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“You should have told me, Eoghan.” Dairo’s eyes were on mine and Eoghan’s linked hands.

He looked at Rose, who sat beside him, fork in hand, playing with the food in front of her as if it were the blandest thing she’d ever tasted. His hand reached out to her, but he hesitated, stopping midway, and simply placed his hand on his lap again.

“Of all the people you should have told,” Dairo continued, “you should have told me .”

“If you knew, and my father found out, you’d be shot alongside me.” Dairo didn’t disagree with Eoghan. So it must have been true. “And sometimes you hold a secret so long… bringing it to the light feels… it feels…”

“Naked?” Yuliya said, her voice almost seductive in its mockery.

“Have a care for the children, Aunty,” Dairo said, his brows comically drawn as he covered Baby Jericho’s ears.

Eoghan looked at his cousin. They really should have been born twins. It was unnerving how similar they looked.

“Take a shot, Irish,” Jericho said. “You too, Agent Picasso .”

Fuck.

Jericho had just, as we would say in the business, blown my cover.

I stared at him, incredulous, angry. I wanted to reach over and punch him in the face, but one look around told me I wouldn’t get far. Blink was trying to communicate something with his eyes, probably telling me not to do anything rash, but I was beyond that.

I turned my head to Eoghan, who was as cool as Irish cream.

He squeezed my hand, his face never changing, as his fist balled on the table.

It was the only sign of his anger aimed straight at Jericho.

To me, though, he sent waves of comfort, as he lightly caressed his thumb on the back of my hand in soothing circles.

Blink, who had been completely still during this entire exchange, suddenly scoffed through his nose. “A toast to how I was right.”

“Right about what, you Lithuanian ass?” Jericho grumbled, still irritated.

“About the Greens being our best candidate to lead the Underground,” Blink smirked. “About our lovely Kira choosing the right man.”

I let out my own little huff. “It was never a choice.”

Blink looked at me, and for a moment, he smiled, his eyes shining with something that looked like true happiness. I don’t think I’d ever seen that expression on him before.

“Mark this day, Jericho,” he said quietly, turning to the pakhan of the bratva with complete impudence, “I was right about everything .”

“You’re an insufferable man,” Jericho retorted.

Blink reached forward and, one by one, picked up a glass and put it in front of each adult at the table. “I was still right.”

Jericho grumbled something that I didn’t understand, but then he lifted his glass.

“ Za Zdorovye !” Jericho cheered in Russian.

“ Kippis !” Yuliya answered, reaching out for the glass and downing it.

“ Slàinte ,” Eoghan said quieter, but downed his vodka as well.

“ ? sveikat? !” Blink said, in what I assumed was Lithuanian.

I downed mine because it seemed like the right thing to do. I didn’t want to be left out. “Cheers.”

“What favor would you ask of me, Irish?” Jericho said, standing up, and pouring more vodka into each of our glasses again, whether we wanted one or not.

“Nothing,” Eoghan said quickly, his weary eyes not moving from the glass between his fingers.

I hadn’t drank in a while—having a two-year-old was not conducive to being inebriated—so my head already swam with drunkenness. I was officially a lightweight.

“Unless you’re able to protect my wife and child,” Eoghan said, “there's nothing I would ask for.”

“Really? Nothing else?” Jericho sneered. “Not even the question of… oh, I don’t know, how do I know your wife?”

I clenched my jaw, staring at Jericho Vasiliev, or Brett Bradley, with hatred searing through my soul.

Eoghan came to his feet, stared Jericho right in the eye, his sneer mirroring the Russian with amazing accuracy. “You have no business telling me about my wife , Russian.”

Jericho lifted a single brow, surprised, perplexed, but not the least bit insulted.

“If my wife has things to tell me, she can. It is not for you to do.”

Yuliya smiled, letting out a gentle, “Awww…” Like that was the most romantic gesture she’d ever seen.

His hand tightened around mine again, just for an instant. He told me that he was on my side. That he supported me. That he chose to trust me.

Tears stung my eyes. My God, I adored my husband.

“I was right again, Jericho,” Blink said, a self-satisfied smile on his face, as he leaned back in his seat. “Seems that Eoghan Green is, in fact, in love with his wife. What a rarity among Mafia royalty.”

His light laugh was so unlike him that it made me almost flinch.

“Fine,” Jericho said, his eyes on Eoghan. “Let me tell you who I am, Irish,” Jericho said, his eyes on Eoghan with the same unsettling sneer he always had. “But first, I want to know why you saved my sister.”

“I told you, she reminded me of Shiny Flanagan.” Eoghan was defensive, and I couldn't blame him. Jericho had two tones—a loving one for his family, and the condescending one he had for everyone else.

“Why else?”

Eoghan looked at him, giving him back every bit of scorn that was lobbed his way.

“Because children have no business being used as pawns.”

“ Za Zdrovye! ” Jericho said, bringing his drink to his lips, and sucking it back.

Eoghan did the same, and so did Yuliya. I refrained, because my liver just wasn’t made for it.

“I swear to God, Picasso, if you do not drink, I will…” Jericho shook a fist at me, the sparkle in his eyes telling me he was joking.

“Fine!” I said, reaching out for my glass and drinking it. My head was swimming.

