Filthy Rich (The Five Points' Mob Collection, #2)

by Serena Akeroyd

Together, like royalty, we faced the room as the speeches began. His hold on me was firm. Hot. Possessive. And oddly enough, I didn’t mind. Not one bit.

Virgins weren’t my thing. ‘Deflowering’ them? Even less so.

She’d come into my home without an invitation, on my goddamn wedding day. What the actual fuck?

All my brothers knew how particular I was about my personal space. I figured it was thanks to a childhood of hand-me-downs and the like—we might be rich as fuck, but Ma was a shrewd mare. No way was she going to buy the youngest of her five spawn new gear when she had plenty of old stuff sitting around.

I was used to everything being recycled, everything having belonged to another of my brothers—until this place. It was mine. All mine.

Everything was new, everything had my stamp on it, and even though I’d asked a decorator to help me with it, I’d micromanaged her down to the ornaments she’d put on my mantelpiece ...

So, here I stood, having used my new husband’s mistress’s makeup remover, in my wedding dress, bruises on full display. I was making a statement. I knew that. A dangerous one.

Father and Svetlana had done a number on me, that was for fucking sure. I looked like I’d been tied to a garbage truck and dragged over Brighton Beach for hours on end.

There was love there. Love in the O’Donnelly’s hearth.

I bit my lip, then winced when it pulled on the paper stitch I’d uncovered beneath ten tons of lipstick. There was another, more ragged one, on the bridge of my nose, and I had various little pieces of miracle ‘paper’ that had been used to hide a multitude of sins. Not my own, of course. My father’s, although the split lip was a parting gift from Svetlana.

“I should have sliced his throat.” Eoghan’s rasp sent shudders down my spine. Not in a bad way, but a...

But, in my own way, I was immune to violence. Hearing his statement didn’t make me cower, didn’t fill me with fear. If anything, I liked it. I responded to it. Fucked up, but true. Because that growl? Sign...

Eoghan couldn’t hurt me more than my father had, at least, well, he could sexually, but I didn’t get that vibe from him. Still, pain…that was all men like him gave to women like me. I was telling him I knew that. Showing him what I’d gone through already, and silently asking him not to treat me the same way.

“I’m sorry.” I tilted my head to the side, not willing to allow him to use the word ‘sorry’ as a whitewashing tool. “For what?” His eyes narrowed, but his top lip quirked to the side. “You’re not going to let me get away with shit, are you?” Before I could answer, he rumbled, “Probably for the fucking best.”

“I’m not going to fuck my wife when her face is full of bruises, her mouth is covered in dissolvable stitches, and she favors her right side—” I winced, because I’d tried really hard to cover up that I had a bruised rib.

“Your vows don’t mean a thing to me. I’m not Catholic. I’m Orthodox. So I’m going to make a vow you’ll understand.” His eyes narrowed. “Blood?”

“I vow that I will not betray you…so long as you don’t betray me.” The addition had him blowing out a breath, but he grabbed the scissors from me and mirrored my action. Blood spilled once more, more of it staining my dress, and he stated, “If you think I’ve betrayed you, before you think to break this vow, you will talk to me about it first.”

“I don’t want you slicing my throat because you think I’ve done something I haven’t,” he clarified. “Misunderstandings are a common occurrence.”

It was human nature for the good to blur and for the bad to stick out like a sore thumb.

“You know I’ll protect you, don’t you?” Taken aback, I mumbled, “I-I guess.” “No guess about it. I don’t promise to be a good husband, Inessa. I just promise that you won’t hurt when I’m around.”

“How do you feel about burning this dress?” A grin twisted along my mouth. “Sounds like fun.” “Little arsonist,”

Eoghan, I was coming to see, in his own way, was a man of honor.

Trust. It was nothing more than a fragile sapling right now, but if he tended it? It would turn into a mighty oak, and everyone knew about those kinds of trees. They withstood even the worst of storms.

Some days, I thought I was like my father. A little fucking nutty. Some days, I thought I was still the soldier I’d been trained to be—dedicated and disciplined. Then others, I was neither, a man capable of seeing between the lines of the law and refusing to accept something just because it was an order.

But I was pretty sure, amid the chaos of my character, that I wasn’t a good man. Even so, had I known she was being beaten the way she was? I felt certain I’d have married her the second it was legal, and I’d have shoved her in another apartment for her to grow up in.

Knowing that her favorite food was some Russian shit called pelmeni, her best friend a kid called Lisandra who, more often than not, got Inessa into trouble, and that she’d watched To All the Boys I Loved Before eighty times on N...

“How about your nose? That had to hurt.” “I’m—” Used to it. Fuck.

