I needed to make Melody understand that she was not above me. That she did not give the orders. That she did not move mountains or cause tornados to rip through the sky.

I did.

I had worked too long and too hard to let anyone stop me, least of all her. I would have rather died than give up my fucking claim to this family. When I found out what my father did for a living, I saw how people created paths for him as he walked in crowded buildings. I watched as governors, senators, bankers, and fucking judges alike kissed his feet. I knew what I wanted to do. Some people, like Neal and Declan, were simply born into the family, but I knew I was born to rule the mafia. It was beyond my fucking calling, it was in my blood. It was what pushed me daily, and the only person who ever stood in the way of that was my father.

I should have taken over on my twenty-first birthday. I looked forward to that day, but not so I could drink legally—I had been drinking since I was fifteen—but because I had wanted to hear him say it. I had wanted to hear my father tell the world that I was to take over the company, but instead, all he did was give me an island and pat me on the back. His explanation was that it is not the time. He was the damn Ceann na Conairte. He made the fucking time, and the rest of us followed it. Melody was eighteen and legal at that point, so it wasn’t as though he was waiting for her. But each year after that, I waited, killing anyone who dared to get in my way, and now to have to deal with my wife-to-be? It was fucking bullshit, and I never saw it coming.

“Today has been interesting, dear cousin,” Declan stated, walking in and heading straight to the bar. Forget crack, we Callahans were addicted to brandy and drank it like it was water.

“Interesting does not even begin to cover what happened today,” I said. “My fiancée shot me with my own gun.”

Declan grinned, the little fucker, before taking a seat on the couch. “How did she manage to disarm the greatness that is Liam Callahan? I have seen you draw, load, and shoot your gun in three seconds flat.”

I frowned, knowing that he knew and simply wanted to hear me say it. Sometimes I wished he would go fuck himself.

“She looks like a sweet little lamb from afar, but when you get close, you find out she skinned and ate the damn thing just to use it as a coat. She’s a beast.” I glared at the fire, remembering similar flames in her eyes as she shot me. It was like she had figured out how to make hell reflect in her gaze.

“I like lamb,” Declan said.

“Shut up, you dick.” I threw my glass at his head, but he dodged it, allowing it to shatter against the wall.

He only laughed. “Does this pent up frustration I feel radiating off you have anything to do with the fact that you want her so badly? That’s how she got the gun. You were feeling her up and—”

“And she took it from me and shot me like a dog. Yes, cousin, that’s how it happened.” I did not want him thinking about her firm ass in my hand or the bullet hole, which was now in my leg.

“And yet, you still want her, you sick fuck.” He drank. “I don’t blame you, though, she is—”

“Finish that sentence and it will be your last one. Cousin or not.” Already I was reaching for my loaded gun.

Raising his hands, glass still in his left, he nodded with a grin. “You are possessive. I wonder what your future wife thinks about that.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what she thinks about it, and what would Coraline have to say about your words over Melody?” I asked, knowing full well how pussy whipped he was.

“She would be pissed off, so much so that I hope she shoots me in the thigh. We’ve never had that kind of foreplay before.”

I cringed at the thought of it. “And I’m the sick fucker?”

“No more than you,” he replied, stretching. “Where is the queen anyway? She wasn’t at lunch or dinner. I think I’ve seen everyone but her since then.”

Walking over to the bar, I grabbed another glass.

“Oh, sweet Mary, mother of shit, what did you do?” Declan asked, rising from the chair.

“My mother would have your tongue for speaking like that,” I replied, knocking back a glass before pouring another.

“Not before taking yours for what happened today. I should have known you would retaliate.”

Rolling my eyes at him, I walked over to the desk and gathered my files. “I handcuffed her to one of the chairs in the pool house and left her some dinner. I’ll get her in the morning.”

“You can’t be serious, Liam,” he said, causing me to turn to him. He should have known better than to doubt me.

“Okay, you’re serious.” He frowned. “But you can’t leave her there all night. If this was how she was with a good night’s sleep, imagine how irritated she is going to be in the morning. Do you want her to be like that for your mother?”

He had a point, but I was fucking pissed.

“I’m not going to do it.” If I released her, it would be as though I was saying she was right. That she was Boss. I wasn’t going to bow down to her.

“You hard headed son of a—”

“Mr. Callahan.” Adriana, the ugly duckling, came in, already dressed in an ancient nightgown as though she had come out of the fucking middle ages.

Declan held back his laugh by filling his mouth with brandy, while I just turned to the poor, time-confused girl in front me.

“Yes, ugl . . . Adriana?” I asked.

She glared at me as though she knew what I almost said. “The Boss wanted me to ask you what time you will be departing in the morning?”

Declan spit out the drink in his mouth, coughing like a dying man before laughing hysterically.

I stared at her for a moment before stomping out of the room without answering. I had made sure all her men had been far away. There was no way she should have fucking been able to get out of those cuffs. They were designed by me and made with reinforced steel. Bursting into the indoor pool house, I froze.

“Oh, my dear cousin, you have met your equal, and it is funny as shit to watch,” Declan muttered, standing right beside me as I stared at the broken chair, now resting in its watery grave.

It looked as though a monster had ripped its legs and arms off. Seeing as how I only handcuffed her to one of each, it baffled me. The food was still uneaten and the towels all rested at the bottom of the pool as well.

“I’m going to bed,” I told the grinning fool who was my cousin.

“Sleep with one eye open, cousin, and your hand on your gun. She may just kill you tonight,” Declan said as I walked back to the room I was given for the night.

When I entered, there sat my reinforced steel cuffs in tiny pieces all over my now shot up bed. On top of that, a fucking note by hers truly, in her precise handwriting, with a bullet taped to it.

I came to visit you honey, so we could finish what we started in the basement, but you and your cousin were busy giggling like schoolgirls. Oh well, I hope you have a good night. About the bed, well . . . you can understand right, sweetheart?

Checkmate.

Melody Giovanni

I could hear her laughter ringing in my fucking ears. Checkmate? She thought this was checkmate?

We hadn’t even started playing yet. Beaming, I jumped on the bullet-infested bed, kicking up feathers, before pulling out my phone and dialing quickly.

“Hello, mother? I’m sorry it’s late.”

“I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me. I miss you all. The house is to quiet I can’t think. Oh how is Melody? Is she beautiful? I met Orlando once and he was looker. I’m sure—”

“Yes, I have missed you as well. Yes, Melody is . . . she is one of a kind Mom, one of a kind. I was calling to see if you wouldn’t mind having a welcoming party for her. Just to show her how happy I am to have her in my life.”