“He was right. If we can’t trust each other, who can we trust?”
He cocks his head to me. “You’re not acting like you trust us. You got married without telling anyone.”
I stop him with a hand in the air. “It’s a marriage of convenience. The dean at my school requires professors to be married.”
Lachlan’s eyebrows cinch together. “Who did you marry?”
I can say I found someone on a dating app, but he’ll be on the phone with Balor the second he drops me off, and they’ll know the whole truth. “She’s a student. My student. Are you happy?”
Lachlan laughs. “Your student? Doc, I’m shocked. And also, a little proud.”
“I had a thing with her months before. Then she ended up in my classroom. I…” I stop. “I wanted her. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.”
A finger taps on my heart. “That’s another thing we have in common.”
He looks ready to say more, but then his cell phone rings. It sounds like a personalized tone. Me, forgotten, he taps the screen.
“Hello, my angels,” Lachlan says in his human voice.
“She’s fussy, Lachlan. She wants her daddy,” his wife Katya says from the screen I can’t see.
“I’m on my way, my love.”
I can’t complain that I wasn’t invited tohisnuptials. He crashed Katya’s wedding to another man, killed the guy, and married her. Maybe that’s why he’s not crushingme further on my marriage.
“Yo, this is my block,” I say.
Still cooing into the phone at his daughter, Lachlan slaps the back headrest to stop the car.
It comes to a halt, and I reach for the handle to get out.
Lachlan stops me with a serious tug on my arm. “Kieran hosts Christmas Eve at Divona every year. It’s non-negotiable. Get your shit together. And if you’re keeping that wife of yours, we expect you to bring her.”
Chapter 37
Scarlett
I’m half-asleep on the couch when the sound of the apartment door opening jerks me upright. My phone reads 4:32 a.m., and it’s still dark because it’s November in New York City.
Cormac’s usual calm and quiet movements through our apartment are now a wreck of clumsy and harsh door-banging in the front bathroom.
The sound of water running, followed by swearing, has me leaping off the sofa to go to him.
Seeing him in tactical gear, I blurt, “Where were you?”
His jaw ticks. “Out.”
“Obviously.” I scoff at the one word.
What was he doing dressed like that? He’s mafia. A doctor. A walking contradiction.
“Are you a contract killer for Griffin and your best friend, the enforcer?”
He looks up at me through the mirror. “No,” he says too forcibly for it to be a lie.
“Okay,” I say, but anxiety still rushes through my head.
I push my way inside the bathroom, briefly stilled by the blood splatter in the sink. It shouldn’t affect me. I saw blood every day on my shift as an EMT. I’ve done hospital rotations. But seeingCormac’sblood, my husband, does something to me.