Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2)

by Scarlett Finn

  “And what about you? It’s Shyla, right?” Whisper asked, attracting a nod. “Where are you from? What’s your story? Your folks got a name down here?”

  Though she asked, Whisper already knew the answer. Nothing about Shyla said capable or dangerous or at ease.

  “My folks are dead.”

  “Hey,” Whisper said, raising her glass in time with her smile. “Lucky you!” That was an honest first reaction. About as honest as she got. Shyla’s blinking surprise reminded her that not everyone had a bad relationship with their family. “Oops, guess that was a bad thing for you.”

  “Not all bad. I wondered what my life might have been if they’d lived. But we were raised by my grandfather, I loved him very much.”

  “Dead too?” Whisper asked, noting the use of past tense. “Who’s we? You got siblings?”

  “A brother.”

  Zay would never have gotten along with the Doherty brothers. Though if they hadn’t died, the marriage would never have taken place. At the time of the bloodbath, at the funerals of her family members, Whisper never thought for a second that anything positive could come out of such loss. Thinking of so much death as positive was wrong, yet she didn’t feel negatively toward her marriage either. Not at that exact moment.

  “He get along with your honey?”

  “Phoenix?” Shyla asked and shrugged. “They haven’t met.”

  “Makes sense,” Whisper said, taking a shot at supportive. “Even the most protective of brothers would think twice about warning a McDade off.”

  “Oh no, it’s not like that. Wyatt is…”

  Another curious response. Shyla was hesitating. The words had been on the tip of her tongue before she snatched them back.

  Spinning on her butt, Whisper put her feet on the floor, almost parallel to Shyla’s. “Don’t be shy, Shy,” she said. “We’re practically sisters.” Except Shyla’s conditioning came from Score, who wasn’t her biggest fan. “You can tell me anything.”

  “Score doesn’t trust you,” Shyla said. Hardly breaking news. “I trust him.”

  Following the steps to their conclusion, Whisper got the message: Shyla didn’t trust her. “Zay and me were married about a month before we had sex.” Shyla blinked in surprise. “He didn’t tell me he even knew who I was until after we fucked… like a day after. I married Razer McDade believing he was a psychopath.”

  Shyla swallowed. “That’s all I knew about him at first.”

  “Score told you that?”

  She’d figured one brother would know about the other. Zay was a lot of things, incapable of emotion wasn’t on that list. For Score not to pick up on that suggested he wasn’t as astute as Zay believed.

  “Fish,” Shyla said, picking up Whisper’s question by the way her eyes narrowed. “The younger guy from inside.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Works with Score. He’s a friend.”

  The information lodged in Whisper’s memory bank in case it became useful later. Even coming to Score’s for protection, asking for their trust, she still couldn’t get out of the Doherty mindset. People outside the family couldn’t be trusted. Any opportunity to double-cross them for the benefit of the family should be taken. That was what her mind went to whenever she learned something new.

  “Who’s the other guy? The suit?”

  “Amos Beeks,” Shyla said. “He’s a lawyer.”

  “Score’s lawyer?”

  Shyla nodded. “And Fish’s.”

  A smile curved her lips. “Fish did time?”

  Shyla’s fingers curled tighter then loosened over and over; her anxiety was raising its head again. Maybe she hadn’t meant to reveal anything. Or it could be she was worried what Score would do to her when he learned she’d been giving the Doherty details.

  “I don’t know that I—”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. I know plenty of guys who did time in prison, believe me… Though, I guess, a bunch of them are dead now, but… Doran did time in prison too. Play.” Shyla nodded, probably not trusting herself to open her mouth. “What else did Score tell you about Zay?”

  Finding out how the older brother felt about her husband could be useful. If there was any chance Score couldn’t be trusted, Whisper needed the inside track so she could warn Zay.

  “They were close,” Shyla said. “It’s complicated, I guess.”

  “Isn’t it always,” Whisper said on a sigh. “I should count my blessings my family were massacred, right?”

