The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2)(43)

Keira and Sloan…He didn’t even know. He’d barely seen them since they got back from the house in Connecticut, and that was indication enough that something was off. Keira was normally in the middle of everything, and for her to be playing least in sight wasn’t a good sign. And Sloan was probably half a day from slitting her wrists in angst.

I’m going to need to talk to her sooner rather than later.

Aiden didn’t seem too torn up about being heir and preparing to step up and take over the family. Cillian had never pegged him for a clone of their father, but then he’d been wrong about a lot of things. What did he know?

And Carrigan…fuck.

He turned the corner and picked up his pace, heading for the door. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help Carrigan. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help anyone.



Carrigan walked into the restaurant and stopped cold. It was totally and completely empty. She glanced back at the door she’d just come through. Surely if it was closed, it would have been locked? She’d been to Slingshot countless times in the last ten years and it didn’t matter the day of the week or the hour, it was always damn near packed. She looked around again, wondering what the hell was going on.

A flustered girl who couldn’t be more than eighteen hurried up. “Ms. O’Malley?”

“Yes…” The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Was this a trap? Dmitri was on her father’s list, so she’d assumed he was safe enough to meet. Surely she hadn’t assumed wrong? Damn it, I know better than this. Where’s Liam? He’d gone to park the car, so he’d be here in just a few minutes. She touched her purse. The Taser was still stashed in the bottom of it. She could use it if she had to—it wouldn’t kill anyone, but it’d give her a chance to run. If there was a legitimate threat, Liam was more equipped to deal with it than she was, no matter how much she hated relying on someone else to ride in and save the day.

“It’s safe.” The Russian accent rolled over her like the best kind of vodka. The man who stepped out from behind the column matched it perfectly. Carrigan had the wild thought that he’d been standing there with the sole purpose to make an entrance, but then he took a step closer and she was too busy staring to speak. He was…well, he was gorgeous. Dark hair styled perfectly. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut, which should have made him look feminine but didn’t in the least. And those gray eyes. Good lord, the man was sex on a stick.

If you didn’t mind that the stick was more likely to beat you to death than fuck you.

Other women might miss it, but there was a coldness in his eyes that his smile didn’t touch. She had a feeling those eyes never warmed up. Not to mention everything about this meeting was orchestrated to put him in a position of power for their exchange. He’d shown up first, made sure one of the most popular restaurants in the neighborhood was empty, and had waited until she had her guard down in the confusion to make his entrance.

If she was taking bets, she’d bet that he never went into any situation without first making sure he would be in control of every aspect of it.

Dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

She cleared her throat. “Dmitri Romanov, I presume.”

“You presume correctly.” He motioned at the empty restaurant behind him. “I thought our meal would proceed smoother if we didn’t have an audience.”

Either that, or he wanted as few witnesses as possible to take care of after he murdered her. She glanced back at the door again. Where the hell was Liam?

Dmitri caught her look. “If you’re uncomfortable, we can go somewhere else.”

Damn it, she was so flustered, she wasn’t bothering to mask her expressions. Carrigan took a careful breath and smiled. “No, this is fine. It’s just unexpected.” And strangely thoughtful, though she was still more inclined to look at it through the potentially violent lens than the romantic one.

“Shall we sit?” He motioned to a table set back from the windows, where no one from the street would have a clear view of them.

With a nod, she moved to the table and took a chair that put her back to the wall. Maybe this Dmitri wasn’t a threat to her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. She already knew he was. The problem was that people tended to present the best versions of themselves when they first met strangers. It was up to her to dig through the bullshit to the meat beneath, and she couldn’t do that until she got the conversation rolling. “So, Dmitri, tell me about yourself.”

He sank into the chair across from her with an effortless grace she envied. “First-date questions, Carrigan?”