Trying not to smile because, genuinely, it wasn’t funny, I leaned in and said, "Yeah, they’re bruises from brass knuckles."
"You’d better call the cops, Lorelei," Dagger intoned with a snarl. "How many fucking times do I have to tell you kids? You take your goddamn guards to the shitter with you!"
"Dad!" Aspen gasped.
"That’s gross," Paris mumbled.
"What’s grosser is coming back on Christmas Day with a fucking shiner. What if you’d been overpowered? Then, what?"
Camden cast a glance at me, then at his sister. "I wasn’t. I don’t want to call the cops. I’m not going to press charges."
"The hell you aren’t!" Dagger roared.
"What happened?" Savannah repeated doggedly, her scowl mutinous.
"Nothing. Who’s the guy?"
"Aidan O’Donnelly," I introduced myself.
"Your sister’s fiancé," Dagger clarified at the same time. "As well as the reason why she’s not here…" He glowered at Savannah. "I assume."
My lips twitched. "Does that mean I’ve got your approval, sir?"
"Don’t call me ‘sir’ and you might."
"That’s not true," Savannah argued. "I didn’t come because of that asswipe behind you."
Dagger frowned, but before he could say anything, Camden growled, "You’re getting married? When did this happen? Who is this guy?"
"I’ve known him for five years—"
"You were dating for five years without telling us?" Camden screeched, making me see how he’d won so many goddamn Grammys because his voice just slipped through the octaves like a knife through the gut.
"If you’d listen," Savannah sniped, "and didn’t interrupt all the goddamn time, I’d have had the chance to finish. I met him five years ago, and we reconnected recently."
"What broke you up?" Camden demanded, his tone suspicious, his gaze fervently holding mine.
"My job," I explained. "I had to move away." Figuratively speaking.
His eyes narrowed. "If he didn’t prioritize you before, Savannah, what makes you think he will now?"
"When did you turn into this big of a dipshit?" She huffed. "This is exactly the reason why I’m not in Hawaii right this second, you judgmental pain in my ass! You can’t stand that I don’t listen to you and that I flow to my own beat. Well, screw you—"
"Savannah!" Lorelei gasped.
Voice dark, Dagger intoned, "What did you say to piss your sister off enough that Savvie didn’t want to come celebrate the holidays with us?"
I processed the nickname, thought about how apt it was—Savannah was savvy about a lot of things—then tuned back in when Camden muttered, "You didn’t tell them?"
"No. I didn’t want to cause another argument," my woman said with a sniff. I tucked her deeper into my hold. "Anyway, it made sense to stay here, what with the exposés."
"I’m so proud of you, honey," Lorelei told her with a beaming smile that hit me straight in the fucking heart.
I was proud of her too, but I was even gladder that Lorelei was, and Dagger as well if his nodding indicated anything.
The only time Da had told me he was proud of me was the other night when he’d learned I killed McKenna. Thirty years of fucking grunt work for his ass, and that was the first time he’d told me that.
Squeezing Savannah, I hugged her tighter to me, grateful she had a better relationship with her parents than I did.
"Thanks, Mom," Savannah told her, voice redolent with a warmth I basked in.
"We only found out you were releasing those articles on the 21st," Dagger said with a scowl. "You told Camden first? Is that what you argued about?"
She scoffed, "No. I didn’t tell Jackass anything about the exposés, not after he said that I sacrificed my career on TVGM for nothing."
"You went live on breakfast TV assaulting a guy, Savannah!" Camden ground out. "Why do you always have to do shit the hard way?"
"Because he was raping women on set! Routinely! He had one woman so fucking terrified to go to the head office for meetings because he cornered her—" Her nostrils flared. "Anyway, he dropped the charges."
Yeah, I’d seen to that.
You couldn’t press charges when you were in the Hudson.
"Oh, sweetheart," Lorelei murmured. "Did you give her my number? You know I do pro bono stuff for rape victims."
"I did, but if she hasn’t called, then she doesn’t want to deal with it yet. He deserved worse than what he got from me."
Well, was there worse than having your dick cut off before you were shoved in concrete boots alive and kicking before drowning in the river while blinded?
I didn’t think so, but she didn’t need to know that.
Tucking her tighter into me, I murmured, "I dealt with the legal side of things for Savannah. You don’t have to worry. And TVGM is going through a massive sweep with workshops and such to eradicate a casting-couch environment. I think that’s probably why she didn’t call—the studio is providing therapy for victims free of charge."
Lorelei’s eyes widened. "How do you know all this?"
"I recently became the majority shareholder of the company."
Savannah gasped and twisted to look at me. "You’re kidding?"
I smiled at her. "No. It was supposed to be a gift, getting you your job back and then I realized you don’t like early mornings."
"She’s such a bitch first thing," Aspen confirmed, peering at me now from between her parents, more curiosity in her gaze as I’d done something interesting.
"You know, what? You’re supposed to be upselling me here!" Savannah grumbled. "All of you can kiss my as—"
"Savannah!" Lorelei chided.
"Well, you don’t have to, Mom. But Dad, Camden, Aspen and Paris totally can kiss it." She huffed. "I can’t believe I actually wanted you to meet them," she told me.
I smiled at her and then at my new family. "I prefer for things to start with a bang." After I pressed a kiss to her forehead, I murmured, "You know that."
My smile deepened when she squirmed against me, and Dagger’s expression turned pensive as our eyes clashed and held.
Though no one had asked him a question while Lorelei bitched at Camden for details on whatever had happened at the gym, and Aspen and Paris verbally sparred with Savannah, he nodded at me.
We both knew what that meant.
Forty-Seven
Savannah
The 26th of December
"How fucking dare you? You monster!"
Attention pricked, I twisted around and found a woman, with a very pissed off baby in her arms, screaming at an older version of herself.
When I thought about Aidan, who was the spitting image of his dad, then Shay and Declan who were close to twins with just a massive age gap, I wondered what it was about the Irish Mob that had them looking alike so much.