by Hamel, B. B.
We sat in silence for a moment. I wondered what was going on inside of his head, but figured I wouldn’t press the man any more than I had to.
“About the adoption,” he said, breaking the silence.
“I’m in love with Brenna,” I blurted out.
He stared at me, clearly surprised. I had no clue why it came out like that, but it did. I couldn’t keep bullshitting the man when I had no intention of becoming his adopted son. If he didn’t approve of it, well, then I would deal with what happened next. Maybe take Bren and leave the city, find someplace safe.
Instead of chewing me out, he started laughing. I stared for a second then joined in, laughing loudly in the empty night.
“So, that’s it, then,” he finally said.
“Yeah, that’s it. I’m in love with your daughter.”
He shook his head. “And what does she think?”
“I think she feels the same way, sir.”
He nodded and our laughter died down.
“I guess becoming her stepbrother would make things awkward.”
“It would, yeah.”
“Okay. Forget about the adoption.”
“You’re not angry?”
He shrugged. “Frankly, I’m not surprised. I saw it years ago. I should have seen it again this time.”
“Still, it messes up your plans.”
“Actually, this is good for me. The adoption was a play, but it was a weak play and we both knew it. If you happened to marry my daughter....” He shrugged. “That would make you my son-in-law.”
“We haven’t talked about marriage.”
He gave me a wicked grin. It was absolutely terrifying. “Well, you better start, son.”
I said nothing, just nodded. I hadn’t realized that I was the marrying type, but maybe I was. Maybe I could learn to be, at least.
If I was going to take the plunge with anyone, it was going to be with Bren. It could only ever be with her.
“For your sake, she better feel the same way,” he said. “I’m not going to try and adopt you a second time.”
“I’ll take that risk.”
He looked at me seriously for a second, appraising me in that way he had.
“That’s good to hear. Men take a risk on the people they care about. I’d think less of you if you had answered any other way.”
I laughed and shrugged. “What can I say, sir? I am what I am.”
“Aren’t we all?”
O’Brian pushed up off the car and began to walk away.
“What now, sir?” I said after him.
“Take care of Davin. Do whatever you’re going to do tonight.”
“Why tonight?”
“I’m sure he knows we know. If he’s not trying to run right now, he will be soon. Be careful. Davin isn’t as weak as he appears.”
I nodded. “I will.”
He sighed. “I’m going home to see Bren. I’ll tell her the adoption is off.”
“She already knows.”
He laughed. “Tell me next time.”
“I will.”
“And Colin?”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t make a fucking mess.”
“I’ll try not to.” I grinned.
He nodded then climbed into his car. I watched him pull away.
The wound in my shoulder throbbed, but I couldn’t let that get in the way of what I had to do. There was one last thing, one final move I had to make, and it would arguably be the most dangerous thing I’d done so far.
At least things were good with O’Brian. At least he wasn’t going to cut my throat for fucking his daughter. Or at least he hadn’t done it yet.
I pushed off my car and climbed into the driver’s seat, starting the engine. I took a second to collect myself, and then began to drive fast toward Davin’s apartment, ready to finish everything.
I laughed softly. I knew I would have to take care of him eventually, but I never imagined it would be at the end of the gun. Life is funny sometimes.
––––––––
Davin lived in a small neighborhood in the deep southern part of Philly’s west side. I parked two blocks away, tucking my loaded and ready pistol into my pants, and walked through the dark streets. Once across the street from his building, I stood and watched it for ten minutes, waiting for any sign of movement anywhere around the area. There was nobody, or at least nobody that I saw, which meant that either Davin wasn’t home, or he didn’t have any people with him yet.
He might even have thought he was safe.
I walked across the street, stood on his stoop, and took a deep breath. It was now or never. I rang his buzzer.
There was silence for a minute then the intercom crackled.
“Davin,” came his voice.
“It’s Colin. Can we talk?”
There was a pause. “Colin my boy, it’s late! What are you doing here?”
“O’Brian sent me. Shit went wrong at the drop earlier.”
