Page 92 of Ruthless Savior
"Less guarded. More..." I search for the right word. "More yourself, I guess."
He takes a sip of his beer, considering. It surprises me, somehow, that he’s actually taking my question seriously.
“Generations of these people’s families have known generations of my family,” he says finally. “My name is respected here, as one with authority, but there’s a… kinship that doesn’t exist elsewhere. We respect them, and they respect us. In Boston, with other crime families, sometimes there’s respect, and sometimes there’s only fear. There, a man has to learn the balance of it if he wants to keep power. But here, respect is what matters. The roots go a long way back.” He looks at me. “Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” I say softly. “I like that better. The way it feels here, versus how it feels… there.”
“Sometimes I do too,” Ronan admits. “But I can’t run the family business from here. My brother could have come here and run the estates. I never understood why he didn’t; I would have, if I were the middle son. But that was his choice. He wanted the kind of power I have in Boston, but somewhere that he wasn’t always in my shadow. So my father found it for him, in Miami.”
I realize with a start that, for the first time, he’s opening up to me. Giving me a glimpse of who he really is, this man that I’ve married. I wonder why he’s chosen now—if it’s really just because he feels he was too harsh with me last night, or if there’s some other reason.
It’s tempting to ask about his wife. The one who came before me. But I don’t want to ruin the moment and make Ronan close up again. This feels fragile, like I could spook him.
"Does it bother you?" he asks after a moment’s silence. "Knowing what I'm capable of?"
I open my mouth to answer, and then pause to think about it—really think about it. Two months ago, if someone had told me I'd be sitting in an Irish pub with a mafia boss who I’ve been coerced into marrying, who I’ve seen with blood on his hands for my sake, I would have been horrified. But now I’m not so sure. The world seems different to me now than it did before my mom got so sick, before I started considering taking out shady loans. Before I found out the consequences could be even higher than I’d imagined.
"It should," I admit. "But it doesn't. Not the way I thought it would."
Ronan looks curious. "Why not?"
"Because you've never made me afraid. Not once. Even when I was angry with you, even when I didn't trust you, I was never afraid of you." I meet his eyes. "I'm afraid of a lot of things about this situation, but you're not one of them."
Something shifts in his expression. I can’t read what it is, exactly, but I can see that something’s changed.
"What are you afraid of?" he asks softly.
The question is so gentle, so genuinely curious, that I find myself answering before I can think better of it.
“I’m afraid of Rocco kidnapping me again. I’m afraid of you getting hurt and being on my own to deal with something so far beyond me that I know I can’t handle it, no matter how smart I am. I’m afraid of your father. I’m afraid of my mother’s cancer becoming untreatable. I’m afraid of being so crushed with debt that I’ll never really get to live my life.” I take a deep, shaky breath. “But I’m not afraid of you.”
Ronan looks at me for a long moment. “I’ve heard that before, believe it or not,” he says quietly, and there’s something pained in his voice. “But not the way you said it.”
It seems like it meant something to him. He sits there, very still, his beer forgotten in one hand as he looks at me across the table. And then, just as the tension starts to stretch between us, the band on the stage behind us kicks up a livelier tune than the one they were playing before. I watch as the lead singer, a man with silver hair and laugh lines around his eyes, steps forward to the microphone.
"Right then, folks," he calls out over the music, his Irish accent thick and warm. "We've got a proper tune for dancing now. Come on, don't be shy—bring your sweethearts to the floor and show us how it's done."
A few couples rise from their tables, moving toward the small open space in front of the stage. I watch them with a feeling of longing wrapping around my ribs, remembering how the music made me want to dance when we first walked in. But I know that’s not the kind of thing we’re here for. I still don’t entirely knowwhatpossessed Ronan to bring me out, but I doubt he’ll want to dance.
I glance at Ronan, expecting him to look uncomfortable at the suggestion. Public displays aren't exactly his style, and I can't imagine him wanting to draw attention to us. But instead, I find him watching me with an expression I can't quite read.
"Do you want to?" he asks quietly, nodding toward the dance floor.
The question catches me off guard. "Do you?"
Something flickers across his face—amusement, maybe, or a challenge. "I asked you first."
I look at the couples gathering on the dance floor, already beginning to link arms and pick up their heels to the lively tune. The firelight glints off of them, the room warmingwith the exertion of it, and it looks like something from a movie, something romantic and uncomplicated. Nothing like the tangled mess of our arrangement.
"I don't know how to dance to this kind of music," I admit.
“I do.” There’s that rolling burr to Ronan’s voice as he says it that sends a shiver down my spine. It might be unoriginal of me, but his accent affects me every time I hear it thicken. “I’ll take care of you,milséan.”
The endearment, spoken in his thick, lilting voice, sends another shudder through me. He called me that on our wedding night, and not since.
I’ll take care of you.
Whatever else Ronan might be as a man, whatever else he might have done, he’s kept that promise.