  Shooting for genuine was one thing, hitting the target was another.

  “I’m sorry,” Shyla said, squirming. “Phoenix told me what happened. It’s awful, I… I can’t imagine.”

  “I didn’t have to, I heard every second of it.”

  “Just you and your dad left?”

  Whisper bobbed her head. “Basically. Don’t think the uncle my father hates or my idiot cousins count.” She sucked in a breath. “And now that I’ve fucked up the Doherty-McDade alliance, my father will be looking to reduce the Dohertys by another number with one more fatality.”

  Once again, she raised her glass. After tossing the rest of the liquor into her throat, she uncorked the decanter to pour more into it. As she was putting the stopper back into the crystal, a shout came from inside.

  “Sounds like they’re having fun,” Whisper said, rising to her feet, glass in hand. “Let’s go get in the way.”

  Strutting through the terrace doors into Score’s apartment, Whisper didn’t declare herself. She didn’t have to.

  Score spotted her within seconds. “Get outta here.”

  “You boys don’t seem to be playing nice,” Whisper said, only slightly aware of Shyla coming in a dozen feet behind her. “What are you fighting about?”

  “Babe…”

  That warning tone was unmistakable. Zay still occupied Bosco’s phone line. The device itself, she noticed, lying in the middle of a chess board on the glass table the men were congregated around.

  The suit Shyla had identified as Beeks was on the couch next to Fish. Bosco was in an armchair with his back to the window. Score was on his feet opposite Bosco’s position.

  Whisper tossed some Scotch into her mouth. “I’m playing nice,” she said, continuing toward the group.

  “How much has she had to drink?” Zay asked.

  The question stunned her to a stop. Glancing around, she wondered where the camera was because the phone wasn’t lit up, it wasn’t a video call.

  “I don’t know, she’s been on the terrace,” Bosco answered.

  “I heard a rumor,” Whisper said, swinging her hips as she got walking again. “That someone owns a nightclub.”

  “No,” Zay said before she could even look at Score. “Stay inside.”

  “You haven’t seen the weather down here, babe… Did you know there was a bar in the building?” She squeezed past Score to approach the phone. “In the fucking building.”

  “Do what Score tells you to do,” came his voice from the handset.

  Whisper scoffed. “Yeah, right.” The glass was on its way to her mouth, but it stopped when a thought struck her. “You don’t actually mean that… do you?”

  “Why do you think I sent you down there?”

  “She doesn’t give a fuck,” Score grumbled from behind her.

  “How the fuck would you feel behind enemy lines knowing the whole damn world wants you dead?” Zay snapped. “She’s screwing around because she’s terrified.”

  “Uh…” Whisper didn’t like being so central while he declared her weak. “Tell me you’re not talking about me.”

  “I don’t have time to tiptoe around it,” Zay said. “Interpreting your insanity took me years. Score doesn’t have time to learn Whisper Doherty-McDade.”

  “Hmm,” she said, tilting her head. “I hadn’t thought about the hyphenate.”

  “I already changed it once,” Bosco said as Whisper dropped to her knees. “I’m not doing it again.”

  “What’s the pla
n?” she asked, leaning in closer to the phone.

  “We’re trying to figure that out.”

  “And you don’t think I should be in the room while you do that?” she asked, ignoring everyone else. “We got this far together, remember?”

  “Yeah, and I know you’re less likely to get drunk if you’re occupied. You have my trust.”

  That last short sentence told her exactly who didn’t want her in the room.

  Twisting around, Whisper crossed her legs to end sitting on the floor, looking up at Score. “Just because Shyla defers to you doesn’t mean we all will. You get some sort of kick out of smothering your woman?”

  Score’s elbow began to bend, but before he could bring his arm up, Shyla stepped in to thread her fingers between his.

  “We don’t know you,” Shyla said, keeping Score’s hand. “You came to our home to ask for our help. I defer to Score because I trust him and he knows me. It’s important to both of us to do what’s best for the other… I don’t know how your relationship works, but I don’t have to second guess Phoenix. I know he’d never do anything that would hurt me… And I know if I asked him to do something, even if it maybe wasn’t in the best interest of his family, he’d do it.”

