Thug: The Doyles: A Boston Irish Mafia Romance

by Sophie Austin

  As the song ends, I watch my brother Owen dancing with his girlfriend, Molly. Her long dark red curls fly out behind her as she moves effortlessly across the floor. The lead singer wipes the sweat off his brow, mumbling about taking a break. He hasn’t even finished the announcement before Molly’s taken the steps up to the stage two at a time and stuck a probing finger right into the bruise on my face.

  “Kieran Doyle, what’s wrong with your face?”

  Instead of answering, I look at my brother.

  “She always sweet-talk you too, Owen?”

  He nods, and I try not to twist away when she’s checking my pupils.

  “No concussion,” she throws over her shoulder to Owen. “This time.”

  Molly doesn’t approve of fighting, which is funny since Owen is — or was — a professional mixed martial arts fighter. But Molly’s smart and funny and she makes Owen happy. And she’s been known to stitch a cut and set a broken bone for me, with just a stern lecture thrown it.

  Sometimes it’s a hard life. The band’s dispersed, and Owen’s wrapped his arm around Molly and dragged her away before she goes into full diagnostic mode, heading for my father’s table to no doubt say goodnight. It’s getting late.

  He has the look of a man anxious to be home.

  I wonder not for the first time if I’ll ever have something that makes me anxious to get home, instead of always feeling like I’m trying to escape.

  My eyes scan the bar, running across the room that’s packed. People are three-deep at the bar and there’s not an empty table in the place. Clusters of men and women are scattered across the dance floor. Some familiar faces, and some not.

  My gaze skims over one woman, keeps going, and then snaps back. A jolt runs through me as I recognize her.

  She’s dressed down from the last time I saw her, last night, but she’s way too dressed up for the Kildare.

  Siobhan Carney is the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen.

  Not in the typical big hair and big breasts way of so many of the women crowding the bar.

  She’s tall and rail thin, with a particular kind of Irish coloring that’s almost ghostly – skin so pale it’s almost translucent — and long strawberry blonde waves that fall to her waist.

  I’m pretty sure there’s a smattering of pale freckles across her nose, and maybe other parts of her body. And when I start imagining following that trail of freckles, I’m getting a whole different set of reactions that I don’t need to deal with on stage. At my father’s bar.

  Holy Christ.

  The pale peachy sundress she’s wearing skims the floor, both modest and leaving nothing to the imagination. It’s a very effective contrast. Her long fingers wrap around a glass of wine that she hasn’t touched. I don’t blame her. You don’t want to drink any of the wine the Kildare sells.

  Alluring she might be. But the bigger question is: what the hell is she doing here?

  I jump down from the stage and work my way over toward the bar. Not directly toward her but watching to see if she might be here with someone. A friend or maybe a boyfriend.

  That’s the only explanation. But as I work my way through the patrons, greeting familiar faces and watching her, she seems to pull into herself like she doesn’t enjoy large crowds.

  Fuck it.

  She’s turned back to the bar and is staring intently at her wineglass when I come up beside her. Keeping a respectful distance of course.

  “Still going to be a shitty Merlot, no matter how hard you pray.”

  Her eyes snap up to me, and for the longest time her expression doesn’t change. It’s static and then she looks back at the wine uncertainly.

  “It’s a Riesling, a white wine. I think.”

  “Can I buy you something you’d actually drink?” I try again, and then find myself adding, “I don’t know shit about wines. Clearly from the selection.”

  She looks at me then, focusing wide pale green eyes on me. “They let you order the wine?”

  Her voice is so genuinely filled with horror that I bark out a full belly laugh that has some of the guys nearby turning to regard us with interest.

  “Why, don’t think I have the makings of a sommelier?”

  A delicate blonde eyebrow arches up.

  “Or do you not think I know what the word sommelier means, Miss Carney?”