Eoghan, of course, did not think Jericho’s joke was funny.

“You don’t command my wife,” Eoghan said, but it was half-hearted with weariness. “If I could have stopped my father, and your father, and Eugenio Durante, I would have. I would have freed us all from their yoke.”

Yuliya gestured to Eoghan as if she were Vanna White presenting a vowel, looking at her brother with an expression that was a silent “I told you so . ”

Jericho groaned again, then filled all the cups around the table one more time. He was going to get shit faced, wasn’t he?

“I run a counter-RICO agency,” Jericho said, and my heart stopped. “When my sister was in my arms, alive and breathing, after I was certain that I had nothing but a corpse to collect,myself and two other spies started Paradigm.”

He started pouring drinks again. Another shot. The man was an alcoholic.

“We are one of the largest organizations, working alongside, but not under, most federal agencies. My life is dedicated to the elimination of people like our father and our half-brother.” He tilted his glass to his sister. “Like your father.” He tilted his glass to Eoghan. “Like Eugenio Durante.”

He downed his drink, as did his sister and Blink.

Eoghan lifted his head, looked at Jericho like he was insane, then shrugged. “That sounds grand.”

Then he drank his. I sipped at mine, before putting it down.

Yuliya snorted a barely restrained laugh, and she came to her feet, grabbing the Finlandia vodka and charging everyone’s glass again.

The entire table looked at Eoghan in disbelief.

When a moment of silence dragged on long enough, Eoghan looked up, seeing every eye on him. “What?”

“Just… ‘that sounds grand?’ ” Jericho said, mocking his accent.

Eoghan shrugged.

“Will you help me destroy the Durantes so that our children, and grandchildren, are spared from having to choose between helping a girl or execution by their father? Will you make it so that I can keep guns out of their hands? So I can keep them in the school yard, and not in the back of armored SUVs, dashing from one shoot-out to another? Will working with you extend their childhood, so they do not have to draw blood at the tender age of twelve?”

Eoghan looked forward at the table again, twisting the shot glass in front of him. I had never seen him fidget this much before.

“Cillian is two years old now, but in the blink of an eye, he will be old enough for Uni.” He ruffled Cillian’s hair and our son pushed it away, agitated that he was being distracted from building his wall of blueberries.

“If you were the FBI agent building the case to put me behind bars, I would not care. Not if my child can be spared from our family curse. I’ll spend my life in prison if it gives Cillian a real chance at something better than what I could have dreamed. ”

I tugged at Eoghan’s hand, making him look at me. When his black eyes finally met mine, I mouthed the words “ I adore you!”

My heart was screaming the words out, but he could not hear me. He was too deep into his own head. Couldn't he see that these people were inviting him into their club?

He was one of the good guys all along.

“I love you, Eoghan,” I blurted out, as a tear streamed down my cheek.

I leaned over Cillian to cup his cheek. He leaned into my touch, even if he did not say the words back. It made my heart ache, but I had to say it anyway.

“I will be sending my wife, my daughter, and her children to a secure location in Scotland with fifty of my most trusted agents.” Jericho leaned back, steepling his fingers. “Dairo will be with them, leading their security team, with Caledonia Security. I suggest you put your son among them.”

Eoghan’s nostrils flared, his eyes widening, as he looked at Jericho, then at me.

He looked at me with betrayal in his eyes. Then he simply said, “Aye. If you would be so kind, please send my wife and child with Dairo.”

“Eoghan,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “I’m staying with you.”

“No.” Jericho shook his head. “Your son goes. She stays.”

“You don’t tell my wife what to do.” Eoghan’s eyes narrowed.

“Neither do you,” Jericho said back, before turning to me. “What do you want to do, Picasso?”

“I stay with my husband.” Then I lifted my gaze to the head of the organization that had rescued me from the depths of despair when I murdered Giorgio Morelli. “I trust him. You, I’m not sure.”

“You don’t need to, Picasso,” Jericho chuckled, his sister doing the same. Then he nodded to Andres. “Blink will be the liaison to the Irish. You will take your orders from him.”

Then, in a flourish, he took the vodka bottle, charged the glasses again until every drop was spent.

“ As soon as we clear the battlefield of our civilians, then we will declare open season in all Durantes.”

“ After I have a word with Cosima.” Eoghan’s eyes were blank as he raised his glass, downing it in an instant, before he excused himself and left the table.

I got up too, only for Blink’s voice to stop me in my tracks. “Don’t, Picasso. You’ll make it worse by going to him right now.”

I looked over my shoulder at my former mentor, then my boss, then all the other people at the table. Even Dairo shrugged.

“Give him time,” said my—as Yuliya would call him—cousin-in-law, Dairo. “He may appear unaffected, but this whole conversation has been a shock, even to me. And I know half of what was revealed already.”

I stared at the door my husband had left through.

“He has just vomited his biggest secret while discovering a vast conspiracy. Not to mention discovering that his wife,” Dairo said quietly, his eyes meeting mine, his lips pulled taut, “is a spy.”

So much for me being the one to tell him. I stared out to where Eoghan had gone and felt the pull to go after him.

“Let him finish his cigarette before you go after him, Kira,” Dairo said, coolly. “It’s not the end of the world.”