Cash Kelly had made his comeback.
The room was so dark that my eyes couldn’t penetrate it. I couldn’t make out shapes or even see my hand in front of my face. The temperature in the room was a degree above freezing. One thing I’d learned about Kelly right away: he kept his house cold. When I complained, he said, “The cold helps you breathe and sleep better.” I didn’t see how my teeth chattering all night would help me breathe or sleep better—and my blood ran hot.
Maybe he kept his place so cold because if someone were to murder him in his sleep, he’d keep better.
Looking in his direction, I sighed. At least he’d given me all of the covers. I kicked them off and headed to the bathroom. Cold clung to my skin, but so did sweat. My hair was matted to my head, and Kelly’s shirt stuck to my body.
I turned the faucet water on cool, and after splashing my face, leaned over the sink, letting the water fall back into the drain.
Maybe I was going to be sick.
I felt movement and then caught it. My heart slammed against my chest, even though I didn’t jump. “You’re too fucking silent,” I said, my jaw clenched.
Kelly leaned against the bathroom door, shirtless with only a pair of grey sweatpants on, watching me. His eyes shimmered from the small, soft light that came on at night anytime you walked into the bathroom. “Had something bad to eat, darlin’?”
“You could say that.” I turned off the sink and grabbed a towel to dry my face. After hanging it back up, I went to rush past him, but he caught my arm and I stopped, looking up at him.
“Must’ve been some real bad food. You’re paler than a fucking ghost.”
“It didn’t go to my stomach,” I said. “It went to my head.”
His eyes moved, like he was trying to understand my riddle. “Bad dream.”
The emotions in the pit of my stomach made it to my throat. I wasn’t sure if I could answer. So I nodded.
He used his finger to remove a piece of hair that was stuck to my face and then, taking my hand, led me back to the bedroom. He didn’t stop there, though. He walked through the darkened house, like he could see through it, and then turned the lights on low when we got to the kitchen.
After letting my hand go, he lifted me up by the arms and set me down on the counter. Then he went to the fridge, the light brightening his face and body, and took out a container of soup. He set it down before he went for a pot.
While he stirred the soup, he said, “All of the drink.”
“What?”
“My old man used to say that too much drink summoned the devil. You had too much drink tonight.”
“I’ve had more.” I shrugged, even though his back was to me. “Your house is new to me. It’s always dark and cold, and whenever I’m going through a lot, she comes to me.”
I’d never admitted that to anyone, and I wasn’t sure why I’d admitted it to him. Maybe because he had a twin and could understand what the distance did to the other’s soul.
There was one thing I refused to admit to him, though, and that was how much Lee Grady’s words at the event had bothered me. Make you a widow, Mrs. Kelly. If anyone was going to kill Cash Kelly, it was going to be me. Not some wannabe punk off the fucking street.
He nodded. “You had a dream of your sister.”
“Yeah.” I took a minute or two to settle my heart. Whenever I thought about her, my heart hurt. And for whatever reason, when I thought about Kelly being killed because of his dealings, something inside of me twisted. Maybe it was the place where my heart should’ve been. “She’s never young. In the dreams. Not like she was when I saw her the last time. She’s always older. Grown up. I can feel her. Actually feel her. Do you have dreams of your brother? I know he’s not dead, but any distance is hard.”
“No,” he said, his voice far-off. “My old man. He keeps me up at night.”
I watched him for a minute. He had a beautiful back. When he moved, his muscles rippled. His skin was smooth, except for all of the stripes he’d earned in battle. “Would that have anything to do with your medicinal habit?”
“It has everything to do with it,” he said. “It’s not a habit, though. It’s something I choose to do or not.”
“And the headaches, those stem from your old man, too?”
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything,” I said. “About you. You should always know your enemies better than your friends.”
He said nothing while he poured the soup out of the pot and into two bowls. I wasn’t sure why I even noticed, but he had given me more.
He set the bowl next to me and then handed me a spoon. He drank his quietly.
We ate in silence, and after we were done, I was warmed and feeling like I could breathe again. I didn’t think it was because of the soup either. It was him. My resistance to him, to this, was tiring because of my heart, but my mind kept up the tug of war.
After getting down off the counter, I could feel his eyes on me as I moved toward the stereo system in the front room. I’d noticed all of the old records he had after Maureen had left with Connolly. I’d listened to a few of them while I was getting ready for our night out.
I found one of my Da’s favorites and set it to play before I took his bowl and mine to the sink. As I started to wash, I could feel that he was still watching me. His stare hit my back like a rock against glass. I wondered what piece of me he’d steal this time?
My eyes closed as his arms wrapped around me. My head tilted back and I leaned into him, for the first time in a long time giving someone else my burdens to share. Maybe he was stealing those, too, because I felt as light as a feather. Higher than I had been when he was blowing intoxicating smoke in my mouth and I’d breathed him in.
“There’s one thing, darlin’, that just might have power over me,” he whispered, his soft accent lulling me into the safety of his arms even deeper. One arm released me, while the other kept me tight against him, and his free hand ventured against my body. Over my ass, across my hip, around my thigh, and then between my legs.
