by Tiffany Sala
Devin nodded. “Some of my cousins live up that way, they would pick me up to stay with them knowing it was too hard for my mother to keep track of what I was getting up to. She didn’t like me being around them at all, but my father said it was important for me to be surrounded by male role models. It didn’t matter so much to him whether they were responsible or not… they just had to be a little older than me. So they were responsible for me that day, but they had no sense of responsibility, so once they saw what had happened to me, they retreated to a safe distance. I was kicking, struggling; Mahoney kept saying over and over he’d show me what I would get if I kept trying to cross him like that. I had no idea what he was even talking about of course, I had only the slightest clue about the whole project. And I think he knew that too—I think he had to see a kid like me couldn’t have masterminded this.”
I wanted to beg him to stop, but the scar on his leg glared me down, keeping me silent.
“I think your mother took you out of the room, complaining it wouldn’t be good for you to see, but she came back quickly to watch. I nearly slipped out of his hands entirely in the distraction, he was getting something together I could see in flashes and all I knew was I didn’t like it. He called her in to help and they were fighting about it while he tried to get me in position.”
“Devin, you don’t—”
“He put his little brand on my leg, right there, because it was the part that was most convenient when he was ready. He didn’t get long to do that either, as soon as it touched me I was fighting ten times harder, so they let me go fast after he’d done enough and I was all the way back to where my cousins were hiding before I realised what had happened, really processed the pain. They were trying to get me into their car but I was starting to go a bit mental, I thought I still needed to fight. They just got the hell out of there at first, as far away as they could, rather than seeing what state I was in… by the time I got to a doctor, I was feverish, the wound was a mess. Lucky I didn’t get infected, so they say.”
A crazy story: I had been there when he was brutalised by my parents. Had been within earshot of his screams. I could never have done anything but believe him, though. It was all laid out before me now: the scar he knew I would recognise, the—
In my horror I asked questions that were not the ones I really needed answers to. “I saw what you did to that man who tried to hurt me, Devin. My parents, they hired him to kidnap me back.” The most intense display of horror I had ever seen on his face. “He didn’t hurt me, but he wanted to show me what you’d done. You punished him the way—after—”
“It is the greatest display of cruelty I can think of,” said Devin, “so I reserve it for people whose acts are so lacking in moral depth they deserve nothing better.”
I nodded. It was a better answer than I had ever expected.
“I just can’t believe they did that to you, a child… They must have made a mistake in the heat of things.”
“There was no mistake, Julia. They made that clear to me as I tried to escape. Not too young to learn what happens to little shits who poke their nose in, was something like what he said.”
Daddy was he to Devin: someone he’d been deeply harmed by at an age when it really mattered. It was a horrible thought, and I’d never really believed my father was a ‘good’ man. “No wonder your mother can’t stand me.”
Devin adjusted his pants back into place and began to redo his belt with his chin up high as if to pretend he didn’t know his hands were shaking. “Actually, it has nothing to do with it. She would have given you more of a chance if you’d crawled into the fray as a preschooler and helped them to hold me down. It pisses her off to this day that they were able to do that to me—that I let them do it. I was the one most at fault, in her eyes.”
My first instinct was to look away, but I made a point of turning my face back, meeting his eyes. He deserved to see that I knew what it was like, what it meant. “These parents, Devin. Why do we allow them to continue to have this grip on our lives?”
Devin put his hand out and took gentle hold of my cheek. “If we were ordinary people, Julia, we would have discarded them from our lives already. But it can’t be like that for those of us who were born on this slightly darker path. We cannot afford to burn anyone who might be even slightly more inclined to act in our favour.”
It might have been the first time he was telling me something meaningful about the life I needed to occupy without trying to antagonise me at the same time. I was honest in my response, but I tried to be delicate, too. “It sounds like too much.”
He stroked my cheekbone. “That is why it is so important that we become a team. We know how to take care of one another. Nobody else will do it for us.”
I reached for him, put my hand over his still fiddling with his belt buckle. I had a sudden sense that I needed to claim him when he was still in the midst of his freely-offered vulnerability. “Then claim me for your team, Devin.” I began to reverse what he had put in order, in case he couldn’t work out what I meant. “Here. Now.”
He was still resistant, pushing my hands away half-heartedly, but with his secret laid down between us there was a path for him to communicate his desire as well.
“It’s an important part of bringing this full circle,” I told him. “The last time, my parents only thought you fucked me in their house. Now, they’ll think surely we couldn’t have had enough time.”
Devin’s hands finally left mine alone and closed hard over my hips. “We don’t have enough time. If you think I would let you off easy…”
“If they bother us in the middle,” I interrupted him, “we’ll tell them to wait.” My fingertips traced over the mark marring his skin below his hip, and I saw much of the playfulness drop from his face. He had guided my hand the last time we had done this, so I would not be able to touch where he was not yet ready to accept touch.