Another pause. “Fabrizio got away?”
I made a face. The rat fuck had the nerve to sound hopeful.
“Not exactly. Got shot a few times. We need to talk, but not out here.”
“Come up.” The door buzzed open and I pushed through, moving up the steps slowly. I fingered the pistol in my waistband, going over in my mind the precise movements it would take to pull it out and fire it as fast as possible.
Davin’s building was a new construction thing, all modern angles and glass lines and green plants. Not many people lived there, and I was pretty sure that was because Davin had bought up half of the apartments in the place to use as his own space. I had only ever been there once before, but I knew the door as soon as I saw it.
He pulled it open after the first knock.
“Colin, come on in.” I followed him into a spacious foyer that led us into a kitchen and living room area. It was richly furnished with expensive paintings, lamps, white couches, and white plush rugs. It reminded me a lot of the farmhouse, but much tackier. Davin didn’t have the eye or the knowledge to pick things out. Instead, the place looked gaudy and overdone.
He had two glasses of whiskey poured, and he handed me one.
I grinned at him. “Nice place.”
“Thanks. How’s the arm?”
I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“Here’s to the Mob.”
He held his glass up. I clinked mine against it, but instead of drinking, I put it back down on the counter. I didn’t know what he had put in my glass, if anything, and I didn’t want to take any chances.
“We need to talk.”
He laughed. “What’s wrong? Staying sober?”
“Right now, I am. Shit went down.”
“What sort of shit?”
“The Italians were more pissed than we thought. As soon as Fabrizio was on their side, they started shooting. O’Brian took some, but I think they got the worst of it.”
“Fuck,” he said, but his eyes suggested excitement instead of concern.
“Yeah, fuck is right.”
“Is O’Brian okay?”
“We don’t know, honestly.”
“Fuck,” he said again, sipping his whiskey. I could see the joy rolling off him in waves.
I had to control myself. I was half ready to try and strangle him then and there, but I couldn’t win a fight with him, not with a gunshot shoulder. I had to surprise him if I was going to get out alive. I couldn’t let it turn into hand to hand fighting, either. It had to be quick and clean.
“We need to go see him,” Davin said.
“Soon, we can soon.”
He moved around into the kitchen.
“Let me just get my things.”
He moved fast. The drawer whipped open and his hand came up.
But I was faster. I saw his move coming from a mile away, and my hand was already wrapped around the gun. As soon as that drawer opened and I saw the look in his eyes, I pulled my gun out and fired off two shots. They took him in t
he chest, sending him stumbling backwards. The noise of the shots filled up the space.
He stumbled backwards, dropping his own gun, and collapsed into the ground.
And it was over. I wasn’t sure if he had seen through my bullshit story or if he just wanted to eliminate me from contention for leadership, but he had gotten overconfident.
I walked around the counter, gun pointed at his face. Davin smiled at me, blood on his lips.
“O’Brian is fine,” I said.
“Yeah, I figured.”
“And Fabrizio told us everything.”
“I knew it would be you,” he said. “I knew O’Brian would send you. It was always fucking you.”
“Don’t start crying on me, you fucking bitch. You piece of shit rat. How could you put Brenna in danger like that?”
“She was never in danger,” he said, rolling his eyes. He tried to move, but winced in pain instead. “I made sure that Italian idiot didn’t try anything stupid. But when you guys left for the farmhouse, he took matters into his own hands. Didn’t listen to me.”
I nodded. “I figured that’s what happened.”
“Asshole wasn’t supposed to go right after you.”
“You did this all to make me look bad, didn’t you?”
He coughed up a small bit of blood and nodded.
“I’ve been in this fucking gang for years. I was a Right Person when you were in diapers. I deserved to be second, not you.”
“You coward.”
“Maybe. But the plan was good. That Fabrizio bitch fucked it all up.”
“No, Davin, you fucked it all up. Instead of being a man and trying to win back O’Brian’s favor, you decided to act like a snake.”
“You don’t get it. You’re the fucking prodigal son. The boy he always wanted.”
