by J. J. McAvoy
“Do you know when he will arrive, or is he already here?” Her eyes darted around quickly.
I shrugged. “I, like you, work for my brother. He asked me to be here. I’m here.”
Her blue eyes narrowed at me. “Is that what you’ve been doing in Boston? Working? And here we all thought you were enjoying the spoils of all that fancy education. The glory of being a doctor by day, jet-setter by night. I hear your sister is going to be a real-life princess now? My god, how fortunate you Callahans are!”
I nodded. “Yes, well, there are ups and downs. My sister-in-law was just murdered yesterday.”
“Yes, how sad, if we had gotten a funeral announcement, maybe we would have sent flowers. Then again, she was part of your family, so briefly that many of us didn’t get to know her… What bad luck she had. It was almost like she used to torture our people in Boston, and then was thrown to the side when she was no longer needed by your family.”
By her tone and the very words that left her mouth, I knew then that the lie I’d shared with Greyson this morning had reached her. Which made me wonder, what else leaked out from our house to her ears? How much did they know about our home?
“Everybody is needed. Ivy was especially. Ethan is heartbroken.” It was the truth. But more than a few of them scuffed, rolled their eyes, or simply shook their heads. Bravo, Ethan, they truly think you are a heartless bastard.
“Then we should hold off on this meeting…my daughter has school in the morning—”
“Maeve, what is the rush? School is still going to be there.” In walked a man I did know yet. He was the younger brother to Savino Moretti, the man Dona killed, uncle and godfather to Klarissa Moretti, the woman Ethan had Ivy kill.
“Emilio, I wasn’t aware you’d be here,” Maeve, who at this point I’d only called Bridget, said to him as he pulled out a chair at my table and sat down. His hairy hand reached into a wrinkled shirt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Why wouldn’t I be here, Maeve? The boss asked me to be. Or does he have to meet with us Italians now separately?” he questioned, smacking the pack of cigarettes on the table before pulling one out and lifting it to his lips. He turned his head to the side, and one of the men who came with him lit it.
There were Irish here…but there were still enough Italians that you could feel the tension between both groups about to erupt. They were spilt. Irish to my left. Italians to my right. Even the kids who were behind me were spilt. A few of them were saying hi to the kids who had come with their parents to this meeting…but no more than that.
“I was merely making small talk, Emilio,” Ms. Bridget said with a fake smile and nodded to him.
Emilio grunted a reply with the cigarette in his mouth before looking over to me. “You’re taller than I remember.”
“It has been four years,” I replied. “Though it should have only been two weeks. Neither of you were at my welcome home party…should I take that personally?”
“Let me think,” he replied, taking a long drag of his smoke. “Should I take your sister and brother’s actions against my family personally?”
I shrugged, leaning back in my seat. “That depends…do you really want to accept traitors as family? I hope not. That would make you a traitor, too, Emilio.”
He turned to glare at me, his teeth snarling. “Savino, I could understand but Klarissa…she was no FUCKING traitor!”
“Language!” I shook my finger at him and then nodded to the back of me. “Children are here. I was hoping to have a diplomatic conversation with all of you here.”
“You?” Ms. Bridget questioned and pushed further. “You called this meeting, not your brother?”
“I did.”
She shook her head, getting up. “I don’t have time for this.”
Emilio scuffed, rising from his chair. “Look, kid, if your brother really wants to talk, he knows where to find us, okay?”
I nodded to him and watched as they all prepared to leave, but when the first person in the back pushed to open the door, it didn’t budge. I watched as they tried a few times, even moving to the other set of the doors before truly realizing they were locked in.
“What is this?” Bridget snapped, spinning back to look at me. Her red hair whipped to the side with her. “Do you really think you can lock us in here, and we’ll all just be forced to work out our differences?”
“Kid,” Emilio sighed, “when has locking up hothead Irishmen and hot-blooded Italians together ever worked out?”
