by Hamel, B. B.
The letter was all rank flattery. It pissed me off, that simpering first paragraph. I could practically see Colm smiling to himself as he wrote it, as if acknowledging that I was good at my job would somehow endear him to me.
That man could swallow the hot end of my shotgun. I’d gladly pull that trigger.
“What’s wrong?” Tara asked, head tilted, her hair falling from the bun slightly to brush against her shoulders.
“Nothing,” I said and glanced down at the envelope.
She followed my gaze and walked over. “What’s that?” She nodded at it, and I quickly pulled it away so she couldn’t grab it.
“Nothing,” I said. “Dropped off a little while ago, but it’s nothing.”
“You’re doing a very bad job of hiding that from me,” she said, smiling a little uncertainly. “Come on, Ewan. What is it?”
I took a breath and looked down at my hands. I didn’t know why I was reacting like this. Calm, perfect Ewan, I didn’t fall to pieces over some bullshit letter from my enemy. It was that last paragraph that bothered me though, that blanket offer from Colm for anything I wanted in exchange for her.
I didn’t sell women. He didn’t offer me cash, but he might as well have. The bastard thought I’d hand Tara over to him like she was luggage, like she was cattle, and it boiled my blood and made my skin bubble with rage.
And more than that, it worried me. If the Healy family wanted her bad enough to bypass the Don and come to me, that must mean they were serious, and things might get hot.
I watched her carefully and her coy smile slowly faded away. I didn’t want to hide this from her, but I didn’t know how desperate she’d be to try and run away. Still, she had to know the truth if we were going to get through this alive.
“It’s a letter from Colm Healy,” I said slowly, keeping my voice as steady as I could. “He wants to buy you from me.”
She flinched and took a step back. “Buy me?” she asked.
“Maybe in his mind it’s a rescue attempt.” I held the letter out. “You can read it.”
It was probably a mistake. She took the envelope, ripped out the paper, and read it quickly. Her face twisted in disgust as she finished and she handed it back to me in a crumpled heap.
“I don’t even know these people,” she said, pacing away from me. “How do I know going to them is going to be any better than staying here?”
“I doubt he’ll force you to marry someone,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or not. “At least he didn’t have your father killed.”
She grunted in response and paced back and forth, hands behind her back. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “The Healy family wants you. We knew that already. This doesn’t change a thing.”
“He’s willing to pay for me.” She said it almost as if it were a joke, and she could hardly understand the punchline. “Honestly, Ewan. You should take him up on the offer. You don’t want to marry me, do you?”
I smiled slightly. “I don’t know what I want,” I said. “But the Don will be very upset if I let you leave. So for now, you’re staying.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “That’s right, I almost forgot that I don’t have a choice in any of this.”
“I keep saying, you can run whenever you want, but it won’t be as easy as you think.” I walked around the counter and came toward her, but she backed away from me. I stopped and held my hands out, trying to show her that I didn’t mean any harm.
“I don’t understand you,” she said softly, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and uncertainty.
I hated that look. It was despicable, and it made me feel like a monster. The truth was, I didn’t understand myself, and didn’t understand what I really wanted. One half of me needed her to run away and wanted to make sure she got to safety. I wasn’t a trafficker, and I didn’t keep women against their will. But the other half wanted to follow orders and didn’t want to anger the Don. I was fucked if she stayed, and fucked if she left.
And there was one other reason I wanted her to stick around. It was a selfish reason, and it haunted me every time I looked at her.
I wanted her. God damn, I wanted her body, her lips, her long, lean legs, the curve of her jaw, her long, thick auburn her, her sparkling eyes. I wanted it all, wanted to take her and own her and make her beg and drip and moan. I’d never felt it so strong before, but the way the sunlight played off her damp skin drove me insane with pure, animal lust.
“You don’t need to worry about it,” I said. “None of it matters. You’re here, and I don’t plan on giving you away.”
“But you won’t stop me if I run.” She said softly, almost a whisper.
“That’s right,” I said. “I know I’m contradicting myself.”
She stared at me, then chewed on her lip and looked away. The silence was heavy and threatening, and I didn’t know what I would do if she made a break for it, but I thought I would let her go. I might chase, might try to bring her back, but in the end, if she wanted to escape and take her chances on her own, then I’d let her.
But I didn’t want her to get herself killed.
There was no doubt in my mind that the Don would send someone to finish her off if she did manage to break away. It would be a smear on his honor, and he couldn’t accept that sort of stain on the family.
She was safer here. But that wasn’t exactly easy for her to see.
“I should shower,” she said. “I’m gross.”
“I like the way you look,” I said, smiling a bit, but I let her slip past me and head to the hall. “Sweat rolling down your body.”
She glanced back over her shoulder and seemed confused, but she smiled a little, her cheeks still flushed, and disappeared back to the bathroom.
The shower water turned on as I sat at the table and leaned my head back against the wall.
