The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(9)

“Lords in need of a fortune always welcome a marriage to a lesser—”

“Think before you finish that, Broderick Killoran,” she said with the same deathly calm she’d used on the first man she’d slayed in the streets.

Wisely, her brother fell silent. He scrubbed a palm back and forth over his forehead. “Cleopatra,” he tried again as she prepared to beat him back with her words, “this will make us stronger.”

She froze. There it was . . . the goal they’d always striven for. Power allowed a person not only to survive but to thrive and lead. It kept one from a hungry belly and safe from death. Now Broderick would place that mantle upon the shoulders of one of the Killoran girls.

“Look how quickly Black and his crew fell from power,” he pressed. After Diggory’s death, Broderick had set the Devil’s Den on a path of respectability. Noblemen had become patrons, and the Killorans’ wealth had grown . . . and just as he did in every aspect of life, Broderick—and all the Killorans—flourished. They had lured away Black’s members, and then his club had been taken down by a fire. “That could very well be our fate,” her brother murmured with an uncanny reading of her thoughts.

Noble connections would make the Killorans stronger. They had their club . . . and that was all. What else were they? He’ll not relent until one of us makes a match with a nob . . .

“Not Ophelia.” Hauntingly beautiful, she’d be prey for every desperate, lecherous nobleman.

He made a sound of impatience. “It has to be—”

“Not. Ophelia.”

“Gertrude, then,” he gritted out. “She’s the eldest.”

“No.” Power grab be damned, the Killorans wouldn’t grow their empire at the expense of their weakest member. From the King of England to kingpin of the underworld, there wasn’t a man of any station she couldn’t control. She might be the youngest, but she’d killed long before Broderick had ever stumbled into their midst, and she’d always looked after her sisters, so she’d be the one who did it now. Cleopatra tipped her chin up. “It’s me.”

Broderick blinked. “But . . .” There was a world of wealth to that single-syllable utterance.

With her dull brown hair, elfin frame, and tendency to wield her tongue like a knife, she’d never be any gentleman’s first choice for a bride. “It doesn’t matter what I look like. It matters what they need. They need our wealth,” she said with the same pragmatism she’d used when doling out meal rations to Diggory’s gang. “It will be me. You’ll have your connections to the nobility and then your entry into society.”

“Our entry,” Broderick murmured, his gaze the same contemplative one as when he had a book in hand, lost in absorption to those pages.

The carriage drew to a stop, and they remained seated on the benches.

“I’m not afraid of a bloody toff.”

“Your sisters aren’t afraid of anyone, either,” he reminded her.

He was wrong. For the bond between them, there had been too many years where Broderick had not been a part of their existence. As he’d pointed out, their siblings might have managed to battle demons and hide their fears. Cleopatra, however, knew the monsters that lived within still . . . for each of her siblings.

Finnett drew the door open.

“Not now,” Broderick snapped, and the old servant instantly slammed it closed.

“This isn’t a discussion, Broderick,” Cleopatra said flatly. “This isn’t a debate or a decision you are making.” She thinned her eyes into narrow slits. “This is one I already decided. For everyone.” Gertrude and Ophelia.

He shook his head. “You despise the nobility.”

An inelegant snort burst from her lips. “And do you believe our sisters have an affinity for those lords?”

“No.” Broderick grinned, his first real expression of amusement that day. “But you’re the only one I suspect would stick a blade in a nobleman’s belly for even an unintended slight.”

She tightened her mouth, content to let him believe her that ruthless. It meant she’d crafted a flawless facade for herself over the years. One where not even her family knew the depth of what she was capable of.

Relentless, Broderick shook his head. “It cannot be you. You’re too val—” He cut himself off.

Valuable. She’d been his second as long as he’d had ownership of the club, and guided him long before that. “Gertrude was nearly buggered by one of those ruthless peers you’d now marry her off to,” she snapped. That had been the first man Cleopatra had stabbed, and she’d do it all over to help any one of her siblings. “I won’t let you send her into a den of those bastards. It will be me,” she said in chilled tones.

Her brother opened and closed his mouth several times, and then he cursed. “Oh, bloody hell. Very well. It will be you.”

Grinning at that triumph, she shoved open her own door. Cheeks flushed, Finnett jumped back, taking care to avoid either Cleopatra’s or Broderick’s eyes. “F-forgive m-me. I was waiting, and . . .” He cleared his throat and dropped his guilty gaze to the cobblestones.

This time she let him hand her down with a word of thanks. He’d been listening. As one who’d become adept at reading a person’s furtiveness, she knew as much.