by Maura Rose
For a moment her mother just looked at her, deadly calm in her eyes.
Then she struck.
She grabbed Kathleen by the hair, yanking her out of the room. Kathleen shrieked in surprise. Her mother would yell and manipulate and scold but she never actually laid a hand on any of her children, not like Dad had.
Only now, as Kathleen kicked and struggled, she found her mother was unusually strong, dragging Kathleen through the house to her bedroom where she threw her in like so much garbage. Kathleen landed hard on the floor, her knees protesting, pain shooting up her legs. She’d definitely bruised something. And her scalp stung like crazy from her mother’s grip.
“You are doing what I say,” Mom snapped, her hand resting on the doorknob. “You won’t be sneaking off anymore, seeing whoever you like, like you’re some tart. You’re staying here, and marrying Dodgson, and you’ll be grateful I didn’t pick someone worse for you.”
Kathleen stumbled to her feet. “Mom, no—”
Her mother slammed the door shut and Kathleen heard the lock clicking.
She banged on the door with her hands, yelling, but nobody came, nobody, until she sank to her knees and smothered a sob.
She had to get out. She had to.
Chapter Seven
Brian hadn’t wanted to set up the rendezvous at their coffee shop.
That was their coffee shop. Their safe place. Their haven. He couldn’t do that to Kathleen, bring two strangers into the place that they considered to be just for the two of them, a place where Kathleen felt safe and happy.
He didn’t know a whole lot about abusive relationships, he could admit that up front. But he did know that Kathleen didn’t feel safe in her own home or in her family’s territory and this was the place where she was happy, the place she’d chosen as her getaway, and he didn’t want to ruin that by bringing in stress.
But Sean and Bridget were understandably impatient. “If you ask her to meet with us and we set up another meeting time and place, between now and then something might happen,” Sean explained. “Especially if her mother is volatile. The McCourts have tried to start a war with us twice. We don’t know when they’ll try again, but we can be safe in guessing that they will. It’s only a matter of time.”
So here he was, walking up to their coffee shop, to sit Kathleen down and have Sean and Bridget join him and… well… hopefully she wouldn’t see it as an ambush.
Sean and Bridget would explain to Kathleen who they were, and Brian would explain that he hadn’t known who Kathleen was and Bridget had been the one to put the pieces together.
God, he hoped that she wasn’t angry with him. He hadn’t had any idea who she was. Maybe if he’d known that the McCourt woman had a daughter named Kathleen, just maybe… but she hadn’t told him her last name and it wasn’t as though he’d been honest with her about who he was connected to—for her own protection, of course. He didn’t think she’d be angry with him for not telling her he was with the mafia. How did you spring that kind of thing on a girl? But he did think she might be upset, thinking he’d manipulated her, and he hadn’t. He really, truly hadn’t.
He only hoped she would listen and understand.
Brian paused, looking around. Oddly, Kathleen wasn’t there.
She was usually the first one to show up. But she might be running late.
He sat down and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But Kathleen didn’t show up.
After about half an hour had passed, Bridget emerged from where she’d been sitting at one of the reading chairs in the bookstore with Sean. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Brian answered honestly. “She’s always here. I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
“Can you contact her any other way?”
“No, we never exchanged phone numbers or anything. To keep her safe. We couldn’t risk her mum finding out.”
Bridget made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “Well we can’t sit around all day.”
“Then don’t. Look, something might be wrong. She’s never not shown up before. I’ll come back tomorrow and see what’s up. Maybe she’ll come then.”
He couldn’t explain it, but his stomach felt like someone had dropped lead into it. The feeling only increased as Bridget and Sean left, and Kathleen still didn’t show up.
Something was wrong. Something had happened to her. Had her mother finally gotten physical? Had she attacked Kathleen? Was Kath hurt somewhere or worse and he couldn’t help her because he didn’t know?
Or what if it wasn’t her mother, what if it had been something as mundane as a car accident or a mugging? What if just by happenstance something bad had happened?
It hit him like a freight train that he had no idea how to contact Kathleen or her family if something was wrong. If she got hit by a car and died he’d have no idea.
Fuck.
When he got back to his apartment that evening, he let Bridget know that there was still no word from Kathleen. He could feel Bridget’s suspicions even through a text message. She didn’t say it outright, of course. Bridget was too considerate of his feelings for that. But he could sense it anyway.
She thought that Kathleen might have known who he was, that Kath might’ve been setting him up somehow or using him.
Which was bloody ridiculous. Kathleen didn’t have a fake bone in her body.
He collapsed onto the couch, wondering what the hell had happened. Something, he was sure of it. His gut was tense and coiled like a snake. Waiting.
His phone went off and Brian jumped. The number wasn’t familiar.
Suspicion rising, he answered the call. “Hello?”
“Brian?” It was Kathleen, and she sounded like she’d been crying.
“Kath!” He jumped to his feet. “Kath, hey, you all right?”
“I’m—I need you to come get me. I’m at the bus stop down the street from the coffee shop, the one with the poster about the new time travel show?”
“Right, yeah, I know it.” He put his shoes back on and grabbed his coat. “What happened?”