“You know this is my mark too, Devin,” I told him. “It doesn’t have to be about them. It can be me you think of, everything we had to go through to find one another—”
“Don’t push it,” Devin warned me, and his fingers finding their way under my skirt reminded me that he was a quick study when it came to my body, and I would be indeed wiser to let him lead at a pace he could handle. But I couldn’t follow this advice completely, and nudged at him with my hips until he gave me exactly what I was wanting.
“Better than all that money I could have held onto if I’d kept out of it,” he muttered, sliding fast into me once he was decided. He put his mouth over the top of mine as I started to raise my voice. “Quiet, Julia, we’re far from done here yet.” His voice calm as he made his claim on me, though I could feel his passion in every move he made. “Petty revenge—truly, the best revenge.”
He still couldn’t express himself well, but I understood. I finally got it. Perhaps the hardest part for Devin to accept was that it was so not about revenge any more.
Chapter Nineteen
My parents nearly fell off the lounge chairs they had only recently resumed when I walked out hand in hand with Devin. Daddy’s head whipped towards the front door—he knew what had happened now.
“Hello, Mahoney,” said Devin, adopting a relaxed posture against a doorframe though I could see he was more tense than he ever was just with me. “I regret to inform you I won’t be making use of the bank account you sent me. Julia and I have opted to make other arrangements privately.”
I conspicuously adjusted the top I’d opted to keep in disarray—just as he’d made it.
“Haven’t changed a bit since you were a little tyke, O’Hare,” Mum accused. “Still poking your nose into other people’s houses where you aren’t wanted.”
Staying silent at that was too much. “Mother, I can’t believe you would dare to invoke that as some badge of honour. There is nothing smart or funny about what you did.”
“I see you are thoroughly informed about our prior history now.” Daddy was hurrying to lay a claim over this s
ituation. “I suppose the cover of darkness only works so many times with a modern girl like you, Julia.”
I curled my lip at him. “This is how crass you’re willing to be with your own daughter?”
Devin stepped in to save the situation from hopeless acrimony. “We do need to find a way to work together here.” It seemed unbelievable to me for a moment that he could do it—but of course, he had learned early what happened when communication was impossible. “I am sure it will not be long before we are engrossed in a new conflict, but we need to find a way through this one, or the coming months of preparation for the wedding will be unhappy ones for us… and if you make Julia unhappy at this time in her life, I guarantee I will find a way to make the two of you far unhappier.”
Mum put her hand up. “You are still going ahead with the wedding?”
Of course it hadn’t occurred to her yet that Devin might have developed a sincere interest in me at any point, because this had never become more than an exchange of power plays to her.
“The wedding is the only thing I’m certain about right now,” I said, even though that wasn’t true. I had no doubts about the potential between Devin and myself any more, but there were so many more complicated parts to this that I couldn’t imagine working my way through. There were my parents, obviously… but how did I tell Devin his own cousin was such a thoughtless traitor? How could I face Angel when I knew she had already completely dismissed me?
Devin had made me understand there was only so much distancing ourselves from them. So even though it riled me up—Devin practically negotiating for my exchange into his family—I made myself stay quiet for the moment, and listen.
“It is time to consider ourselves even,” Devin told my parents. “I have no further desire to engage in hostilities as might have occurred before. Obviously, for your part, you will need to stop trying to claim Julia back as if she belongs under your protection.”
I was surprised when Daddy spoke directly to me, not Devin. “You are setting yourself a terrible challenge for your first steps out into the real world, Julia.”
I just wanted to snap at him: and whose fault is it that I don’t have the skills I need? But I could see Devin’s approach was right. If we refused to put a close on this, they would not let us have a moment’s peace.
“There’s a lot of strength in me you haven’t seen yet,” I told him.
Devin went back to talking about things Daddy really cared about. “United we will shake a lot of foundations and open many doors. I don’t expect we will ever be able to work closely together, but there is no reason we cannot be seen as a team in the eyes of others.”
Mum folded her arms and shifted her weight dramatically to one hip. “Are we not good enough to work on the level of a little sneak?”
I winced at yet another malicious reminder of the history between them, but Devin was staying relatively balanced. Even as close by him as I was, I saw no further change in expression or posture. “I simply mean that I know I cannot trust you now, and it would be absurd to claim otherwise. But with that understanding clear between us, we can still each reap some benefits.”
I could see my parents were startled that he had been so honest about his mistrust. For them it was clearly quite reasonable to let a truth hide in plain sight. “What is this connection with you worth,” asked Daddy, “if you remain so suspicious?”
“At least as much as you are worth to me,” Devin returned. “And when it comes down to it, all I want from you is her.”
Knowing exactly where I came from, what I could offer, he had found me imperfect, but still worthwhile.
“And her ring,” he added.
“What?” said Mum, like she couldn’t possibly know what he was talking about. They’d confiscated it that morning and I thought they were hoping nobody would call them out on it, which said a lot about how dire a position they had gotten themselves into. Devin just had to move one eyebrow, and Mum scampered off to fetch it.
