T wo months ago.

“Why the fuck should I, Maggie?” I snorted.

What the fuck am I doing here?

I was in some judge’s house my sister had in her pocket at ten o’clock on a Wednesday night. New York wasn’t my hometown, but it was where I lived now.

Only, it’d been about a month since I set foot on U.S. soil. I just wanted a stiff drink and my bed, in that order.

But there I was, wondering what the fuck was going on? My redheaded sister looked at me with eyes cold as a shark’s. Maggie was only five years older than me, but she acted like she was my mother sometimes.

Not that I remembered a thing about the woman who bore me. Drugs and alcoholism ended that life far too early for that. Or maybe it was just living with my dearly departed bastard of a father that had finished her.

Regardless, I was here now. Waiting for the head of the O’Doyle family to tell me what the fuck she wanted,

Maggie looked thin. Too thin. The weight of the crown she wore had done something to her over the years. It made her hard.

Cold.

A shell of the girl she’d been. Her painted mouth was unsmiling, and I wondered how women could stand wearing shit like that on their lips.

I mean, I understood. Beauty had a price and all that. But I couldn’t even stand Chapstick during the winter.

The fake taste.

The waxy feel.

It grossed me the fuck out.

I never kissed a woman wearing lipstick. Always insisted she took it off first. It was one of my quirks.

Lucky for me, I was good looking enough most women agreed with hardly any rebuttal.

“My name is Margaret,” she snapped. “And I’m your fucking boss, that’s why the fuck you will do exactly as I tell you, little brother. Now sign the fucking thing.”

Technically, she was my boss.

But only because circumstances had placed Maggie at the head of our family when I was too young to take over.

But everything was changing now. The O’Doyle clan was going legit, and she needed me more than I needed her bullshit.

“Get to it, boyo, before I get wicked pissed,” she snapped.

Always with the fucking drama, this one.

I looked down at the marriage license and scoffed, tossing it back on the table.

Was she fucking kidding me with this shit?

“Michaela fucking Volkov? Are you serious?”

The license was already filled out and signed by everyone— except me . I just had to add my name to the bottom.

But I wasn’t a man who jumped when someone snapped. I needed a reason first, and I had yet to find one for all of this.

“Her father has connections, and she owes me,” Maggie said, straightening her narrow shoulders.

My sister was a world class manipulator. But I knew the Volkovs. If Maggie somehow tricked or coerced this woman into this, there would be no digging us out from the vicious fucking shit storm that family would rain down on us.

“Did you fucking drug her, Maggie?” I asked, horrified at the thought.

Maggie narrowed her dramatically tweezed eyebrows at me.

Nope. Still wasn’t calling her Margaret.

Long before she was the boss of the O’Doyle family, she was my snotty older sister who liked to prank me and forced me to watch romcoms on holidays.

Sure, she’d come a long way. Worked her ass off to make the family business bigger and better than ever before.

Our alliance with the Vipers didn’t fucking hurt, either.

They were mostly legit these days. I worked for Viper Enterprises first, then Volkov Industries, for years, gaining experience and knowledge where I could. But family loyalty called me back home, and not a minute too soon.

Maggie was ballsy and smart when it came to certain aspects of our family business. But the legit part, well, that was on me.

I was the brains of the family. The one looking towards the future. Maggie was a fucking throwback. Happy as a pig in shit to peddle guns and play with the other bad boys and girls.

“Do I need to remind you who the fuck I am?” she growled.

Well, I mean, she tried to growl, but to me she sounded more like a kitten than a tiger.

“I know who you are, Maggie. Maybe you’re the one who forgot who I am,” I said, sighing and walking to the small bar setup I spied in the corner.

I poured myself a whiskey. One for my sister, too.

“ Sláinte ,” I murmured and handed it to her.

“ Sláinte, ” she replied and tossed it back.

Maggie exhaled and placed the glass back on the bar, then faced me.

“Listen—”

“No. We’ll find a way, Maggie. But this isn’t it,” I said and shook my head.

“You ungrateful little shit,” she shouted. “After everything I did for you. I am delivering you a way to ultimately secure the future for the O’Doyles on a silver fucking platter here!”

“Don’t start,” I growled. “I did everything you ever asked. You sent me to work for the Vipers when I was still in college, for fuck’s sake, Maggie. Everything you did. I remember what you did, alright,” I snarled.

Anger fueled me as I got right up in my sister’s face. Her cold eyes stared at me, unblinking. They were the same shade as mine, but that was where the resemblance ended.

“Getting duped by some fucking woman in a tight dress. Being an accomplice in the kidnapping of Angel Fury’s woman. Oh, I fucking remember what you did, Maggie . I had to pay for your goddamn mistakes, or did you forget? Don’t you dare call me ungrateful.”

“That was years ago,” Maggie spat back.

“Feels like fucking yesterday.”