“Not likely,” I said, making a mental note to get it out of her sooner or later. I was just relieved to see her. Sometimes she’d disappear on me, and when I was close to calling every hospital in New York to find her, she’d pop up. “Where have you been?”
“Slick,” she said, adjusting the backpack again, “you just asked me that. But you know I’ve been doing the same things I usually do. Survive. Work. Survive. Rinse. Repeat.”
“Uh huh.” I shook my head. “Whatever you’re up to, you know eventually you’re going to have to come clean.”
“Eventually.” Her grin was deep. Then she shrugged. “It always seems like I show up on this day, right? It’s kind of weird. It’s like my internal magnet brings me here. Maybe because Jocelyn and Pops took me in around this time.”
“Yeah,” I said, turning from her and taking the hatbox from my old vanity. It had been my grandmother’s. “Maybe that’s it.”
“Where are you going?” she said, stepping deeper into the room. “You’re all dressed up.”
“I took on a shift at a fancy restaurant. I can use the—”
“Extra dollar,” Harrison said, coming to stand next to Mari.
I eyed both of them. Harrison could never take his eyes off of Mari. When I first saw Mari, so did he, and sometimes it was a struggle to get him to leave her alone. I’d have to shut the door to my room so he wouldn’t bother us when we were younger. He gave her a pathetic nickname, Strings, and treated her like he did me. Like a sister.
Sometimes he was more protective of her than he was of me. It didn’t bother me, because we both seemed to have a silent understanding. Mari came to us for a reason after Roisin was killed, even if our Mam didn’t see it that way. She hated when Harrison showed Mari attention, even more than she hated when I did.
“You picked Mari up?” I gave Harrison a glower and he gave me a narrow. None of the boys messed with me. I’d beat all of their asses. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I stopped by Home Run to see if Mari needed a ride home, since it’s fucking freezing. She told me she was coming here. So was I. Here we are.”
“You were coming here, too?”
“Yeah.” He gave me a long enough stare to try and communicate silently—today is hard for me, too.
I nodded, tucking a wild curl behind my ear.
Mari took a seat on my bed, while Harrison stood in the doorway. They both watched me while I put the hatbox on the top shelf of my closet and then pulled out my nicest coat. It was old, and emerald green, but I’d taken good care of it over the years.
“Mari and I made plans to eat at Mamma’s,” Harrison said. “We thought you’d come with us, but if you have to work, we’ll drop you off.”
“Drop me?” I slid the coat over my shoulders. “If you drop me, who’s going to—”
“My car broke,” my brother said, cutting me off. He glanced at Mari before he met my eyes again.
She must’ve noticed, because she said that she was going to wait out front for us.
“Just take a seat on the sofa,” I told her. “Don’t go outside and wait.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she finally nodded. She was never comfortable around Sierra. The girl was intimidating to some people, but Mari acted exceptionally guarded around her.
“Keely,” Harrison said, bringing my attention back to him. “My car broke, and I don’t have the fucking funds to fix it. It died in your driveway. I need to borrow your car for a while.”
My brother looked so tired. He had graduated law school with honors, but with this market, he couldn’t find a job. He was in the same position as me. We were barely making our bills. We weren’t as bad as Mari, but we were not far from her, either. The difference between Mari and us, though, was that she was always getting fired.
However, the reason I struggled and refused to go to college was, I had something to accomplish. I’d always dreamed of being on Broadway.
In some odd way, I always thought it was payback from Roisin. I could find a million jobs, but the one I wanted, I could never get. It was the reason I’d held my breath that night. I’d wanted what she had.
“Why didn’t you ask Lachlan?” I said.
“He has work.”
“Who’s going to—”
“I’ll pick you up,” Harrison said. “What time?”
I threw the keys at him and he caught them with one hand. “Don’t worry about picking me up. I’ll have a friend from work drop me off at home. You can pick me up tomorrow morning. I took a shift at Home Run.”
The real reason he wanted to borrow my car was written all over his face. He wanted to keep his plans with Mari. Any other day, I would’ve given him shit, but it’d been a long day.
“Keely,” he said, grabbing my arm before I walked out of my room. “She comes looking for you on this day every year.”
I turned to look at him. “I know,” I said. “So let’s get going—”
“No. Not Mari. Roisin. I feel her around you. It’s…heavy.” His eyes searched mine. “She’s worried about you. Maybe about all of us. But I have my sights on an opportunity that might pay off, Kee. I’m going to see a man about a job day after tomorrow. He got in touch with me. Said he’s been looking for a lawyer with my credentials. It seems promising. Maybe she’ll rest in peace once she knows we’re all okay.”
I couldn’t speak, so I nodded, wondering how much peace I was going to find in Scott tonight, when I met him at the restaurant for our date. Since I really didn’t have to work.
I blamed my entire predicament on my Mam’s tea leaf predictions. She’d always claimed to be able to read them, and months ago, when she told me that she’d seen something big in my future, a huge change, I thought she meant that I’d be getting a huge part on Broadway.
Broadway didn’t come calling, but the guy sitting in front of me did.