I sucked in a breath, releasing it in a slow stream, as his breath picked up in my ear. “I never forget. You make me forget. When my cock is buried deep inside of you, I don’t know my fucking name, or who I am, or what the world sees when they look at me. I’m just a man inside of a woman, a woman who holds the power to make me forget it all.”
“Be careful.” My breath was coming out in pants as his fingers worked me higher and higher to the edge of desire. “That’s a dangerous direction. It could lead to the loss of a vital organ.”
My nails sunk into his arm as the pressure increased, as he started to move faster, as his nose skimmed down my neck, his mouth sucking my skin. “I’ve already stolen your heart, my darlin’. There’s nothing left to lose. All that’s left is for you to give in.” His words were slow, low, and seductive. “Give in to me, Keely Shea Kelly. You’re wasting your time trying to keep what’s already mine.”
I let out a strangled moan when his arm let me go and his free hand came up, loosening the buttons on his shirt—the one covering my body. He started to tease my nipple. “We both know…” I moaned even louder “…that resisting you is my greatest weakness and my greatest strength.”
“You’ll be damned if you make it fucking easy on me.”
“That’s the way of it, yeah. Ah.” I sucked in a breath when his teasing became rough.
He grinned against my neck until I moved my ass against him, and he hissed out a breath. I was going to use every bit of weaponry in my arsenal—my eyes, my lips, my legs, my femininity, my heart—to get under his skin. I was going to make him forget that he didn’t have a heart until he remembered that he had one. The situation between us was so ugly that I was starting to find it pretty. Beautiful even.
He stole my heart. Now it was set on having him and him alone.
I started to tremble, giving in, and then I came in an explosion that seemed to echo around the kitchen.
He turned me around to f
ace him, and after staring me in the eye for a moment, he set me back on the counter, situating himself between my legs. I slipped his shirt off my body, throwing it to the side, completely bare to him. I used my feet to shove his sweatpants down, and after he stepped out of them, he entered me in a thrust that rocked my entire world.
He moved in and out, like a thief in the night, finding more and more of me to steal.
Our eyes connected in an intense stare down. My heart was at war with the space where his was supposed to be. It was fighting for this, despite my mind’s protests. My heart would pound like a fist until he decided to let me in.
He growled at me. Fucking growled at me. Like an animal. A noise came from my throat that was similar to his. My body was going insane, wanting to shatter, ready for stars to shoot behind my eyes, but it was holding on with all that it had, refusing to give in so easily this time.
I was drenched with sweat. He was, too.
I clawed his back, drawing blood, and he pumped into me even harder, but with a control that was perfectly executed each and every time. I squeezed around him, once, twice, and then we both came at the same time. It was loud, and ugly, and had left us both weakened. Fucking him was like going to battle to keep a little of myself in place, before it landed in his hands. He was the kind of man who easily consumed whatever he touched.
We stood that way for a while, him between my legs, me still on the counter, both breathing heavy. When he pulled out, I hopped off the counter, losing my balance. He caught and steadied me. My knees were weak.
I looked up at his face. His pieces fit together perfectly, even if they were put back together a few times, and it was impossible for me not to admire the entire picture for what it was. Art.
“I’m not clear water, darlin’,” he said. “Stop trying to see into my soul.”
No, and he wasn’t rough waters, either. My Da always said that still waters ran deep. A Cash Kelly idiom if there ever was one. It meant that silent people were more dangerous than loud ones. “I wouldn’t dare,” I said.
There’s more than one way into a no trespassing zone, though—and I already found a way into his. Through his skin.
I slid my hand up his arm, nice and slow, and his eyes lowered. “All night,” I whispered. “Let’s forget all night.”
He took my hand and led me back into the bedroom.
17
Cash
I hadn’t had a smoke since that night on the fire escape. It was something I did to ease my mind, because if not, I’d fight insomnia. Or raging headaches. I wasn’t lying to the archer when I told her that my old man haunted me. It wasn’t his ghost, but what he’d left behind. A responsibility to carry on his legacy.
The only opinions I ever honored were my old man’s. I respected my brother, but our perspectives had always been aligned differently. He always had the need to ask questions. I went in having trust that our old man would never lead us astray.
He’d fought for and claimed one of the most ruthless areas of New York to run. He’d gained his community’s trust and respect, even though he was feared.
Not like Lee Grady and his family, who got into bed with the Scarpones to distribute drugs to his own community. Their drug trade ruined marriages, families, careers. It ruined lives. It took all that my father worked most of his life for, even died to protect, and buried it underneath powder.
My mind refused to accept it. So it kept me up night after night. Even in prison, because I was a caged animal without an escape.
I thought of Grady nonstop. How he had set my old man up to be slaughtered.
I thought of the Scarpones nonstop. How they had been a part of it for greed.
I thought of Scott Stone nonstop. How he had cuffed my old man and made him an easy target.
Nothing made me stop salivating for the day the streets of Hell’s Kitchen would be mine.
