Vicious Heir

Chapter One

Annie

“Here are the numbers for the overseas bank accounts. We’re ahead of the projections I gave you last fiscal quarter, so you should be pleased. And all of the money is clean. Washed through the businesses you wanted to prioritize—the new gentlemen’s club downtown, the two new restaurants, and the speakeasy.” I push the documents over to my brother’s side of the desk, sitting primly in the chair opposite him despite the fact that he is my brother, and I could wear pajamas to this meeting and slouch if I wanted to.

I’m still his finance manager, and it matters to me that I have this role in the family. That Ronan O’Malley, head of the Irish mafia in Boston and my older brother, has given me this responsibility, this freedom.

Truthfully, it was our father who put me in this role, initially. But I can’t think about him right now. That wound is still too fresh, too new, in addition to the other wounds our family has sustained over the past year.

“Good. This all looks good, Annie.” Ronan scans the documents, and I know he’s giving them the cursory once-over that he’s supposed to as the boss, but he trusts me fully, and he’s never had a head for numbers. No one in the immediate family does, except for me, which is a large part of why I was sent to Columbia to study finance and then brought back home to make sure that our family’s illegal money comes out looking squeaky clean on the other side. I’ve always been good with math, and I love it. The organization, the fact that if you just know the formulas and the patterns, it will work out the way it needs to.

No subjectivity. No arguments or theorizing. Just cold, hard numbers and manipulating them to do what I need them to.

“Did you even read it?” I tease him as he hands the file back. “Or did you just say that to sound smart?”

“If you were an actual employee, you couldn’t talk to me like that.” Ronan smirks at me, glancing at his computer screen.

“I am an actual employee,” I shoot back. “You pay me a salary. I know, it’s part of the spreadsheets I do every month.”

“Maybe I should dock it for your insubordination.” He grins at me, but there’s no real heat in it. I smile back, the curve of my lips feeling somewhat unfamiliar after the events of the past six months… but the last two, in particular.

It feels good to smile again, honestly. There’s been too much grief, too much death, pocketed with moments of happiness—like finding out that Ronan’s wife is pregnant and that I’m going to be an aunt, or their second, more intimate wedding that they had with just family and friends when they came back from Ireland.

Ireland, where our father—Padraigh O’Malley—died. Ireland, where his body is buried now, in a quick and hasty funeral that our brother Tristan didn’t even fly out to attend. He was too furious that, after a lifetime of strife between him and Padraigh, our father committed a betrayal too deeply painful to ignore—not toward him, but toward Ronan.

Our beloved older brother, who has already gone through far too much, deserved better than that from the father he idolized and adored all our lives. And though I’ve grieved my father’s death since the moment Ronan called me with the news, I also understand why it had to happen.

Including the means of how he died.

Our world is blood, and violence, and often pain. But it can also be beautiful. It can also be full of life, and joy, and fulfillment, for all the duty and responsibility that wear us down sometimes… and no one more so than Ronan, who is responsible for not only his own wife and child, but also the rest of us. Tristan and me. If something—anything—were to happen to us, or because of us, it’s ultimately he who has to answer for it.

Which is also why sometimes, I wish he’d look a little closer at the paperwork I hand him before signing off on it, even if he trusts me with the numbers.

“Is there anything else?” Ronan looks at me as I tuck the file back into my bag. “I have another meeting here shortly. Although you’re welcome to stay if you like—you might want to, actually.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Why is that? You’re not trying to set me up with someone, are you?”

An odd look passes over Ronan’s face, and I feel a leap of anxiety in my stomach. I’ve been fortunate all my life that neither my father nor my older brother ever pressured me to marry. There’s no need for it, really—Ronan is the heir, and his wife is pregnant, and Tristan has his own empire in Miami and his wife with a baby on the way. The O’Malley line is secured, and there’s no real need for me to contribute to it. 

But many families—most mafia families, I’d say—wouldn’t see it that way. Old-fashioned traditions run deep in every flavor of the mafia, and a daughter is most often seen as a prize, a bargaining chip to add more power and money to a family’s name. It’s archaic and off-putting, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s the way of our world.