I was working at an indoor archery range in Brooklyn when a group of cops came in to take classes. None of them could shoot an arrow worth a shit, and I’d told them so.
One of the most confident ones had spoken up. “If you can do any better, by all means…” He gestured to the target.
“Your name, sharpshooter?” I’d said.
“Scott Stone,” he’d said. “Detective Scott Stone.”
Scott and I stood about the same height, even though he was wider, and after giving him a narrow-eyed glare as I passed, I shot the hat off his friend’s head and nailed it to the board. After Scott had stopped laughing, he told me he owed me a drink. The free drink was a reward for a long week, so I went. Shameful as it was to admit, sometimes I’d go on dates with guys just for the good food and drink, because I couldn’t afford it.
I had a decent time with Scott, though. He’d laughed the entire time, and when he had excused himself to use the bathroom, the girl serving drinks told me that he was like one of those cartoon characters who had hearts for eyes when he looked at me.
A month of two after we started seeing each other, my Mam called and told me she saw a heart in her cup. It was meant for me. The big change was going to be love. I’d find it early, just like she did. But there was a catch. It would happen fast. And if I denied it, I’d only be denying myself.
“And one more thing,” she’d said before we hung up. “His heart is hidden in his work.”
All signs pointed to Scott Stone. His job was his mistress. He’d told me that on the first date.
Oh. So. Fucking. Great.
I had plans. I had things I wanted to accomplish before getting swept off my feet. I wanted to sing on Broadway. Travel the world without worrying about where the funds were going to come from. I wanted to be queen of a country for a day, dammit! Okay, maybe not that, but still, I had plans. And nowhere in my booklet was love first on the itinerary.
Because if I was being brutally honest with myself, I only had two things going for me: the many jobs that seemed to fall into my lap, and the resilient hope that one day I’d sing on stage.
The rest of my life, though? Shit.
I barely made rent. I barely had any groceries in the cabinets and in the fridge most of the time. And I had no clue what tomorrow would bring—whether “barely” would turn into “couldn’t make” and “nothing in the.”
Scott was at a different time in his life.
He felt his age. I found my first gray hair, probably because of the stress of the job.
He was ready to settle down. I can see myself getting really serious with you. Having a few kids. Do you think our kids will have red hair like yours?
He wasn’t fond of traveling. Flying gives me vertigo, and driving for long periods irritates me.
Whenever we had sex, he always told me what he was going to do before he did it. I’m going in.
He didn’t like to dance. Vertigo again. The spinning.
And he was one of those people who didn’t listen to music in the car. I like to think or talk without noise in the background.
That was why I preferred to drive my own car. I was one of those people who got lost in the scenery with the radio turned up and the windows down. His lack of listening to music in the car, at one point, had made me think he wasn’t a detective at all but maybe a serial killer.
I mean, who doesn’t listen to music in the car? Even on low in the background?
But—there it was again—we had fun for the most part. And what if my inability to commit to him would be the biggest mistake of my life? I knew we were inching closer and closer to that point. He wanted to take me to Louisiana with him, where most of his family lived, after the New Year. Then there were the constant hints about my favorite shape—emerald, round, or oval?
But… I stopped myself. I needed to stop having so many “but” moments and concentrate on the “what ifs.”
What if my forever sat directly in front of me, eating the rest of his steak, and I let him go because he gave me destinations when he touched my body?
I smiled, trying not to laugh at how ridiculous I was being. Maybe letting this play out, without all the thought, would lift some of the burden from my shoulders. Maybe I was holding on too tight because my Mam had put it in my head that it was now or never—no time to decide. Like I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Of course I did. It was my heart. I’d give it or not.
Scott set his fork down, meeting my eyes. “You’re terrified, too.”
I was about to take a drink. At that, I set it down. “Terrified?”
“Of this.” He motioned between us. “But I don’t know why they call it falling. Falling makes it sound uncontrolled, an inevitable smash into the ground after you’ve soared. I’ve already fallen, and it feels damn good to lose my heart, Kee.”
A moment passed between us, a beat, and I smiled. Then he did. Before I knew it, the words tumbled out of my mouth. “I’m ready for this.”
That had to be it—the fear. It had stopped me from feeling this—whatever this was between us.
Scott understood. He had just told me he did. Hell, he probably had doubts, too, but fear shouldn’t stop what seemed right. Fear shouldn’t stop the swapping of hearts. Give me yours and I’ll give you mine.
But what if this was wrong?
Simple.
He’d become a lesson. A steppingstone to something greater. That was the wonderful thing about dating, right? You were free to discover what was right and what was wrong.
Scott had dated more than I had. He was more experienced. So maybe he kept pushing love and marriage because he knew this was right. I wasn’t experienced enough to realize it. Time. It would just take time. And maybe the part of me that went fundamentally wrong after my sister died would heal.
I would change.
Be easier to love.
To be around.
I’d be happy with me.
My life would be enough.
A glimpse of Kelly’s face shoved itself inside of my mind, but I kicked him back out—he couldn’t steal what was no longer available, and that was any more of my thoughts.
