Filthy Dark
The Five Points’ Collection
Serena Akeroyd
DEDICATION
To Christine, Cynthia, Jennifer, Anne-Susann, Gem, Amber, and Jemma.
For your help, support, and most importantly, friendship.
<3
Contents
DEDICATION
Playlist
Warning
Brennan
1. Aela
2. Aela
3. Aela
4. Aela
5. Brennan
6. Aela
7. Conor
8. Aela
9. Declan
10. Aela
11. Declan
12. Declan
13. Declan
14. Cami
15. Declan
16. Aela
17. Aela
18. Declan
19. Declan
20. Aela
21. Aela
22. Aela
23. Declan
24. Declan
25. Conor
26. Declan
27. Declan
28. Seamus
29. Aidan Jr.
Aela
Afterword
Free eBook ALERT!!
Connect with Serena
About the Author
Playlist
If you’d like to hear a curated soundtrack, with songs that are featured in the book, as well as songs that inspired it, then here’s the link:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3JeKrEAH4jqVvv1cEwmewp
Warning
At some point in this book, you will come across terminology you won’t appreciate.
And I certainly don’t.
But many people, especially of Aidan Sr.’s generation, do agree with it. It’s a disgraceful standpoint, however, I’m of Seamus’s ilk. If we don’t open a dialogue, how do we get people to understand that hate is hate?
I make this warning only so you’re aware that I AM 100% anti-homophobia, and a full believer that love is love is love. So, don’t hate on me for raising a topic of conversation, one that might take place around any dining table around the world, and drawing light on it.
With kids like Seamus around, maybe, just maybe, we can make the next generation more understanding.
With that being said, much love to you. <3
Brennan
Sixteen years ago
Hunching my shoulders against the cold, I watched my breath mist out in front of me. It was either that or head into the convenience store opposite and grab some cigs, which I couldn’t do.
Ma’d already threatened to lop off my head if she caught me stinking of smoke, and while I wasn’t averse to a clipped ear, what with being twenty, I didn’t give much of a shit anymore. My wrist was fucked, thanks to how many times Da had broken it, and I’d been shot at twice. I could cope with her pulling on my ear like it was stuck on with Velcro. Dealing with Mariska’s repugnance, however, was another matter entirely.
Her man smoked. Heavy duty Cubans were his poison of choice, and whenever she smelled them on me because Da had a habit too, it always took her twice as long to get into it.
I needed to get off like a junkie needed a fix, so getting some smokes was only going to delay what my body craved.
Her.
It had been a motherfucker of a day. We’d lost two men in a stupid goddamn raid with the Haitians, and the waste of life as well as the futility of our work just made me wonder what the fuck I was doing all this for.
It wasn’t for Mariska.
She’d never leave her husband. I didn’t blame her either. It wasn’t like she was married to some shoe salesman. You married into the Bratva and you didn’t get out. Not outside of a body bag. And when you were the Pakhan’s woman, death was a kind fate.
Leaning back against the wall, I felt the bricks dig into my bones, but I was used to being uncomfortable, so I just stared straight ahead, patient as ever until, in my periphery, I saw about four or five kids running toward the store.
They had tights over their heads and were packing heat. The sight of them told me exactly what was about to go down, but I made no move to get involved. This was our territory, so technically, I should offer to help, especially since the convenience store paid us protection money.
Instead, I watched curiously.
Especially when one of the kids, in a pair of retro-ed Air Jordan XIIs, caught my eye.
My brother had just bought a pair of them, and they stuck out like a sore thumb. Not only had they been on a shortlist, so they were rare as fuck, but the white and red design caught my attention—Declan’s.
I scanned the guy, registered his height and weight, and knew it was likely, even if the fact he was jacking convenience stores blew my mind.
I’d warned Da that the crew he was hanging around with was no good. That Cillian Donahue gave me bad vibes, and that Jonny kid? He was messed up. Had weird-ass eyes that were the opposite of trustworthy. But my fucked up father insisted they were what Declan needed. “They’ll make a man out of him,” he’d told me the last time I raised the subject with him.
When the gang surged in and surged out, my initial impression was they did a great job. It was practically pro—no screaming, and at a moment where the number of patrons was low so there were fewer risks of casualties… this wasn’t their first time.
As I scraped a hand across my jaw, I watched as they headed out, triumphantly holding their winnings, before they rushed into the darkness.
I had no idea what kind of game Declan was pulling, but I wasn’t a snitch. We all got into shit, it was how we grew, how we figured out if our crew had our backs or not… it was an important life lesson.
While my mind ticked away as I wondered how deeply into this shit Dec was, a car pulled up.
