I smooth my black tie down the front of my light gray shirt. “Thanks, Win. Me and Lo have a meeting up north with the Dowager Countess of Bumblebridge. We might be taking her on as a new client.”
The fire at The Goat that caused me to get knocked on the head two years ago also knocked some sense into Logan when it came to Ellie Hammond. He confessed his unending love and, of course, she felt the same. But you can’t be a guard to the royal family of Wessco and be getting off with their relatives—at least not officially. So, Lo resigned. And then he approached me about starting a business together—private security, drivers, personal bodyguards—that sort of thing.
I’m always up for adventure and mayhem, and running S&S Securities has been filled with that.
“Oooh, the old angry bee herself,” Andy jokes, referring to the Dowager Countess.
“I heard she sleeps in her jewels,” Janey says. “The whole bit—earrings, bracelets, a diamond choker.”
“I heard she eats her young,” my mother teases.
“I heard she does vampire facials with actual blood just like Kim Kardashian,” Fiona chimes in.
Winnie makes a gagging face. “Whose blood does she use?”
Fiona rolls her eyes at the ignorance. “Her own blood, of course.”
“Not even seven in the morning and we’re already discussing bloodshed,” my oldest sister, Bridget, says as she breezes through the back door, carrying my one-year-old niece, Rose, on her hip. “Such lovely breakfast conversation.”
My mum takes Rosie, giving her a piece of toast to gnaw on, and Bridget pours herself a cup of tea, sipping it with a tired sigh, while rubbing her firm, bulging belly.
Doing what I do, it’s important to be aware, observant. To take note of small details that the average person would miss—because the devil, and most times the danger, is in the details.
The marks scattered down Bridget’s arm—finger-size bruises—immediately catch my attention.
“How’d they get there?” I ask her.
She glances down like she’s just noticing them, then rolls her hazel eyes heavenward.
“Desmond had one too many at the pub last night. We had it out when he got home.”
“He grabbed you?” I ask evenly.
“Only after I smacked him upside the head first. I bruise easy these days, Tommy—it’s nothing.”
Sullivans don’t come small but the girls in my family tend to veer towards petite—delicate boned. Bridget’s husband is in masonry; he works with stone and concrete all day and he’s got the muscles to show for it. And she’s six months pregnant.
“Right.” I nod, schooling my features.
That’s part of the job too. To not give anything away, any hint of what you may be thinking or feeling—or planning. I’m very good at my job.
But that doesn’t fool my mother. While the rest of the clan engages in conversation, she comes up beside me, speaking low. “Leave it alone, Tommy. What goes on between a husband and a wife is no one’s business but theirs.”
My mum is a good woman—but she’s not a soft woman. She’s not passive or subtle. Her kindness and love comes with an overbearing, steel-tipped edge. The kind of nurturing that says you’d damn well better let her mother you or she’ll make you live to regret it.
Which is why I’ll never understand her ridiculous “it’s between a husband and wife” crock-of-shit stance. My sweet sister has bruises on her arm—and I’m supposed to be all right with that?
Not in this lifetime.
“I mean it, Tommy,” she warns.
“Yeah, Mum.” I give her my easy, boyhood grin. “I know you do.”
When you’re a part of a large family, siblings pair up into factions—it’s the only way to survive. Janey is the most badass of my sisters—if she’s ever interested in being a bodyguard, Lo and I would hire her on the spot.
Janey’s eyes meet mine and she lifts the serrated knife she’s using to slice bread, quirking a brow. I nod in return. And just like that, our plan is in place. Later this evening, me and Janey will swing by Katy’s Pub to communicate to Desmond that if Bridget ends up with another mark, Janey will cut his balls off with that bread knife and I’ll make him swallow them.
“Hey, Tommy,” Bridget says, “I meant to tell you, I saw a flat for rent over near the hospital. Seems like a nice place, with views of the water.”
None of my siblings flew the cuckoo’s nest until they got married. Living here was fine when I was working on Prince Nicholas’s security team—we were traveling more often than not. But now that I’m here full-time it’s a bit crowded for comfort. Stifling. I’m a manspreader—I like my space.
“I’ll give it a look.”
Andy squeezes out from around the table and heads off to his job at the automobile plant. No sooner is he out the door than my younger brother Lionel comes charging down the stairs, late for his class at uni. When he moves to nab the last slice of ham, my mother slaps his hand away.