She’d evidently paid to keep Seamus safe, what with all the security on hand in the house… so to let Caroline Dunbar into her life, to allow her access to Seamus, I knew she had to be close to the woman.
But that was the trouble with our world. You couldn’t trust anyone unless they were family, and even then, that didn’t always stick.
Case in point—the police hadn’t cornered anyone in the house during their sweep, which meant there was a Five Pointer roaming the streets of Rhode Island right now with a set of crosshairs between the eyes because he’d be dead before tomorrow was out. We’d been betrayed, according to Seamus’s observations, and we dealt with traitors swiftly and harshly.
Of course, he wasn’t the first traitor in recent times, so maybe we’d need to deal with this one differently. Really ram home the message that the O’Donnellys didn’t take mutiny kindly.
“Seamus, why don’t you go with the officer and tell them what happened?” Dunbar directed my nephew, but being the smart kid he was, he scowled and shook his head.
“No. I’m not leaving my mom.”
Dunbar’s mouth tightened, and she looked to Aela for backup. Only, there was none to be had.
The trouble with Caroline Dunbar was that she was persistent. A little like a bulldog. And even though I loved bulldogs, I had to admit, they weren’t always the smartest dog in the pound. She’d had the brains to realize that the way to get close to Aela was her son. But she hadn’t grasped that if she’d leveraged Seamus’s safety, then she’d have figured out a way to get information out of Aela.
By lying to her, getting close, and then letting her figure out the truth of her identity the way she had, she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a word out of Aela.
Something I was glad for, because I’d have hated to have to kill the love of my brother’s life too.
Six
Aela
I stared at the woman I’d thought I’d known, a woman I’d come to trust, a woman I liked, and regret hit me with a one-two punch.
Even when I thought I was out of the life, I hadn’t been.
I’d been as much a part of it as ever before.
Seamus trembled in my hold, and I knew why.
Throughout his life, I’d shared things about his father with him, had never hidden Declan from Shay because I’d never seen the point of it. What I hadn’t told him, until today, was the ties his father had.
I never lied to Shay. Ever. I could hedge, fudge the facts some, but this wasn’t a lie about who a guy was to me. This wasn’t me hiding that we were millionaires when I told him he couldn’t have a new PS4 when he’d broken his.
This was life.
Our life.
Declan would sometimes come home with bruises and covered in blood. Seamus would see that. He was a smart boy. He would notice those things and would ask questions.
What was I supposed to say?
Oh, your dad just walked into a bottle of ketchup.
Oh, he’s covered in red stuff again? Well, he’s into amateur dramatics, and they get a little handy with the red corn syrup.
My kid was no dummy.
Plus, when he realized how rich the family was, their status, a quick Google search on the O’Donnellys would reveal things… maybe not much, because I knew they worked hard to appear legitimate, but if anyone would find anything, it was Seamus.
He could be like a dog with a bone when he wanted to, and discovering things about his new family would be at the top of his agenda when he had a spare moment to get his thoughts in line. So I’d told him stuff no kid should have to learn, and on that very evening, he learned another aspect of his new world.
Betrayal.
Not just from his own people, but from a cop too.
I’d always tried to train him to be wary around the police. Most parents wouldn’t do that. They taught their children that 911 was their salvation, and to respect and uphold the law. I didn’t do that. Not just because of my background, but because I didn’t like being told what to do by anyone. And that was my family background coming into play, nothing to do with the Five Points.
I knew the cops would inveigle their way like cockroaches into a dirty kitchen into any and all aspects of someone’s world, pulling nasty stunts and underhanded moves to get close to the person they wanted to stick their knives into…
Case in point here.
Caro and I had been friends. We’d gone for drinks together, for God’s sake. We’d even had a dinner party where we were co-hosts! She’d been here the past few days, looking after Seamus while I was out of the house.
Had she been searching my room? Looking for information on the O’Donnellys? Because that was why she was here. Without a shadow of a doubt. She knew who Seamus’s father was.
Though I’d been a Five Pointer too, and though I wore the brand on my wrist, my folks were small fry, not big enough to require a sting operation like this, and sting it was because I’d known her for years.
Ever since I’d moved into the neighborhood.
Jesus.
What did they think they’d learn from me? What did they expect me to be able to tell them about the O’Donnellys when the last time I’d seen them was when I was a kid?
I reached up and rubbed my forehead where fatigue and stress were starting to hit me hard. I wanted to sleep, wanted to rest and close my eyes and forget there was a dead body at the foot of my bed. But I couldn’t.
One day back in Declan’s world and my house of cards was already beginning to crumble.
I pushed past Caro, needing to get away from the stench of death which was littering a bedroom I’d made my own—the first in a decade, because I’d rarely settled down for as long as this in the past.
My mouth crumpled as I nudged them out of the way, and I was, I’d admit, surprised they let me go.
“Why’s she here?” Seamus whispered.
“You know why,” I murmured, and even though I was well aware Brennan could hear every word I said, I’d done nothing wrong.