  Her name seems to bring her back to the moment, and she puts her drink down on the small lip of exposed bar in a very delicate manner that’s out of place in the Kildare. She’s wearing thin framed wire glasses she didn’t have on last night, and they are giving off very strong sexy librarian vibes.

  I don’t know what it is about her that makes it hard to concentrate.

  Not my usual type.

  Actually, that’s a lie.

  I don’t have a “type.”

  I just like people and try to see what’s good in them. That makes a wide variety of people attractive. But this woman, she’s positively alluring.

  There’s a coolness about her that seems to contrast with the places I run hot. A refinement to every movement, and an elegance to how she interacts with the world around her. Something about her makes me feel like a huge, rough thug, like I have no hidden depths. And that everything fascinating about this woman is under a beautiful, placid, and deceiving surface.

  But she clearly didn’t come here because of chemistry. And I need to get my head out of my dick. This is business, not pleasure.

  Twenty-four hours ago, she had whipped into a room, put her four brothers in their place, and given me a run for my money. And don’t you think for a minute I didn’t know how serious that situation was.

  Let your guard down in a situation like that, and you’ll end up getting paved under a Carney parking lot.

  Tread carefully, Kieran. More here than meets the eye.

  But then, from what I know, Siobhan Carney isn’t even in her family’s business. Because she’s one of Boston’s — and maybe one of America’s — rising classical music talents.

  She might have been given every advantage, every educational edge. But I’d seen her play at a free concert on the Boston Common, and once at an event I’d gone to with a date. She’d even soloed. That girl had more talent than anyone I’d ever seen, and the heart to back it up.

  That much I can tell you from the way she plays.

  Sometimes people’s souls speak through music. That’s what I’d thought when I’d heard her play.

  She’d come into that garage last night, in that beautiful white dress, looking like an angel. I’d had to punch her brother and was covered in blood. Maybe I hadn’t hit the brother she liked the most?

  That’s pretty much all I can hope for and even that’s a stretch at this point. I had been really careful not to get blood on her dress though.

  “Martini.”

  My eyes refocus, and when she bites her lip, I realize she’s repeated herself. I try not to focus too hard on her biting her lip.

  Jesus.

  “Martini,” she says again, a little louder.

  I’m not deaf. I’m just an idiot, I want to say. Nodding, I’m just about to slip behind the bar when Megan comes over. Megan helps out on busy nights, and her quick smile and huge cleavage make her a favorite with the regulars. But she doesn’t like people from outside the neighborhood.

  “Who’s your friend, Kieran?”

  There’s an edge to the way she’s saying it that makes it clear what she thinks, and my head starts to throb just a little bit.

  Siobhan, however, takes the measure of what’s happening and pulls herself up to her full height. Her hand suddenly reaches out and traces the forearm closest to her. Light fingers graze down my arm, following the line of my tattoos. A spike of heat runs straight to my lower stomach, and further down, pulling every bit of blood flow in my body with it.

  “Martini, please,” she says, her voice a shade darker than I remember it being. “Dirty, extra olives.”

  It might be fucking cheesy, but r
ight now I am a cheesitarian and want anything this girl will give me. My half-mast situation that was mostly under control? Full gun salute and my pants are way too fucking tight. Megan’s regarding me, and Siobhan’s hand, and my obvious discomfort with growing interest.

  “Yeah. Two, please,” I manage to grind out.

  Megan’s eyebrows reach under her bangs. “You, Kieran Doyle, want a martini. Dirty, with extra olives.”

  She takes plenty of time to say each word, letting me know exactly what she thinks.

  Pressing my lips into a tight line, I give a nod. A military, get it done, don’t question me nod. My eyes might be pleading with her to drop it.

  Listen, I’m a man. But I’m not above begging; I do know my place in the order of things.

  “Ooookay,” she says, and then goes off to make the drinks.

  Siobhan pulls her hand back like it’s on fire.

  “They won’t be good.”

  Her eyes refocus. “What?”

  “The drinks. They’ll be strong, but not good.”