“My mom—I’ll explain when you get here but she locked me in my room. I had to break a window to get out.”
Jesus Christ. “I’m on my way, I’ll be there.”
He drove like a maniac to get there, rounding the corner and spying a forlorn figure huddled at the bus stop. Kath had her head covered, like she was trying to hide herself, and was wearing old jeans and a hoodie—clothes that were the opposite of his dress-loving, sophisticated-looking girl.
Brian parked the car and got out. “Kath?”
She looked up, and he saw that her eyes were rimmed with red and had dark circles under them. “Brian, thank god.”
She ran over and he hugged her to his chest, making soothing noises as she cried. “What happened?”
“My younger brother Pat saw us. He told my mom and she was—she was furious, she locked me in my room and told me she’d arranged a marriage for me.”
“She’d what?” That made sense if Kathleen was a McCourt. Mob families arranged marriages all the time. But it was still cruel, and bullshit. “Don’t worry, Kath, you’re safe with me now, love.”
He guided her to the car and helped her get in. “I was stuck there for days. I tried to fight when she came in to bring me food but I never won. So I waited until she was out and I threw my desk chair at the window until it smashed open, and I climbed out.”
Kath held up her arms, showing the scrapes and bruises and small cuts.
“Jesus.” Brian got into the car. “I can take you to my place, get you patched up. But Kath, there’s something you need to know—”
Kathleen shook her head. “There’s something I have to tell you. You’re not safe. Brian, my family—”
“They’re the McCourts, I know,” Brian replied.
Kathleen stared at him. “You know?” she whispered.
“Not until yesterday. I was tell
ing my cousin about you and she figured it out.”
“Your cousin?”
Brian grimaced. Ah, this wasn’t going to be fun. “My cousin is Bridget Donaghue, married to Sean Donaghue, head of the…”
“The Donaghue family.” Kathleen sank back against the seat, closing her eyes. “And I had no idea,” she murmured.
Brian started up the car and pulled out into the street. It was best they keep moving. Kathleen’s mom had to have sent men out looking for her. Every shadow could hold a gunman. “I’m a runner for them. Came from Ireland a few months ago.”
“That’s why you’re in Sokolov territory,” Kathleen murmured. “My friend—Kate, she’s married to the head of the family. Kate’s from another Irish family, so we grew up as friends. She agreed to let me go into Sokolov territory to get breaks from my mother. I never thought…”
“Bridget and Sean want your mother out of the way,” Brian admitted quietly. “And they want to see if you’ll help overthrow her.”
Kath stiffened and looked at him. “You’re serious?”
Brian nodded.
“But—it would be easier to just hold me for ransom or something.”
“That would start a war without an end in sight. But if you help them, if you can get the lieutenants over to your side…”
Kath rubbed her temples. “My brothers. I have no idea what they’d think. It’s been kind of assumed that I’m the heir but I don’t know if they’ll take the chance…”
“I don’t see that we have any other choice, Kath,” Brian pointed out. The car crossed the boundary into Donaghue territory and he started to breathe a little easier. Unlike country borders, the borders of mob family territories weren’t easily marked. Those outside of the families didn’t know the borders existed at all. A particular deli, a street intersection, all served as landmarks to let those in the know be aware of how the lines were drawn.
Kathleen nodded. “I know. She’ll come after us either way. She’s going to be furious with me. Her pride’s wounded so that’ll make it all worse.”
“Do you want to run your family? Would you rather have one of your brothers do it?”
Kathleen snorted. “One of them? Are you kidding me? John’s never cared one way or another. He does what he’s told to do and that’s it. Nothing more than that. Pat’s just a little shit. I’m the one who knows how it all works, I do the booking and all.”
“Then you want to run it?”
Kathleen sat back in her seat. “I’ve thought about it,” she admitted quietly. “Recently. Because… because of you, and what you’ve said. You’re right that I shouldn’t have to put up with her. But this book thing—I want to be a writer but nobody says I can’t be a writer and do this too. And pinning all of my hopes on a novel, that sounds a little pie in the sky. But if… if your family really will help me…”
“If you’re friends with Kate Sokolov you could get her on your side too. Bet you anything. I hear they already prefer us over the McCourts. They helped us out on the sly when the daughter of one of our lieutenants was kidnapped by your mother.”
“My mother kidnapped someone?” Kathleen’s eyes went wide.
“I’m guessing she didn’t tell you that.”
“No.” Kathleen’s voice went hard and sharp. “No, she didn’t.”
Her hands clenched into fists. Brian reached over and took one, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the knuckles, soothing her.
Then he made a mental note to reach out to his family back home. They’d all had their share of disagreements over the years, but none of them were as bad as what was going on with Kathleen’s family. He should start showing them a little more appreciation for not being such massive abusive dicks. Fuck’s sake.
Kathleen looked over at him. “Take me to Sean Donaghue.”
Brian raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?” He didn’t want Kathleen to be rushing into anything.
“My mother has to be stopped. And I’m not going to spend my whole life running from her or worrying about what she’ll do. I’m done being scared. I deserve to run the family. Not my brothers, and not her. I’ve been supporting her this whole time. It’s my turn to get what I deserve.”
