King of the Cage: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance (Devil’s Own)
King of the Cage: Chapter 34

When I woke up, it felt like I’d been asleep for a long, long time. I woke to the sound of hushed voices and an annoying electronic beep.

A woman’s face hovered above me, concern etched in her eyes, but not on her forehead, thanks to the whole vial of Botox that looked to be in there.

“Giada? Thank goodness you’re waking up. You’re in the hospital. Is there anyone you want to call?”

I had no idea who she was, or why she thought I’d be comfortable being taken someplace I didn’t know, but I should definitely call someone. My head pounded, and my body was full of aches. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus.

“My brother, Elio, please. And Sol… my friend.”

“Do you recognize me?” the woman asked curiously, taking out her phone to make the calls. Did she have Elio’s number?

“No. Do we know each other?” I asked.

She stared at me, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

Then she raised the phone to her ear and spoke to Elio.

A few hours later, my brother and Sol had shown up, alongside an extremely large and angry Irishman who stared at me every chance he got.

We sat around a table in a nearby conference room. Sol held my hand, and I gripped onto hers tightly like it was a life preserver in a turbulent sea.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re telling me that I’ve forgotten the last few months of my life?” The words sounded totally unrealistic.

“That’s what it seems like, from the fact that you don’t know Charlie, or that Ren met her and got married.”

I snorted. “You’re fucking with me. Renato got married?”

“He wasn’t the only one, selkie. You got married, too,” that deep, Irish-tinged voice ground out. The owner of the voice was staring at me from the head of the table. His green eyes hadn’t budged since we’d sat down.

I laughed. “Oh, right? To who?”

“To me, wee one.”

I was impressed that he managed to say the lie with such a straight face.

I chuckled. “Now I know you’re lying, because I’m never getting married. I’m not the marrying type. I’d never marry you.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” Elio muttered darkly.

He glared at the Irishman with hate. Of course he did. If my family trivia was accurate, this was the renowned Brandon O’Connor. The Lost Boy of Hell’s Kitchen. Cage fighter, Irish mobster, and troublemaker. Elio had been irritated by his very existence for months. And tensions had been rising along the area of the Hudson that ran between New Jersey and Hell’s Kitchen.

I’d never met the man in person, only heard of his exploits, but he was easy to place. His reputation fitted him well. Tall and built like an ancient warrior. His presence seemed to fill up the room. Between him and my brother, if felt like one wrong word might set the air on fire.

Elio gave Bran a tense look. “The doctor told us not to fill in the blanks more than necessary. It could upset her.”

Bran chuckled, but there was no warmth to it. “You think telling her she’s married and madly in love isn’t a necessary detail to fill her in on?”

Madly in love?

“Listen, as fun it is listening to you two argue, I’m tired and I want to go home,” I interrupted.

“I’ll take you.” Elio went to stand.

“Let’s go, then, wee one,” Bran said at the same time Elio spoke.

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Elio said sharply.

“She’s my wife!” Bran’s fist crashed down on the table.

“Enough!” I stood, my chair scraping back harshly. I couldn’t breathe in this room. The air-conditioning was stifling me. I needed to be outside, preferably far, far away from all the arguing and confusion.

“I’m leaving. You two can fight, kill each other, whatever. I don’t care. Sol, let’s go.”

Sol stood and slid her arm through mine. “I brought you clothes,” she murmured to me.

“Thanks. Get me out of here.”

I didn’t go back to Casa Nera. I couldn’t stand the thought of Elio watching me all the time like I was a bomb about to go off.

I wanted my own place in the city. My brother compensated for his loss of control by siccing a De Sanctis personal security team on me round the clock.

Luckily, they didn’t insist on coming into my apartment. They stood outside the door, the elevator, and the building entrance on rotating shifts.

After a week of babysitting, I was climbing the walls and called in reinforcements.

“I don’t know, we could invite a few of them in… They look lonely out there,” Marco called from the hallway, where he was continuously pressing the entry phone so he could watch the guards outside my front door.

“They’re fine,” Sol snapped, carrying popcorn into the living room.

We were having a movie marathon, and I was trying my best not to think about the last few months that had somehow disappeared from my head.

“Spoilsport,” Marco muttered and sat beside us.

“You think he’ll come back today?” My mind strayed to the man who’d been haunting my apartment building like a ghost.

Every day, no matter when I stared out at the street in front of the building with binoculars, I could make out the Irish. There were men there around the clock, like the De Sanctis men at my door. More often than not, it was Bran himself. I wasn’t allowed to leave the building without Elio’s say-so. He was taking his protective tendencies way too far, and I was almost out of patience with him.

Since I was locked in my apartment, I settled for looking down and watching the man who claimed we’d gotten married. He watched me, and I watched him back. Sometimes, he peered up right when I was staring. I knew he couldn’t see me through the tinted glass – and from twenty floors up, no less – but it was like he knew when I was spying on him.

Bran O’Connor. Your husband.

“Maybe not. I’m sure he has shit to do, given who his family is,” Marco pointed out.

“Yeah, probably. I don’t know why he’s even bothering. Elio said his father probably ordered him to marry me so they could sort out a business alliance or some crap. It’s not like we were anything real.”

Sol watched the side of my face. I had the feeling that she wanted to say something but was holding back.

After a moment, Marco grabbed the remote.

“Let’s watch the movie.”

Nighttime was my favorite time of day. I slept as much as I could. In my dreams, I wasn’t confused or injured. No one looked at me with sympathetic glances. Why everyone thought it was so shocking to lose a couple of months, I didn’t really get. What was the big deal?

Unless your life seriously changed in that time, like you fell in love and got married…

That wasn’t a line of thinking I could bear to go down. The idea was so unlike me, it seemed impossible. Surely a person couldn’t change that much in such a short time. The real question was why Bran O’Connor was sticking around. If he knew me at all, he should find me too loud and annoying to stick by. Hadn’t I gotten on his nerves by now? Was there something wrong with him?

At night, I gratefully escaped into dreams that were warm and full of contentment.

If anything good had come from my weird heard injury, it was that I was sleeping well. I’d never been a good sleeper, since Elio had been sent away and I’d gone to live with practical strangers. I’d gotten into the habit of staying up late at night, reading, or playing on my computer, escaping into worlds where I wasn’t annoying and too loud. Places where I didn’t irritate people just by existing. Those habits had been impossible to change, and it was a common occurrence for me to see the sun rising before I finally went to bed. The result of that lifestyle was a perpetual headache and a clinical-grade addiction to caffeine. Now, I got in bed happily and snuggled down to sleep before midnight.

What had changed? I pondered this as I lay in bed, before falling asleep. Had he changed it? Bran O’Connor’s strong face filled my mind. Had he cured the malady of a lifetime? How?

I had no answers to that, and my brother wasn’t keen on allowing the O’Connor heir to be around me, so I couldn’t ask him, either. I felt curious about him, in a distant sort of way, like one might feel about a handsome stranger.

I closed my eyes and fell into the dreams of safety and warmth. Nothing of note ever happened in those dreams. They were comfortingly blank, except for the sight of a strange sketch, long lines intersecting others. It was stark against its pale background. It meant something, I was sure, but I had no idea what. And I had no way to find out. In my dreams, I always had the feeling that if I could touch those lines, grab hold of that tantalizing thread, everything would fall back into place.

But I could never reach it.