thank God.
“We need to discuss this. My office. Now.”
The command might have had a lesser man tensing up, but Brennan merely shook his head. “No, Da. No discussion. This is my life. My choice. My decision. I made it knowing that it’d piss the family off, but it didn’t stop me.”
“Why?” Lena asked, the question soft, her disappointment clear.
I didn’t think that was because I was the disappointment, but because he’d made his choices without conferring with the family.
“Because I’m a man, Ma. I can pick my own feckin’ wife.” He grunted. “I’ll admit things were sped up a little by certain circumstances that happened recently but Da’s the one always going on about us getting married, settling down. Well, consider me settled.”
Aidan, whose scowl had been growing darker and darker as his son spoke, rasped, “What ‘things?’”
Unsure what Brennan was about to say, whether he was about to blend the truth with fiction, I tensed up, just waiting for his next words:
“Vasov’s been murdered.”
He was going to lie. For me.
“What?” Aidan straightened up. “I’ve heard none of that chatter.”
I licked my lips. “He died the other night.”
Brennan squeezed my arm, a noiseless command that told me to shut up. “They’re keeping it under wraps.” He reached up, scratching his jaw with his free hand like the stubble I knew he’d shaved off earlier was already growing back in. “Looks like some mess up with that bitch of a wife of his.”
“Svetlana’s pregnant,” I murmured, being careful with my tenses.
“With another man’s baby, apparently.” Brennan shrugged. “I only heard more of the tale this afternoon from my in with the Bratva. The second I know more, you’ll hear it first.
“But I wanted Camille out of that place, so I did it the one way I knew would give her the permanent security she deserves. Whether you like it or not, Da, she’s an O’Donnelly now.”
“Not by my say so she isn’t,” he growled.
“So, you’ll give Inessa the family’s protection because you forced her on Eoghan, but the woman I choose to be mine, you’ll cast out?” Brennan scoffed. “That makes sense.”
Lena tugged on Aidan’s hand. “He’s right.”
“No, he isn’t. Inessa was—” An explosive snarl escaped Aidan as he pulled away from Lena and ran a hand through his hair. “Inessa was an olive branch between us and the man you tell me is dead now. What fucking use are either Vasov daughters if they’re not tied to the Pakhan anymore?”
His words should have meant nothing to me, but they made me want to scream. An endless, eternal scream that was like falling into a black hole, one I’d never escape from, one that would reclaim me time and time again.
I was worthless to another father.
A womb, a defective olive branch, never a woman.
Never someone to love—
Unaware of my anguish, Brennan merely snorted, stunning me with how brave he was. Where Aidan Sr. shoved me down that black hole, Brennan leaned into it to help pull me out.
“If you don’t know what use a good woman is to a man like me, then there’s no hope for you. I thought you of all people would get it.” He cast a look at his mother who flinched. “Anyway, don’t worry, Da. You’ve still got two sons left who aren’t married. I’m sure you can shove the next Pakhan’s daughters on Con and Junior.”
When Aidan spun around, I didn’t tense up, didn’t show I was scared because I recognized that inherent, brewing violence that was simmering beneath the surface.
Just like my father.
God, Brennan had been raised exactly as I had.
I reached for his free hand and tangled my fingers with his, squeezing them, putting pressure on them as I tried to give him some of my meager strength. He’d saved me from that black hole which was still trying to grasp a hold of me, clinging tendrils escaping the pit, swirling about my feet as the mist pulled me deeper...
I knew he wasn’t frightened of his father now, but that didn’t mean the young Brennan hadn’t been. What had he suffered as this man’s spare heir?
“Calm down, Aidan,” Lena snapped, wading into things in a way that surprised me.
Mama would never have dared get in the way of Father when he was in this mood, but Lena did it with ease, which gave me hope for Brennan and made me wonder if this was why she had his devotion. Why she’d earned that promise of his, whatever it might be.
She turned her back on us, her hands going to her husband’s shoulders as she stared up at him.
“Calm down,” she repeated. “There’s no point in crying over spilled milk.” Whatever she saw in his eyes had her reaching up, grabbing his jaw and forcing him to look at her. “You’re going to go take a walk in the garden, and you’re going to take a second to calm down.” When he didn’t budge, she shoved him, pushing him away. “Go on, now.”
His nostrils flared like an angry dog’s, but with a malevolent glance at Brennan, he stormed off, heading away from us with heavy, pounding footsteps.
A door opened then slammed and only then did Lena release a heavy breath and turn back to look at us.
In the dim light of the corridor, with its walls that were covered in family photos, she didn’t look like a woman who was nearing retirement age.
With her gleaming red hair, creamy skin, the slim figure and straight shoulders of a woman much younger than her, she looked like the powerhouse she was.
The one person who kept Aidan O’Donnelly Sr. on a leash.
It was almost surreal that, directly behind where he’d been standing just seconds before, there was a picture of a much younger Aidan with a man who had to be his brother at his side.
I recognized Coney Island in the background, a rickety Ferris wheel and a colorful merry-go-round churning forever onward while they stood directly in front of ‘Petey’s Famous.’ The pair of them were dressed in sharp suits, at least, sharp for the 70s, but they were both grinning around hot dogs like big kids, not the hardened killers they must have been at that time.
Not everyone had two faces like me—but it was clear that Aidan Sr. did. Brennan, too. Was it because of
how we’d been raised? Though, I doubted Inessa was like this, and Victoria didn’t seem that way either. Was it about an aptitude to kill?
Uneasily, I switched focus, taking note of a picture beside the hotdog one, which showed a man I recognized from the society pages. Finn O’Grady with his wife and their newborn son. My brow puckered as I let my gaze drift between the two photos—
Lena growled under her breath, shattering my focus as she snapped, “There wasn’t a better way you could think of doing that, Bren?” It was a rhetorical question because she shook her head at us both. “You’d best go. Give him time to calm down.”
Brennan shrugged. “If you say so, Ma.”
“I do say so,” was her bitter retort.
The gift bag hung redundant in my hands, a silent reminder that I needed to give it to her. Facing her, I cleared my throat, wanting her to know that even if I’d been shaken on Brennan’s behalf by what I’d seen, I wasn’t afraid. Which I wasn’t. Not with a father like mine. But a woman like this appreciated strength.
If I was scared, she’d sense my weakness and I’d never earn her respect. And that mattered. Brennan cared for his mother. Cultivating a relationship with her was smart.
“Lena, we’ll leave, but I’d still like you to have this.”
She held out her hand for the bag. “Thank you, Camille.” Her lips pursed but, a tad resentfully, she continued, “I’ll look forward to getting to know you.”
The ominous tone made that more of a threat than a greeting, but I’d take it.
She’d just offered me acceptance, after all. Begrudging though it might have been, that was what she gave me nonetheless.
Brennan urged me around, his hold on me as absolute as it had been before while he guided us to the closet.
For the first time, he let go of me, and only then, to get my coat and help me into it. Then, he shrugged his on, turned back to look at his mother and said, “She’s my choice, Ma.”
“None of us have choices, Bren,” was Lena’s reply, but rather than be belligerent, it was almost sad.
“That’s just it. We do. Da’s going to struggle getting the rest of us to comply. Eoghan did because Da got Louie and goddamn Niall to hold him down so he could beat the shit out of him to get him to marry Inessa—”
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 29
