Page 18 of Sins of Innocence

Chapter four

The Price of Protection

ÁINE

No matter what that lech, Kenneth, threatened, I should have packed my girls and mom up and run as soon as I learned what had really happened to Troy.

We're not safe in New York. We've never been safe here.

My rabbiting thoughts screech to a halt at Kieran's words because they don't make sense.

"Wedding?" I ask.

Sadie asks whose wedding and Fitz answers, sending me into a paralysis of shock.

Marriage? Me and Kieran?

The woman I haven't met jumps up from her chair, yells something and storms from the room, leaving poleaxed silence behind her.

Until I break it.

"What are you talking about?" I'm yelling again and it's all Kieran's fault. "I never yell," I tell the room at large.

"Uh…it's true. Mom doesn't lose her cool," my daughter affirms.

Only today? I have lost my cool more than once.

Because of the oversized mobster who says we're going to get married in two days!

"We can't get married!"

"How can we plan a wedding in two days?" Sadie asks, worrying about the wrong thing entirely. "It will take longer than that to find mom a dress. Stuff like that isn't as easy as guys think it is."

Why is my daughter talking like the wedding is a done deal?

"We're under a time crunch," Kieran tells my daughter, like they're discussing getting a school project done before it's due.

"Because of what happened today?" Sadie asks in a small voice. "Because of me?"

I turn to her, dislodging Kieran's grip on my shoulders. Finally. Why did I just stand there like a lamb and let him hold onto me?

Cupping my daughter's face, I promise her, "You didn't do anything wrong. None of this is your fault."

"Contract marriages happen in the mob all the time," Fitz tells my daughter.

And me, I guess.

Because? This whole marriage discussion is so outside my frame of reference, I'm Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

Without the pile of dried leaves to soften my landing.

"Troy and I got married because we loved each other. It wasn't a contract," I point out helplessly.

Kieran makes a sound that sends a shiver through me and pulls my gaze back to him like an undertow.

The urge is too powerful and as soon as I meet his eyes, I'm drowning under the waves of fury emanating off of him. Shoring up my defenses, I turn to face him fully and glare back. Kieran may not like it, but it's true. I loved my husband and he loved me.

Not more than he loved the privileges of wealth though. If he had, he would never have put himself and his family at risk like he did. He would have told me what he was doing so I could be prepared when he got caught.