by Hart, Gemma
It was hard not to associate Halle with the word ‘delicate.’
Especially since a lot of other words also fit the bill like ‘beautiful,’ ‘sweet,’ or ‘goddamn fuckable.’
“Have you always been so into numbers?” I asked suddenly.
Halle looked up, clearly a little taken aback by my question. She pursed her lips as she thought.
“Well, kind of,” she said. “I’d always kind of been a bit of an organizer.” A faint smile played in her eyes as if she was recalling a long ago memory. “My dad always called me the general because I would want to help with the household budget and bills. He used to joke with me at the end of every month, asking what his allowance would be for the next month.”
I smiled imagining a small Halle, all blonde hair and blue eyes and laughter. I could see how adorable she would’ve been, organizing a house by herself.
“Where was your mom in all this? She must’ve been thrilled to have someone like you as a daughter,” I said.
Halle’s smile took on a more wistful note. It didn't falter but it did dim. She looked up at me, meeting my gaze directly. “She died in birth,” she said simply. “There was a complication with her pregnancy and I ended up being delivered by emergency C-section eight weeks early. But even with that,” she sighed, “she didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately and meaning it.
Halle gave a dismissive wave of her hand a shake of her head. “It was a long time ago.”
A quiet lull fell between us as we both let our own thoughts take over. So Halle had missed out on a mother figure just as I had. The only difference though was that I was pretty damn sure her mother would’ve given her right arm to have been able to raise her daughter. My mother couldn’t wait for the check to clear so she could leave me and the horrible memory of childbirth behind her.
“So it was just me and dad,” she said, her eyes brightening up a bit at the mention of her dad.
“And where’s the old man now?” I asked, wondering what kind of man her father was. A good man, surely, to have raised a fearless girl like Halle. And yet, I was sure he wouldn’t be entirely pleased to know she was living and working so dangerously as an adult.
This time Halle’s smile did falter and a wet sheen took over her eyes. “Cancer,” she said. “Liver cancer. He went quickly and without too much suffering. If nothing else, I guess I could be thankful for that.”
If I could trade Roy’s life for Halle’s father, I would’ve in a heartbeat.
Halle sighed and ran a hand through her hair, clearing away the lingering sadness. “I was a pretty happy as a child growing up. Never really was too sad or lonely about being an only child. But it was when my dad died that I really wished I had a sibling.” She looked up and shrugged. “It can be a little lonely being an only child, don’t you think?”
I gave her my own shrug. “I wouldn’t really know,” I said. “I’m not an only child.”
Halle’s hand paused mid-stroke in her hair. She looked up at me with her mouth slightly agape. “Yes you are,” she said dumbly.
My lips twitched in amusement. “Oh I am?” I said. “An expert on me, are we? Got a file on my background and history somewhere?”
Halle’s cheeks flamed at my teasing. She looked away and coughed. “Well, I’ve only heard of one Desmond son.”
“That’s because there’s only one recognized Desmond son,” I said, quickly sobering up.
Halle’s brow creased, confused.
“To Roy Desmond, nobody is born a Desmond,” I said. “You earn the name. And you better be goddamn worth it, if you want it.” I picked up a heavy paperweight and rolled it in my hand. “My brother was born nine years after me. He was small and weak from the start. Nearly died as a newborn.”
I remembered that tiny little baby. I remembered hardly feeling its weight at all when he had been placed in my arms. My first friend. That had been my first thought. After years of being beaten and bruised and toughened, I looked into the tiny face of my first friend.
I gave another shrug. “And that was the start of it. He was just a weak boy. He had poor health and was constantly sick. He couldn’t do any kind of real work for the Family. And Roy didn’t want to recognize somebody who, in his eyes, was so worthless.”
Halle looked shocked and saddened. “But that’s not his fault!” she cried out. “It wasn’t his fault he was always so sick.” She looked at me as if wanting me to confirm what she had said.
But I could already tell my face had set into a stony neutrality that always fell when I talked about Roy. Roy Desmond, the man who defied medical science by having a rock for a heart.
“Where is he?” she asked, suddenly looking around the office as if she would find him hiding in a corner. “I’ve been here for weeks. I’ve never seen your brother. He’s…He’s still….”
I could tell where her thoughts were going by the paleness of her expression.
“England,” I said quickly. “He’s in England.”
Halle sighed in relief. “Oh thank goodness,” she said in one breath. “But why so far away? Is he receiving some kind of special treatment there?”
I pressed my lips, feeling tension creeping into my shoulders. A flash of blood and anger shot through my mind.
