I shake my head. I will never be as good at that game as Breagha is, so I don’t see any reason to try. I don’t want what she wants. My sole goal is to make the Red Cap Raiders a success.
Feeling like a scientist studying some isolated tribe in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, I look around. There’s the groom, at the far end of the room. He’s talking to three other men, all of them big, all of them solid, all of them looking like they’re used to being in charge wherever they go.
One of the men is Braiden Kelly, the General of the Grand Irish Union. He’s Da’s boss, in charge of all the Irish mob captains in the country. Kelly is confident. Relaxed.
The man to his left scowls like he just caught a whiff of bad meat before he reaches into his pocket to fish out a phone. Glaring at the screen, he steps back to take his call.
The guy with his back to me turns to place his empty glass on a passing waiter’s tray. I blink, because I can’t believehe’shere, in the middle of a mob wedding. Not today. Not when he just ruined the biggest online mission of my life.
I recognize the shitehawk from articles inWired, fromThe Wall Street JournalandMIT Technology Review.He’s Cole Wolf. Lone Wolf Enterprises, in the flesh.
My feet move without my giving them permission. I swipe a full glass of champagne from a surprised waiter, forcing him to shift his weight quickly to keep from losing the entire tray.
“Hey, arsehole!” I call, wedging my way into the tight knot of men.
All four of them look surprised. Braiden Kelly glances around the room, like he’s trying to spot whoever let me out of my cage. “Kate Lynch,” he says, his voice dangerously low. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
I had no idea the General of the Grand Irish Union knew my name. Another time, another place, and I’d wonder if he keeps his own feckin’ deck of cards: Troublesome Daughters of Clan Captains.
But right here, right now, I don’t give a flying fuck about Kelly. “I wasn’t talking to you,” I tell him before I zero in on my target.
I’m vaguely aware of the room falling silent behind me. A tiny voice at the base of my skull whispers that no one insults the General like that. But I don’t care. I’m on a mission. There’s no stopping me now.
Glaring at Cole Wolf, I say, “You.”
His face doesn’t give a hint of emotion. His hands hang by his sides, perfectly still. Only his eyes move, like he’s some sort of hunter. They’re dark brown, almost black, flecked with tiny bits of gold.
Something inside me flickers when I’m pinned by that predatory gaze. I’m like a doe, skewered by headlights in the night. Part of me wants to sprint to freedom. Part of me can’t remember how to breathe.
Fuck that shite.
Slowly, carefully, Cole Wolf extends a hand for me to shake. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” he says.
I don’t want to touch his hand. I don’t want to be polite. I don’t want to stand here pretending he hasn’t endangered the only thing in the world I’m good at, the only thing I love.
So I say, “Not a pleasure, you goddamn overreaching fuckwad.” And I toss my champagne in his face.
3
COLE
My first reaction is to pin down the girl—shove her against the nearby doorframe, twist her arm behind her back high enough to make her beg, and pinch the pressure point in her wrist until her empty glass shatters on the floor.
My second reaction is to add up her aggressive makeup and too-tight skirt—she looks like the textbook illustration for a Baby Daddy scam. A blood test would get any mark off the hook; she’s counting on a quick cash settlement, pennies on the dollar to make her embarrassing presence go away fast.
My third reaction is to measure the narrowing of her eyes, the flaring of her nostrils, and the trembling of her lower lip. Either she’s the best actress I’ve seen since Nutmeg ran her first con under Shannon’s watchful eye, or she’s not acting. This girl—thiswoman—hates me.
I’m not opposed to making enemies. That’s how I’ve built a billion-dollar empire with my thirtieth birthday still seven months away. But I pride myself on knowing exactlywhoI’veruined, every step of my climb to the top. I’d remember this woman if I’d ever set eyes on her before.
It’s not just her tight-wired body, confined in clothes that have no place at a black-tie wedding. It’s not her wide green eyes, or her shock of dark red curls, or her pale, pale skin that makes me wonder if she has freckles everywhere or just across the bridge of her nose. It’s not even the long, tapered fingers that still clutch her champagne glass, hands that look made for dipping into pockets, for separating idiots from their treasured possessions without a hint of contact.
It’s the set of her jaw. The toss of her head. Her utter defiance as she stares me down.
I’ve waited too long. Patrick Moran—the bridegroom who’s half the reason we’re gathered here today—swipes at her arm. But it’s Braiden Kelly who gets there first.
I’ve known Kelly for years; we both keep a healthy share of our wealth at Diamond Freeport, a tax haven in Delaware. In fact, we were just talking to Trap Prince, the man who owns the freeport. Before Prince stepped away to take a call, he was telling us about new manufacturing facilities on tax haven grounds, another way to multiply wealth while staying under the radar of government watchdogs.
I know Kelly as a billionaire investor, but I’m fully aware he’s the leader of the Irish mob throughout the United States. General, they call him. Every Irish crime family in America answers to him.