“It worked for my parents,” I replied with a smile. “After all, here I am half hothead and half hot-blooded. I’m so hot I’m fireproof.”
“This isn’t a game!” Bridget hissed back at me. “Let us out, or you and your seven guards will learn the cruel realities of mob-on-mob violence.”
“Oh… mob-on-mob violence…,” I repeated, nodded. “I like it. That is what I’m going to call today. A lesson on mob-on-mob violence—”
“Wyatt!—” She was cut off by the screams of the kids behind me as they ran like a hoard of white sheep to their parents and families. I could feel the heat of the fire behind me. I could hear the sparks from their videogame and the television as they combusted. But best of all, I could see the orange flames reflected on their faces, in their eyes as the fire spread. Like the little bugs they were, they couldn’t look away from the light. Their necks snapped left to right as they watched the flames spread to the right wall and then to the left, and then toward the ground.
The closer the flames got to them all, the more they could feel the heat, inhaling the smoke, the more their panic set in. The children began to cry.
“MOMMY! MOMMY!” Poor little Miss Pigtails screamed as the flames surrounded her, blocking her path in every direction.
“MARY! SWEETHEART!” Bridget screamed, moving forward toward her daughter.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” I said, reaching into my suit jacket pocket before kicking my feet onto the table, grabbing the eye drops, and using them to wet my eyes.
“You did this!” Bridget yelled at me. I blinked a few times and looked over her again. She’d gotten a few people’s attention, Emilio’s for one, but everyone else…everyone else devolved into the ruthless, self-serving beasts they really were. Pushing one another out of the way to reach the door that wouldn’t budge an inch. They tried kicking the door down. Throwing their bodies into it. Betting against the glass.
“Yes, I did do this. Beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked her. “No one cares about who’s Irish and who’s Italian. No one cares about who killed whom…they just want to save themselves.”
“Little cunt.” Emilio marched toward me. But before he could get any closer, I shot at his ankles, and he fell to his feet right in front of me. Sitting up straighter before he keeled over, I grabbed a fist full of his black hair, holding his head up. Pressing the hot gun to his eye.
“Would you like to know how many strikes you have left?” I asked him, digging the gun deeper into his eye socket. “Let me take this moment to educate you. You are the brother of a traitor, the uncle of a snake. That’s two strikes. You should have come in here not on your motherfucking knees but on your stomach, praying that you didn’t end up in the ground with the rest of the Moretti family. Instead you decided to ignore me. Then you sat at my table without my fucking permission, in my fucking community center. To add insult upon insult upon injury, you called me ‘kid’ TWICE! DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING KID TO YOU?”
He clenched his mouth closed, sweat rolling down his face.
“That was a question, Emilio. I want an answer, Emilio.”
“WYATT! MY DAUGHTER—”
I looked to the right as she came closer, screaming at me. “I’m currently having a discussion with Emilio, Bridget. You want me to keep having this discussion…because when I stop, I’m going to have tell you, your daughter can burn to a black crisp in front of my eyes, and I would absofuckinlutely do NOTHING to save her!”
Her eyes wide
ned. Her head snapped back to where her daughter was coughing on her knees. Bridget rushed to her, but in doing so, she triggered the springs I had wired caused the fire to spread more. Her daughter screamed as the flames burned the sides of her arms and face.
“MARY!”
I looked back at Emilio, shaking my head. “I tried to warn her, didn’t I? Now, where were we?”
His reply was to take the knife he’d been hiding and try to stab me, but his grip was loose. The knife fell to floor beside me. He began breathing harder.
“Do you know why you’re sweating so hard?” I asked him, knowing he couldn’t answer. His pupils were already dilated. “It’s not the fire. It’s not the heat. I’m sure that has made a little impact. Even I’m getting a bit warm. But the true reason is because I laced my bullets. The drugs right now are confusing your whole nervous system. So when I do this,” I pushed the gun into his eye socket…causing him to inhale sharply, “it feels like someone is squeezing your lungs, right? Isn’t it cool? The things medical science can do nowadays, right?”