I shouldn’t have shown her that letter. Now she knew the Healy family would take her in, and she was more likely to try to escape. It was stupid, and if I really wanted to keep her captive, I would have kept it from her.
But I was too conflicted and angry with the whole situation to do the right thing.
The Don wanted me to marry her, and I had a feeling I understood why.
He wanted to embarrass the Healy family. And he wanted to have one more piece of leverage over me.
The fucking bastards. All of them, bastards. I closed my eyes and thought of Tara on the balcony, moving gracefully through her yoga routine, her body sweating and lean and perfect.
8
Tara
None of this made any sense.
I was nobody. I was nothing. My father was a real piece of shit, and clearly connected at the highest level to some very bad people, but that didn’t mean I mattered at all. He was dead and I had nothing to do with the Healy family or with the Valentino family.
And yet I was thrown into the middle of their war.
I was pawn, a little plaything, and I knew it. The only person who seemed at all conflicted about using me was Ewan, and he was my captor.
It was fucked up beyond measure. But I kept thinking about the way he looked at me while I did yoga. I noticed him staring, and at first it made me self-conscious, but I quickly got over it and started to enjoy the attention. It was sick, I realized that, and yet that sickness made it even more exciting.
I wanted to tempt my captor. I wanted him to look at my body.
At night, I wrapped myself in strange sheets, and dreamed about running away. And in the morning, I knew I didn’t have the courage to go through with it. I loathed myself for that.
Ewan came out from his bedroom in a dark suit one morning after I finished showering. His hair was combed back and although he didn’t wear a tie, he looked incredible with that top button undone, and that jacket clinging to his muscular shoulders.
“Where are you going, looking like that?” I asked, sipping strong black coffee. I didn’t normally drink it black, but he never
had any milk, and I got tired of asking for it.
“I’ve got some errands to run,” he said, and I caught sight of a gun tucked into his waistband. “Stay here for a while. I’ll be back later.”
I leaned back against the counter and thought about the day ahead of me, stuck inside the apartment with nothing to do, and a whole family of Irish thugs on the hunt. They could show up at any moment and pull me away, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. I shook my head and put my mug down.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
His jaw clenched and he shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
“Ewan,” I said. “You want to leave me here alone, when the Healy family could show up at any second?”
He let out a soft grunt and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. Even when he tried to put himself together, he managed to somehow make himself look slightly disheveled. But that worked for him—the muscles, the tattoos, the straight jaw and small nose and bright eyes. He was handsome enough to pull off the messy look, and I liked it better when he had a little grit about him.
“They wouldn’t dare,” he said. “Colm wants you, but not enough to piss me off.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, gesturing toward where the letter was still left lying on the counter. “He’s willing to pay for me. Maybe he’s willing to break in here when you’re distracted and steal me away.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” he asked. “Then you wouldn’t have to get married.”
I grimaced slightly and looked down at my feet. He was right about that, but I didn’t know what the Healy family would be like, or what they’d make me do. I knew my father sold them girls, and maybe that’s what Colm wanted me for. I could imagine him putting me in one of those sad little massage parlors and putting me to work, selling me to men, letting them use my body up until there was nothing left.
Ewan wasn’t going to do that. He was the devil I knew, and so far, he hadn’t hurt me at all.
“Bring me with you,” I said softly. “Don’t leave me here.”
He let out a frustrated sigh and turned to the door. “Come on then,” he said. “But keep your mouth shut, all right?”
“Of course,” I said, following him out into the hall. I wore yoga pants and running shoes and a zip-up sweatshirt, but that didn’t seem to matter. “What are we doing? Picking up the Don’s dry cleaning?”
He smiled slightly then took my wrist, pulling me along behind him. “Something like that,” he said.
We drove across town in silence. I didn’t ask where we were going, and he didn’t say. I couldn’t understand what route he was taking, or where our final destination would be. He made random turns, cut across Old City to the river, then down south to the stadiums, then all the way up Broad, through Rittenhouse, up to the Parkway, down Kelly Drive, then back across West Philly and into North Philly. I was insanely lost by the time he pulled up outside of a dilapidated row home bordered by two overgrown, trash-filled empty lots.
“Stay,” he said.
“No way.” I got out and followed him. “I’m curious about your business.”
He gave me a look but didn’t fight. The front stoop was crumbling, and the neighborhood seemed empty. There was one other car, and it was missing a tire, and the doors were rusted out. As far as I could tell, all the houses were boarded up and abandoned.
He knocked on the door, waited, and knocked again. I smiled a little to myself and he shot me a look. It was like a secret spy thing, the sort of shit little kids did.
The door opened a crack. “You him?” the voice asked.
“Valentino sent me,” Ewan said.
The door slammed shut.
“That wasn’t very polite,” I said.
He looked back at me and wasn’t smiling. “Stop it.”
“I’m just saying.” I stretched my arms up and looked around. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Kensington,” he said. “North Kensington.”
“Huh.” I chewed my lip. “Near Temple, right?”
“Sort of,” he said. “Now be quiet.”