Even if the rest of the world was overrun with drugs, my area wouldn’t be. We’d celebrate marriage, honor families, and give every man and woman a chance at a career—at a better life.
Stealing a heart out of revenge was at odds with celebrating marriage, but I had every intention of honoring every vow I spoke to Keely Kelly at the altar.
I stopped walking for a minute, thinking about something other than vengeance or chaos in what felt like the first time in my entire life.
No matter how much I fucking despised it, because I knew she’d use it as ammo, the archer put me to sleep like a lullaby. I’d fucked her all night, and then right before the sun came up, fell hard into that space where nothing exists. No noise. No sight. No disruptions.
The archer could’ve killed me in my sleep and I wouldn’t have had a clue.
She was worse than a drug. She was the addiction.
“Power of the pussy,” I muttered to myself, opening the door to my office building. “That’s all it is, Kelly.”
“Mr. Kelly!” Susan, my secretary, popped up from behind her desk. She narrowed her eyes at me after she had really taken me in. “You’re late.”
“Your watch is fast,” I said, checking mine, realizing that I was.
She waved a hand. “Your coffee is in your office. But it’s probably cold now.” She sat down with a slump and crossed her arms over her chest. It was no secret that she was the head of the club that disliked my wife. Susan and her minions thought my wife was too proud.
I grinned to myself, knowing that the only people I’d ever seen get under the archer’s skin was her family, and her friend, Mari. And me.
“Mr. Kelly.”
I stopped in the lobby.
Maureen O’Connell stood from her seat. “I don’t have an appointment,” she said. “But I need to talk to you.”
I’d never seen the woman so tired. And she had plenty enough reasons to be. She had worked hard all of her life to make ends meet after her husband died at a young age. When her son got into some trouble and fought addiction, dying from a drug deal gone wrong, and her daughter-in-law from a similar fate, her life got even harder. She was left with two children to raise, and she refused help from most of the women who offered it.
Unfounded rumors and gossip never sat well with Maureen. She had said that the nosy women only wanted inside of her house to know what was going on. “When people know you’re down,” she’d said. “They’ll kick you when no one is looking to keep you there.”
Maureen O’Connell reminded me of my wife. She had a backbone and refused to let other people ruffle her easily.
I nodded. “I have time.”
Once we were inside of the office, I motioned for her to take a seat. After sitting across from her, we stared at each other until Susan brought in two coffees. Maureen got up and closed the door after.
“Meddling old bitch,” Maureen muttered. Then she took her seat again but didn’t touch the coffee. I never did either. I had a plant in the corner with a caffeine addiction. “I’m going to get down to the point, Cashel. My grandson is coming home in a day or two. He doesn’t have a name.”
She called the little boy her grandson, even though he wasn’t, not by blood. The little boy was the outcome of his mother paying for drugs with her body. Mad respect for Maureen O’Connell was putting it mildly.
A minute or two passed, and I opened and closed my hands, urging her to continue.
“You’ll give him a name. A name to be proud of.”
“That’s not my place.” I’d heard little rumors here and there that Maureen was sick, but I never asked because she talked when she wanted. Maybe whatever she had was affecting her thinking.
She pulled her sweater forward and took out a piece of paper from the pocket. I sat back in my seat, already knowing what it was before she even slid it toward me. My old man would give something similar to a receipt, a piece of paper with his signature, whenever someone had done him a favor. He’d collect them and save them, writing whoever’s name down as debt paid, once he was in the good with them.
Maureen’s receipt was
old and tattered.
“I took him in once and hid him,” she said. “Your father. From the police. I didn’t want thanks for it, but he insisted.”
“Say no more,” I said, watching her carefully. “He’ll have the O’Connell last name?”
“Unless you can think of a better one?” She lifted a sharp brow at me.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to read her motives, but time ticked. I had a meeting. “Ryan,” I said.
“Fine choice.” She nodded and then stood. She walked to the door and then stopped. “Your wife, she’s a good woman, Cashel Fallon Kelly. Be sure to treat her right.”
The door closed behind her, and after I watched her go, I took the slip and opened it up. My old man’s handwriting was scrawled across the threadbare page. It seemed like Maureen had opened and closed it a few times, maybe debating on whether or not to use it when she’d felt she needed it the most.
Opening the drawer to my desk, I took out a pen and wrote debt paid, the date, and then added the name Ryan.
At the precise time I expected Raff, he knocked on my door and then came in at my word. He took a seat across from me, settling in as usual.
“Their shipments are getting bigger,” he said.
I nodded. “Grady wants to be the top distributor, and with the Scarpones backing him, he’s getting what he wants.”
“There’s one problem with the Scarpones,” he said. “They’re in a feud with the other families right now. Things are tense. Shipments keep getting stolen. Grady is getting wary of them. And they’re getting wary of him.”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting back, putting my hands behind my head, grinning. “He thinks they’re lying about the shipments being stolen. That they’re holding out on him. Same goes for the Scarpones. They’re not sure who to trust, since they can’t even trust themselves.”
“That’s how it seems.” Raff paused for a second. “What the fuck is going on with the families? It’s mayhem.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 18