Page 92 of Mob Star

“You don’t feel rushed?”

She glances toward the door, knowing my brothers are waiting. I still don’t care.

“Thea, they’re interrupting us, not the other way around. If it were urgent, they would have said so. Do you feel rushed?”

“No. If anything, it’s like things are moving too slowly.” She hesitates for a moment. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

“Yes. One hundred percent. My parents are proof. So are Dillan’s and Cormac and Seamus’s. Three sisters married three brothers. It’s not like it was a triple wedding. But there’s no denying each couple was meant to be together. I see how Dillan and Mair are together. They’re like his parents and mine. I’ve seen eleven other syndicate marriages. Each couple is undoubtably soulmates. You can’t enter a world like this as a wife if you don’t commit to your partner to your very marrow. A couple can’t survive this life if they aren’t. It would tear them apart and leave them both in shambles. I wouldn’t have brought you within a mile of me if I doubted you’re mine.”

“I wouldn’t have come within a mile if I doubted you’re mine, Finn.”

“We’ve known each other a while, but we’ve had little time together if you were to count the hours.”

“I don’t think time makes two people soulmates. They are or they aren’t. It might take time to realize it, or it might take a few minutes. I didn’t fall in love the second I saw you. I did fall in lust, but that’s not the point. I saw a lot of your character those first two times we were together. I’ve seen it over and over, and it’s always been consistent. You’re kind, generous, fierce, protective, dominating not domineering and you make me happy. I don’t think it’s infatuation because you’re hot. I don’t think it’s infatuation because I want a bad boy, or I’m curious about mob life. You know my past. You know I should have run far, far away. I only want to run to you.”

“When you’re ready to talk about living together, I want to have that conversation.”

“I thought we were having it right now.”

She sits up, and I move out of her way. She scoots back on the bed but glances at the door again. I walk over to it and open it a crack.

“Is this going to take long?” I know they can hear me.

“Five minutes.” That was Shane.

“Just need your signature.” That was Sean.

I turn back to Thea. “Be back as fast as I can.”

I want my brothers out of my place, so I can be alone with Thea. We need to finish this conversation, but I don’t want either of us distracted by them being here. I grab my pants, shoving my legs into them before hurrying down the hall until I reach my office. Sean speaks up first.

“We are so sorry. We wouldn’t have come in— wouldn’t have come by —if we knew you were both here.”

“Just call from now on. If you don’t reach me, call Thea. She’s— going to be here a lot.”

Shane snorts. “You’re moving in together, aren’t you?”

“If we can get this shite done, I can find out.”

Shane hands me contracts for an acquisition Cormac negotiated with some Japanese developers. No one would guess Cormac is a corporate lawyer, and Seamus is a criminal defense lawyer. It cost a fucking fortune to get them and Dillan admitted to the bar, but all three are freaking legal eagles. Dillan doesn’t have time to practice anymore. I know Cormac’s gone through this with a fine-tooth comb. If it’s gotten to me, it only needs the numbers run. I skim until I get to the parts I need. My brow furrows.

“No. This isn’t right. These aren’t the terms Cormac and I offered. It looks like they’re offering the amount we demanded, but they’ve insisted on putting it in escrow. There’s no reason for that. It’s not like we’re going bankrupt, and they want to make sure we can afford operating costs. They know we want to turn it into a shell corp for now. I suspect they guessed we’ll break it down and sell off shares to devalue it, then buy them all back at an even lower price. When people see the O’Rourkes buying— us, not a shell corp —they’ll rush to buy back or buy in. The price’ll rise, netting us the real profit. Not the chump change they want in escrow.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Cormac. “Hey. This contract is bullshite. The escrow part isn’t acceptable. Tell them they accept the original terms, cash in hand, or we make this a hostile takeover. And when I say hostile, I mean I will eviscerate them. They don’t decide the terms. We do. They can take it. There’s no leaving it. If they’re taking it up the arse, so be it.”

“This is why we have money stashed all over the place and are way richer than anyone realizes. I’ll pass the message along.” Cormac hangs up, and I look at my brothers.

“We’ll go.” Shane walks toward me with Sean in his wake. It’s Sean who stops when he gets to the door.

“Pass our apologies along. We didn’t mean to scare her. I called out your name as we came in because we didn’t see you at first. As far as we’re concerned, we saw nothing.”

“So, there’s nothing to remember.” Shane turned around when Sean and I didn’t follow him out of the office.

Always serious— even if they call me Doubting Thomas —Sean claps me on the shoulder and squeezes. “She’s good for you. She’s your Mair. Don’t feck it up. We like her.”

“For feck’s sake, could you speak any louder? I thought Seamus was the fecking foghorn.”

“I want her to know we like her.” Sean grins, and I could throat punch him. It’s the smug one he’d give me when we were kids, and he and Shane got away with shite I couldn’t as the oldest.

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