  “Like kick us out on our asses,” Bosco said. “That’s what she’s saying.”

  “Yeah,” Whisper said, wondering where the hostess got her fire. “You might be happy for your guy to make all the decisions. While you’re busy doing that, I have to worry about mine walking himself into danger. See he doesn’t live in a fancy condo a million miles from the action. Right now, he’s square in the middle of it. Unfortunately, I’ve learned recently that mine also tends to put me before himself. It would be easier for him to forget everything that’s happened in the last couple of days and toss me out on my ass. Doesn’t seem to matter how much I tell him that, he’s determined to do right by me. He’s an asshole.”

  Shyla’s brows rose. “An asshole? For caring about you.”

  “His insistence on doing what’s best for me makes me feel guilty. I’m not good with guilt, it screws me up, so I start saying and doing things that can only lead to my own destruction.”

  “Hey, I never thought about it that way,” Bosco said.

  “You been paying attention?” Zay asked down the line. “Why do you think she’s such a bitch all the time? Trusting means a chance she’ll get comfortable. Then she could be caught off guard… Someone could fuck her over… No one has ever had her back.”

  Her girlfriends might argue that. Except Whisper would never let them. In her mind there was a division between her life connected to her family and name, and the her who could be frivolous with Mariana and Paula. Whisper would never ever go to them with real issues or endanger them in any way.

  “She’s a Doherty,” Score said.

  Whisper hooked her elbows onto the edge of the glass table at her back. “McDades aren’t all that different from where I’m standing. Your brother sent you to prison. Your father is fucking his son’s wife.”

  Shyla reacted with an intake of breath; Score tightened his grip on her hand. “Oh my God,” the hostess murmured.

  Drawing her eyes away from Shyla’s surprise, Whisper took her focus back to Score. “And your brother is asking for help, but you’re too focused on the Doherty in your midst to hear him. I didn’t go to the Dohertys for help. Sure, there aren’t that many of them left. But I was given to the McDades as payment for an alliance that your father now wants to dissolve because I caught him pepping his pecker. Only person who’s done nothing wrong in this is me, yet I’m the one everyone wants to kill.”

  The familiarity of the words brought a frown to her face. Whisper had argued with Zay when he’d said the same thing. That was just the previous day. So much had happened since then, it felt like a lifetime ago.

  “No one’s gonna touch you,” Zay said, his voice solemn.

  She tipped her chin his way. “Yeah, including you? Not sure I signed up for that.”

  “We’ll help,” Shyla said without consulting her other half. “But we have to respect that Score and Razer know their own family better than we do.”

  That was questionable. No one present had known about Burl and Nicole’s affair before she did.

  “Maybe,” Whisper said in a nod toward diplomacy. “But my husband is the one out there about to take this battle on because of me.”

  Whisper hadn’t told Zay about the affair, not outright. He’d have had to make a choice when Burl told him about his plans to marry Doran to Madison. So whichever way it went, they would’ve ended up in basically the same place.

  Like she’d said to him in their bathroom. He’d have been curious enough to pursue the issue. Burl’s switch from supporting the Dohertys to exiling them would’ve piqued his intrigue. So even if he’d cast her out at his father’s will, Zay would’ve found out about the affair eventually.

  Still, Whisper couldn’t erase her guilt. Zay planned to confront his father about the affair and his scheme to kick her out of the family. Doran was at his side. Whether he’d stay there when it came to it, Whisper couldn’t be sure. Part of her maybe didn’t want him to remain loyal to Zay. She didn’t want her husband to be betrayed, but either or both of the men could pay the ultimate price for defending her.

  Score was just a name before arriving. Whisper hadn’t known a thing about Shyla. But there they were pledging their support. Even thinking about trusting Zay, who’d been in love with her for years, was a big step. Yet, there she was faced with the prospect of trusting even more people.

