Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2)

by Bella Di Corte

  The fucker was playing possum, because in a second, he had snatched the gun and had it pointed at my head. I kicked his arm a second before the blast shattered it to pieces. The gun went back, but a bullet still whizzed through the air.

  This time, I kept my foot on his wrist, picking up the gun again. I was faintly aware that my skull was on fire as I returned the favor. Shot for shot.

  He wasn’t as lucky as I was. He’d never make another shot again.

  I pulled back a bloodstained palm after running it along the side of my head. The bullet must’ve grazed my skin.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Father Flanagan stood in front of the mess, making the sign of the cross.

  “They weren’t as close as two steps.” I nodded toward them. “But they found me regardless. Guess they thought I’d be a cheap date.” I took my gun from guy two–he’d tucked it into his pants–and then pulled out my phone. “Careful of your robe, Father. You don’t want the blood of the wicked to stain your holy clothes.

  Then I called Raff and told him to send men to clean up my mess.

  8

  Keely

  I crossed my arms over my chest, looking out of the window of Harrison’s vintage car as he navigated the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. “Why? Why did I let you talk me into this? How did I let you do this to me? You know I HATE the man!”

  Not even a hundred years would be long enough to not see him, and it had only been a couple of days since the festival.

  Harrison gave me the side-eye from underneath his glasses. “You owe me for not telling me about the detective.”

  “I owe you nothing. But maybe I would’ve told you, if you would’ve told me about Mari, oh, say, YEARS ago!”

  “That’s complicated and you know it.”

  “What’s so complicated about it?”

  “You would’ve told her.”

  “So?”

  “Your timing is not mine.” He shrugged.

  “Fair enough. But still. How did I let you TALK me into this?”

  “Hate. Years. Talk. Why did you scream those three words?”

  “Stop trying to change the subject!”

  “Yeah. Okay. You’re doing this for me because we both know who my boss is. And I don’t have the option to tell him no.”

  I studied my brother for a minute.

  This guy, the one with the nice car and even nicer clothes, wasn’t my brother. My brother was easy-going. He wanted a simple life. A nice house. A decent car. A family. Kids he could teach how to play baseball. That was my brother. I’d give him that this car was something he would have bought for himself, but the rest? The fancy lawyer gig? The gangster boss? Wasn’t him.

  Click. Click. Click. The pieces suddenly made sense.

  “You did this for Mari, didn’t you?”

  He became quiet for a minute before he sighed. “Swear on your Broadway career that you won’t tell her.”

  “Swear.” I held up my hand, my fingers splayed.

  “I did.”

  A breath left me that I had no control over. “You need to tell her, Harrison. Tell her how you feel. Life’s too short to keep waiting. Fuck timing. We only have this second.”

  “What about the detective?” He turned the convo on me. “Are you in love with him?”

  I’d been avoiding this conversation with him under the pretense that I was still pissed about him not telling me about his feelings for Mari. It was true, but not the real reason I didn’t want to talk about it. Like he said, that situation was complicated.

  “Mam told me that my great love was going to come to me.” I shrugged. “Stone came to me.”

  Even under the sunglasses I could tell his eyes narrowed. “Tea leaves? Are you kidding me, Kee? You’re going to let Mam decide your fate with tea leaves?”

  “It’s complicated, Harrison.”

  “Mam told me to stay away from Mari because of the tea leaves. She was only going to cause chaos in my life and those around me. Her exact words were, ‘a ripple effect from a dark blue stone.’ Should I listen to her?”

  I whipped my head around. Mam had never told me that, and neither had Harrison. “What did you say?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing to her face, but I chose not to listen to her. Not to believe it. I’ve never felt anything like that around Mari. I’ve only felt—” He looked over at me and then turned his eyes back to the road.

  “Love,” I said. “You’ve only felt love around her.”

  “Something like that.”

