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Chapter nine

Merry Christmas

Cillian

“ A re you sure you want to do this?” Randa was pestering me again.

Did I want to do this? Did I want to upset the peace we had made inside our marital bed? No.

But at the same time, it needed to be done. Definitive action was better than bleak half measures.

I was never more certain of this than when she came out of the bedroom, looking more seductive than when she was fully naked. She wore a red velvet dress, instead of the expected green. I wasn’t sure if that was a conscious choice—was she defying me? Defying us?

My mother always wore green. So did my sisters. It was an intentional choice. A homage to the family name.

The red pleased and infuriated me in equal measure. Red was the color of the Durantes. So why would she not wear it? Why would we not advertise our two families together? She wore my ring. Though, I was starting to think that she needed emeralds around her throat and dangling from her hand.

She didn’t speak much. Not on the way down in the elevator to my parents’ floor. Not when we entered the room. Instead, she wrapped herself around my arm, holding onto my hand. Like my triceps could defend her from the world.

That was fine with me. I found her silence comforting. It made it fun to watch her face and decipher the light in her eyes, the quirk of a brow. The little twitch on the corner of her lip. She was an enigma. And enigmas were interesting.

I wondered how she’d react at dinner.

I knew so little about the woman I was sharing my life with.

But was I ever truly meant to share my life? Or was I meant to simply tolerate her enough to whelp out some pups, then live separately? It was never clear.

Marriage, aye. Sure. But my father never said I had to handfast her. I never had to take the blood oath that she would be my one and only until the end of my days. It was a tacit expectation that I step outside the marriage. That both of us would, at some point.

But that seemed… unlikely now.

Unlikely. Impossible. Undesirable.

My mum sat at the head of the table with my father to her right. The two held hands, as always. I took the seat facing my father, to the left of my mum. Then grunted, standing back up, before pulling out the seat beside me for my wife.

“Sorry, Love,” I apologized as I pushed in the chair, planting a kiss on her temple.

“Sorry… for?” she asked, watching me take the seat beside her.

“For his poor manners in not seating you first, of course,” my father explained. “He was taught better than that.”

I smiled, as my father kissed the back of Mum’s hand. I did the same, kissing Gia’s before placing her palm on my thigh, my hand covering hers.

“Merry Christmas, Gia,” my mum said, looking over to my wife with a kind smile.

“Merry Christmas,” Gia mumbled. “Thank you for having me, Aunt Kira.”

The rest of the rascals came in. Riordan, Maeve, Quinn. They all sat down, slumping in the chairs. Riordan was in a suit, trying to look like a distinguished man. Quinn was in sweats. Maeve wore something in between. Casual, but not loungewear.

The joys of us all living in the same building meant that we all had slightly different impressions of what it was to dress up for each other’s homes.

When the elevator dinged for the final guests, I straightened.

Randa, wearing her work attire as always, led the way for Cosima Durante, the final matriarch of the Durante clan. Her bodyguard, Marco Rossini, close beside her.

I scrutinized him. Everything from his slicked black hair and thick lower lip. From the slight freckle beneath his left eye, to the way his hands splayed to his side.

I even watched as my sisters nudged each other, as they looked at him with flirtatious glints to their childish expressions.

Over my dead body.

Like a servant, he stood back when Cosima was seated, and stared aimlessly forward.

“Take a seat,” I called out to him, my eyes pointing down to the vacant chair by Cosima.

There was no Loretta, as my wife had thought. Which was curious, but not wholly unexpected.

He looked at me with a quizzical expression, then glanced at Gia.

He must have read something in her face, because he did sit down, and watched me like a hawk.

“A toast, I think,” I said, coming back to my feet. “To my bride.”

How little my darling trusted me. Then again, she had no reason to. After all, I was about to cause her great pain.

“To the miracle of matrimony.”

I held up the champagne glass, as Riordan stared at me like I was a dog that had learned to speak. My sisters, on the other hand, were just looking with amusement, wondering at what drama was about to unfold at the family dinner.

Randa, on the other hand, stepped forward from the wall she was holding up, to come behind Cosima and Marco.

“To a partnership,” I stared down at my lovely wife.

She looked so much like the Beauty that was sent to the Beast. Her chestnut hair parted down the center, curled to ringlets down her heart-shaped face.

I swallowed my drink and slammed the glass down, as the base shattered across the table.

“Cillian!” My mother chided, at the same time my father fumed.

“To a wife of honest virtue,” I whispered. “My love.”

I tucked a finger under her chin. The past few days creating a habit, my darling wife turned to me on instinct, without force.

I pointed a finger at Marco and demanded, “Tell me who this man is.”

Randa placed her large hand on his shoulder, pinning Marco Rossini to his seat.

“Where was he, when you were stabbed?”

“He…” Gia’s eyes widened in fear.

“Who is he to you!” It was an exclamation, not a question. Because I knew. I knew that she called him. I knew that he’d rescued her. And worse, he had something to do with it.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that she had to tell me.

She had to use her words and tell me what happened.

It’s not a great demand to beg a wife to confide in her husband.

But here I was, begging all the same.

“Tell me what happened, my love.” I snarled the insipid words through my teeth. “Tell me now. Do not force my hand!”

Those arctic eyes stared at me, and I watched them freeze, cell by cell. I watched the water turn to frost, as she locked herself away in the prison of her mind.

“Please,” I begged, holding her chin, as I stared into those winter eyes. Quieter this time, I asked again, “Do not force my hand.”

Her smile was a slap to the face. Bland. Cold, and lifeless.

“But husband,” she said, her voice sweet and airy. “How could I force your hand?”

She took my hand and pulled it away from her face, before gently setting it on the table, cutting the contact between us.

“I’m just a helpless prisoner.” Somehow that was colder than any profanity that she could have slung in my face. “How could I possibly stand up to a Green?”

Oh, my sweet little snow angel.

“You forget, Wife—” I straightened away from her. “You are a Green.”

My eyes went around the stunned table. To the curious and amused eyes of my sisters. The perplexed eyes of my brother. To my parents, who held hands, their faces the very picture of restraint—as the heir, they wanted me to take charge. And this was what that meant.

My mother-in-law’s eyes were as cold as her daughter’s. A genetic trait, I was sure. But it was Marco’s dark brown eyes that made me feral with rage. The way he looked at my wife with a plea in his eyes. A plea, and an irksome protectiveness that was not his place.

“And no one lays a hand on a Green without consequences.”

With a snap of my finger, Randa had a gun to Marco’s head. My wife screamed. My sister Maeve clapped. Quinn smirked at the possibility of violence to be committed.

Riordan stared at my wife with eyes that were far too concerned, and too… interested .

I would deal with him later.

“Take him to the hole,” I commanded Randa, who smirked with sadistic glee. I took my wife by the hand and dragged her through the long corridor to the darkest corner of the Grand Kintyre. “Come, Wife, and see what family business you have married into.”

And may God forgive me for what I am about to do.