I close my laptop. The healthcare startup and its ransomware vulnerability and its incompetent board can wait. "How do you know this?"
"Declan heard from a Romano. The Romanos heard from Marco's bruised ribs. News travels. Just thought you should know, sis."
He hangs up. Finn always hangs up before you can argue.
I sit at the kitchen island for thirty seconds. Coffee cooling. Laptop closed. The anger building in my chest isn't about Marco — I don't care about Marco. I barely registered Marco. The anger is about a decision made without me, about me, regarding a threat I could have handled myself with a sharp look and a turned shoulder.
The anger is familiar. It has a shape I recognize from every year of my life before this one: men deciding what happens to Siobhan O'Brien's body and the bodies near it without asking Siobhan O'Brien what she thinks.
I stand up. I know exactly where to go.
* * *
His office door is closed. I don't knock.
The room hasn't changed since the first time I sat in it — the lighting that favors him, the power position behind the desk, every detail calculated to intimidate. Except I've sat in this chair before. I've negotiated in this room. And the man behind the desk isn't a stranger anymore — he's the man whose knuckles traced my spine last night, whose mouth hovered over my shoulder, who said "you're welcome" in a voice like gravel and wanting.
He looks up when I walk in. Reads my face in under a second. His expression doesn't change, but his body shifts in a micro-adjustment, weight forward, the way he repositions when a situation requires management. He knows why I'm here.
He's in shirtsleeves. Rolled to the forearms, the way he wears them when he's been working, reviewing ledgers, signing orders,doing whatever it is a man does when he runs an empire before breakfast. The informality should soften him. It doesn't. It makes him more dangerous because I can see the corded muscle of his forearms and the way his watch sits against his wrist and I'm furious with him and I'm noticing his forearms and that makes me more furious.
"Sit down, Siobhan."
"I'll stand."
Something crosses his face. Not annoyance, but recognition. He knows what standing means in this room. It means I'm not here to negotiate. I'm here to fight.
"You had him beaten?"
"Warned. There's a difference."
"Over a conversation?"
"He was touching what's mine."
The word detonates in the space between us. Mine. Four letters. The room changes temperature.
"I'm not yours. This is an arrangement."
He stands. Moves around the desk toward me. Slow. Deliberate. The way he always moves when he wants someone to understand the scale of what they're dealing with, except I'm not someone. I'm his wife. And I'm not afraid of him. I'm furious with him.
"You're wearing my ring."
"A ring I agreed to."
"You live in my home."
"A home I chose."
"You bear my name. You are mine."
"I agreed to a marriage, not ownership."
"In my world, they're the same thing."
"Then your world is fucked."
"Yes. It is. And you're in it now."