Recognizing the Porsche, I slipped away from the wall, stooped my shoulders, and kept my face in my hood as I headed to the vehicle. Ducking into the car, I kept my gaze straight ahead. I didn’t even turn to greet Mariska, just rested a hand on her leg as a silent ‘hello’ as she revved the engine and we got the hell out of there.
Declan wasn’t the only one getting lucky tonight.
One
Aela
Now
Have your eyes ever met someone’s across a crowded room?
Have you ever looked into that person’s eyes, and somehow known you were theirs?
That they were yours?
I was fifteen when that happened to me.
It wasn’t the first and only time it happened either. It kept on happening, only with the same guy. Over and over and over, it occurred.
Our eyes would connect, and it was like the sun would peep out from behind the clouds on a dull day.
I knew it sounded like nonsense, but it actually wasn’t.
Every time my gaze was captured by Declan O’Donnelly’s, I knew we were meant to be together.
That was what made things so awkward.
I wasn’t his.
He wasn’t mine.
He was my best friend’s.
And that was only the start of all the trouble.
My father had been low down on the totem pole in the Five Points’ Mob for most of my life, meaning I’d been pretty much a nonentity. Only when he’d been promoted had I started attending a decent school, and that was where I met Deirdre.
She was the kind of girl who knew everyone and everything, and somehow, she’d taken me under her wing wh
en I arrived at St. Mary’s Middle School for Girls.
Nearly twenty years later, I still wasn’t sure if that was the best thing that had ever happened to me or the worst.
Deirdre had been kind and sweet to me. Enough so that I hadn’t realized what a manipulative bitch she was until I was nearly seventeen.
You read that right—for nearly six years, the cow managed to pull the wool over my eyes. But I didn’t do what I did to get back at her.
No, back then I’d been too innocent to be so conniving.
I’d appreciated her friendship when I’d suddenly gone from a regular, run-of-the-mill PS162 school to a private Catholic middle school.
When St. Mary’s had been forcibly closed due to—and this always amused the hell out of me—abuse because the nuns used to get whippy with it when you were really bad, we’d had to go to St. John’s High School.
A mixed private high school.
For girls who’d only been surrounded by other girls all their school life, it had been groundbreaking. For me, it was just normal. Still, I’d been allowed to meet Deirdre’s Declan for the first time ever, and when we had met?
That was when the whole world crashed and burned to a halt.
All this time later, as I sat beside his hospital bed, I still couldn’t believe how powerful that moment had been.
I was an artist now. A mom. I wasn’t some dopey kid who had her head in the clouds, her hands covered in paint—although they still were most of the time—and her will easily molded to what others wanted.
With the power of time, a reputation that had been hard-won, and after coming to terms with being a single mom, I was still mind blown by that connection.
I created art in many mediums, had worked in studios around the world, picking up techniques and teaching them, my mind was a hive of creativity... but no matter what I did, I couldn’t replicate that sensation.
It was like a lightning bolt between the eyes. It was so strong, it should have killed me, but it didn’t. It almost zapped my heart, but hearts were a little supernatural in their ability to regenerate themselves—over time.
Or so I’d thought.
Watching over the man I’d grown to hate, a hate that would always be founded with a seed of love, was proof of that.
I’d thought that was it for me. I was one and done. Guys were a pain in the ass that I had no time for. The only dude I wanted around was my kid. He took up every second of my non-working time, every ounce of my energy. But it took one look at Declan for me to know it was all bullshit. Lies I told myself to make it easier to live without the love of my life.
That was why it was a punch in the gut for him to have almost died.
My hands itched with the need to draw him, to take in the majesty of his face. A hard jaw, a stubborn firm slash for a mouth, eyes that were usually narrowed with distrust. He had a dark face, one built with features that were perfect for his choice of career. Somehow, though it was hardened, it was utterly perfect to me.
So wonderfully complex to draw.
There was a play of light and shadow on his brow, furrowed lines between them too. Either side of his eyes, there were squint lines, making him so much more interesting than he’d been as a boy.
Pitch black stubble made him look even tougher, and while his hair was a tousled mess and should have made him look less hardcore, it didn’t. So much so, I wanted him to open his eyes because that would reveal the only softness to his nature. A softness I’d lost any and all rights to access a long time ago—his soul.
Mournfully, I blew out a breath, then jerked when the door opened and my gaze clashed with Brennan’s.
I liked Brennan, but unfortunately when I looked at him, we didn’t have the same sparks.
I wished we did.
I wished I could be with him.
He was insane, like all the O’Donnelly sons—you couldn’t not be when spawned from Aidan Sr.’s seed—but he was the most grounded, I thought.
