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did?”
    “She got a good punch in before he hit her.”
    Jack studied me a long second, then a big smile blossomed across his face. “That right?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He laughed. “Good for her.”
    “She’s a smart girl, Jack. She’s a quick learner. She’s already picked up quite a bit, hanging out at the gym.”
    “You’re teaching her?”
    “The best I can.”
    “Good. I want her to be able to defend herself. With everything that’s been going on around here, she might need those skills. I don’t want what happened to your father’s daughter to happen to Delaney.”
    Brianna, my half-sister—whom I didn’t know existed until nearly a year ago—was kidnapped last year in an attempt by some unknown person to get information that would help bring my father down. Pops, Killian, and Ian managed to rescue her, but the damage was already done. Ever since, this person, whoever he was, had gone after more than a dozen of Jack’s people, killed Stacy’s fiancé, and paid a hitman to take out Killian. And it looked like whoever this person was had a mole inside the organization because the cops were learning things they should never in a million years have been able to put together. Plus, our biggest rival, the Italian mob, was getting information that was allowing them to impinge on some of our territory.
    It was a mess.
    “I won’t let that happen, Jack.”
    Jack leaned forward and touched my knee. “I know, son. That’s why I chose you. I knew you would watch over her without taking advantage of the situation. Killian’s so busy with his new wife, and Ian…that boy…” He smiled. “I never knew it was possible for a boy to be so like his godfather.” The pride in Jack’s expression was almost palatable. “Always a new woman on his arm, the next better looking than the last. It’ll be a special woman who finally ties him down.”
    I could only agree. Ian was about my age, one of dozens of foster children my mom brought home in the course of her career as a county social worker. He was adopted by our family when we were both about twelve. His parents were gone, his father killed in a training exercise in the Army and his mother of cancer when he was seven. He bounced around dozens of foster homes before my mom found him, having no other relatives any one could find.  Now he managed a bunch of businesses my father bought over the years—a couple of restaurants here in Boston, a casino in Las Vegas, a working ranch in West Texas—but he mostly ran the protection detail my father ran for Jack and his men when he wasn’t entertaining one beautiful woman or another.
    “Delaney’s fine,” I said, drawing Jack back to the conversation at hand.
    “I know I can trust you, Sean. Just…keep that asshole away from her. And if he touches her again, you come to me. Don’t let me find out some other way.”
    “Of course.”
    Jack inclined his head, then stood. I stood, too, letting him lead me to the door with a hand on my shoulder.
    “She’s a good girl, so much more like her mother than she’ll ever be like me. And I’m grateful for that.”
    I glanced at him, a little surprised that he’d admit to being her father so easily after all the cloak and dagger when he first asked me to watch over her. He’d implied she was his lover before…
    “This girl is extremely important to me, Sean,” he said. “If anything happens to her…”
    “Sean is a good boy,” Pops told Jack. “He’ll take good care of her.”
    They both studied me as if I was a book with an intriguing cover.
    “No one touches her. You understand that?”
    “I do, sir.”
    “I’ve chosen you because I know I can trust you and because you were the best boxer in the family, so I know you can teach her a few things. She’s fiercely independent. She needs to learn how to defend herself, you understand.”
    “I do.”
    “Just remember she’s my girl. I will not be forgiving if anything happens to her.”
    “Of course.”
    I