  I grinned to myself, because my brother was in loooove. Big time. I only hoped Mari felt the same, or would give him a shot. Though, honestly, it would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if Harrison had fallen for Desiree Gibson. She loved him all throughout high school, and she still asked about him whenever I went to her salon for a trim. Desiree had no ties to our family, and I’d never considered her my sister.

  Mari being like a sister complicated things a lot, especially if Mari didn’t feel the same about Harrison.

  “What’s your deal with Cash, anyway?” Harrison pulled the car to the curb, parking right in front of a massive warehouse that looked like it had been redone.

  “Deal?”

  “Yeah. You’ve only met him twice, and you’ve made no secret of your hate for him.”

  “Those two meetings were enough to last me two lifetimes. And I only have one.”

  Harrison took off his glasses, set them on the dash, and then gave me the weight of his stare. “I don’t buy it.”

  “I’m not selling anything.”

  “I don’t buy that you hate him for no reason. He scared you at the cemetery? So what. It’s quiet there until it’s not. There’s something else going on that you’re not telling me. I’m not Roisin, and I’m not trying to be, but we’ve always been close, Kee. You’re hiding something.”

  I turned my face toward the window, not wanting him to see my eyes. When I was little and refused to talk, Harrison told me it was okay, that clouds were the words in my mind, and he could make out the shapes in my eyes—because they’re blue—and read my thoughts.

  It used to make me feel better, like someone out there could understand me without me having to use words, but I didn’t want him to see the truth this time. Out of all of my siblings, when Roisin was killed, Harrison stepped up and took me under his wing. I didn’t want to lie to him. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t tell me about Mari, but when I asked, he gave me the truth.

  “Is it Mam?” he said. “Did she say something else? The tea leaves?”

  “Do you believe in them?”

  He became quiet for a minute. “In a way, yes. We were brought up to. But I also believe that what we believe brings credence to what other people say is meant for us. I refuse to believe what she told me about Mari. And if I refuse to believe, it has no power over me.”

  “Power over you, huh.” I looked at him and then back at the building. A humungous guy, both arms covered in tattoos, even up to his neck, walked into the building like he owned the place. “Cash Kelly. Does he have power over you?”

  My brother sighed. “He’s my boss.”

  “Like…you-kiss-his ring kind of boss?”

  “He’s not Italian.”

  “The accent sort of cleared that up.”

  “What do you want from me, Kee? He’s my boss. And whether you like it or not, he gave me a good job, moved me out of the nasty fucking apartment I was in, gave me a car, a huge bonus. He gave me a chance at life. I owe him.”

  “You work for him. He pays you. That’s how legit employment works. You owe him nothing if you’re doing your job.”

  “Look,” he said, and his tone was sharper. “It is what it is, all right? Cut me some slack. I like working for him.”

  “I am cutting you some slack! That’s why I’m HERE! You asked me to do this. I’m doing it. But giving him a second chance is not cutting it for me, Harry Boy. What’s the deal?”

  When Harrison had first asked me to meet wit
h Cash Kelly again, I laughed at him, and then with all seriousness told him not only no, but hell no. I didn’t even feel bad when my brother started to beg, which he’d never done before. But when he brought up telling my parents about my engagement to Scott, I figured I’d suffer through this ridiculous guise of a meeting and then get on with my life.

  And I knew Cash was getting off on this “meeting,” knowing I hated him but wanting me here anyway. It almost seemed like he ate it up, like the fires of hell were a delicious meal to the marauder. He probably crapped out firestorms. So I was going to keep my composure around him this time, just to prove a point.

  “There you go with the yelling again.” Harrison shook his head. “He doesn’t say much, but I get the feeling family is really important to him. Raff.” He pointed toward the building, where the gigantic guy had been. “That’s the guy who just walked in. He’s Cash’s right-hand man and cousin by marriage. I think Raff is all he has, even though he keeps his distance from him, too. His old man was killed years back on a street not far from here by a rival who wanted to take over, and did. I heard he has a brother, but no one talks about him.”

