Page 93 of Vengeful King

“I love my wife,” Aiden adds. “And Connor loves his wife. You deserve a wife you love, too.”

I want to say,You’re different. You’re not the head of the family.

But I don’t.

I want this to be true. I want it to be true that I can marry who I want, do whatever I want. But all I’ve been taught since I was born is how to be strong and how to sacrifice. This was just one more thing I needed to sacrifice.

But Finn just shrugs, accepting of what I’ve said. “We can figure things out with Ezra. Right?”

“Right,” Aiden says.

As if it’s that simple.

But despite my disbelief, I know they’ll support me no matter what I do. They’ll find a way to break off the engagement with Ezra; they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I get what I want.

“We’re in a really good position in Boston,” Aiden says. He’s businesslike again, already planning. “We have a lot of power and a lot of allies.”

“More than a lot,” Connor interjects. “If the Assembly is nervous, that just goes to show what we can do. We can figure it out.”

I knew all these things already, but hearing them now brings me peace I didn’t know I needed.

I haven’t been able to stop myself from loving Katrina, no matter how hard I’ve tried. And I have tried. So now, accepting what I can’t change about how I feel for her, the only thing left to do is think about the implications. There is a promise I made to Ezra that I’ll have to break. There’s a lot I stand to lose.

But the O’Reilly family is strong because I made it that way, just for a moment like this. We have allies and support. I can find a way to appease Ezra, or if it comes to it, get rid of him.

For the first time, I can just allow myself to feel what I feel for Katrina and admit it. I can admit to myself—and to my brothers—that I love her.

But just as soon as I do, fear grips me again. I need to get to her right now. I care about her more than I’ve ever cared about a woman before, much less anyone outside of my family.

Thankfully, Aiden is focused, and he manages to bring me back to reality. I can’t waste time inside my own head right now. I have to focus.

“So, what do we know about Yuri’s setup?”

I focus on his question and start thinking seriously. “Old place by the docks. He’s verging on our territory, and he’s also stepping on the Russians’ toes.”

Connor nods. “He doesn’t have too many men with him. I’d say about twenty, all said and done.”

“Twenty there? Or total?” Aiden asks sharply. “I don’t want to walk into a party underdressed.”

“There, I think,” Finn supplies. “He doesn’t get a lot of feet on the ground, thankfully. He’s got a few loan sharks, but they seem to be bad about keeping tabs on people. That’s probably why it took them so long to go after Katrina.”

And if we’d found out about him before then, maybe she never would have been blackmailed into killing me.

I’ve thought about it ever since discovering Yuri was behind the attack. If there had been some whisper, some sign, I could have acted against him before he decided to rope a woman into this mess.

I’m still baffled as to why Yuri used Katrina at all. It’s stupid. I thought he was smarter than that—after all, his plan to kill me years ago only narrowly failed. He was never an idiot when he worked for my father and family.

Maybe almost dying killed off some of his skills, or maybe it just killed his caution. Maybe he thinks he can’t be killed at all.

I’ll show him he’s wrong.

“This isn’t at all how we would have planned to take him down,” Connor says, groaning. “I mean, fuck. We can do it. But it’s going to be a shitshow.”

I know he’s not angry with me. But we all know what this means. There’s a chance people could escape, a chance we just have to kill them all to stop that from happening.

But no survivors means no answers.

We have to make a decision. And if it comes down to keeping someone alive or making sure Katrina is safe, I know I’ll choose her over the mystery of Yuri coming back from the dead any day.

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