Only Yours (A McDade Brothers Novel Book 2) Read online

  Flirting was one of her favorite things to do, she considered it a hobby. Her desire to tease and play was probably rooted in her years of teenage rebellion. Back then, her father and brothers were dead against her showing any kind of sexuality. Never stopped her from doing it whenever she could, usually whenever they weren’t around. As she’d got older, her interest in their presence or opinions had waned.

  “Ma’am—”

  “Shh,” Whisper said, tossing the pen onto the table. Moving in, she got up close to rest the length of her finger on the shaking man’s mouth. “All these men who stand before you every day…” With her finger still on his lips, she flattened her other hand on his torso and let it turn to slide south. “All these men get their happy ending…” Pouting, she forced herself even closer while pressing her palm against his groin, rubbing his dick through his slacks. “Where’s your happy ending… Have you got an office…” Trailing her finger from his mouth to his belt, she slid the leather from its buckle. “Or would you like it right here.”

  “Whisper!” her father barked.

  Rolling her eyes away from the stunned officiant, just a moment before her father seized her arm and yanked her away, Whisper groaned. “Daddy, I’m just having some fun.”

  He hauled her closer to hiss in her face. “That kind of fun could get a man killed. You’re a married woman now.”

  Somehow she doubted he cared about the officiant’s safety or her virtue. “Yeah? What does that matter?” she asked, admiring her manicure. “Are we going someplace to get drunk?” Peeking over her shoulder, she ignored the groom and his buddy who were just out of her field of vision. Her focus stayed on eyeing the officiant, running her tongue along her top lip as she did. “Or have I gotta find my own fun?”

  “You are going to your wedding reception,” her father said, tightening his grip and giving her a shake. “And you will behave yourself.”

  “Or what?” she snapped, jerking her arm down and out of his grip. The kind of bruises that would leave were normal for her, she’d worn them most of her life. “No one said anything about a reception. I have plans later.”

  Grabbing her again, Cyrus hauled her up the aisle. At the other end of the room, by the door they’d first come through, he swung her around to slam her back against the wall. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “Do you care?”

  “Whisper,” he growled, slapping his hand flat to the wall next to her head. Instinct made her flinch. Damn instinct. “You think I’m going to hit you?” With a shake, he seized her chin to force her attention back to him. “That’s not my responsibility anymore, sweetheart. If you need to be taken in hand, it will be your husband’s job… Tell me who you’d rather have disciplining you? Your father or the man you branded a psychopath?”

  Gritting her teeth, she sucked in a breath. “If he touches me, I’ll slice him open.”

  Easing back, Cyrus’ eyes dropped for a moment. In the next breath, he lunged forward again, getting so close that his nose bumped hers. “You’re carrying a weapon? On your wedding day? Are you fucking insane?”

  “I’m a Doherty, Daddy,” she sneered. “I haven’t walked the streets unarmed in all my twenty-nine years… Momma used to hide her blade in my stroller… remember, Daddy?”

  Shoving away from her, he put a foot of space between them. “For all the good it did her, she was still slayed by that bastard Byrne.” He opened his hand to her. “Give it to me.”

  “No,” she said.

  There was a chance her new husband might have designs on what he’d like to do with their wedding night. Complying was her duty. Giving him what was left of her shredded virtue was her obligation. But there were some acts she’d never consent to. If he tried to take from her against her will, she’d take something precious of his in return… Something that would make it impossible for him to ever violate another woman.

  “Whisper,” he growled, but she remained defiant.

  Her father’s backhand was swift. Her head snapped to the side, but she felt nothing, not really. It wasn’t like she’d never been on the receiving end of his wrath before. Tossing her hair away from her face, she brought her focus back to where it had been before.

  “You should’ve just killed me,” she murmured, sneering at him.

  Sliding her shoulders down the wall to bring her leg up, she hooked the heel of her stiletto on the back of the wooden pew-like bench behind her father. Whisper curled her fingers around the end of her skirt to drag it up, revealing the sheathed knife strapped to her thigh and wrapped in a length of white silk.

  “Festive,” came a voice from the aisle beside them.

  She rolled her head on the wall to see the shorter man from the altar. That was her first chance to get a good look at him. In his thirties, the man wasn’t exactly smiling, but he wasn’t scowling either. His attention was fixated on the weapon on her leg.

  “Like what you see, baby?” she asked, shifting her foot from the back of the bench to his torso.

  Her shoulders were still on the wall giving her an anchor point. Whisper raised her leg a little higher to bring the silk over her crotch into his view, which was exactly her plan. Her grip on the hem of her skirt remained firm to ensure it stayed high.

  With heavy eyes, she maintained her focus on the man under her heel. Pushing it a little deeper into his gut made his mouth open, Whisper wanted more of a reaction than that. A shadow appeared behind him, putting an end to her toying. For a man of his size, Zaiden McDade moved quietly. Despite being aware of him, she did her best not to look over her prey’s head.

  “Stop this bullshit,” Cyrus hissed. “Give me the knife, Whisper.”

  “Let her keep it,” Zaiden said, startling both her father and the man under her shoe. “Anyone who can be taken down by a little girl deserves to go down.”