I paced away a little while we waited. A few city cats slinked past, hiding near the rusted-out car. I bet they stayed hidden during the day and went hunting for rats at night.
The door opened again and a black duffel appeared. It looked absolutely stuffed, the material stretched tight.
“This is all of it?” Ewan asked.
“What the Don ordered,” the man said. I moved to the side to get a better look. He had dark skin and sallow eyes, and wore a freshly pressed checkered shirt.
“He’ll weigh it, and if you’re short, it’ll be a problem.” Ewan slung the bag on his shoulder.
“It’s not short,” the man said, and glanced down at me. “You brought a friend?”
“Ignore her,” Ewan said. “I’ll pass this along. I’ll be seeing you.”
“Yeah, I bet.” The guy shut the door gain, and Ewan walked back to the car. He tossed the duffel in the back and got in behind the wheel. I hesitated before climbing into the passenger seat.
“What was all that?” I asked. “It seemed pretty dramatic.”
“He just gave me fifty pounds of pure, uncut Columbian heroin,” he said as he drifted down the block again.
I turned around and gaped at the bag.
Ewan laughed and I flinched at the sound. I’d never seen heroin before in my life, and I was tempted to look inside, but kept my hands to myself. I didn’t know how much heroin went for on the street, but I guessed fifty pounds would be worth an astronomically large number.
I faced forward again as Ewan began to drift around the city. “Do you do this a lot?” I asked. “Buy drugs and cart them off?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “I do whatever the Don asks.”
“You answer directly to him?”
He shrugged. “It’s an unusual arrangement. Most guys in my position have a Capo, you know, like a leader. Capos are like middle management. But I get my orders straight from the Don, and sometimes from Dean.”
“That makes you special, right?” It was interesting, the way he talked about the family. He had a strange note of pride in his voice, like he wanted to brag about how he was important in his gang full of criminal and thieves.
“I don’t think I’d say special,” Ewan said, tilting his head. “But it means my life’s both simpler and more complicated.”
“How’s that work?”
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “If a guy fucks up, he answers to the Capo. That’s how it goes. But if I fuck up, I answer directly to the Don, and he’s not a kind of forgiving man.”
“Poor baby,” I said, pouting. “Little killer man might get smacked around by the big bad old guy.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t play around,” he said. “You met the Don. You know what he’s like.”
I shivered a little and looked out the window. That was true, I met the Don, and I saw those cold, lizard eyes. He was right about that—I wouldn’t want to be punished by that man, and I certainly wouldn’t want to work for him.
“Why are you doing this, if you’re angry with him right now?” I asked.
“Because orders are orders,” he said.
“Except for when those orders are to marry me.”
His lips flattened as he glared ahead. “More or less,” he said.
“I still don’t get why you care so much about them,” I pressed, unable to help myself. I was starting to get comfortable with Ewan, and that meant I was starting to ask stupid questions that might piss him off. I had to be careful, because although he hadn’t hurt me yet, that didn’t mean he never would.
“The Valentino family took me in when I had nowhere else to go,” he said, his eyes scanning the street ahead like he was waiting for an explosion. “My mother died when I was twelve. My dad took off two years later, and I was left alone in that fucking house. I was fourteen years old, and didn’t have a clue what I was going
to do with myself.”
“That’s awful,” I said softly. Even though my father was a sex trafficker and a real piece of garbage, at least I had a relatively normal childhood. My mother left, and now I finally understood why she’d run, but otherwise, my father took care of me and kept the truth about himself hidden. I had to appreciate him for that, at least. He’d kept me shielded from the worst of the world around me.
But Ewan, he’d been thrown right into it head first.
“The Valentinos found me there after they came searching for my old man,” he said. “They could’ve left me, but instead, one of the Capos took me to the Don, and the Don practically adopted me. I stayed with him for a few years and grew up with Dean, and the Don taught me everything I know.”
I listened in silence and let my eyes roam along his arm, lingering on his tense bicep. I tried to imagine what it would be like, losing your entire family, then trying to grow up raised by strange gangsters. Of course he turned out hard and cold and difficult. Of course he was a violent killer and ran drugs all over the city. He didn’t have any other choice—it was his world. Don Valentino saved his life, and now he thought he probably owed the Don everything.
Which struck me suddenly. He resisted the Don’s direct order to marry me, and that must be a huge deal for him. If the Don was like family then turning him down must’ve been like turning his back on a father. It wasn’t a small decision and likely not something he took lightly.
He didn’t seem interested in talking any more after that, although I tried to learn more about his past. We drove around the city until he stopped outside of another house, this one deep in South Philly on a quiet block with lots of shade trees and cars packed on the curb. An older woman with an apron took the bag from him and offered to feed me pasta, which I would’ve accepted, but Ewan turned her down for me.
“You really don’t know anything else, do you?” I asked him softly as the car drifted back toward his apartment.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, not looking at me, and I could tell by the tension in his mouth that he was lying.