"Anyone or anything tries to break us or our family apart, I will annihilate them." My jaw tensed. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear you, Mr. Neanderthal. Jeez, and you’re the one saying I’m being irrational." She heaved a sigh. "If you feel that way about me, imagine how MaryCat’s man feels about her? He went away on business, and will come back to his family torn apart all because he’s a biker?"
I didn’t like that she could draw similarities between us.
With Inessa, Aela, and Camille, they’d all been raised in the life. They all knew how it worked. Aoife didn’t, now Savannah. But Aoife was alone in the world, an orphan. She’d made the O’Donnellys her family, and last night, I’d seen that Savannah would embrace my side, but she was quite happy with her own too.
Aoife was also happy in her sphere. She was independent enough to want her own business and worked hard to achieve her goals, but she had the heart of a homemaker too. Savannah wasn’t like her. At all.
Aoife, in the same situation today, would undoubtedly have found Finn. As would my other brothers’ wives. Savannah went to her hacker friend first, then confessed second when MaryCat’s mom had kicked up a stink when they couldn’t find her.
She’d put me in a bad position, and didn’t even care about it.
I gritted my teeth at the thought, and knew that unless I explained rationally, she’d do it again and again—that couldn’t happen. Not without making me look weak.
"Okay, I know what you’re saying. You’re also right—"
"I am?" she sputtered. "If you think that, then why on earth are we arguing?"
"Savannah, you’ve studied the mafia enough to know there’s a certain order to the way we do things, for God’s sake. You have to know that going behind my back wasn’t going to look good for me. I understand there’ll be a learning curve, but you can’t just go off the cuff anymore. You have to bring these things to me. I’d have resolved the situation without you involving outsiders."
"Star isn’t an outsider," Savannah pointed out. "She was integral the other night."
"She isn’t bound to help us. She chooses to. There’s a difference." When she didn’t argue, I knew she agreed with me, just didn’t want to say it out loud. "I’ve been meaning to talk with Da about MaryCat since I found out about what they were doing. I’m not sure why he didn’t involve Ma, but he chose not to.
“Anyway, her mom’s a bitch, and I know she’s been biding her time to find ways to take the baby from MaryCat—"
"Why would your father even consider something so horrible as tearing MaryCat away from her child?"
"He wouldn’t. Not unless her mother had proof, because Da isn’t exactly into family law," I mocked. "I doubt he’d have backed it otherwise."
"What kind of proof could she have had?"
"She was diagnosed with postpartum depression, but that’s it as far as I know, and it doesn’t matter now, does it? All we know is MaryCat’s in the wind, God knows where because, trust me, Da called Rex, the Sinners’ Prez, to see if she’d turned up there and she hadn’t. You let a mother loose who might, just might, have issues—"
"Don’t you dare try to make me be the bad guy here. She was raking MaryCat over the coals in public, and no one was doing a damn thing. If you think I can just sit by—"
With a growl, I pulled the car over to the side of the road. We were five minutes away from my estate, but this was too important a subject to waste any second on.
After I pulled over, I twisted in my seat and snapped, "You don’t sit by. You come to me. You’re not on your own anymore, Savannah. Do you hear me? You’re not a rogue reporter trying to find stories. You’re my woman. My fiancée. Eventually, you’ll be my goddamn wife.
"We’re going to be a team. We work together to find the best outcome for situations like this. You’re supposed to come to me and we figure it out together. You get me?"
"Would you have listened though?"
I blinked. "Didn’t I listen about Uncle Paddy?"
Her mouth tightened. "Men don’t listen to these things," she argued. "They just blame the mom. She has postpartum depression, that means this is the exact opposite of what she should be dealing with. If I get that if we have a kid—"
"When," I rumbled, watching as her cheeks flushed.
"—will you have someone take my kid away just because my body can’t cope with all the hormones flushing through it? Wouldn’t you treat me with kindness and love, and protect me while reassuring me that we’re safe?"
"Of course I would," I said with a sigh, reaching over to grab her hand and squeeze it with my own. "But sometimes, you have to think of the baby too."
"A baby should be with its mom."
"I agree. Unless she’s a danger to it."
"I refuse to believe that MaryCat was a danger to herself or to that child. She was more of a danger to her mom, and I can’t blame her. I wanted to hit her over the head with a wine bottle too."
I grunted. "She’s a piece of work, that’s for sure. But, look. This isn’t the point. You can’t go behind my back on shit like this. If you do, you undermine me, Savannah. You can’t do that. I need to present a strong front otherwise, when I’m the head of the Points, people will think they can worm their way into any weakness I have and find a way to take me down." I glowered at her. "You’re one of those weaknesses. I can’t have that.
“You need to make sure you come to me, and we will fix things in private. You might not always like my decision, and I’m pretty fucking sure I won’t always like yours, but we will find a stalemate that doesn’t make us want to strangle each other.
"You’re from a different world, and it’s going to take time to settle into this one. But this wasn’t the way to achieve anything. Now MaryCat’s out there, unsafe, unprotected—"
"If you think Star let her loose without anyone watching over her, you’re nuts."
My mouth tightened. "I hope you’re right."
She blew out a breath. "Did anyone come forward as a Sparrow?"
"You know I can’t talk about that."
Her gaze was measured upon mine. "If I concede to some things that you ask, and if I listen where I only want to block my ears, you can do me the decency of compromising too."
"Not where your safety is concerned."
"Nothing about this affects my safety—"
Frustrated, I snapped, "Savannah, my mother put a blowtorch to the Archbishop’s dick until he was squealing like a pig." She blanched, but her shoulders straightened. "That was my ma. What do you think my enemies would do if they got to you? What do you think they’d do to get information out of you? It’s best if you don’t know—"
Her hand reached out and she grabbed my lapels. "Aidan, haven’t you learned anything? You tell me to sit back, I stand up. You tell me to hide, I leap into the fray. It’s how I’m built.
“Maybe it’s crazy to you but I could have died two nights ago, and I would do it all again because being stuck in that safe room would annihilate me. I can’t deal with that. It’s not how I’m wired.