Roisin had been wrong, and that was that.
4
Cash
Compartmentalizing was something I’d always excelled at. It was how I kept the three wars in my head separate. Because no doubt about it, they were separate, although they’d all grown from the same seed.
Even though Scott Stone was on my list, taking back my father’s territory was my first priority. The issue with Stone could simmer for a while—it had to—but action was needed to claim what was rightfully mine when my father was killed.
Hell’s Kitchen and its streets.
War I went something like this: It was no secret who had killed my father. It was one of the Grady men, who was also working for an Italian family. It wasn’t unusual for the Italians and the Irish to work together, so that by itself didn’t cause concern. It was the fact that Lee Grady had been trying to get my father to start drug trafficking before his death, but he refused.
He didn’t want drugs taking over his streets. He had an old-fashioned way of doing things, and that was mostly keeping his revenue through the docks. My old man knew that drugs only led to other things, and he refused to have any part of it.
So they killed him for it.
This made room for Lee Grady’s old man, Cormick, to take my father’s spot. He backed Lee’s way of thinking, since it was a sure way to make more money, especially since the criminal climate had changed and other lucrative things, like drugs, had already started to take over.
Cormick and Lee had sent one of their men, along with his Italian counterpart, a Scarpone, to kill my father because of his refusal to join the drug game. The setup was made to seem like a meeting, but in actuality, it was going to be a blood bath.
Speaking of which. The Scarpones were one of the most ruthless families in New York, one of the five syndicates, and no one really fucked with them. Arturo Lupo Scarpone, also known as The King of New York, was the head, and he was a dangerous motherfucker. Word on the street was that he had his own son, Vittorio, killed. It was no easy death, either. He had his throat slashed. No one could prove it, nor did they even try, but it didn’t take a smart man to figure it out.
Arturo valued power over his son’s life, which meant he had zero respect for any life.
Vittorio was considered not only one of New York’s most eligible bachelors—he ran in the most powerful social circles—but he was a smart son of a bitch, which was why they sometimes called him the Machiavellian Prince of New York. Some say Arturo was threatened by him, by his powerful presence, and that was why he had him killed. There was more to the story, though, and I knew it had to do with orders that were not carried out.
Not long before I left the steel cage, I was made aware of a war on the outside. The Scarpones didn’t know who was fucking with them, causing strife between the families. Even the Faustis were involved, and they rarely got involved unless mayhem started brewing on the streets. They stayed out of the way, mostly, but if situations started to stink, they’d step in and right wrongs however they saw fit.
The Faustis were the rulers of the kingdom. When the ruthless did wrong, and no one else could make them pay, it was the Faustis who did. Even the highest have bosses.
Consider the Faustis Kings of the Night. They were the highest animals on the food chain.
But back to the point.
It had only been a couple of months since this tiger’s release. I had to bide my time and do most of the work behind the scenes. My father’s men had all either sworn alliance to Cormick Grady or moved out of Hell’s Kitchen, hoping to honor my old man by doing what he had set out to do.
See to it that everyone in this neighborhood had a better life.
I didn’t have my brother to depend on, so I looked to my cousin, Rafferty (Raff) O’Connor, to become my right-hand man. He wasn’t my cousin by blood. My old man had married his father’s sister, Molly, after we moved to America from Ireland when I was ten.
Raff a
nd I started speaking to some of our old alliances, making friends again, and letting it be known that I was going to take back what had belonged to Ronan “Maraigh” Kelly, and now rightfully belonged to his only heir willing to accept it.
Me.
Things were steadily moving forward until Cormick Grady’s car was blown to smithereens. An entire leg was found down the street from his doctor’s office. Not even all the king’s men could put old Cormick back together again. It wasn’t me, though I wished it fucking was. I hadn’t gotten that far in war strategy—they knew I was out of the cage, and things were going to get interesting soon enough.
Cormick’s son, Lee, assumed it was me. Hell, I’d assume it was me with the way things went down. My father was known for explosives when he wanted to send a message—he taught me well.
Lee was out to get me, especially since I reclaimed my streets after Cormick’s death. The Scarpones were out for blood, too, since I’d killed one of their men.
More than that, though, what it all boiled down to was money. I was determined to fight the war on drugs. I wanted them off my fucking streets. Businesses would flourish. Children would play without worry. People of this neighborhood would feel safe.
The Gradys were one of the most savage families to ever run Hell’s Kitchen. Because of this, men were coming to me in droves, ready to start the work my old man never got to finish.
I had stepped into my father’s shoes, the head of a connected Irish family, and no blood had been shed by me. Yet. I could smell it coming, though.
Hell’s kitchen was just getting warmed up after being cold for far too fucking long.
War II: Scott Stone was never far from my mind.
In general, I never had a real problem with the law. It was one of those things that just worked in life. Without the lawless, there would be no need for the law. Men like me gave them a purpose.
Scott Stone’s purpose was to get me.
That was fine, but the problem came when he decided to make his hunt against me personal. The Stones were known for picking a target and keeping at them until they fell, never able to get up again.
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 3