“Really? Someone sounds smitten. The whole family?”

I wanted to roll my eyes. “Yes, the whole family. Can you do it? She is almost as maniacal as Olivia.”

“Are you sure she isn’t tired. I thought she just came into town today.”

“She won’t be tired at all.”

“Sure! I’m so excited. I’ll get right on it.”

When she hung up, I grinned. My mother would do what she always did for celebrations. She would go over the top. I knew now that Melody could lie down with the lowest and roll in the dirt like a motherfucking pro. But she wouldn’t be able to contain herself with the family. They shit rainbows and unicorns, and while she was distracted, it would give me time to work on a new lead I had on the Valero.

I was planning something huge for those motherfuckers, and I was going to use information I had acquired from Orlando’s files to do it. The Giovannis’ contacts were now my contacts. I almost wanted to say checkmate fucking now. But I wondered how she would feel when I used her work and multiplied the destruction by twenty. She was playing childish games, and I was no child. This wasn’t about who could outdo whom, this was me proving a point. I would kill two birds with one stone. The Valero would never see it coming, and I would make my mark as the new Ceann na Conairte and Boss.

Sleep tight, my little Giovanni, for tomorrow, you will dance like my very own puppet on strings, I thought, lifting my hand behind my head and grinning.

SEVEN

“We kill everybody, my dear.

Some with bullets, some with words,

and everybody with our deeds.

We drive people into their graves,

and neither see it nor feel it.”

~ Maxim Gorky

MELODY

“Which one, ma’am?” Adriana held up two teal dresses for me to wear for my first day with the bloody Irish clan, but I really didn’t care what I wore as long as I got through the damn day.

“Dr. Anderson, what do you think?” I asked the older man bandaging my wrist. Dr. Anderson was the only doctor I trusted enough to touch me. After all, he was the one who had delivered me, and he had seen more than enough of my injuries to not even bother asking.

He looked up, pushing his thick glasses up his nose before finishing his work on my wrist. “The long-sleeved one would be best to hide your wound. It won’t hide the one on your ankle but that one is not as bad as your wrist.”

He was right. I had used so much force to pull the plastic arm off the chair that it had cut deeply into my wrist. The idiot had made his cuffs with reinforced steel, which made it easy to break the chair, but it still hurt like a bitch and would scar.

Adriana looked at me waiting. “White heels, ma’am?”

I nodded, rubbing my wrist once the doctor let go. I had to fight the urge to throw this damn ugly ring down the drain every time I looked at my hand.

Fedel held the door open for Dr. Anderson, but not before handing him an envelope with more than enough money to make sure he wouldn’t have to work for a while.

“Ma’am, after the announcement of your and Mr. Callahan’s wedding this morning, I have a few magazines, charities, and interviewers looking to have a moment with you,” Fedel told me with a phone in his hands.

After rising from my chair, Adriana handed me the dress as I walked behind the screen.

“Fedel, do I look like Martha fucking Stewart?”

“No, ma’am. I would never think you would be foolish enough to end up in jail.” He cleared his throat, and I laughed. Stepping out from behind the screen, I let Adriana drop the white heels at my feet.

“Then tell them to go fuck themselves.”

“That would not be wise, mio bambino dolce.” My father coughed as he was wheeled in by his nurse.

Walking over to him, I kissed him on the cheek.

“Why can’t I tell them to fuck themselves?” I asked him as Adriana handed me my bracelets.

“Because, to the rest of the world, you are the fiancée to one of the most powerful men in this country—the prince of Chicago. You aren’t the Boss to them. They want a Kate Middleton or a first lady, someone to kiss babies and write big checks on behalf of your fiancé,” my father snapped at me, causing me to stop and just stare into his dying eyes.

“Fedel. Adriana. Leave.” In seconds they, along with my father’s nurse, were gone. “You’re still mad that I shot him.”

He frowned at me. “I do not have time to hold on to anger. And yet, here you are, forcing me to waste time to discipline you.”

Shaking my head, I smiled. “You should be proud I didn’t kill him. He is a spoiled brat who thinks he was born in the nineteen-twenties when women served their husbands and bowed down to their will. I’m not now, nor shall I ever be, any man’s arm candy.”

“Melody.” He sighed, using my full name like when he was annoyed or pissed. “You are as hard-headed as your mother.”

“Thank you. I will take that as a complement.” I turned away from him.

“It was not one,” he hissed. “Have you forgotten why you wear the white shoes?” My whole body froze for a moment, and a chill ran up my spine.

“That was a low blow, Orlando.” I sneered at him and took off the damn white shoes before walking into my closet. Most of my things had already been taken out and were en route to Callahan Manor. I had left some of the things I would need in my closet here. One never knows when I would need a personal moment away from the leprechaun.

My father wheeled in behind me. “I will not go to my grave knowing that this marriage is condemned and that, yet again, two people who are made for each other will not swallow their pride, lower their swords, and act as fucking equals! You, Melody Nicci Giovanni, will not walk the same path your mother and I did. You will support your husband, guide him when needed, and stand by his side and his side alone. You will be a damn Callahan, and you will make sure both families, past and present, rise!” he yelled, not once coughing or even so much as blinking for that matter. Had I closed my eyes, he would have sounded like the Orlando I used to know.

“What happened with you and Mom is not the same,” I replied, slipping on the tan shoes, while in the back of my mind a voice told me to change back.

“But the outcome will be if you do not take my advice. Make peace with him Melody. Remember how long it took me to adjust to you as Boss? Prove it to him. Prove it to them all, and do it without making your husband the fool so I can rest in peace.” The tenseness in his voice dropped before he coughed again, returning to the sick man that he was now.

I hated the thought of having to prove myself. I had done that for years—proving to every man we interrogated, every boss I took down, every crackhead with a big mouth, and even with my men. I thought I was done with that phase of my rule, and yet here I was again.

“Don’t think too long about it, we’re not all still in our twenties.” Orlando smiled at me, and even though he was only a shadow of the man I used to know, that smile always made me smile.

Walking behind him, I pulled his wheelchair back before exiting my closet for the last time.

“Fine, I will try, but if he treats me like a doormat or worse, Martha Stewart, I am shooting him in the other thigh.” I was only half-joking.

“That is all I ask,” he said as he was wheeled out of my bedroom. Adriana and Fedel’s backs straightened as they followed us down the hall.