I was no threat to the O’Donnellys.
I wasn’t an idiot.
The second you ratted them out, the second you did anything to jeopardize business, you were a threat. Something to be eliminated.
And there was nowhere that would keep you safe.
Not WITSEC, not jail or prison.
They were everywhere.
But, truly, I’d never felt the need to get them into trouble. Maybe I knew things I shouldn’t. Had overheard a few conversations, picked up on some information that would get them into hot water, but I’d never share it.
Ever.
Not only because I didn’t have a death wish, but because I wasn’t raised to be a rat.
As we trudged downstairs, Caro, or whoever the fuck she was, trudged with us. I heard her heavy footsteps, and each time she moved, I wanted to twist around and tell her to get the fuck out of my home. But for the moment, that home was a crime scene, and the only people who could help me were two hundred miles away.
They were listening though. Would they send a lawyer over?
Did I even need one?
I’d acted in self-defense, after all, so in regular circumstances, I wouldn’t need one, but things were different. Caro’s presence here told me that.
Were they going to twist this around? Use it as leverage to get me to spill family secrets?
My mouth tightened at the thought, and when we made it into the living room, I told Seamus, “Don’t say a word.”
He nodded, but his gaze was wary as he moved over to the other side of the room to sit in one of the armchairs there.
I’d made this place my own too. All light beiges and creams on the walls and in the overlarge sofa and chairs, just so they could showcase the things we’d picked up over the years. The Murano glass decoration that sat atop a simple console table and was the size of a toddler. A full-size print of Aboriginal artwork that was tilted over the fireplace.
The room was
a blank, comfortable canvas that highlighted the memories of trips we’d had as a family.
It was a bold choice, considering Seamus was a boy and filth seemed to be magnetically attracted to him, but keeping things beige wasn’t too hard when you had a maid service come in twice a week.
Money changed a lot of things.
It was only when I’d had it that I realized as much. But my money was hard earned, and it was mine. Not tied to blood or death or drugs or anything illegal.
I worked hard. My clients paid a high price for my art. People were stupid enough to stalk my agent so they could have a piece of my craziness in their homes—who was I to argue?
Walking over to a copper singing bowl I’d picked up on a trip to Tibet, I started to run the baton around the outer edge. The D flat note started to ring around the room, soaring high as I tried to calm my heart, tried to tone it down. It was hard, because I could feel it fluttering in response to the current stress and the unknown of what was happening, but mostly I was concerned about Seamus.
He wanted to become a lawyer, for Christ’s sake. Even though I’d taught him never to trust the pigs, he’d formulated his own response to them, evidently, because he wanted to be integral to the process. I didn’t want to think I’d been short-sighted by informing him of the Five Points and their ties to everything illegal, but maybe I had.
Maybe I’d given him too much credit.
Just because I treated him like an adult didn’t mean he was one, and if he said anything to Caro about what I’d told him, she’d be on it like white on rice and Brennan would hear every goddamn word of it.
Sure, I could switch off the phone, but if I did that, it would look suspicious. Would look even stranger—
Damn, this was what it felt like to be between a rock and a hard place.
I sucked in a sharp breath as the singing bowl’s song soared higher until the baton collided with the rim, and it clicked discordantly as it broke the tune in two.
I let the note die down, let it fade and die as I turned around to face the woman who’d betrayed me.
“Why are you here?”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist, but I needed to pinpoint her exact reasons.
She raised her hands. “I’m sorry about the deception, Aela.”
“You’re sorry?” I repeated a little blankly. “You’re sorry that you breached my trust, my confidence, and that you’ve been, what? Snooping around every time I’ve asked you to look after my kid? What have you been doing? Looking through my lingerie every time I needed you to help me with Seamus?”
Her mouth tightened. “No. Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid?” I huffed. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s stupid. What are you doing here?” I snapped, my brittle temper shattering around me like a window after someone had pitched a baseball through it.
She squinted at me for a second, then reached up and rubbed her eyes like she was tired. “I was placed here to monitor your activity.”
My activity? For a second, I could only gape at her. What the hell had I done to incur any level of curiosity from the Feds?
Before I could implicate myself in something I didn’t even know I was implicated in, she muttered, “It came to our attention that select individuals were using your services as a means of laundering money. You were passed around like you were on Yelp, and I was placed here to monitor you and your activities, so we could use that as a means of uncovering further criminal activity.”
If I’d been gaping at her before, that was nothing compared to now.
“You’re using me to get to other people?”
“Yes.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Bullshit. Name a client who’s been laundering money through their purchases with me.”
She pursed her lips. “Donavan Lancaster?”
I hissed out a breath, hating that I had to concede that one. But in all honesty, it didn’t mean anything. Everyone knew Lancaster had been into trafficking ever since one of the women he’d tortured, some wife of an MC biker, had come forward to testify against him. The bastard was somewhere in Asia now, apparently, rocking around the continent as he evaded extradition treaties and went on one long vacation.
Prick.