  She’s looking me up and down.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk?” she asks, her voice cool and those green, green eyes regarding me from behind the glasses.

  “It’s about last night,” she adds loudly as Megan drops the drinks by us. She’s staring.

  “Business,” she says much lower, as if she needed to clarify.

  I wish she needed to clarify.

  I’ve only got a few minutes before we go back on, and there’s absolutely nowhere in the bar. I’m not taking her into my father’s office, or into the fucking storeroom. I nod to a small staircase behind the bar. It leads up to the empty function room upstairs.

  She looks dubious, but when I hold out a hand in invitation, she gives a little shrug and heads up the dark wood staircase ahead of me. I do everything in my power not to stare at her curves.

  4

  Siobhan

  The narrow staircase opens up into a dimly lit room that’s a smaller version of the bar below. My brain immediately starts calculating the acoustics before I remember where I am, and who I’m with. I walk over to one of the bars lining the room.

  My brothers would be proud. Protect your back, and always keep an eye to the exit. I sip my drink.

  Kieran is right — this is the worst martini I’ve ever had. I wonder if instead of olives, the young woman bartending had wrung a dish rag into it. Better to not think about it too much. It’s an effort not to recoil from the abrasive gin. Normally it is such a versatile liquor, but this batch was probably made in the bathtub from an old family recipe.

  I blink to clear my vision.

  And cut with lighter fluid. Trying not to cough, I fix my eyes on Kieran.

  “Miss Carney,” he starts, waving his drink. His large hands, unused to the cocktail glass, splash more alcohol on the ground than will end up in his mouth. My eyes linger on those hands, and I flush.

  “Oops,” he says, grinning crookedly. “Hopefully no one lights a match up here for at least a month.”

  I laugh, and it’s easy to forget why I’m here, and who I am. Who he is. I wasn’t raised to be a silly schoolgirl who falls for whatever lumbering thug of a man walks by. I’m a Carney, polished and strong, even in the face of the pure masculine energy Kieran radiates.

  My gaze skims the strong lines of his jaw, and I take another sip of my drink. Though I regret it instantly, I refuse to let it show on my face.

  “What were you doing at my house last night?” I ask, finally.

  He observes me, his expression hard to read, even as we adjust to the darkness.

  “Business,” he says, his voice low. I can feel the bass of it rumble through my body.

  “Mr. Doyle,” I begin.

  “Kieran,” he interrupts.

  “Kieran,” I try again. “My family doesn’t need trouble right now.”

  “Then they shouldn’t be causing it,” he replies genially. There’s an edge to his voice, but somehow, I instinctively know that edge is not directed at me.

  “We’re not,” I say, my voice razor sharp. “The casino…”

  “Your family’s casino is displacing residents who’ve lived in Charlestown for ages, Miss. They won’t be able to afford their rent and your father will gobble up their land and build fancy high-rises no one can afford except for the assholes who work for biotech down by MIT.” He pauses. “Excuse my language, Miss Carney.”

  Jesus. As if I haven’t heard cursing before.

  “My father’s development is bringing up property values in that area,” I murmur. It startles me how automatic it sounds and how little I’ve actually thought about the words.

  “For who?” he interrupts. “For people like Megan downstairs, whose Ma used to own a laundromat that got bought out from underneath her?”

  Staring down into my toxic drink, my hand shakes slightly. I place my other hand gently on my wrist to stop the movement. I’d come here to find out why this man had been brawling with my brothers, not to get a lecture on urban development by some thug who has no idea what he’s talking about.

  Still, the dish rag martini starts to make more sense.

  “Miss Carney,” he begins, softly. I interrupt.

  “Siobhan. My name is Siobhan. And please do not presume to speak of my family’s business to me. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Blessed Mother Mary, Siobhan.

  You sound like a fool.

  I can almost hear the smirk in his voice.

  “It’s a bad habit of mine, Miss…Siobhan. Listen. I’ve got to get back downstairs to the band. I’m sorry I upset you last night.” His voice takes on that sympathetic quality again.

