“Fine. The hard way it is.” I turned to face the rest of the congregation again, tapping on the barrel of my pistol with one of my rings, waiting until all eyes were on me. Like clockwork, Rhodes slipped into the crowd and disappeared to complete his next task.
“Alessandro, what did he offer you for his daughter? Political power? Looking the other way when your guys get up to shit? His ear if he somehow manages to make it into the governor’s seat?” I listed off all of the promises that Ethan Chandler had given me when he visited my office in the city six months ago.
Most people thought that what my people did for a living was awful and immoral, but watching that man shop out his twenty-two-year-old daughter to the highest bidder had to be one of the worst things I’d ever seen.
Even the older generation of men in my family, who I by no means got along with, at least pretended to care about their children as they fiddled with the strings of their lives. The Keane family took care of their own—loyalty first—and this little rat wouldn’t know loyalty if it bit him in the ass.
“He promised me all of that too, and in return I gave him a blank check for all of his lovely political aspirations.”
Alessandro’s face shifted as I spoke from shock to a quiet, thunderous rage as he wheeled around to look across the aisle at Chandler.
“And I paid it—and paid it first, I believe. So, I’m here to re-collect my ten million, then I’ll get out of your hair. I’m sure the happy pack can’t wait to get back to their nuptials.”
I turned to look at the bride for the first time and met a pair of shocked gray eyes.
Something about them was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where, but I didn’t have time to focus on that.
Underneath the pile of tulle and ridiculous veil, I was sure she was pretty, though whoever dressed her should have been drawn and quartered because she looked like a bridal shop that had exploded all over her.
A curl of deep auburn hair peeked up from underneath the white material and as we looked at each other, the massive bouquet she’d been clutching for dear life slipped from her fingers and dropped to the ground.
“So, Ethan, what’ll it be?” I slanted a glance at the man who was now profusely sweating in his tuxedo.
Chandler’s next swallow was heavy, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down before he answered. “I can’t possibly pay that right now.”
“Really?” I wasn’t overly surprised. I figured as much seeing that the man had been ramping up his next campaign over the past couple of months. Regardless of my support, I had a feeling the weasel would be our new governor come next year. “Then I guess I’ll be taking what’s mine, Rhodes?”
My second-in-command seemed to materialize behind the priest, side stepping him and hauling the bride over his shoulder, causing the girl to squeak and try to struggle against him.
The pack she was supposed to be marrying grabbed for her but Rhodes danced out of their reach, pulling out his gold pistol with his free hand and pointing it at their leader. Elio wasn’t the worst person I’d ever met from the Amante crime family, and I’d known them since they were little boys, but right now he was getting in the way of the thing I’d paid for.
I half-expected them to whip their own guns out and it took me an extra beat to realize that they’d walked into the church unstrapped, the idiots.
“I don’t know how you think the two of you are going to get out of here when you’ve got about twenty guns pointed at your heads,” Elio hissed his eyes shifting away from his bride-to-be to the woman standing next to Alessandro.
I recognized her almost immediately even though she rarely appeared at public functions. Luscinia Amante, the shame of the Italian mafia. A deaf beta that was ignored up until the death of Alessandro Amante Jr. a few years ago. My sources told me that everyone in the Amante family disliked her, though, with the way Elio was looking at her, I wasn’t sure how accurate that information was.
Turning to Elio again, I shot the man a nasty smirk and laughed. “Do you really think I, the head of the Keane family, would walk into something like this by myself? Were you born yesterday?”
At my words, heads popped up amongst the wedding guests and suddenly there was an Irish gun for each of the Italians, effectively evening out the fight.
“Take her out to the car,” I told Rhodes, my ringed fingers continuing to tap on my gun.
Alessandro looked as if he was about to explode, his face turning a ruddy reddish-purple color.
“If you can get me my money, then you can have the omega back,” I lied, grinning at the older man before turning to offer Chandler a cheeky bow. “And Ethan, I do hope this was all worth it.”
Turning, I walked back down the aisle, following my second-in-command as he struggled to keep the wriggling omega from falling on her ass.
“Vote for Ethan Chandler,” my voice boomed off of the cavernous rafters of the cathedral. “He’s just dying to be your governor.”
“You have such a fucking flair for the dramatics,” Rhodes told me as we settled into the sleek black car that would take us back to the Keane estate. The car ride would take twenty minutes or so as the mansion sat on the outer fringes of the city.
I shrugged, my eyes going to the omega that was currently drowning in white tulle in her seat across from me.
She’d stopped struggling as soon as her butt hit the seat and was now staring out the car window, her arms crossed over her chest.
It surprised me. I’d assumed that she’d have started crying by now, but her face was completely impassive, going against what I typically thought of when I thought about omegas.
My first impression of her hadn’t been good—by all accounts she was reluctantly getting married—and yet she meekly walked down the aisle and resigned herself to that fate. Not an ounce of rebellion in her.
And yet, as soon as we were in an enclosed space and her sweet strawberry scent filled my nose as she glared out the window? It was clear that the seemingly resigned omega had at least a little bit of fire in her. It aroused the alpha instincts that I rarely ever gave into and promptly shoved back down.
This is all business, I reminded myself.
“I think our line of work should come with at least some theatrics. Bravado keeps people alive.” My mouth watered as I spoke, my eyes glued to the omega as she continued to look anywhere but at us. “Omega.”
Her spine stiffened a bit, her brightly painted lips opening for a moment before closing into a thin line as she continued to look out the window.
“Omega,” I repeated, more firmly this time.
There was another beat before she turned her gray-eyed gaze to me, silver fire alight as she glowered at me. “I have a name you know.”
“Watch it,” Rhodes warned, his voice low. I put a hand on his arm to stop him from getting into it with her the way I knew he wanted to. Rhodes was born to argue, but I had a feeling that would get us nowhere fast with this woman.
“Apologies, Peregrine—” I began but she cut me off again.