“When my brother was just turning eighteen, Roy ordered a job. It wasn’t a big one. Basically meet up with one of our distributors who had gotten a little out of line and send him a warning to get his shit together.” I squeezed the paperweight, feeling like I could expel all my anger into the round marble. “But Roy wanted to send my brother out on the job along with one of the guys. Said it was time he proved himself to be worthy of being a Desmond.”
“Did he go?” Halle asked, spellbound to the story.
I nodded. “Oh he did. He’d been dying his whole life for Roy’s approval and was eager for the opportunity to prove himself. Nevermind the fact that the kids had just recovered from a bout of pneumonia six days earlier.”
Hall shook her head, her eyes unbelieving. “You stopped him though, right?”
My jaw tightened along with my throat. “I should’ve,” I said. “But I wasn’t there. I was on my way back from a job down south. I wouldn’t get back till it was too late.”
At my words, Halle paled noticeably. “But he’s alive,” she whispered. “You said he was in England.”
I gave a humorless snort as I continued on. “Throwing an untrained kid into a dangerous situation worked out just as you’d imagine. Our distributor saw the newbie for what he was and played aggressive, pulling out a gun on them. Our man pulled his out too and they had a showdown which ended in our distributor getting his head blown off.” I tightened my grip on the paperweight. “But not before he shot my brother twice in the back.”
Halle’s eyes were nearly as large as the paperweight in my hand. “No,” she said breathlessly.
“I got back in time to see him being brought back bloody and pale. He looked like he had lost half his blood.”
“Wait!” Halle cried out. “Why would he be brought back here? He should’ve been taken to the hospital immediately!”
I gave her a sharp look. “Family rules. No matter what happens, whether shot, stabbed, or even poisoned, you come back to the compound. Always.” The incredulity in Halle’s eyes was understandable but unwarranted. This was a common practice in most crime families. You had to control how many outsiders meddled in Family affairs. And usually you had your own set of doctors in your pocket that you’d want to call before you sent one of your own to the hospital.
“Eventually, he was sent to the hospital. And that's when I told Roy,” I said, my voice sounding tinny and far away even to my own ears.
“Told him what?”
“I told him that I was fucking done. I was done with the Family and I was done with him. I told him that I was going to take my brother and leave. I would ask nothing of Roy, no money, no holdings, as long as he let us go quietly.”
A beat of silence fell between us, amplifying the magnitude of my words.
“And what did he say in response?” Halle whispered, aware that the answer couldn’t have been a good one.
I paused, letting the memory flood back, before throwing my head back and sucking in a quick breath. I dropped the paperweight back on the desk and straightened my back. I looked down at Halle and gave her a quick humorless smile.
“He said that the moment I stepped off the compound, he would call his men at the hospital to cut my brother’s throat.” Halle gasped but I hardly heard it. The memory was still fresh in my mind.
“You’re a Desmond, boy,” Roy had growled at me, slamming his fist on his desk. “That means you follow my orders. And no Desmond is a deserter. No Desmond is a fucking pussy. You try to sneak out of this Family and I’ll kill that weak piece of shit you call a brother.”
I had stood before him, my hands still covered in my brother’s blood, as I stared at him with a roiling hatred that went beyond anything I had ever felt before.
I should’ve expected the answer. I was too valuable to the Family. I was too good. My skills that I had developed to keep me safe from Roy’s bruising punches and sadistic training methods had become my prison walls. He couldn’t afford to lose someone like me. And damn it all, he would do anything to keep me here.
“But he knew I wouldn’t just stay because he told me to,” I said. “So he said he’d allow my brother to leave. He could leave and live a life removed from the Desmond Mafia and would be safe and taken care of as long as I knew my role.”
As long as I kept working and killing and playing for the Desmond Family.
For Roy.
“So your brother is safe,” Halle said after a pause.
“For now,” I said. How safe can anyone be when connected to the Desmond Family? And from the way Halle was worrying her bottom lip, I can tell she was thinking the same thing.
“But he’s so far away,” she said softly. “You can’t even visit him regularly.”
“But they have some of the best therapists for someone like him.”
Her brow creased. “Someone like him?” she asked, confused. “A crime lord’s son?”
“A paraplegic.”
Halle’s mouth dropped open.
“The shots severed his spine,” I explained. “He’ll never walk again.”
A son crippled by his own fucking father. The blood of many were on Roy Desmond’s hands but the blood that shone the darkest was the blood of his youngest child.
A silence of rage, confusion, fear, doubt, horror mingled between us. No words were said as we were left to our own thoughts.
When I stood up, Halle nearly jumped in surprise, so lost in her own thoughts she had been.
I headed towards the door but before I could leave, Halle called out, “Wait.”
I turned.
She raised those luminous eyes towards me. “Why did you tell me this?” she asked. “Why…” she paused, struggling to explain her confusion. “tell me this?”