He tried to breathe but only ended up coughing due to the smoke.
“My brother wanted to kill you off and be done with your family for good. Luckily for you, he was too busy at the time. That is how insignificant you are. Now I’m going to tell him not to worry.”
“Get…it…over…w—”
I moved the gun down to his shoulder, pulling the trigger…watching as he gritted his teeth. “You still don’t understand, Emilio. You do not make the rules. You do not command me, and you sure as all mighty fuck don’t tell me what do. Don’t worry…by the time I finish with you, you won’t sleep, eat, or even shit without asking for my permission. So get used to this position, you’re my dog now.”
Letting go, I watched as he fell over onto his side. I rose from my chair, looking at the flames around me. Watching as more than a few of the younger children, weaker women, and less healthy men fell to their knees, putting their hands over their mouths, or tried to keep children calm. A few of them even began to pray. Meticulously walking on every other tile, then the third on the left and one up, until I got to where Bridget sobbed, her hands burned and bloody as she held on to her also burnt and bloody daughter…the pain must have been so bad the poor girl passed out, but not before wetting herself.
“So mothers really will walk through fire for their children,” I said, looking down at Bridget.
The tears rolled down her face as she looked up to me.
“You devil!” she said in Irish
“You haven’t seen anything yet, Bridget,” I responded in Irish before turning my attention to any person still conscious or not withering on the ground in pain. Pulling out my phone, I dialed in the code. Suddenly, the fire prevention vents sprung to life, sucking the chemicals, fumes, and visible smoke—which was mostly carbon, tar, oils, and ash—out while the sprinklers showered every single square inch with water. The fire wires I’d set in place now off.
As the water beat down on me, soaking every inch of my clothes, I said to them all loudly, “Let this be a reminder to all of you! Whatever your anger is, whatever your issues are, you PLEDGED LOYALITY! So I, and my family, shall demand loyalty! Italian, Irish I don’t give a sweet Mary mother of fuck!” I walked through the maze of their bodies as they sobbed, heading to the front of the door. “You will be loyal. Because this is no longer a ‘I-burn-you-with-me’ relationship. It’s now a ‘I-don’t-fucking-burn-but-you-cock-munching-bastards-still-do’ relationship! My family climbed to the top, but we never stopped preparing for you at the bottom. We don’t need you anymore. You aren’t the only families or people who want our support. We chose you, we kept choosing you, we defended and provided for you because WE’RE BLOOD OR KIN! If that no longer means what we have always thought it to mean…then we will destroy you all.”
At the doors, I didn’t even have to reach out and touch them. At the push of the button, all the doors sprang open. At the push of another button, I lifted the phone to my ear.
“Thank you, Commissioner McCoy, Chief Mataka, you can send them now.” Hanging up, I turned back to them as I stepped aside. “Well, you all are free to go. Thank you so much for making time to hear me out. I look forward to our next get together.”
THREE
“Now I can go back to being ruthless again.”
~ Robert Francis Kennedy
WYATT
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for waiting,” the chief of surgery said into the microphone beside me. “I’m Doherty Han, Chief of Surgery at Chicago Medical. Yesterday at four p.m. central time, a fire broke out at the Orlando-Sedric Community Center, injuring approximately sixty-two people…fifteen children and forty-seven adults. Their injuries ranged from serve burns to smoke inhalation. I’m happy to report to you that there are no causalities, in part thanks to the quick actions of Dr. Wyatt Callahan, who was also among those in the fire, luckily unharmed. He will be joining the Chicago Medical Trauma Center as a trauma surgeon…Dr. Callahan.”
Nodding, I stepped forward behind the podium and spoke into the microphone. “I’ll answer any questions…but please be gentle. As you know, I am a Callahan, and I have no experience with the press.”
A few of them laughed; others glared. But I just smirked, pointing to the left, toward the first woman to raise her hand.