  “Go to them,” Score said.

  Whisper had been sitting there on the floor, staring into nothingness. For a second, she’d forgotten about her audience. Seemed they weren’t that worried about her. Score anyway. Shyla was looking at her with such sympathy that Whisper got nauseous.

  “We call and they’ll come back,” Zay said. “We don’t have to tell them anything—”

  “That’s the home field advantage,” Score said. “Just like you said at the start of this. In the city, they have too many allies.”

  “Could work for us too.”

  That voice was new. It didn’t take her long to figure out it came from the phone or who it must belong to. Doran.

  Whisper turned to face the phone again. She finished her drink and reached over to put the glass down on the other side of the chess board. “You know how close I was to stealing the phone into the restroom? You should tell me when your brother’s on the line, husband. I could’ve switched to video and taken off all of my clothes.”

  “Nothing we haven’t seen before.”

  That muttering came from Bosco, so Whisper narrowed the evil eye on him. “Just because you get your kicks hanging around Zay’s bedroom waiting for me to strip and walking in on us when we’re having sex, doesn’t mean I’m happy to get naked for just anyone.”

  Though her past behavior didn’t offer much definitive evidence of that.

  “You walk around naked up there,” Bosco argued.

  “Because my husband told me to.”

  “Enough,” Zay said. “Bos, you’ve gotta learn not to engage her.”

  Whisper just showed their grimacing friend a broad, proud smile. “I know I’m growing on you. I’m like the tattoo you get when you’re drunk. Next day you’re embarrassed and upset with yourself. Over time, it just becomes a part of you. You’ll be proud of me eventually.”

  “You go to them, they don’t have time to plan,” Score said, doing an excellent job of steering the wayward conversation back to its relevance. “You wanna see Parker’s face when you tell him too. Don’t want to give the old man a chance to break it to him gently.”

  “How do you do that?” Whisper asked, folding her arms on the edge of the table, staying focused on the phone. “Hey, son, you know the woman who sleeps next to you every night you’re home? Yeah, most nights she comes up there filled with my spunk… You’re dipping your cock in a pussy swimming with my ji
zz.”

  “Okay, this is disturbing,” Bosco said. “And he’s not even my father.”

  Whisper caught a side glance at the duo on the couch who hadn’t said anything. “Why are you here? Does Zay know that he’s talking to a room full of people? Maybe that’s why you wanted me to stay out because I’ll tell him the truth. You’ve got a lawyer and an ex-con listening in… Three ex-cons if you include the McDades who have done time.”

  “We trust them,” Shyla said. “And we might need their help.”

  “We don’t need their help to make a decision about what’s best for the family,” Whisper said, planting her hand on the table to hop onto her feet. “We should be careful who we include in the plan.”

  “If they were spies for Burl, we would know it,” Zay said. “He’d have told us already.”

  “And he wouldn’t need to call Score to get his input,” Doran agreed. “If Score trusts those guys, that’s good enough for me.”

  Not good enough for her, but it didn’t matter. Not really. In her new family, this new circle, she’d always be outnumbered. Zay’s plan would work or it wouldn’t. The truth was that until the moment in Nicki’s bedroom when Zay had chosen her and offered his trust, she’d believed her life was on borrowed time. Anything she got after Burl and Parker were confronted was bonus time.

  Whisper snagged her glass from the table. “Okay,” she said, giving up being the only one on guard. “We want to trust everyone, let’s let the world in. Who cares?”

  Striding back the way she’d come, Whisper went out on to the terrace and retrieved the Scotch. If the McDades wanted to play happy families, they could. She was used to being on the outside looking in. Her time of honesty with Zay was too short to make any permanent difference.

  Whisper couldn’t be seduced by it. She wasn’t a McDade and never would be. She didn’t think like them, didn’t trust like they did. They didn’t plan her way either. The Dohertys didn’t want her; it would only be a matter of time before the McDades felt the same way.