"I didn't say anything."
"Your face said it. Stop."
Finn catches my eye as we cross the lobby. He gives me the smallest nod—the Finn nod, the one that meansI see what you did and I respect the play.Of all my brothers, Finn understands strategy. He knows I didn't just agree to a marriage. I seized control of the only decision anyone was going to let me make.
Ronan is already at the car, leaning against the hood, sketchpad closed under his arm. He slipped out before the meeting broke—my youngest brother has a talent for disappearing before anyone notices he's gone. He looks at me with those quiet eyes and says, "You okay?"
"I'm grand."
"You're a terrible liar."
"Must run in the family."
He almost smiles. Almost.
We're at the car when I hear footsteps behind me. Not heavy—measured. Heels on marble. I turn.
The woman is my age, maybe a year or two older, and she carries herself like she was assembled by a team of people who understand exactly how power looks when it walks into a room. Dark hair swept back from a face that belongs on a coin—classical, symmetrical, the kind of beauty that doesn't need effort because it was built on a foundation of good genetics and better nutrition. Her dress costs more than Cormac's truck. Her perfume reaches me before her hand does—somethingwarm and expensive that probably has a French name I can't pronounce.
She extends her hand with the kind of warmth that feels genuine precisely because it's so well-practiced. I'd bet my life she rehearsed this in a mirror. I'd also bet she's good enough that I'll never be sure.
"I'm Elena. Elena Drakos." Her handshake is firm. Not competitive—confident. There's a difference. "I grew up with the Konstantinos brothers."
I place her immediately. The Drakos family—Greek allies, old money, connected to the Konstantinos organization the way ivy connects to stone. Decorative. Structural. Impossible to remove without damage. I saw her sitting in the meeting, poised and expectant, and I saw the way she looked at Nico right before he said my name instead of hers. The way her face didn't change. The way hereyesdid.
She knows I saw it, too. That's why she's here. Damage control dressed as grace. And I respect the hell out of the move, because it's exactly what I would do.
"I just wanted to say—you're braver than anyone in that room." She holds my hand a beat longer than necessary. "If you need anything at all. A friend, a guide to the Greek world—I know it can be overwhelming. I'm here."
In a room full of people who either fear my future husband or pity me for marrying him, Elena Drakos feels like an open window. Warm air in a cold building. The only person tonight who's looked at me and seen a woman instead of a chess piece.
"Thank you," I say. And I mean it. "I have a feeling I'm going to need a friend."
"You have one." She squeezes my hand. "Call me. Any time. I mean it."
She walks back inside. I watch her go—the posture, the poise, the way she moves through this world like she was born toits rhythms. I envy that. Growing up O'Brien means growing up loud, fast, and ready to fight. The Greek world is different. Quieter. More dangerous for it.
"Who was that?" Declan asks from the car.
"An ally. I think."
"You think?"
"I'll know for sure when I see how she acts when she doesn't know I'm watching."
Declan grunts. It's the closest he comes to approval.
In the car, Cormac drives. He always drives when he's angry—something about controlling the wheel when he can't control anything else. Declan rides shotgun. Finn and Ronan bracket me in the back seat, a wall of brothers, and for a moment I feel twelve again, small, protected, suffocated by the love of men who'd die for me but never think to ask what I want.
I close my eyes and let the city blur past.
Nico Konstantinos.My husband-to-be. A man who kills with the kind of precision that suggests he learned young and practiced often. A man who chose me over a Greek woman who was raised for this exact role—and I need to understand why. Not the strategic reason. He'll give me that in the meeting and it'll be true as far as it goes. I need the real reason. The one underneath. The one that made his mouth do that thing when I demanded terms.
Because men like Nico Konstantinos don't choose on impulse. Every move is calculated, every angle worked.So why me?What does he see when he looks at me that he can't find in a woman who already speaks his language, knows his world, sits at his table?
I don't know yet. But I'll find out.
I'm already making a list: things to demand, things to concede, things to hide. Separate bedrooms. My own money. Freedom to see my family. An exit strategy if things go wrong—though I'm smart enough to know that in this world, the only exit strategy is a body bag or a betrayal.