I’ve never been expected to marry, though. I’ve often suspected that it’s because I’ve made myself so valuable to the family in other ways that my father didn’t want to risk a husband wanting more of me than I gave to the family. Ronan, on the other hand, would never pressure me to do anything I didn’t want to do.

Still, the odd look in his eyes troubles me. What if he’s changed his mind? What if he needs me to marry for some reason? The criminal politics of Boston have changed dramatically in the last six months, and there’s always a chance that Ronan would ask of me what he himself had to do at one point. What Tristan was asked to do.

I’ve been an exception, but that could always change.

“No,” Ronan says, shaking his head, and I let out a relieved breath. “Of course not. You’d find a way to have me sent to prison for sure. One wrong line in the taxes, and this could all come crumbling down.”

A laugh escapes from me, a little high-pitched and nervous. “Good,” I manage. “Besides, I have a date tonight, so I’m already spoken for.”

The teasing comment slips out before I can stop it, probably from my rattled nerves. Ronan gives me a quizzical look, and my breath catches in my throat. 

“A date? Really?”

I’m not offended by his surprise. At twenty-eight, I’m firmly what, back in the day, they would have called a spinster. The kind of heavy guard that my father and now Ronan has following me around at all times isn’t exactly conducive to dating, or to sneaking off and getting hot and heavy with a guy, even when I was in college. My romantic experience is, putting it mildly, nearly nonexistent.

“Yes.” I give him a narrow-eyed look. “I have a date. And yes, my security team knows, and I’ll have three of them going along with me.” 

“Good.” Ronan pauses. “Who’s the guy?”

My heart thumps in my chest. That’s not a question I want to answer right now… not one I’m really prepared to answer anytime soon, actually. At least not until I know if this is actually going somewhere.

“I—” I open my mouth to answer, frantically thinking of some way to deflect without outright lying to my brother, when a firm knock at the door interrupts me.

Ronan’s attention switches to the door, and relief floods me as he calls out in his brusque, Irish-accented baritone: “Come in.”

He’s not going to grill me about my love life in a meeting. In fact, my first thought is that he didn’t say I had to stay for the meeting, only that I might want to. I could slip out now, and I wouldn’t have to answer any more potential questions about—

My hand is reaching for my bag when the door opens, and I freeze in place.

I know the man who walks into my brother’s office… and I don’t, all at the same time.

He’s almost offensively gorgeous. Tall—definitely a few inches over six feet—dressed in a tailored dark grey suit that clings to a frame that I can tell is rippling with lean muscle. He moves like a cat, graceful and confident, his green eyes sparkling in the cold January sunshine. His jaw is strong and shaved smooth, his face chiseled like someone sculpted him into an example of masculine perfection. His hair is a deep brown, medium length, and curling softly just beneath his ears and at the nape of his neck. I’m struck with a sudden, alarming urge to reach out as soon as he’s close enough and run my fingers through his hair.

I wonder if it would be as soft as I remember it being twelve years ago. Or eleven, when I touched it for the last time, just before we said goodbye.

His attention is fixed on Ronan, and I catch a glimmer of what I think is uncertainty in his eyes, something that looks like self-doubt. Like he’s not entirely sure he should be here.

I don’t know why he is.

And then he sees me.

He’s midstep when his gaze flicks over to the seat I’m occupying, as if to take in who else is in the room. There’s a moment of questioning in his face, as if he’s not entirely certain it’s me—all grown up now, eleven years after he left Boston when he was eighteen and I was seventeen. 

The realization that it is me slides into his eyes. I see the light of recognition there, see the stunned look on his face, and something else too—a heat that darkens the brilliant green of his eyes and sends an answering heat flooding through my body.

My lungs suddenly feel too tight, my skin too small. Every muscle in my body is tight, my heart hammering against my ribs, and it’s as if time winds to a halt, as if Ronan and everything else in the room has vanished, and it’s only me and the boy-turned-man that I thought I would never see again.