The distraction wasn’t enough to help me overwhelm the feelings I’d been grappling with before it happened. My parents looked terrified when I started crying in front of them even though I was apparently getting everything I wanted, and Devin was clearly bemused too, but he gave me a bigger smile than I’d expected him to show in the presence of the other dread Mahoneys, and promised there were far more things ahead I’d want to cry about, so I’d better pace myself.
He wasn’t kidding about that, either.
“I don’t want to see Caroline,” I told Devin. “I understand staying on good terms with parents, but she’s just a cousin. You aren’t even very close to her.”
Devin allowed a slight grimace. “Mother is, unfortunately. And in a way it’s now more important than ever that we stay close to people on our side.”
“She’s not on our fucking side!” I exploded. “That bitch pretended to be my friend so she could hand me over to my parents!”
“Julia.” Devin put his hands on my shoulders and sat me down on his hotel bed. He’d decided he wasn’t going to be outsourcing my care to his relatives any more, so we were getting used to being in very close quarters. “I am not going to tell you what to do in our relationship.” I braced for a fight. “But I would like to ask you to do this, to help me.”
I was so startled by this mild request from a man I knew could take a knife to another man’s dick and not think about it the next day, I realised I was going to agree.
Devin adjusted his jacket, because he also knew I was going to agree. It pissed me off a little, but I couldn’t say I hated his confidence. “In any case, you are wholly the wronged party here. It’s not like all those other times in your life when you’ve done something to earn a harsh response. So you should try to attend this meeting with confidence.”
I realised something we hadn’t talked about: part of Devin’s reasoning for not revealing his history with my parents for so long was my own part in it. There was a case to be made for there being something profound about the way we had been connected in that incident, and then come together later. I would definitely have felt that way if I’d known.
I was feeling that way now, but it was different. We had a recent history now: short as it was, I could decide to attach more significance to those things I couldn’t remember with open eyes.
“Anyway,” Devin added as he headed for the door, “Caroline won’t tell Mother or myself much of the story. It’d be interesting to hear what she’ll reveal to someone she feels she owes an account to.”
Seeing it as a service I was doing for Devin, an information-gathering exercise, made me far more interested in the project. I wanted to show I could pull my weight in our developing partnership.
Devin blew a startling, deadpan kiss at me before walking out the door, and I was still reeling when there was a knock, and Caroline made a wary entrance.
She closed the door behind her and stayed standing near it. “Thank you for seeing me.”
I gestured her over to the little table, where I had laid out biscuits, and started the coffee machine without asking her if she liked what I’d picked. I kind of enjoyed the feeling of being wronged. It took me back to my old days of messing with guys’ heads, except there was no need to stay up at night wondering if what I was doing was quite right.
Even while I was at the machine, I watched her carefully. “If I’m going to invite you to my wedding, I think I need answers about what happened that day. I thought we were supposed to be becoming friends.”
“We were,” Caroline started, and then she frowned. “Are you still going to invite me to your wedding, then?”
“I haven’t decided on that yet. Apparently I have to invite my parents, so it’s not like you’d be the guest letting the team down or anything.”
Caroline’s smile looked like one she’d practiced a lot for use in situations where the last thing she wanted was to smile. Even on the O’Hare side of the family, being compared to Mr. and Mrs. Mahoney was clearly not a desirable outc
ome.
“Like I said.” She picked up a cream-filled biscuit from the tray and rolled it from hand to hand. “I intended to become your friend. But also, like I said, it’s not easy in our sphere. You always have to be thinking about protecting what you already have… and in my case, my greatest asset is my relationship with Angel.”
“Oh, you are not going to tell me that you arranged for me to be kidnapped by my parents because you were jealous of my spending time with Devin’s mother. That bitch doesn’t even like me!”
Caroline grimaced. “It wasn’t exactly the smartest thing I’ve ever done…” Her face turned wicked. I knew I was about to learn a little more than I wanted to know. “Actually, when I talked to Angel about this she told me she’d tipped your parents off to where you were living. So it turns out things wouldn’t have ended up much differently for you if I hadn’t acted, although I suppose they might not have been able to deactivate the cameras so easily as the security system without my assistance.”
It was much less of a shock to hear that Angel had her own scheme already active.
“I didn’t think there was going to be a kidnapping though,” Caroline said. “You were already in such a morose state when I came to see you, I assumed that they would be waiting for you at the meeting place and you would be pretty easily convinced to go with them. I mean, who really has their own daughter snatched by thugs?”
“Caroline, meet the Mahoneys. I hear your family isn’t so fond of them already.” I pushed a coffee in front of her and sat down with my own, and for a few minutes we just studied our own cups and sipped.
“It’s not impossible for us to be friends still, you know,” Caroline spoke up finally. “Like I said before, friendships in our world get complicated quickly. At least with me… you already know what you’re getting, I guess.”
“That could be the worst offer of friendship I’ve ever had,” I told her.