When I looked at him, I felt calm, felt like my brain wasn’t whirring with a mixture of panic.
But I didn’t want to paint him, and that was indicative of my feelings for him. Or the lack of them, I guessed.
So I smiled at him weakly as he rasped, “What are you doing here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
His brow furrowed. “Hmm.” That was all he said, almost making me snort.
Brennan was a man of few words, that was for damn sure.
I pressed my head to the side of the armchair, just resting it for a second.
I wanted, badly, to walk away. I knew when he woke up again, he’d discover the truth and call me chickenshit, but I didn’t want to be there when he learned he was a father.
Maybe I should be the one to tell him, but I didn’t think I could.
I’d spent so long running, so many years hiding, that I just couldn’t do it.
Brennan shook his head at me like he knew what I was thinking. “You need to get out of here, Aela.”
I gulped. “I know I do.”
“The doctors say they’re drawing him out of the coma. When he wakes up, we’ll be telling him the truth. You need to bring the kid down here.”
“You mean your nephew?” I snapped, irritated by his dismissal of my pride and joy as just a ‘kid.’
Brennan wafted a hand. “You know what I mean.”
I gritted my teeth. “He’s the best O’Donnelly out there,” I told him.
“Course he is. He hasn’t been tainted by us yet,” Brennan rumbled, and his words had me flinching inside.
Because they were true.
And in his eyes, I knew he was being candid and earnest, and it killed me.
For a second, my heart pounded, and the sensation of being trapped was so all-consuming that I wasn’t sure what to do.
I’d done the right thing. I’d helped someone in need, but I should have stayed out of it, and now my boy was going to pay the price for that.
Suddenly feeling like I had a melon lodged in my throat, I stared at him and I saw sympathy etched in his features.
Sympathy.
I closed my eyes, clenching them tightly because I couldn’t cope with that look.
“Don’t even think about running,” he warned me, but it wasn’t really a warning, it was more of a gentle reminder.
My mouth tightened. “You think I don’t know the drill?”
“You forgot it once upon a time,” he rasped, making me flinch.
“Because I had sense.”
“No, you’d have had sense to stay gone,” he told me, and again, his honesty hit me square in the gut. “You always were good people though, Aela. I’ll have your back if ever the time comes where you need it.”
I gaped at him, unable to believe he handed me that offer.
Everyone knew it was the O’Donnellys against the world. Against the universe. And truth was, they needed to be so tight-knit. They were the head of the Five Points, the one and only Irish Mob family in the tristate area because, long ago, Aidan O’Donnelly Sr. had taken over every other piece of the puzzle and consolidated it, establishing himself as king of the hill a long time before I was born.
As a result, they were the most powerful family on the East Coast. The billionaires and one-percenters thought they were powerful, but that was nothing compared to the clout the O’Donnellys had.
I’d been born revering them like they were the second coming of Jesus though.
The O’Donnellys, for all they were headed by a psychopath, were good leaders. Everyone respected them, loved them even. It was rare to get a traitor in the midst, and not only because Aidan would cut you like a motherfucker either, but because they earned it.
They treated the commoners like they treated the lieutenants—sure, the pay was less, but the respect wasn’t. And for people who did the running, who were the most likely to be tossed in jail or prison for the crap they did for the family, respect meant everything.
Feeling tired, I got to my
feet because I didn’t want to be dealing with any of this now. I just... I didn’t even know what I was doing here.
I should have been running far and wide across the Atlantic, but there was no stone I knew the family would leave unturned now that I was in the picture.
Now that Seamus was in the picture.
My jaw clenched and I started to walk toward the door, toward Brennan.
When his hand reached out to grab my arm, and he turned me to face him, I looked up at him and muttered, “I’ll probably need your help in the upcoming weeks. You might regret offering me the olive branch.”
He shrugged. “You think I’m frightened of Dec, laoch?” His lips twitched, and he revealed the slightest of smiles that, along with his Gaelic endearment, would melt any woman’s heart.
Just not mine.
Mine belonged to the bastard on the bed.
The bastard who’d almost died on the bed. Twice.
When I’d learned he’d been shot, I’d been unable to stay away. For years, I’d pushed distance between us, uncaring what he did or what happened to him, just living with survival instincts in mind.
But the second I’d known he might be dying?
I’d had no alternative but to come and see for myself.
Thanks to a few misspoken words when I thought the love of my life, the father of my son, was about to leave this world forever, my kid’s future was in jeopardy. I’d hate myself for it if I hadn’t been traumatized by the sight of Declan as a bunch of surgeons, in this illegal hospital, gathered around him and started to cut his chest wide open.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 1