And for the duration of our contract, I’d stayed in his pool house. Seamus had too.
I shuddered at the thought.
My project in New Jersey, a small town called West Orange, was the sight of one of my most adventurous pieces—a ceiling of glass balls that was crafted to represent the solar system. Lancaster had told me I could do whatever I wanted once he’d shown me the space in his living room where he wanted the art collated, and I’d gotten on with the work.
He’d even come onto me, though I’d pushed him aside, something he hadn’t liked, but I’d lied and told him I was gay. That was my standard excuse when someone was a prick and couldn’t handle rejection, and it worked like a charm—even with psychopaths like Lancaster.
“Who else?” I rasped, wanting to know more names so I could figure out how deeply they’d been looking into my work.
I paid my taxes and toed the line in all ways. They couldn’t Capone—hit me up on nonsense charges just to get me inside—me.
Well, they couldn’t before I’d shot someone in my bedroom.
But no… Brennan would never let that happen.
Declan wouldn’t either, would he? Unless he hated me for keeping Seamus from him.
Earlier today, they’d been drawing him out of the coma, but that didn’t mean he was awake and responsive, did it? Maybe he was still in the dark about being a father…?
I sucked in a breath because if he was awake, knew the truth, and did hate me, this would be the perfect way to get rid of me, wouldn’t it?
To shove me in prison. To never let me have access to my son—
“Mom?”
Seamus’s voice cut through the panic. I twisted to look at him and saw he was staring at me oddly, but his gaze was relatively calm considering the crap we were going through together.
I sucked in a breath, turned back to Caro, and demanded, “Which other clients?”
“Gianni Kilhain. Matthew Wright-Smythe.”
I frowned at her. “What about them? They’re just businessmen.”
“They’re Lancaster’s associates.”
Panic flickered through me, but I growled, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I never said you had. I already told you, you were a means of monitoring criminal activity.” She pursed her lips. “Who’s the guy on your bedroom floor, Aela?”
“Ms. O’Neill to you,” I sniped, twisting around to look at my singing bowl again. “And I have no idea who he is. I just know that he—” My throat tightened. “I believe he took out one of my guards, and then broke into the house.”
“One of your guards?” she repeated, and I heard the slight quiver in her voice, the slightest of intonations that told me this went so much deeper than her so-called look into my client list. “Why do you have guards? You didn’t have them this morning, Aela.”
“Security threat,” I told her blandly. “Apparently, I hired them just in damn time too.” My mouth tightened, but before I could say another word, there was a tap on my door.
I didn’t even have to head out into the hall to let them in, the guy just strode in, his suit expensive, his briefcase even more expensive, and the watch on his wrist was more than Caro made in a year as a government stooge.
I looked at it, studied the lawyer on the whole, then smirked at her.
Because I knew exactly what he was, and so did Caro from the outrage in her eyes. My lips forged a smile that told her the interview was over now.
For good.
DECLAN
“They did what?” I roared, ignoring the intensity of the heart monitor as it started to practically sing a choral aria as my pulse soared. “They had the Feds on her?”
Brennan scowled at me as he folded his arms over his chest, but it was Co
nor who replied, “There’s no point in getting stressed, Declan. She did well.”
She did well?
I almost wanted to wheeze at that, because she shouldn’t have to do fucking well.
She hadn’t set eyes on me in over a decade, and here she was, a few days in, and she’d been a part of an attack by a Famiglia goon, had been betrayed by one of her own, had to kill someone, had the cops in her house, and learned a federal agent had been a mole… what was the cherry on the sundae? Her not being arrested?
Fuck.
I scraped a hand over my face as I demanded, “Where is she now?”
“As good as French is, even he couldn’t circumvent basic police protocol. She had to stay and be interviewed, give a statement. Seamus too.” My entire being tensed at the prospect of my flesh and blood being interviewed by pigs. “Then, the house needed to be bagged and tagged. Her street was a crime scene.”
“Rogan’s dead,” Conor inserted softly.
My eyes flared. “Fuck. You need to go and speak with his ma.”
Brennan nodded. “Already did that. I’ve had Aidan handle the details on the funeral arrangements. Should happen in a few days’ time.”
“Jesus, what a waste. He was good at what he did.”
Conor heaved a sigh. “He was the only guard Ma actually liked. It’s going to be tough on her learning that he died.”
“This entire situation is going to be hard,” Brennan murmured, and the lack of sympathy in his voice wasn’t surprising since he rarely had much intonation.
Brennan, more often than not, sounded bored shitless. Like he either couldn’t give a fuck or just had zero opinion on anything. Which I knew was bullshit. In recent years, he’d taken a step forward since Aidan Jr., my eldest brother, had been shot, and we’d started going to him with all our problems and not Aid.
He was a smart fucker, wasted on his job on the streets, but you couldn’t tell Da shit. He did what he wanted—always had, always would—and because Aidan was the heir and Brennan merely the spare, Da often let Brennan go to waste.
Well, we didn’t.
We knew his worth.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 8