“You’re bloody well right it is,” Brian encouraged her. If this was what Kath wanted, he wasn’t going to stop her.
Kath smirked at him. “I’ve told you your accent is hot as fuck, right?”
“Down, girl.”
Kathleen laughed and he turned the corner that would take them not to his apartment, but to the Donaghue household.
Where he just hoped Sean and Bridget would treat Kathleen the way she deserved.
Chapter Eight
Kathleen couldn’t hide the fact that she was nervous.
She knew Brian could see it. She was shaking slightly as they pulled up to the discreet brownstone and got out of the car. It wasn’t too late in the evening, but dusk was falling quickly and it made the shadows long, made her instinctively look around to see if she was being watched or followed.
“You’re all right,” Brian said quietly, his hand at the small of her back as he led her up to the building. “Nobody will hurt you. I wouldn’t let them.”
Kathleen knew that there was some kind of security in place. There always was. Whether it was a jogger, or someone sitting in a car, or the homeless man on a bench—families always had someone playing lookout.
It didn’t exactly help with her paranoia.
Brian knocked on the front door, which was opened by a heavily pregnant redhead. “I saw you from the window,” she said. Her gaze flicked over to Kathleen. “You must be the Kathleen we’ve heard so much about.”
That seemed to be a jab at Brian, who rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, forgive me for not giving you every detail of my sex life, Bridge, jeez.”
This must be Bridget, then. She stepped aside to allow Brian to lead Kathleen into the house, closing the door behind them.
“Are you hungry?” Bridget asked. “We just finished dinner but there’s leftovers if you want…”
“I’m all right, thank you,” Kathleen replied. Truth be told, Mom hadn’t given her much to eat over the last few days, trying to starve her out a bit, but if she tried to eat right now she’d throw up from nerves.
“All right then. Follow me.”
Bridget led them upstairs—moving slowly in deference to her condition—to a large office, where a handsome, dangerous looking dark-haired man was sitting. “Sean, Brian’s here. He has the McCourt heir.”
Kathleen straightened up, trying to look like Sean Donaghue’s equal and not like a scared little girl. Once she took over from her mother she would, in fact, be his equal and it was time she started acting like it.
Sean stood up, looking her over carefully like she might have a bomb hidden on her somewhere. “You’re Kathleen, then,” he said finally. “Heard a lot about you over the years. Shame we’re only just meeting now.”
“I agree,” she replied, struggling to keep her voice steady.
Sean raised an eyebrow. “We have a proposition for you.”
“Brian told me on the way here.” Kathleen paused. This was it. This was the moment. After this, there was no going back.
She found that she definitely didn’t want to go back. “I’m willing to help you take over my mother. With my inside knowledge you could win a war handily. Especially if I can get word to the lieutenants. At least half of them would be loyal to me, I’m sure. My brother John, I think, would be loyal to me as well.”
“You have two brothers.”
She remembered how Pat had turned her in, the way he’d smirked at her, his superior air. “Don’t kill him. I’ll deal with him myself.”
It would be her first act as the new head of the family. It would set an example to everyone else. An example of discipline and mercy.
Brian whistled. “You’re a piece of work, Kathleen McCourt.” There was nothing but admiration in his voice.
“I’m friends with t
he wife of the head of the Sokolovs,” Kathleen went on. “I could get them to fight with us, bolster our numbers.”
“The Sokolovs have been friends to us in the past,” Sean acknowledged. “I have reason to think they’ll help us.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping,” Kathleen added quickly.
Bridget and Sean stared at her. Her stomach twisted. “Brian told me about it. Someone—the daughter of one of your lieutenants, my mother had her kidnapped. I didn’t know until just now. And I wanted to say I’m sorry. And that nothing like that will happen when I’m in charge.”
Sean Donaghue walked up to her, staring intently at her.
Brian took a step forward, as if to put himself between her and Sean. Sean paused, smiling faintly. “I’m not going to hurt her, Brian.” He looked back at Kathleen. “We’re risking a lot, putting you in charge. I’m sick and tired of having your family stab me in the back. Damn hard to get the knife out from there. But it’s still a risk to do this. I hope you’ll prove worth it.”
“You can stay here tonight,” Bridget said. “Where we can keep an eye on you, just in case. And we have plenty of security. Your mother can’t get to you here.”
“If she stays, then I’m staying,” Brian said.
Kathleen’s heart squeezed. Of course he was staying for her. The first man she’d felt safe around, the man who’d been her harbor and her escape.
Bridget looked amused. “Very well. I’ll have the guest room made up.”
Sean offered an arm out to his wife to help her as they exited the room and went back downstairs. Brian coughed. “She’s always been a firecracker, sorry.”
“No, I like her. And Sean.”
“You don’t have to lie.”
“I’m not. I don’t… like them as friends, necessarily, but as fellow leaders, yes, I like them. They’re people I can see myself doing business with. That’s what matters.”
Brian took a step closer to her. “And what about me?” he asked, his voice dropping down low.