“Why?” Lucas folded his arms across his chest. “Since when do you let yourself touch anything mob-related? Aside from if it’s a Sicilian dick, that is.”
I made to stalk forward, but she grabbed my upturned wrist. “This is why I dislike you most of the time, Lucas. Get that stick out of your ass, would you?”
“It isn’t right,” her older brother insisted.
“Fuck off.” She scoffed. “One of the O’Donnellys themselves is married to a Sicilian.”
“Jennifer isn’t my baby sister!”
“Why does it matter who I’m with?”
“Your actions make waves, Kitty. They reflect on me.”
“So it’s about your career? Of course it is.” Her top lip curled. “You’re such an asshole, Lucas.”
“Like you’re not a bitch!”
Kitty flipped him two birds. “Meow.”
My head whipped around to stare at her in shock, but that was nothing to the shit-eating grin Lucas sported as he dragged his sister in for a hug.
I blinked and sputtered, “The fuck happened here?”
Lucas sneered at me. “We’re Irish. You wouldn’t get it.”
Perplexed, I watched Kitty laugh, but she tugged her head back to stare at her brother from within the confines of his embrace. “Seriously, I need to speak with Aidan.”
“What the hell for?”
“Got a message for him from someone not Sicilian,” she quipped.
Lucas pursed his lips. “Aidan’s at home. It’s above my pay grade to disturb him on his day off.”
“Can I at least have his number?”
“Why isn’t Capone over there giving it to you?”
“Because,” she said slowly, like he was five, “this is performative, dingbat. It’s important that I trigger this meeting through you.” Her tone remained relatively patient for a woman who, I’d come to learn, didn’t like justifying her own actions.
If anything, her explanation put him more on edge. “What’s going on, KittyKat?”
“It’s important, and you know I hate it when you and Cade call me that.”
“Tough. Shit. Why can’t you tell me?”
“I hate you. Because Aidan has to hear it first.”
Lucas shot me a look. I didn’t nod. Kitty had no need for me to fight this battle. So I just held his stare until he heaved a sigh. “Kitty, come on—it’s my ass on the line here. If I shit on Aidan’s day off, he’ll be a nightmare.”
She grabbed his hands and squeezed them with her own. “I know we don’t always get along the best, Lucas. I know you try to protect us and I do what I can to ignore those protections, but please, trust me. I wouldn’t do this, any of this, if I didn’t have to. I swear it’s important and, in the long run, it might even improve your standing with Aidan.”
Lucas grouched about pain-in-the-ass sisters, but he dragged his phone from his back pocket and reeled off a number. “This makes zero sense.”
She tapped in the digits onto her own cell. “I know.”
“Fine.” He wafted a hand. “Go on then. Call him. I’m not going anywhere. I want to hear this.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Pushy.”
