My brother wanted to argue but didn’t. Instead he hugged me tightly. “I love you, Ci. I promise you never would have married that muthafucker and if I can find a way to get you out of this…” His eyes lifted to Nex and I sighed.
“I don’t want an out but we can discuss that another day. I love you too but I don’t like you very much right now.”
I shrugged out of my brother’s embrace and left the two of them to do whatever they needed. As soon as I settled into the passenger seat and dropped my hands into my lap, my eyes lowered, watching as they trembled uncontrollably. Whileeverything was unfolding, adrenaline had kept me level but now I was functioning off the reality of watching a man die and thinking my husband got shot.
I was a chaotic mess of anxious nerves. I closed my eyes and felt my pulse racing again and oh fuck…
I think I’m having a panic attack…
Or dying…
11
Nex.
“What the fuck were you thinking? That’s my sister.” Merrick threw his arm out to the side, pointing to the car Cia was in.
“I’m well aware, but let’s be clear, she’s also my wife.”
“Then act like it. She shouldn’t have been here.”
I arched a brow. “You demanded I bring her.”
He flinched. “Only because I expected her to be leaving with me and not agreeing to stay married to your morally flawed ass.”
I smirked. “Are you insisting that part of me is now a problem? Because I’m more than aware of how much you’ve paid for the talents that my morally flawed ass has to offer.”
“Killing people is one thing, but being married to my sister… Fuck…” he yelled.
“Get over it. She’s my wife and, as of now, has no plans of divorcing me.”
Even if she wanted, I would refuse. “We need to focus on more important things like deciding how to navigate this thing with Harte.”
“You don’t have to worry. I have it covered.”
I angled my head to the side. “You must not have understood my point. Marrying Cia changes everything. We are nowequalpartners in this. Your father will step down and you and I will be presiding over Malone and Harte business moving forward.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s very possible and it’s what the fuck is happening. With what we just did, she’s at risk. Whether they know it’s us with certainty that killed him, they’ll assume it was the minute everyone realizes Ciana’s my wife. She’ll be at risk which means she’ll be paying the price for decisions we made. The power has shifted between three families. What used to be Harte, Arlo, and Malone is now Barrett, Arlo, and Malone. It will shift again if Arlo can’t accept what the new structure looks like…” I glared at Merrick, communicating exactly what I meant. Arlo would suffer the same fate if he didn’t accept the new hierarchy Merrick and I had created.
Merrick nodded tightly with understanding. “Fine. We’ll deal with this later. Right now I need to handle them.”
“Yeah, you do that,” I mused. “I have to take care of my wife.”
Merrick frowned his disapproval but didn’t stop me when I walked away. As soon as I made it to the car, I wanted to fucking murder him too for delaying me when I saw the state the Cia was in. She was having a panic attack, which made sense. She’d just witnessed two dead bodies, one of which I was responsible for.
Her hand was over her chest as she gasped for air. I wasn’t sure she realized I was in the car until my hands gripped the side of her face and I brought her eyes to mine. “Fuck, Little Flame. You’re okay. I need you to relax.”
Her eyes narrowed but she kept gasping which worried the shit out of me. So I did the first thing that came to mind and kissed her. She froze and tried to jerk away, but when I gripped her face tighter, she resisted for a few seconds more andeventually relaxed into the kiss. I pulled her closer while I leaned over the console until she grabbed my wrist and jerked away.
“I couldn’t breathe.”
I nodded. “Panic attack.”
She attempted to shift her eyes toward the issue but I gripped her face again and kept them locked on me. “Don’t look out there. Keep your eyes on me.”
“Yeah. Can we go?”
