When they retreated, slipping out of the warehouse, leaving me alone with him, I limped toward him so we could go home as well.
"Why don’t you ever use a fucking cane?" Brennan asked as he watched me. "I’m pretty sure it makes shit ten times harder on you."
"Gimps use canes."
Brennan frowned at me. "What fucked up bullshit is that?"
I scratched my jaw. "Not my words, heard them at church."
He squinted. "Someone said that and you overheard it?"
"Yeah." I shrugged.
"Which dumbfuck said that?"
"Tony said that to Paul," I murmured, referring to the men Da considered his advisors even though they were denser than rocks.
"You shitting me?" Brennan growled. "Why didn’t you tell Da?"
"What am I? Fucking five?"
"They think you look more hardcore hobbling around like that?" He scowled. "God spare me from idiots. Although I’m not sure who’s the bigger dipshit. Them for saying it or you for listening."
"Fuck you," I told him, but my tone was mild. "You go from being the Irish Mob’s golden boy, expected to be perfect, expected to lead in our father’s image, and then having to learn that you’ll never be what you were before."
Brennan scowled. "I hate to break it to you, Aidan, but it sounds like you were listening to your fan club. Trust me, your brothers never thought you were fucking perfect."
I had to grin, and it morphed into a chuckle as I socked him in the shoulder. "Bastard."
He smirked. "True, though. You’re an idiot for listening, and have probably damaged your knee more because of it. Anyway, everyone knows Tony and Paul are schmucks."
"Everyone but Da."
"Oh." Brennan whistled under his breath. "Oh, I get it."
"You do? Slow off the mark, Bren."
"You thought he’d listen to them?"
My mouth tightened. "I did. I wasn’t going to do anything that would make Da take my position from me. Of course, I fucked up by getting hooked on Oxy." I blew out a breath. "But that was later on."
"You want to lead the Firm that much?" Brennan questioned.
"It’s my right," I told him. "I took a lot of shit over the years for it. Wasn’t about to have it snatched away through no fault of my own."
"You know we wouldn’t have let that happen, don’t you?" Brennan questioned, the scowl back in his eyes.
"I know you don’t want to lead. I know you’ve resented me for putting so much work on you." I grimaced. "I’m sorry for dropping the ball, bro. Thank you for picking up the load."
Brennan’s shoulders wriggled which, I knew, meant he was uncomfortable with the conversation. "You dropped the ball, but hopefully if you’re back, then at least I can have a fucking life again. I got a wife now, Aidan. I want to see her. Be with her."
"I got a woman as well, Brennan. Only Kid doesn’t now." I scratched my jaw. "We’re going to have to work something out so that we have more of a life than Da does.
“I don’t want to be like him. Don’t want to rule with an iron fist at home." I thought of yesterday, and rasped, "He loves us, Brennan. I didn’t think he did, not until yesterday."
"Da doesn’t know how to love," he disagreed. "Ma does, but she’s got some kind of fucking Stockholm Syndrome or something going on. He messed with her head. Gaslit her or some shit."
Slowly, I shook my head. "If you’d have seen him yesterday, you’d get it."
Brennan grimaced. "Maybe I never will. Maybe I’ll always remember what he did, and what he said, rather than what he didn’t do or say."
"I get it. We’ve all got a lot of crosses to bear where he’s concerned," I agreed. "Now, come on. Let’s go home."
He nodded. "Gotta stop off at Conor’s place first. There’s some shit he wants us to bring back."
"Sure," I agreed, twisting around to look at the grim warehouse that had just seen a peace like no other brokered between two of the city’s biggest factions. "Think Valentini will do it? Think he’ll make it as Don?"
"His birthright was snatched from him. You don’t use a cane because you were worried Da would listen to some dumbfucks. I think we can guarantee that Valentini’s willing to do dumb shit to get to where he wants to be."
"Wonder how long it’ll take." I winced as the biting cold in here made my knee ache like a motherfucker.
Brennan sent me a measured look. "A week."
I smirked. "Want to bet on that?"
Brennan grinned. "Yeah, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is so long as you are." We bumped fists, but it was more than just a bet we agreed on.
In this warehouse where blood was shed and truths were earned through torture, brotherly loyalty was cemented in place, and Brennan, though Finn knocked him out of the line of succession, was born to be my second, and he officially took the role I offered and, more importantly, accepted it.
For me, that meant more than what had just gone down with the Italians.
As he slapped me on the back, I muttered, "You got Cammie a gift yet?"
"Of course. Did our ma raise a fool? Wait, don’t answer that. You were raised by her too."
My scowl ended with a laugh. "Fuck off."
"You need to get Savannah something?"
I nodded.
"I’ll take you to the place I went. They’ll hook you up."
Good. No way was I about to celebrate our first Christmas together without my giving her a gift.
Forty-Three
Savannah
I bit my lip as I watched Aidan from the corner of my eye.
He wasn’t playing poker with us, but he was off to the side, his bad leg stretched out, his good one propped up on the coffee table in front of him.
He didn’t look indecent.
I mean, he looked hot like always. But indecent, nope. Not to anyone else in the room. Not to anyone who didn’t see what he was doing with the hole in his jeans and two fingers.
It had started with him tracing that hole with the tips, going around and around like it was absentminded as he read something on his phone.
Then, I’d taken twenty grand from Eoghan with a royal flush that he’d been bitching about even when Inessa had hauled him up to bed. I was left playing with Brennan and Declan who, interestingly enough, the drunker they got, grew more alert and more nostalgic.
"Remember that time O’Leary nearly got decapitated?"
Magic words that ordinarily would have pricked my curiosity, until Aidan tilted his wrist, and thrust those two fingers into the hole as if it were my pussy.
My sex clenched at the sight, and I glowered at him, then did so harder when I saw he wasn’t even looking at me. Was just tormenting me for the fun of it.
"When he got that piano wire tangled around his neck?" Brennan cackled. "I remember that. How did he die again?"
"Not by decapitation," Aidan inserted wryly.
Declan started to twist around, looping his arm over the chair’s backrest before Brennan muttered, "I fold." That drew his attention away from Aidan, and the finger fucking he was giving a slit in his jeans.