I pressed my lips, considering. Then gave a casual shrug. I had wondered that as well.
“Maybe,” I said slowly, “I just wanted someone to know.” I looked over her heart shaped face enveloped in a cascade of blonde waves. “Maybe I just wanted to make sure someone knew about me and my brother….In case.”
“In case what?” Halle pressed.
There was a lot of risk ahead. A lot of danger. I had to tread lightly but even with careful footing, there could still be problems. Fatal problems. I had no guarantees anything was going to work.
All I could do was try.
“Just in case,” I said giving her a smile.
Halle stared at me, clearly worried and confused.
When I reached the doorway, she called out again.
“Wait, Marco,” she said.
I turned once more.
She paused, biting her lip. Finally she asked, “What’s your brother’s name?”
I paused. “Jamie,” I answered. “His name is Jamie.”
Chapter Fifteen
Halle
“You’re telling me after living under the same roof as the man for weeks, you have nothing new to tell us about Marco Desmond?” Agent Truman demanded, flabbergasted.
I nodded my head firmly. “He is very suspicious of others and stays to himself a lot. I would draw a lot of suspicion if I were to continually approach him on my own.”
Agent Truman and Hadfield stared at me through their computer camera.
I sat still on my bed, keeping my face as calm as possible.
Of course I had learned a lot about Marco Desmond. More than I had ever even thought possible.
The memory of Jamie and the pain on Marco’s face as he spoke of his brother crossed my mind.
But there was a deep, gut feeling that told me none of that should be revealed to the FBI. Firstly, Jamie had nothing to do with the Juarez deal. And after hearing about how much the younger Desmond son had suffered, there was no way that I was no going to risk having him suffer more by possibly losing his only brother.
But besides Jamie, everything else I’d learned about Marco seemed un-shareable.
That was silly, obviously. I was an FBI agent sent undercover to do exactly that—dig up facts on Marco Desmond and try to lure him into giving away important details on the upcoming deal.
But the more time I spent with Marco Desmond, the more I realized that there was something more to this man than his reputation. He wasn’t just brute force or schmoozing womanizer.
He was sharp, he was calculating, he was rough, he was protective, he was seductive, he was cool, he was powerful, he was tortured.
And he was mine.
The thought hit me like a cold waterfall. But the words rang true as a clear bell in my heart.
I didn’t know when it happened but I found myself slowly claiming the ruthless hitman as my own. He was mine and I refused to put him up as bait for the FBI. He was a Desmond, true, but he was not Roy Desmond. He was not the cruel monster his father was.
Marco had literally been beaten into the killer he was today and for the most part, the only reason why he remained a member of the Desmond Mafia was for Jamie.
I had come into this case, expecting to sift through details like they were a matter of black or white decisions. But instead I had fallen into a world of gray and I realized there was a richer world here in the middle than there was in the extremes.
The middle was where all the heartache and pain and love and warmth came from.
Agent Hadfield did his best to give me a once-over through the camera. “I really thought we had picked a good candidate for this job,” he said, clearly referring to my looks. I didn’t even sigh. I was too inured to these comments by now. “It’s disappointing but I guess that’s what we get for not sending in a real field operative.”
I bit my lip. That one stung.
I had really wanted to prove myself on this mission. I still did. The image of my father floated in my head, the proud FBI agent of nearly two decades. But I couldn’t compromise my own values to do so.
I knew, instinctually, that turning Marco over was not right. The clipped tones in Agent Hadfield and Truman’s voices spoke to me of their lack of understanding. They were two people who only saw in black and white. There was no gray to them.
“I can tell you though that Roy Desmond has opened up an account book for me that is in relation to the upcoming deal,” I said. “Half the accounts are based overseas and the other half domestic, all hidden and weaved through their multiple holdings. I can make copies of the records once the money comes in.”
Agent Truman sighed, raking a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated but unable to deny the huge piece of evidence I was offering them. Finally he threw his head back and expelled a huge breath.
“Fine! Whatever!” he said, throwing up his hands.
I winced as his loud voice reverberated in my headphones. Although I was sure n
o one could hear me in my room, I lowered the volume nonetheless. It would be a death penalty if I got caught speaking with the Feds in Roy Desmond’s own house.
“We have our own good leads anyway to work on,” Agent Truman continued.
That threw me. “What leads?” I asked. I was the only field operative on this case as far as I knew.
Agent Hadfield raised a bushy brow at me. “You didn’t think we’d put all our faith in some rookie blonde, did you?” he said, his voice dripping with condescension.
I bit my lip, trying not to explode with rage at the injustice I was receiving from my own team. By this measure, the Desmonds were treating more fairly than the FBI.