“Annie.” He breathes my name, and I feel dizzy from the sound of it. I feel the blood rush to my face, my cheeks heating. My lips part to say his name, to make the shape of it for the first time in eleven years.

“Elio.” Ronan’s voice cuts through the air before I can speak, flat as he levels a hard, stern gaze at the man in front of him. Not the boyish friendliness of over a decade past, when Elio was practically part of the family. This isn’t Ronan, my brother, and in some ways, Elio’s. It’s Ronan O’Malley, the now-patriarch of the O’Malley crime family, and his voice commands both respect and obedience from the man who is still staring at me.

Ronan clears his throat, and the moment breaks. Elio’s attention snaps back to Ronan, his cheeks pinkening slightly as he blinks. Like he was momentarily stunned, and he’s coming back to his senses.

It’s how I feel, too. I draw in a breath, trying to disguise how shaky it is, and sit up straighter in my chair.

“Ronan, what is he doing here?”

The words come out too harsh. I see Elio stiffen. It sounded like I don’t want him here, when that’s the furthest thing from the truth. 

Ronan looks at me. “That’s why I thought you might want to stay. As the financial manager for the family, his new position will affect you as well as the rest of us.”

My heart thumps harder against my ribs. “His new… position?” I have to struggle to moderate my voice, to have the words come out in the cool, professional tone of a woman in charge of a mafia’s money, instead of the squeak of a girl seeing the boy she was in love with eleven years ago, all grown up and standing in front of her.

“Elio has been called back from Chicago to take over Rocco De Luca’s place as the don of the Italian mafia in Boston.” Ronan looks at Elio, his expression taking on a hint of disapproval. “Sit down, Cattaneo. You’re a don now. Act like one. You don’t need my permission to take a seat.”

Elio’s cheeks flush a little deeper, and he clears his throat, keeping his gaze fixed away from me as he nods and sits down across from Ronan’s desk. That puts him in the chair next to me, and I feel my entire body go tense again as a waft of his cologne washes over to me.

It smells like citrus and rain, a clean, fresh scent that puts me in mind of the beach, or what I imagine an afternoon in Spain might smell like, with warmed stone courtyards and orange trees everywhere. My pulse flutters rapidly in my throat, and I feel my hands tighten against my thighs, the tips of my fingers digging into my slim-cut, dark green pants. 

I want to tease him about the scent. I want to remind him of the first time he ever wore cologne, some of my father’s tobacco-and-vanilla scented cologne that he snuck in and practically doused himself in before a dance at the private school we both went to. He tried to kiss me for the first time that night, and I pushed him away, telling him I might have let him if he didn’t smell like he’d taken a bath in my dad’s cologne.

He doesn’t smell like that now. Now, I want to bury my face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in, find out if under that scent there’s still the same warm smell of his skin that I remember all too well from a summer afternoon when, a little sweaty and out of breath, he backed me up against a tree in our backyard just out of sight of the mansion, and kissed me for the first time.

“Annie.” Ronan’s voice cuts through the fog of memory. I blink rapidly, and he gives me a slightly confused look. “Are you alright?”

He wouldn’t understand. Of course he wouldn’t. He thinks my reaction is just the shock of seeing someone who I grew up with again, years after we parted. He doesn’t know how I felt about Elio. How Elio felt about me.

No one could know, back then. And there’s no reason for anyone to know now.

Besides, I have no idea how he feels. And it doesn’t matter. 

What happened between us was over a decade ago. It’s ancient history, practically. And there’s no need to exhume graves that have long since settled.

“Sorry.” I breathe in, stiffening my spine as I look between the two men, not allowing my gaze to linger on Elio for too long. “I’m just a little tired. I didn’t sleep well last night—I was up too late running numbers.”