  Grabbing his lieutenant’s shoulder, Zaiden pulled him away from her, sending her foot back to the floor with a thud. The two men vanished through the door without waiting.

  Whisper boosted herself off the wall to straighten up. Swiping her hair from her face, looking at the door, she touched the cheek her father had struck. “He’s got some damn nerve.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Cyrus said, snatching her shoulder to pull her through the door. “You’re going to get yourself in check, Whisper. No more of your bullshit.”

  Those waiting in the hallway outside didn’t dare look at her being dragged past them. Even the people who probably weren’t from the area seemed to get the sense that it wasn’t a moment to gawk or, God forbid, step in.

  Not that she’d be averse to getting a little blood on her dress. Her father hauled her out to the street and threw her into a waiting limo that got moving the minute the door closed.

  “Dragging the name of this family through the mud has always been a specialty of yours,” he said. Her skirt had ridden up when she’d fallen face first into the back of the car, so she raised her hips to tug it down. “Your mother would be ashamed of you.”

  “No more ashamed than she’d be of you,” she said, lifting and dropping into the seat to get comfortable. “You think this is what she’d want for any of us?”

  “I think she would be disgusted that you dishonor your brothers’ memory.”

  Losing Adan and Keegan had changed everything about their lives. Most of the time, her brothers found something to be on her case about. Despite that, there was no way she could deny they’d loved her, in their own way.

  Both were hard men… or they had been. Their father had raised them both to believe that showing affection was a sign of weakness. The one thing none of the men were allowed to do was expose any vulnerability. Women were seen as weak just by their very nature. Whisper had fought against that ideology all her life, which was probably why she acted out. It wasn’t easy to be noticed when you were considered the weakest member of the family, even if that was the Doherty family.

  The Doherty legacy was a lot to live up to and it wa
sn’t a role she’d coveted. Her brothers were expected to take over the family business. Whisper was a drain on resources, as her father often reminded her. Although she’d been in the bosom of the family, it had never fallen on her to prove her loyalty, not to the level of handing herself to the enemy.

  Whisper opened the fridge to retrieve a bottle of champagne. “I married him, didn’t I?” she said, filling a flute. “I did what I was told.”

  Her father seized her arm and tugged her around with such force that champagne sloshed onto the floor.

  “You were told to make him happy,” Cyrus hissed. “Finding out his wife is a slut will not make him happy.”

  “You don’t have a damn clue what will make him happy,” she said. Despite still being in her father’s grip, Whisper turned her head to tip some alcohol into her mouth. “He didn’t have a problem with what I was doing and, like you said, I’m his to discipline now, right?” His grip tightened. The pinch was obvious, its meaning was not. Wearing her own glare, she drew her lips away from the glass to pin it on him. “You put another bruise on me, Daddy, I’ll go to the cops and tell them he put it there… What will that do for relations with the new in-laws?”

  “I made this deal to show this family we are serious about an alliance… If I have to sedate you to hand you over, I will do it. You will behave. You will show respect and deference. You will not make a fool of me or your husband.”

  The vicious look in his eye didn’t scare her, it disgusted her, but that didn’t prevent her from returning it. “You hate that you have to rely on me.”

  “Yes,” he spat. “You’re a woman. You’re weak and unreliable. I told your mother we should’ve drowned you at birth.”

  Hissing, she lunged at him. “And I told her she should’ve left you when we found you balls deep inside that hooker.”

  The next slap sent her onto the limo floor, scattering her champagne. Still, Whisper wouldn’t relent. On a sharp inhale, she whipped around to glare at him. The power in that last hit was impressive given their restricted space. Practice really did make perfect; her father had always been quick and strong with his hands.

  “It should’ve been you that day,” he growled.

  She breathed out a laugh. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish it had been… Daddy.”

  Spitting out his title, she checked for blood on her lip and was pleased to find none. A speckling daze crossed her vision; Whisper damned him and his short fuse. Resenting him was only half the battle. Frustrating as it could be to exist only as an object for her father to despise, at least she’d always known where she stood with him.

  For the first almost two thirds of her life, Whisper’s mission was to make her father proud of her, to get his attention or some kind of recognition that she even existed.

  That changed the day of her mother’s funeral when she discovered him having sex with one of the servers at the wake. Her mother’s body wasn’t even cold in the ground, and he was enjoying himself in the first nubile body that crossed his path.

  Her respect for him had dwindled almost daily since then. She’d known he cheated. Whisper didn’t know a single man in their circle who was faithful. But to see her mother so disrespected did something. It twisted whatever optimism was left inside her, wringing it out until cynicism was all that remained.

  Whisper was still on the floor of the limo when it came to a halt.

  Cyrus shifted in his seat. “Everything of yours has been packed up and shipped to the McDade house,” her father said. “They own a townhouse in their neighborhood. You will go home with your husband tonight.”

  “I figured that out all on my own,” she said, getting over the fog created by his hit.