  How dare he pity me?

  This is not some “oh poor me, how dare you scare me with fighting” situation. Lest he mistake my shaking for weakness, rather than the effects of terrible gin, I lock eyes with him, biting the inside of my lips.

  He tilts his head. “I promise I’ll keep my business with your brothers out of your backyard as long as they promise to stay the fuck out of mine. Pardon my language.”

  “You can say fuck, Kieran. I am familiar with the word.”

  “Are you now?” he asks, his good humor returning. “Lots of ribald shanties coming out of the Boston Symphony Orchestra lately?”

  “Don’t tease me, Kieran,” I snap in a tone that always brought my brothers to heel. “I don’t like it.”

  There’s something about him that’s throwing me off-balance. I don’t like being off-balance. My world is easier to manage with everything’s carefully arrayed.

  He steps closer to me. My heart races, faster than when I’d played my first solo at Symphony Hall.

  He leans down, and I can feel his smug grin more than I can see it as he gently takes the glass from my hand, placing it back on the bar behind me. “I think you do like it, Miss Carney.”

  His proximity sends shivers down my spine, and my nipples harden. I’m grateful for the darkness — I can’t let him know how he’s affecting me. If there is one thing the daughter of James and Rose Carney knows, it’s how to keep her composure. I’m sure my blush is covering my whole body, and for a moment I wonder how it would feel for this man to see how far my flush spreads.

  No. I can’t let him get the best of me. Letting instinct take over — my fancy private school hadn’t taught me what to do in this situation — I stand on my tiptoes, my lips barely grazing his jaw.

  “No, Kieran. I don’t fucking like it at all.”

  He makes a noise, a deep growl that makes my whole body tighten in a way I’ve never experienced before. I want one of those big hands on me, even though I know it’s wrong, that my brothers would want to rip him limb from limb.

  He turns his face slightly, looking down at me, our lips nearly touching.

  “You’re going to be trouble,” he rasps, sliding his hands down my back, pulling my body tightly against his.

  I make a noise that sounds more animal than I
’d like to admit and press against him. He sucks in a breath and then takes my mouth with his, kissing me. Oh god, he’s kissing me like I’ve never been kissed before. Not the polite lips of some schoolboy being groomed for politics or awkward bumbling with a fellow musician.

  No, this is a man that knows what he wants, and in this instant there’s no question that what he wants is me.

  I dissolve against him as his tongue strokes mine, his hands — those big, rough hands — sliding down my back to cup my ass. He sucks on my lower lip, and before I can lose myself altogether, a voice calls up the stairs.

  “Kieran? You up here, dumbass? You’re on already!”

  I pull away from him, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. My lipstick must be a mess. Thoroughly embarrassed, I want to flee, but I’m too refined for that. Instead, I step back and smooth my hair and my dress like it’s just been a bit of an inconvenience.

  A bit of a misunderstanding.

  And not a heated memory I’ll play over and over again in my mind.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Doyle. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m glad you’ll…we’ll stay out of each other’s family’s business. Have a good evening.”

  I walk down the stairs, hoping to exude a confidence I don’t feel. Icily, deliberately, I ignore the stares of the man waiting at the bottom who bears a striking resemblance to Kieran. Must be a relative. I pass through the door and call a car service. My father would be furious if he knew where I was, so better not to use his driver.

  Better to forget Kieran Doyle.

  Thank Mother Mary I’m going to the Vineyard tomorrow.

  5

  Kieran

  Owen stands there, his eyes so wide I think for a second he might be about to have a stroke.

  He looks back in the direction she left and then over at me.

  “Dude, was that Siobhan Carney?” Owen asks as I thump down the stairs, the wood creaking under my weight. “Kieran? What the fuck are you doing?”

  I’m just glad Molly isn’t behind him because I wouldn’t survive her interrogation. Bad enough I have to go back on stage with a raging hard-on. That woman. Christ almighty.