  “Did you ask?” I remembered what Cash had told me at the cemetery. He implied that his brother was dead. His twin.

  My brother looked at me like my curls had turned into snakes. “You don’t ask men like him personal questions.”

  “Yeah, like why, exactly, am I here.”

  Harrison opened the door and stepped out, then he leaned on it, looking down at me. “I told you. I think he wants to make amends. It seems like he’s trying to build something here. Something good for the community. And the families of his employees are important to him. He knows how close we are.” Harrison looked at his watch. “Come on. He doesn’t like to wait.” Then he shut the door.

  I sighed, taking a look at the building. Then I opened my door, taking a deep breath. “Yeah,” I said to myself, because Harrison was already to the warehouse. “I’m sure Cash Kelly is going to be holding family picnics and singing camp songs with the employee’s kids real fucking soon.”

  As I walked toward the door, I made a promise to myself to keep my mouth shut this time—the longer I was around him, the smarter my mouth became, and he seemed drawn to it, like chaos to peace. And I didn’t want to give him another reason to call on me again.

  The sooner the marauder was out of my village, out of my head, the better off I’d be.

  “Get your hands off of me!” I slapped at the big palms patting at my body.

  The big guy, Raff, demanded that Harrison and I both be “shook down” before we entered the marauder’s layer.

  As it stood, I was shocked that the entire place was decorated tastefully, with exposed pipes, tan brick walls, and chrome details, and not done in fire torches, torture chambers, and a bunch of trophy skulls on the wall.

  It seemed too upscale for the marauder, but then again, he seemed to be good at putting the charms on people. This all seemed like a trick to put you at ease.

  I wasn’t buying it.

  Even the little old secretary with a potted plant on her desk was hiding something. She reminded me of a wicked creature in a popular book series that I’d both read and watched when they were made into movies: on the outside all sweetness, but on the inside a raging bitch with a vendetta against anything that breathed.

  “What’s this about, Raff?” Harrison said, giving me a narrow look when I smacked Raff on the head when he touched my leg.

  “Cash’s orders. He wanted to make sure this one—” he looked me up and down “—didn’t bring her bow and arrow in. No weapons on you either.”

  “I’m sure I could fit an entire bow in my underwear,” I muttered. “Genius.”

  Raff stared at me a second before a huge smile split his face. “I shall call you She-Karma and deliver you to the doorstep of the man demanding your fecking company.”

  I hadn’t heard the Irish lilt until he cursed. What a bunch of winners (my brother excluded) Cash Kelly seemed to surround himself with. I really wasn’t sure what his deal was, but I was ready to be in and be done. Especially after Raff started to lead us toward a hallway that seemed to lead to offices, and as we walked, I noticed splatters of blood along the floor.

  I elbowed Harrison hard, and when he shot me a look, I nodded toward the stains.

  He stared at the blood for a second and then met my eye. He shrugged, but it wasn’t lightly. Something about this meeting was bothering him. It was bothering me, too. Why would they have to check me for weapons? My brother, too? From the sounds of it, they had never checked Harrison before. Why start now?

  As we passed an office, I knew right away it was my brother’s. A framed picture of Mari and me from a year ago was placed on a table behind his desk. Another picture was on his desk, and I had a feeling I knew who stared at him from the other side.

  “That’s real creepy, Harrison,” I said.

  “What?” He wasn’t paying attention to me. Whatever was going on wasn’t the norm. But I couldn’t help but give him hell over the picture. He was so straight-laced that I found this side of him almost shocking. He was breaking a rule, but in his own way.

  I pointed toward the picture on his desk. “Mari?”

  “No. It’s of Mam and Da.”

  “Liar!” I hissed.

  “You tell her and I swear—”

  “I won’t.” I nudged him in the side. “I wouldn’t do that to you. But I have to say, this side of you is new. I need to dig a little deeper and see what else you’re hiding in that shiny office.”

