Callum gestures toward her. “Aisling has agreed to marry you. The union will solidify our alliance and make our loyalty unbreakable.”
I laugh again, colder this time. “Unbreakable? You’re selling your daughter and want to call that loyalty?”
Admittedly, I accepted that same offer when it came to Sandro and the Lombardis, but when it comes to Aisling, the thought turns my mouth bitter, and my hackles rise.
Aisling meets my eyes. “I’m no one’s possession to be sold.” Her tone slices through me. Controlled, sharp, but beneath it, I can hear something else. Disgust.
She doesn’t like the idea any more than I do. But clearly, she intends to stand behind it.
Callum rises, adjusting his cufflinks. “We’ll leave you two to discuss it.”
Before I can object, he and Aisling’s three brothers step outside, closing the heavy doors behind them.
The silence stretches.
Aisling folds her arms. “You’re staring.”
“I’m trying to decide whether this is a nightmare.”
“You always did have a flair for dramatics.”
That earns a humorless smile from me. “I didn’t think I’d ever seeyouagain.”
Her eyes narrow. “And whose fault is that?”
Touché.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. There’s tension in the air, thick enough to choke on. I study her—how composed she is, the proud tilt of her chin, the set of her jaw when she looks down her nose at me.
“So,” I say finally. “You came all this way to play house with me?”
Her lips curve slightly, but there’s no warmth in it. “I came here for my family. But I have a counteroffer to my father’s proposal. One that stays between you and me.”
My brow lifts. “Do tell.”
She steps closer. “We fake it.”
I blink. “Fake what?”
“The marriage,” she says. “We make it look real. Our families get their alliance, the Yakuza start losing ground, and when the war’s over, we walk away. A clean break.”
There’s something about the way she says it, so calm and pragmatic, that almost makes me laugh. Almost.
“You think it’ll be that easy?” I ask.
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “Nothing about this is easy. But it’s smart. You get your revenge. We get ours.”
I tilt my head, intrigued despite myself. “You want revenge?”
“The Yakuza promised my family territory. Power. Then they reneged. They took from us too.” Her voice dips lower, quieter. “You’re not the only one who’s lost something.”
Something in the way she says it—soft, almost broken—cuts through me before I can stop it.
I study her for a long moment. There’s steel in her, but there’s also something brittle beneath it. She’s built herself into armor, the same way I did after I lost my wife. Maybe that’s why I can’t look away.
“And why,” I ask quietly, “should I trust you? You don’t exactly have a history of being honest with me.”
Her jaw tightens. “You can trust me to do what’s right for my family. And I think I’ve proven that, when the time comes, I can walk away.”
