The necklace in my pocket felt like it had a heartbeat. Like she had put a spell on it, making it believe that it could be real.
“Fuck me.” I ran a hand over my face, scrubbing a bit. I took out my phone and stared at it for a minute. Then I dialed her number. No answer. I called Maureen, my mole.
“She’s staring at the phone.” She sighed. “But the poor girl has been having a time of it. I’ve known a few mothers in my lifetime, but never one who could put the shame and guilt on her child like hers.”
“I’ve never heard you call a girl ‘poor,’” I said, not expecting Maureen to sound soft.
“Only another woman can understand the guilt a mother could cause her daughter.” She paused. “But I guess sons would know a thing or two about that, as well, when it comes to fathers.”
After I hung up, I stared at my phone again, but then I stuck it back in my pocket.
“Kelly, fancy seeing you here,” Father Flanagan said, walking up. “Some dinner and a drink, my lad? It might help to ease your sorrows. My treat.”
“I’ll leave the drinking to you tonight,” I said, squeezing his shoulder and then pushing him toward the doors. “Since you’re enjoying this so much.”
“Life wouldn’t be life without a little fun!” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
Father Flanagan opened the door as a young guy came out. The guy’s hand was shoved in his pocket, his eyes averted. He didn’t even notice me standing there. I followed behind him, keeping a respectful distance, until we came to Sullivan’s delivery entrance. I stood with my back against the wall, watching as the guy hopped inside a truck.
Sal’s Fresh Vegetables was scribbled in faded red ink on the side.
The truck came alive with a grumble, shaking some, and then its lights came on. He put it in gear and took off. When he braked to watch for traffic, I stood behind the truck, memorizing the license plate numbers.
There was no doubt Sal’s Fresh Vegetables was a front of some kind, and it was worth looking into. I heard another grumble, and right as I turned to look, a truck came barreling toward me. Its brakes screeched right before they held, and the truck came to a full halt.
Another guy jumped out, leaving the door open. “What the fuck, man?” he yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You hit my leg,” I said, tapping at it. “I’m calling the police.” I acted like I was going for my phone.
“Hey, man!” He charged toward me, his arms open in a WTF gesture. “You’re not going to pin this—”
When he was close enough, I grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt and pressed my gun to his temple as I shoved him toward the wall of Sullivan’s. “You have two breaths to decide if this gig is worth your life. If after two breaths you decide it’s not, you have one to tell me where you’re supposed to take this truck.”
He went to open his mouth.
“One.”
I heard the start of another engine, and his eyes flicked to the right for a second before he sucked in a huge gust of air and then told me what the fuck was up. He was given a key ahead of time, and told to come back to the restaurant after normal deliveries for final instructions. Then he spit out the address and time he just received. His code word was “leeks.”
“Good boy,” I said, patting his head. “Now run along. Not toward the restaurant, but home, wherever the fuck that might be. Because you know the devils in that room, and what they’ll do to you—you don’t want to know this one.”
As soon as he took off, I climbed inside of the truck, right as the other one came from behind. The horn sounded and I put my hand out of the window, signaling for him to give me a second. I made a call to Father Flanagan because I knew the guy was going to rat—better the devil you know than the one you don’t. I told the good Father to stop him from getting to Grady’s table.
It was against all that he’d vowed to hurt anyone, but he’d lay the guilt on heavy. He’d probably ask him if his soul was in trouble. It was the sort of thing that fucked with your mind even more if it was already in despair. Like a priest showing up to your hospital room right before surgery to read you your last rights—on accident.
If that didn’t work, he’d lock him in the closet. Even if the guy knew what was going on with the deliveries, his life would be spared, because I couldn’t kill him if Father Flanagan had a hand in his capture. The father and I had made a deal long ago about that.
Setting the truck in gear, I made a call to Raff as I pulled away. “Head to Sullivan’s,” I said, my entire body jerking from the bumpy ride.
“I’m there now,” he said, and I heard the chatter in the background when he opened the door.
“There’s a boy you need to save from Father Flanagan’s lecture before you take him to a safe house. If he hasn’t gotten to him, you get to him without noise. Trucker hat over blonde hair. Plaid jacket. Ripped jeans and boots. Then I want you to call Colin and make sure he’s with us for this ride. Tell him we found the place, Sal’s, but nothing else.”
“Inconceivable,” he said, quoting that movie again. “You found a way in.”
“Vegetables,” I said. Then I hung up.
Later that night, Colin sat in the passenger seat of an expendable car. His leg bounced up and down and he chewed his fingernails. He kept checking the rearview mirror.
“Let’s go over this once more,” I said. “You know what truck the keys Raff has belongs to, and the drugs are already loaded and waiting at Sal’s?”
“I’m guessing about the key,” he said, not looking at me while he spoke to me, but at the mirror again. “It has a number on it. And I’m guessing that since the trucks pretending to deliver vegetables to Sullivan’s have ‘Sal’ painted on the side, that’s where the drugs are. Or they have something to do with Lee. Worth a look.”