  The driver opened their door. Getting out of their way, he stepped aside; the move revealed a group of men loitering on the sidewalk. McDade men. Whisper didn’t have to be a genius to know that. Behind them was a restaurant, a homey looking, unremarkable establishment that she couldn’t remember ever visiting in the past.

  The McDade men saw her too. Despite the passers-by and the noise of the vehicles on the street, she could tell that they’d stopped talking. Whisper wasn’t interested in their conversation and couldn’t have heard it anyway. Either they thought she had super hearing or their glaring was an attempt to intimidate her. Idiots. Being vigilant made sense, they didn’t have trust. An enemy was at their door. On the other hand, if they thought they could scare her, she’d stick with her label: idiots.

  Cutting them some slack, Whisper considered that their silence might be something to do with seeing her sprawled on the floor of the car at her father’s feet. They couldn’t be shocked by the sight. The Dohertys treated their women with disdain and there was little chance the McDades didn’t do exactly the same.

  Her father got out of the car and snapped his fingers at her. All Whisper could do was climb onto the seat and drag her fingers through her hair. When they caught on the knots, she enjoyed the sting in her scalp. Causing herself pain was a million times more satisfying than letting her father have the pleasure. So much of her life was out of her control that she clung to any glimmer of it.

  Cyrus bent to grab her arm and pulled her out of the car. The men she’d seen before were gone, so at least the ogling was over; there was some solace in that.

  “This is a happy occasion,” her father said, dragging her to the external stairs that led to the basement section of the restaurant. “Go in there, sit with your friends, and for God sake, behave… or you’ll get us all killed.”

  Her father wasn’t the type to wilt in any room or scenario. Cyrus Doherty was made of steel. That said, the shootout had shaken everyone up. Their family had never been more vulnerable and although she had no idea how long the possibility of the alliance had been in the mix, the reality of it was still in its infancy.

  The McDades weren’t going to put in much effort for the Dohertys until they proved their word was good. By going through with the wedding, Whisper had completed the first challenge. It definitely wouldn’t be the last she’d have to endure.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a wooden door with a small glazed section. Next to that was a large picture window adorned with gold lettering that declared the place “Kitty’s.”

  “Inside,” her father said, shoving her forward and grabbing the long brass handle to open the door in front of her.

  Giving her no choice, Cyrus pushed her inside. The rumble of conversation dwindled and died. As those present assessed the Doherty interlopers, Whisper scanned the space. The large dim room had a bar to the right at the back and an empty stage to the left. Four square pillars equidistance from each other supported the floor above.

  Two long, busy tables, stood far from each other with all the pillars between them, separating the families. The table closest to the door was full of what appeared to be McDade family members. On the furthest right of the pillars the other table was occupied by people familiar to her.

  In between, in the middle of the pillars was a chasm of space. Maybe it was supposed to be a dance floor? Whisper doubted it. The stage was empty and she couldn’t hear a beat of music. More likely these two families just didn’t want to mix with each other.

  She turned her chin toward her shoulder. “Great start to your alliance, Daddy, huh?”

  Believing the families would ever be able to trust each other was insanity. That was her wedding reception, meant to be a time when they were building trust, and the two sides couldn’t even share a table. Urging her forward, her father took them past the end of the McDade table. Those around it turned to each other to mumble as she passed.

  Yes, to them Whisper Doherty was a spectacle, but she couldn’t complain. The McDade side would be just as fascinating to her faction. Her father pushed her around the Doherty table with an urgency that made her deliberately slow. Offering waves and smiles to those she was happiest to see, Whisper wouldn’t be rushed. Unfortunately, there weren’t many people on that list. Really it
only consisted of her girlfriends. They’d been arranged on the far sides of her two cousins. The empty space between was apparently reserved for her. Her father forced her into the seat flanked by her cousins. The ones who would never have been invited to something like this pre-bloodbath.

  With her back to the wall, Whisper was in the middle of the length of the table. Cyrus planted her there between Caelan and Miles, her Uncle Dallin’s boys. The three had been promoted within the family since the shootout. Even without there being a discussion, Whisper knew her father resented the necessity of elevating his brother. Caelan and Miles loved their new positions of power, even if they were eager idiots sometimes.

  Her girlfriends, Mariana and Paula had been put on either side of her cousins. Whisper would rather be sitting next to them, but the setup was no accident. Cyrus must have planned it. She couldn’t flirt with her cousins. No doubt they’d been given instructions to stop her from making any kind of scene as well.

  Caelan was talking over her to his brother. Despite not acknowledging her, he at least had the presence of mind to grab one of the bottles of champagne from the table to pour her some alcohol.

  Drinking from her flute, ignoring her babbling cousin, Whisper already wanted a way out. As she wondered how long the farce would go on before people started to disperse, she glanced up, past those at her table. At the other table, the eyes of the man from the altar were on her.

  He sat in the position that mirrored hers. His back was to the stage and despite the hubbub at his table, he didn’t flinch. The shorter guy from the ceremony was at his side, talking, though probably not to his buddy because he wasn’t paying attention. Scrutinizing the McDade table, she counted only one woman. The pillars did obscure some of her view, but Whisper couldn’t recall seeing any other women during her initial scan from the threshold.