“I was out.” My glare is sharp enough to cut throats, but she ignores me.
“Out with agirl?” She smirks over her shoulder. “Mysterygirl perhaps?”
Notwitha girl.
“No.”
Reagan takes the mug, now full of fresh coffee, and I have to shove the pot back into place to prevent the rest of the brewing coffee from spilling all over the counter.
“Jesus Christ, you guys wouldn’t last two seconds on your own.”
“I’ll have you know, I would do just fine.” Reagan’s playful tone sharpens slightly as she pours damn near the entire sugar bowl into her cup.
Liam and Alex abandon their smoldering pans and join Aidan at the table. I pull a clean skillet out of the cabinet, and head to the refrigerator for some eggs.
“Speaking of being on our own…” Reagan starts, leaning a little too casually on the island behind me.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!” she whines with a pout.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, my headache worsening by the minute. “I already know what you’re going to ask—and the answer is no. And I’m not in the mood to argue about it.”
“I just want to go out with Effie tomorrow night.”
“Well, in that case—no. But make it a double.” Anything involving our cousin is bad news.
“You’re being an ass.” I can feel Reagan’s glare through the back of my head while I take a whisk to the eggs. She tries again. “I just want to go out for one night!”
“You know we’re on the brink of war with both the Italians and the Russians right now. Someone killed our father, on the street, in broad daylight.” She winces. And after what the Russians did to Alex a couple of weeks ago? I’m willing to bet it’s still open season on O’Rourkes, seeing as Liam was just shot at last week.”
Her eyes widen as she looks quickly to her brother, and I almost feel bad.
“How am I supposed to know? You never tell me anything! You expect me to sit here all day with nothing to do. I had to drop out of college because it wasn’t safe?—”
“Only temporarily,” I growl in my defense. “Once we get the Russians who killed Dad?—”
“It’ll just be another threat, and another and another, until I die from inactivity and boredom!”
“You’re being dramatic.” I turn to face her, eyeing my brothers, who are noticeably quiet as we have this argument yet again.
“I’m not a child anymore, Koen. I’m twenty-one. It’smylife. At some point, I have to be the one responsible for it, not you.”
“You have no idea what’s out there?—”
“And whose fault is that?” She sets her cup down, crossing her arms, and glares at me. “I want to go out with Effie tomorrow night.”
“No.” I don’t even have to think about it. The city is volatile right now, not to mention the traffickers snatching girls off the street left and right. And not all the Irish clans in the city have bent the knee. My reign as the Irish King is still new, and since we don’t know who we can trust, I only feel safe with one of my brothers keeping an eye on Reagan, and this week, I really can’t spare one of them to babysit her.
Reagan lets out a little scream of frustration, turning on her heel and stomping out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, I hear a door slam further down the hall.
“Ah yes, the picture of maturity,”I mumble under my breath.
I feel my brothers’ gaze burning on me in the silence.
“Something to say?”
“She’s got a point…” Surprisingly, it was Aidan who spoke.