“Mr. Callahan—”
“It’s Dr. Callahan, Mr. is everyone else in my family,” I joked, though she didn’t seem amused as she rolled her eyes at me, before parting her lips to ask.
“Dr. Callahan,” she stretched, and I nodded for her to go on. “The Orlando-Sedric Community Center has marketed itself as having state-of-the-art technology that prevents fires from spreading. As I recall, your family has claimed it was fireproof.”
“Dr. Callahan is answering questions regarding patients—”
“It’s alright,” I interrupted the chief before she went on. “As I recall, my family claimed the O.S. was nearly fireproof. ‘Nearly’ is not one hundred percent. Chief Han claimed that it was luck that I was not harmed and was able to help others. However, it wasn’t luck…it is due to the state-of-the-art technology at the O.S., and had it not been tampered with, I’m positive there would have been even fewer injuries.”
That got their attention, more than a few them sitting up and calling out.
“Are you saying that the security system was tampered with?”
“Was this arson?”
“Has the fire chief confirmed?”
“Do the police have a suspect?”
Reaching up to my lips, I blew on my fingers, making a high-pitched whistle that was further amplified by the microphone, making them cringe. Dropping my hand, I took a deep breath before speaking.
“I am a doctor. I came here to give you all a status update on the patients under my care. If you do not have questions regarding the patients…like seven-year-old Mary Gore-Booth, who has serve burns on both her left and right arms, along with her feet. She’s scheduled for skin grafts within the week…and hopefully, within a few months, this will be behind her,” I replied, lifting the photo of Mary. Did I have the mother’s permission? No. Would she give it to me? I was sure Bridget wouldn’t ever question this family again. “While there are no critical patients, we do currently need blood donations…to those who have donated, thank you.”
I could feel myself going on autopilot. My mother used to say the press are like puppies—hyper, attention-seeking, eager for a bone. So always give them your attention and a damn bone. They were asking me questions, but I was sure they were all itching to question the police and fire chief about an arson suspect. Meaning my family…the O.S. didn’t fail but was a victim of arson. So long as trust in my family was still maintained, and that we still had a good image, I didn’t care who took the fall for the arson.
No... that was a lie. I did care. Which is why I already had a scapegoat.
NEAL
“Sweets, hold on,” I said to her as I ste
pped out onto the street. One of the guards who’d driven in behind me jumped quickly out of the Ranger Rover, hand outstretched for my keys.
“Who are you?”
“Mannix. But people call me Monk.”
“I don’t really care. What I care about is my precious. Do you know what that is?” I asked him, nodding to my car.
He glanced to my precious quickly before looking to me. “It’s a vintage Ferrari.”
I stared at the blonde-haired, lanky man-boy stepping forward. I put my hand on his shoulder, turning him to face my precious along with me. “A poor man sees an old Ferrari. This, my ginger-haired friend, is a one-of-a-kind, custom-built forest green 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder. It’s almost as precious to me as my children. So how will you treat it?”
“Like it’s your child?” he replied.
“No,” I shook my head. “You’ll treat it like it was more important than your child. Your favorite child. Your only child. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man.” I nodded to him, tossing the keys up for him to catch, which he did as if I’d thrown up gold, before looking toward the hospital behind me. “I’ve been back in this city for an hour and already at the fucking hospital. Can you believe this shit, Sweets?”
“Are you talking to me or the driver still?” she answered back.
I grinned, pressing the Bluetooth further into my ear as I walked forward. “You know you’re the only Sweets I have.”
“Umm,” she replied to me. Then to someone else, “Put that in the corner and leave that. I’ll unpack it myself.”
“I still don’t understand why you needed to pack anything. We could have bought anything that wasn’t already in our room here.” I said to her as I glanced over the emergency room. The smell of alcohol and disinfectant trying but failing to mask the scent of smoke and burnt flesh.
“Well, when you decide to copy Declan’s bad habit of expensive cars…we should save anywhere we can.”