“My bride, I will never let him near you. Any of those bastards. You are safe with me,” I promise, kissing her forehead.
“Safe?” Dougal snorted, “We fought our way up here and breached the entry in less than ten minutes.”
I raise a brow.
“He let us through,” Cormac sighs. “Fecking walloper.”
“We did need to have a serious conversation, but you were so serious about attacking my…” I look around pointedly, “My penthouse, so who am I to deny you?”
“I’m beginning to like him,” Dougal murmurs.
“Let’s not rush to judgment,” Cameron says.
“In short,” I continue, ignoring the rude interruption, “we have bigger concerns than despising each other. There are now two triads coming after you, and thanks to my buying your sister, I’m entangled in this too. We need to kill them all.” I stare at a glowering Cameron pointedly, “Successfully kill them all this time.”
Cormac draws in a deep breath. “Before this continues, I want to speak to my sister. And she must call our parents.”
“Of course,” I say graciously, as if I’d not been keeping my wife away from a phone for the last three weeks.
“Alone,” Cormac says sharply.
Just to infuriate him, I put my hands on Sorcha’s shoulders. “Darling, is that what you want?”
“Aye,” she says. “I need this.”
“Call for me if you need me.” I kiss her, just to enrage her brothers and it works like a charm, especially when she kisses me back.
***
Raged - Scottish slang for really angry
Jobby feck -Scottish slang for an asshole
Chapter Thirty-Two
In which there is a council of war and endless poking at tender feelings.
Sorcha…
I’ve been in the middle of a pile of MacTavish men before and it’s a bit like standin’ in a well. They converge on me again, hugging me, talking over each other, trying to comfort me until Cormac tells them to hush.
“Talk to me, Scorch. Ya’ canna want to be with this piece of shite who bought you?”
“He saved my life, and ya’ know it.” I shudder, trying to push away the memories of that night at the meat processing plant. They’re going to want to know all about it.
Not right now though. I can’t.
“He’s put his life on the line for me, more than once. He stepped in front of a bullet for me.” This quiets them down a bit. “Alastair is a man with many secrets,” I admit, “secrets upon secrets. What I do know, is that while he attempted to hold me as a hostage at the beginning, he couldn’t. He married me to protect me from Zhang.”
Cormac nods, “The family is always off limits.”
“Zhang still went after us,” I say. “He’s mad as a hatter, he is. More than most of the nutters ya’ deal with. And if Zhang is attacking him now because of me…”
I love my brothers, Scottish giants raised on a diet of cold weather, lots of weapons, and quiet stoicism. They’re all dressed in black tactical suits and bristling with guns and knives. They gave everything to save me once, but things are different now.
“This rescue isn’t like the one when I was a kid.” I see the grief in their dear faces that they all try to hide. “I’m… well, I’m wed. This bein’ the incontrovertible fact here. As powerful as Alastair and his friends are, this is a MacTavish obligation, too.”
“Sorcha darlin’...” I’ve always been the closest to Dougal, and his eyes look suspiciously wet. “After everything that’s happened to ya,’ all the pain… you’re ours, you’re a MacTavish. You don’t belong here.”
