What I don’t get is why? What’s worth letting your cousin live through hell?
I know our world. Deals, blood, arranged marriages, they’re part of it. But when someone’s ready to die rather than live that life, you see it. He has to see it.
He doesn’t look up when I walk in, but I feel his smirk.
I sit. Silent. Still. My eyes lock on the mess of metal and glass spread across the table. A puzzle, yeah, but not one of pieces. A test of patience.
The screen on the wall flashes red. Begin.
“She doesn’t belong to you,” he adds, voice low and smug.
We sit in silence, I need to block him out, he’s going to try to get under my skin. Then, the moment I tell myself to calm down, Conor leans forward, picks up a piece, and mutters, “Stop looking at her.”
My hands curl into fists under the table.
“She doesn’t belong to you,” he repeats, voice low and smug. “You touch her again,” he says, voice cutting through the air. “And I’ll make sure there’s not enough of you left to bury.”
I lean back and laugh. He thinks he can kill me. He’s not that good.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, voice flat as stone. He’s playing some game. My gut tells me I might lose this one.
Conor snorts. “Sure. Keep pretending. Like your family didn’t already fuck one of ours. Your mother?—”
That’s it. I snap. Never talk about my mother.
The chair scrapes hard against the floor as I stand, slamming it into the wall behind me.
“Shut the fuck up.”
He stands. We’re toe to toe, fists clenched.
“You gonna hit me?” he sneers. “Go ahead. Prove everyone right. Rage wrapped in money.”
He’s not wrong. Rage is the reason most people stay away from me.
“Your mother might be married to scum, but she’s one of us,” he spits and I know he’s not talking about my mother. He means Aoife. “We’ll decide what happens to her.”
“Yeah?” I growl. “She looked real happy when you shoved her against a wall.”
That lands. His jaw tightens, eyes flare, then the mask slides back on.
“Watch it, Messina,” he hisses, shoving me.
I step back, only enough to stay balanced.
“She’s not yours,” he says again, softer now. “She never will be.”
I stare at the puzzle scattered between us.
If I speak, the storm breaks.
This isn’t the end. It’s the start of a fire neither of us will survive.
I wonder what he’d do if he knew what Aoife did. Help her or hand her over? He wouldn’t care. His family wants power, and they’ll bleed anyone to get it.
Conor’s eyes gleam like he’s been waiting to snap the chain.
“But she’s not yours to touch either,” he whispers. “Is it a Messina thing? Your father took one of ours, now you want to fuck your way through the rest?”