“You need to work less.” Ronan pulls two files out, pushing them across the table to Elio. They’re thick, and Elio looks at them with some trepidation in his face. “There’s no need for you to run yourself ragged, Annie. Especially since we need you sharp, handling the finances.” He looks at Elio. “Annette handles all of the finances for the O’Malley family, and by extension, the finances involving our business partners. If you have questions pertaining to the money that’s exchanged between us, about percentages, investments, the profitability of businesses that we might move product through, or essentially anything remotely related to money or numbers, you’re better off talking to her before anyone else.”

Elio nods, a quick, jerky motion that makes my chest tighten a little. Does he not like the idea of needing to talk to me? Maybe I misread his reaction when he walked in. Maybe it wasn’t surprise at seeing me, and desire at seeing me all grown up. Maybe it was just shock to see me in the office with Ronan, like my brother’s equal. Maybe he doesn’t like the idea of having to answer to a woman about his businesses’ financials. 

It’s been over a decade, I remind myself, breathing shallowly. I don’t know him any longer. The boy I grew up with has been in Chicago for eleven years. I don’t know the man he’s become, how he’s been influenced, or what he thinks. I don’t know his wants or hopes or dreams anymore.

The thought makes my chest feel as if it’s been hollowed out, a deep pain tightening my throat and making tears spring to my eyes. I duck my head quickly, swallowing rapidly as I blink them away. Nothing is going to be fixed by crying.

My father always hated how easily crying came to me. How quickly I would well up when I was sad or disappointed, or angry. I was told I was too gentle. Too sensitive. Too easily hurt.

He would never have allowed me to work for the family if it wasn’t for the fact that I could be locked away in an office with facts and figures, no confronting the violent nature of our work necessary. I could be sheltered while still providing the family with what they didn’t already have—a mathematical mind that was so quick that I was a grade ahead all throughout school. 

Ronan has never said anything about it to me, but I know he thinks I’m soft and gentle too, something to be sheltered and protected whenever possible, despite his respect for my mind. And crying right now, no matter how badly I want to, won’t help that.

Elio takes a breath, flipping open the files. All of his concentration is on that now, and I sneak another look at his profile, taking him in. He’s beautifully handsome, like a Roman sculpture, still boyish, with his hair kept a little long and his smooth, unmarked skin. I curl my fingers against my palms to keep from reaching out and touching him. It feels like I should be allowed to, like, after all this time, it’s a crime against something fundamental that it feels as if there’s a gulf between us that can’t be crossed.

But with Ronan sitting here, I can’t. Especially not since what we were to each other so long ago was a secret. 

If Ronan were to find out about Elio and me back then, it could change everything, and not for the better. My mind races, imagining the look on his face, the anger there, the mistrust. He would send Elio back to Chicago, I think. He certainly wouldn’t entrust him with rebuilding the ruins of Boston’s most influential mafia family after the end of the De Luca line.

It would ruin everything for Elio. And even though I no longer know him, even though I have no idea if there’s anything left of the boy I once loved, I can’t imagine doing anything that would bring him harm.

I look at my watch, needing space. Needing air. I can’t sit in this room any longer, breathing in the scent of citrus and knowing that Elio is so close to me, but still might as well be as far away as he was yesterday.

I need to think. And I have a date to get ready for.

“I should go.” I clear my throat, reaching for my bag. “If there’s anything you need me to go over regarding the takeover of De Luca’s former businesses, Ronan, let me know. I’ll be happy to jump on that work just as soon as I get into the office tomorrow. And… Elio—” My voice hitches on his name, and I swallow quickly. “If you have any questions, as Ronan said, just let me know. I’m happy to go over whatever you need in order to make the transition a smooth one.”

There. Professional. Calm. I keep my expression steady as I smile at Ronan and turn to go, feeling Elio’s eyes on my back. He says nothing, as if he doesn’t know what to say—or maybe, as if he’s glad to see me leave.

I want to look back as I reach the door. Want one more glimpse of his face in the January sun, handsome and older and once upon a time, secretly mine.

Instead, I open the door and walk out into the hall, closing it firmly behind me without a backward glance. Only then, as the clicking of my heels against the wooden floor provides a barrier for the gasp I let out, do I let the tears fill my eyes.