“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m fine,” she told him, taking a deep breath as if to calm herself.
“Let me get you out of that wire and we’ll get out of here,” he told her.
Niall retrieved the wire cutters lying on a table near where the guard had been sitting and returned to remove the chains and wire from her, pulling her to her feet and holding her close to him for a moment. Relief flooded over him as he held her once again, his face tilted downward to lay atop her head.
“I love you, Deidre,” he told her. “I don’t want to spend any more time away from you.”
“I love you too,” she replied, her body relaxing against his, letting him know she was his and his alone.
“Let’s get out of here,” he told her.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Home,” he said.
She nodded and walked out with him, taking the van outside back into the city.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Deidre
“Fergus, Olcan...this is Deidre,” Niall told his brothers.
The two of them had come out to meet their flight in from London. Rather than dealing with charter flights, they’d opted for a private plane landing on a strip adjacent to the airport. Deidre had been nervous about meeting them, but after all Niall had told her about his family, she felt like she already knew them, and she was instantly at ease when they approached her with open arms, hugging her as if they were welcoming a long-lost family member home.
“It’s about time you brought a decent woman home to meet the family,” Fergus teased.
“Niamh’s going to be upset about it, though. She had her money on Ronan since he caught her bouquet at the wedding,” Olcan added
“I guess that doesn’t actually work after all, that whole catching the bridal bouquet thing. Who knew?” Niall laughed.
“Well, technically, there’s still time. You aren’t married, so he might slip ahead of you yet,” Olcan replied.
“Speaking of Ronan, where is he? I thought he was coming out to meet us too?”
“Oh, you know, enjoying his last night in the states,” Olcan laughed.
“He’s really going back to Ireland to stay?” Niall asked.
“Yep. It’s what he wants to do. He’ll be the first member of what he calls the ‘not so new, but greatly improved’ Clan McNally in Dublin,” Olcan told him.
“Good on him, then. He can do all the demanding work of getting a new compound built on our land so we’ll have a place to go when we vacation there,” Fergus said.
“How about we go find him and get in a drink with the new Alpha?” Niall suggested.
“Sounds like a plan,” Fergus replied.
“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do at the office,” Olcan told them.
“Aye. I’m sure we do, but surely it can wait a day or two while Deidre and I settle in,” Niall pointed out.
“It can. Let’s go get that drink,” Fergus said.
Technically, none of them were the Alpha anymore. Niall had told her that part of their discussions in recent weeks had been about abandoning the clan makeup of Alphas and just accepting that they had evolved into a mafia family like any of the others in Boston. When they went to Ireland, they would be a part of Clan McNally, and Ronan would serve as their Alpha, but for the purposes of life here, they were disbanding.
It was a small thing that didn’t amount to a whole lot in the broad scheme of things, but it seemed to mean something to the McNally brothers, who wanted to move forward from the old ways, at least in America. It would be different in Ireland, where being a part of a clan was especially important to the way of life there. The brothers would be in and out of the country, not only to help him set things up there, despite joking about leaving him to do the heavy lifting, but to build additional contacts there.
Not everything about their family made sense to her, and she was sure that there was a lot that Niall would keep from her, for her protection as much as anything, but she knew enough to feel safe with him. She suspected that most women would think twice about joining a mafia family, especially one of the toughest in Boston, but to her, Niall was just Niall. She couldn’t really wrap her head around him being what his job made him.
In all honesty, what he explained to her about the way their family business worked didn’t seem all that different than how the bear clans in Ireland worked. She could see why they often went hand in hand, though she’d not been exposed to too much of that side of clan business, either by her own family or her time with Trill.
Deidre should feel out of place there, but she didn’t. The week she and Niall had spent together prior to coming there had sealed their bond in a way that was unquestionable. His brothers were now a part of her life, just as he would always be. She was looking forward to meeting the rest of the family. According to Niall, it had really grown in the last few years, and she was going to love his sisters-in-law.