  His eyes softened but his shoulders stayed tense. They were almost up to his neck. And even though Raff walked ahead of us, I knew he was listening. How could he not?

  “Yo, Raff,” I said, sidestepping a splatter of red. “You have blood on your shiny, expensive floor.”

  Harrison turned to look at me and gave me what I called our “mam” face. His lips were pinched and his eyes were narrowed, trying to communicate that I needed to shut up. But my nerves were getting to me. I didn’t have a good feeling about all of this, but I didn’t know what to do.

  I couldn’t leave my brother here to deal with these men. Raff was somewhat genial, but he didn’t seem like the kind of man you fucked with.

  Cash Kelly?

  Run and hide seemed like the only appropriate words after he turned off his spinning, hypnotizing, charming green eyes. There was a problem with that plan, though. Running and hiding didn’t work on men like him. He’d always hunt for what was his.

  “Just another day at work,” Raff said, as though blood splatters were no big deal. “Susan—the secretary out front—she’ll deal with it.”

  “Yeah, and turn it into a creature from the faerie forest,” I muttered.

  “Hey!” Raff stopped suddenly. “You’re into Rulers of the Underworld?”

  “You know it?”

  “Of course!”

  “No way!” I said.

  “Do faeries love vampires?”

  “Everlasting.” I pointed at him, repeating what the vampire told his faerie love interest. “I bet you’re team vampire!”

  “How old are you two?” My brother said, cutting us off. He was on edge, his temper flaring, back to being grumpy Indiana Jones. “Faeries. Vampires. Underworld. Cut it out. I’m in no mood for this.”

  Raff scrunched his face at Harrison’s attitude, making me laugh, but it sounded off. My neck felt hot, but not from anger. It was from something else. On the other side of the door, in an office, sat the man who had wanted to see me.

  The idea of him being so close made me anxious.

  Part of me wanted to bolt and never look back. The other part wanted to find out why he made me want to run.

  The same part of me that commanded my feet to deliver me to him also wanted to see those eyes again. Hear the way the words rolled out of his mouth. Smell him in the air. Take him in my lungs. My hand wanted to brush up against his, just to see what would happen. My
heart seemed to melt into my skin when I was around him, like it ached to see how his skin would feel next to mine, whether the weird connection—or was it attraction?—ran deeper than flesh and bone.

  The sane part of me warned that he was up to no good, but another part, the rebel in me, wanted to find out more about him. About why I hated him so much when there wasn’t a good reason for it, except for the fact that he was able to get underneath my skin and steal all of my thoughts.

  He’d been stealing them ever since our meeting at the cemetery, and I knew it wasn’t all because of my talk with Roisin and what I’d asked her to do.

  That control he seemed to have over me already pissed me off. I wasn’t the type of girl to give my heart away so easily. I’d always believed my heart had to be worked for, and then I’d give it away when I was ready.

  When Cash Kelly looked at me, though, my heart felt like it was already gone.

  But it made no sense, because I’d already promised my heart to Scott Stone. I was wearing his ring—that spoke volumes. Even Harrison had looked shocked when he saw it on my finger when he came to pick me up.

  “Shit’s getting real,” he’d said, nodding to my left hand. “I’m going to tell the boys soon. I have to.”

  The Ryan Boys. My brothers.

  I looked at the door, only prepared to deal with one situation at a time.

  “You doin’ all right?”

  I realized Raff was talking to me.

  “Why?” I said, my voice thick. “Do I look bad?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “I mean.” He squinted his eyes at my neck. “Just flushed.”

  Yeah, because I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. Heard him clear his throat. Heard the words come in in that gorgeous Irish lilt he had. His voice was deep and melodious, and I wondered whether he could sing. Whether his voice had a rasp to it when he did, the kind that gave you goosebumps.

  “Cool your blood. You seem stronger than the creature on the other side of this door.” Raff laughed and opened it.