I said nothing else the entire ride to Hoboken, and as we pulled in front of the center, I knew I’d been right. Sal’s was the real deal. It was a front business for either the Scarpones or Lee Grady. The Scarpones had a few of them, including Dolce, one of the most popular Italian restaurants in the city.
“Where are the other guys?” Colin said, finally turning to look at me when I found a spot to park across the street. Trucks were lined up in the lot down the block from Sal’s—ones that were not being used. All identical to the ones that had been “delivering” to Sullivan’s. After I had another one of my guys do some digging, he’d found out that Sal’s actually delivered to Sullivan’s on the regular.
Nothing suspicious about it, until the trucks that came and went that day added up to the magic number seven. Either Sullivan was preparing for a feast made of vegetables, or the truck I stole was going to pick up drugs at the dock after regular delivery hours ended.
Bingo on theory two.
I stepped out of my car, going around to the passenger side, waiting with my back against the hood. A few seconds after I did, I noticed Raff pulling into the parking lot, going to get directions on where to go from there. He was going in place of the guy that was being held at one of the safe houses I had in the city.
Colin stepped out. He looked left and then right. “How are we going to do this alone, Kelly?”
“Trust, Colin McFirth,” I said. “Do you trust me?” I looked him straight in the eye. Those were the exact words he had used right after he gave me the story about the key.
A second. Two. Three. He swallowed hard. Nodded. But said nothing.
It took over an hour for the truck Raff was driving to leave. It was one of the last ones. Raff didn’t pass in front of us, but after he drove out of the parking lot, he pulled over a few seconds later. I didn’t want Colin to see him.
I gave it another two minutes and then hit Colin on the chest. “No more trucks,” I said. “We’ll check the lot down the street. We can see if the number on the key matches any of them. If it does, we can use it to follow that one.” I nodded toward Raff’s truck. “We need to hurry, though. If he pulls off, we don’t have shi
t.”
“Yeah,” Colin said, out of breath. He hadn’t taken two steps.
We casually walked down the street, like we were going for a stroll, and then slipped into the parking lot without any trouble. The lot had one small light, and it haloed some, but it wasn’t enough to truly see by.
I could see enough, though.
I lifted the key. “Number 22.” I pointed to a row across from where we stood. “You check that one. Whistle if you find it.”
Each of the trucks had a number painted on the side, toward the bottom, and they seemed to correlate with a number engraved on the key and written on a keychain.
Colin nodded and then hustled across to start looking. I stood with my back against one of the trucks, counting. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
A low whistle sounded.
Ten fucking seconds to find a truck that was one of many.
“Bingo,” he said, when I found him, pointing to the faded 22 on the truck.
My smile came slow. I flung the key at him and he caught it. “You drive.”
“Nah,” he flung it back, and I caught it with one hand. “I didn’t even bring my driver’s license. And don’t we have to wait for Raff to get in the back? Where is he?” He looked behind me, but didn’t find anyone.
The key flew through the air again, this time harder, and it clanked against his silver ring when he caught it. “No time to wait for him,” I said, then I took out my gun and pointed it at his head. “Get in the fucking truck and start it. Now.”
“Kelly, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what, Colin? Set you up to get slaughtered? Raff, too?”
At one time, Colin and Raff had been tight. Apparently when loyalties change, so does the value of friendships. Raff had even taken a bullet for him when his girlfriend at the time tried to shoot him in the balls after she found out he’d cheated on her.
He lifted his hands. “I might’ve gotten the trucks wrong.”
Lying to the end.
“It is what it is, Colin. The truck or the gun. You know if it’s not mine, it’ll be Grady’s.”
We stared at each other for a second.
“You can think about running,” I said, reading the thoughts behind his eyes, “but you won’t get far.”
“You fucker!”
“Ouch. That hurt my feelings.” I laughed, and then I took him by the collar and slammed him up against the truck. “You picked the wrong side.”
He spit in my face, and after wiping it on my shoulder, I let go of his shirt, taking the key out of his hand. I opened the door to the truck and motioned for him to get in.
He did, his face determined, even though he was sweating. Then, with a satisfied grin, he started the truck. When it didn’t blow, he whooped, shutting the door so fast that it was like he was shutting it on a monster he was able to lock out just in time. He pulled out of the lot, tires screeching, the entire truck tilting as he made the turn onto the street.
Then he hit the brakes to keep the truck from going over. That was when the entire thing went boom.
I shook my head, going to the actual truck with 22 painted on the side. I’d put a patch over it so he would assume it was the wrong one. Truck 22 would have blown as soon as it was started if I hadn’t taken care of it. The one Colin had started was rigged by me. It didn’t go boom until he made the turn, because I made it so.
21
Keely
New York seemed like a battleground when I returned from Italy.
The news was reporting nonstop on the explosion of seven vegetable trucks that were leaving the docks. Masked men had stopped them, made the drivers get out, and then laced the trucks with explosives and blew them up. All of the trucks belonged to a company named Sal’s that was located in Hoboken.
Sal himself—who was sweating profusely and constantly wiping his head with a handkerchief while on camera—had no clue why anyone would’ve wanted to blow up his vegetables. One of his trucks had even been blown up with a driver inside.