“You had surgery?” Her eyes caught mine. “Where?” “Don’t BS me now,” I chided, folding my hands over my belly. “Your face.” “I don’t approve of plastic surgery,” she said primly. “No, not to get massive tits, I mean to fix what he fucked up.” Her cheeks blossomed with heat in earnest. I’d thought as much.

“Fucker,” I rumbled. “He touches you again, I’ll fucking gut him.” “I wouldn’t be averse to that,” she replied, and her tone was so cheerful, I almost laughed.

She was an odd thing. That was what I’d learned in six days of marriage. So young in some things, so ancient in others.

The only trouble was, if Ma had had a girl child, that girl would have been cosseted from the womb to her coffin. Not just by Da, but by all her brothers. We’d have done more than spill blood to keep her safe. Didn’t matter whether it was because of some little fucker in kindergarten threatening to pull her pigtails, or a husband who thought he could get handy with his fists. Any sister of mine would have been shielded from the Devil himself.

She didn’t talk all the fucking time, in fact, I often found her glued to her phone—not because she was on social media, pulling duck faces into the camera every twenty fucking minutes, nor because she was doing irritating shit for TikTok, but because she was reading. She’d even shushed me. Shushed me when I interrupted her. What the actual fuck was that about?

She wasn’t scared of me at all, either because of our wedding day or because she thought I was kinder than her father—which I wasn’t, but to her, I would be—and that had resonated when she’d ignored me until she’d read to the end of the chapter.

I got the feeling that, if I treated her well, she’d mold herself around me, morphing into exactly what I needed, and while the idea appealed, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Or needed. Until now, I’d wanted to be single, and there wasn’t much she could do to help me on that score, was there?

I wanted sex on the regular, and not sex that a virgin would be okay with either. Her face was finally almost healed up, but I’d made a vow to myself, no bloodshed required, that until the last fucking bruise had disappeared from her pretty face, I wouldn’t even kiss her. That vow was wearing on me. Hard.

Especially when she came to bed wearing sleep shorts and camisoles that weren’t enticing at all, ye...

The notion that I wanted her to sleep in my boxers was an irritating one. How did you ask your wife to do that? To wear your shit? And considering I hated sharing anything, did I even want to get into that?

Even if the prospect of seeing her in my stuff did things to my cock that a woman wearing thigh highs and leather stilettos didn’t manage.

Sharing my space. Breathing the same air as me. And it was weird. Because I didn’t mind it.

“It’s a fine ass,” he promptly replied. “But that one over there is nicer.” I peered over my shoulder and saw Inessa walking down the hall to the kitchen. I scowled back at Aidan, who grinned at me. “Declan was right. You are possessive of her.” He rubbed his hands together. “That’s a good sign.”

“Are you all playing fucking matchmaker or something? Far as I know, I’m already hitched to the—” I broke off at the word ‘bitch.’ Inessa was many things, but that wasn’t one of them. Aidan’s eyes flared wide. “Holy fuck, you can’t call her a bitch. This is deeper than I thought.” “Don’t read too much into shit. I’ve only known her six days!”

“You could have known her longer. It’s your fault you only met on your wedding day.” “What did I have in common with a goddamn teenager?” “Nothing, but you’d know her better than you do now.” “I know enough. She’s quiet, reads a shit ton, can’t cook for crap, is neater than me, and doesn’t talk too much.” “The perfect wife,”

“I like her,” I told him. “She doesn’t irritate me, and that’s a major step forward.” “You going to try to make a go of things?” “What are we? Women? Since when do we talk about relationships?” “Since my baby brother got fucking married! That’s when.”

“He said the only thing that has kept him on the straight and narrow is Ma—” Before he could carry on, I hooted out a laugh. “You mean to tell me he thinks the life he’s led is straight and narrow?” Aidan’s grin was sheepish. “Apparently. Can you imagine what he would have been like without Ma?” “Fuck knows.”

“How is it the brother with the biggest kills has the biggest heart?”

All week, she’d been sporting her bruises, and whenever I looked at her, I wanted to kill her father, then I wanted to kiss her, then I wondered why the fuck I wanted to kiss her when she looked like she did.

I got boners for sexy women who didn’t mind bending over where I wanted and taking it however I wanted to give it to them. I didn’t get hard-ons for angel-faced domestic violence victims. I had my kinks, but that wasn’t one of them.

Fuck, I was way too like my old man. The idea of her cooking for me did shit to my insides.

She was a looker, going or coming. From the front, she had the best tits, and her face was heaven sent. From the back, that ass and her long, strong legs… It was going to be fun to bend her over my desk and fuck that bubble butt.

Instantly, I regretted waiting to fuck her because, by now, she’d have been broken in.