The driver of the truck in Hoboken was Colin McFirth, a man known to work for my husband, and he was the grandson of Susan, Kelly’s secretary.
The pressure around Kelly’s “business” seemed to be closing in because of it. Scott was around more often since the police were involved, and he did nothing but stare at me when we saw each other. And I hated, hated, that he could see something in me that I wanted to hide—the truth. He had been in the right for having the house searched.
I’d even catch Scott at the same grocery or on the same block. That same look he got when he was obsessed with a case was turned on me. He was determined to see a change in me, but he wouldn’t.
My time away from Kelly only reinforced one thing. I loved the marauding bastard, though I hated his actions.
How could I justify loving someone who sold the thing that ruined CeeCee and Ryan’s lives? I’d truly fallen in love with those children, and as much as I missed Kelly, I had missed Ryan, too. When we returned from Italy, I felt like I was finally home, but then again, it was hard to face my husband, not knowing what the truth was.
He hadn’t defended himself or even brought up what had happened after I got home. I went to my room and he went to his, and instead of a hallway separating us, the distance felt further than Italy.
I wasn’t budging on this, and neither was he.
The only small thing he did was leave a note on the counter, right by my favorite teacup, that said, You cannot save people. You can only love them.
I didn’t want to change him, and I didn’t want to save him. I actually fell in love with him as is. But I demanded a brighter future for children like CeeCee and Ryan. I never believed that one person could change the world, but one person could make a difference, even a small one.
Our silence stretched on for weeks, and the tension only grew thicker.
Kelly came home with wounds more often, and Harrison was busier than ever. Raff no longer went with me to practice, or wherever I needed to go. Kelly sent Harrison in his place, and if my brother needed to be someplace else, Harrison sent Lachlan.
I’d never met the side of Cash Kelly that was suspicious, but after I returned home from Italy, he appeared like Kelly’s missing twin. There were times he ordered Harrison to take Maureen, the kids, and me to his house. Sometimes I would take the kids, and Maureen would go back to her apartment. She said that, in all the years she’d lived in Hell’s Kitchen, she had never run from trouble, and she wasn’t going to start—she was comfortable in her place. Other times, we’d go to a completely different house in the city.
Winter came, and it was time for my Broadway debut. It was a limited showing, but if things went well, they were thinking of extending dates. The thought didn’t thrill me like it should’ve. After all those years of audition after audition, working hard at odd jobs to keep myself going until I got the part of my dreams…the night fell flat.
I didn’t even feel excited. I only wanted it over and done.
My Mam was more excited than I was, and for the first time since I told her about my wedding to Kelly, she looked at me with pride again. It used to thrill me when she looked at me like that, like she didn’t blame me for what happened to my sister. But again. It fell flat.
It was a subtle change in me, but one I noticed after spending time with Kelly. He never judged me. He never made me feel like I had to go in one direction or another to get his approval.
Even with Mari. I never showed her who I truly was because I wanted to be the better person for her. A sister she could look up to. The same way I always assumed I’d look up to my sister. Roisin seemed to have this impeccable moral compass, even at a young age. She’d take in wounded birds and they’d trust her right away. I’d throw rocks at car windshields to see how many it would take to make them crack.
Kelly seemed to understand better than most that it was impossible to change someone unless they wanted to change. He taught me that I didn't need to b
e fixed, and that it was time for me to stop trying to fix other people.
We had a silent mutual agreement—to accept each other without changing each other—and it was one that I never knew I needed until he came along.
I never knew I needed someone like him until he came along.
His chaos had shaken up my false sense of peace, my life, and made the pieces fall around me differently. The pieces had never landed so perfectly before.
My eyes lifted for a second, catching Kelly through the mirror. After all of my family had gone to find their seats, he stood with his back against the wall, watching me.
“Your hands are shakin’, darlin’,” he said.
They were, but it wasn’t from stage fright. It was from him. My body was highly aware of him at all times. My hands only trembled when he was around. At first, it was from the force, the anxiety, from hate. They trembled from pent-up love now. I hated the thing he did, but I couldn’t hate him even if I tried anymore, which frustrated me sometimes.
I gave him a narrowed-eye stare before I turned back to the makeup in front of me, ignoring him like usual.
He spun my seat around, both of his arms locking me in place, and tilted the chair back. My eyes rose to meet his in defiance, even though my heart raced and my stomach plummeted.
“You’ve lost weight,” he said, not looking at my body, but at my eyes.
“You look exhausted,” I snapped.
“Someone hasn’t been eating dinner.”
“Someone hasn’t been sleeping.”
He searched my eyes before he leaned down to kiss me. I turned my face, giving him my cheek. He growled low in his throat, and it was the first time I’d ever seen him show any outwardly sign of emotion.
Kelly was fucking pissed.
His arms flexed as he held the chair in place. “Do this tonight. Or don’t. That little girl will be all too happy to take your place. But from this moment forward, you do whatever the fuck makes your eyes light up. It’s time to stop living for a ghost.”
Marauder (Gangsters of New York Book 2) Page 22