“And you’re dying on your kitchen floor.”
He started to laugh but quickly stopped, wincing in pain.
“Looks that way.”
“Any last words?”
“I made my move. I got unlucky.”
“You got beat.”
“Good luck, Colin.”
I raised the gun up.
“I don’t need luck, you scum piece of shit.”
His eyes went wide. “Wait—”
I pulled the trigger. The room was filled with the sound of the shot, and then nothing.
I flicked the safety back on and slipped the gun back into my waistband.
It was all over. It was finally over. Davin had admitted it, had confessed to everything. I had no other choice but to finish him. As soon as he went for his own gun, he gave himself away and sealed his fate.
Though it wasn’t like I was ever just going to let him walk. Maybe it could have been exile if he hadn’t been behind it all, or maybe if he had said something to convince me, said anything in his own defense, but no. As I turned and left Davin’s apartment, heading back out into the hallway and walking back toward my car, I felt pretty fucking good about what had happened.
I had wanted to put a bullet between that rat fuck’s eyes for a long time. And I finally got the chance. All more than justified.
Back in my car, I took a deep breath, my wound throbbing again. I thought about Bren back home. I thought about my own apartment, and what things were going to be like now that she wasn’t a prisoner anymore. I thought about O’Brian approving of me and her, and of my position in the Mob with Davin completely out of my picture.
Who knew what was happening next. But I was going to drive fast back to Bren and find out. Because we had unfinished business, me and her.
She was mine. And I was going to take what was mine.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Brenna
Three months later
His apartment was nothing like I had expected.
I lay in his bed, covered only by a thin sheet, looking up at the high ceilings. Above me were thick, heavy-looking wood beams, and all the walls are old exposed brick. Apparently, his place used to be an old underwear factory back in the old days, but he paid to have it renovated and set up as living space. It must have been obscenely expensive, but he never once mentioned it while we were staying with my dad, or even acted like it was anything special. No matter how many times I woke up in his bed and looked up at the ceiling, it never got old. It never ceased to take my breath away.
At first, it felt weird being surrounded by his things. I had come to think of him as someone who lived in my dad’s place, but I was finding out more and more about his actual life. He was a person with his own wants and desires, completely separate from our old lives. He had hobbies, actual hobbies, and watched most of the same shows and movies that I did. I felt like I knew him so well already that every new discovery was like unwrapping a brand new present.
And I loved it. I loved peeling back the layers of him and finding more surprises underneath. I would never have guessed in a million years that he would like collecting art by local painters, or that he had an expensive record collection. He also had all the latest video game consoles, and more gym equipment than I’d seen outside of an actual gym, but I couldn’t have expected anything less. How else did he get a body like that? He was an Eagles fan and a Phillies fan, but he couldn’t get into hockey for some reason. He rarely used the dishwasher because he said it made people weak. Every morning he got up at the same time, brushed his teeth, and took a shower, all without fail, and in that exact order.
It was so domestic and simple and incredible. We had come together under horrible and stressful circumstances, and we hadn’t had the chance to really settle down and get into the flow of just being together. After months of it, I knew that I’d never get sick of it.
And he was still as hungry and insatiable for me as he was during those first few weeks.
I stretched my legs, loving the expensive and soft cotton sheets he used, wondering how the hell I had fallen in love with my potential stepbrother. It had all happened too fast, but there I was, missing him when he had only been gone for an hour or two. And the best part was, my dad approved, or at least he didn’t actively try to stop us from seeing each other. Colin was never going to become my stepbrother, but he still might become my dad’s son-in-law.
I climbed out of bed with a sigh, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t exactly late, but I had definitely slept in longer than I wanted. I pulled on his favorite pair of yoga pants and slipped on a sports bra then walked out into the main room, loving the feel of the slick hard wood floors.
I blinked at the natural light filtering into the clean and modern-looking room. The one wall was entirely made of glass, and the counters were all stainless steel and wood mixed in artful ways. It looked a lot like the farmhouse did, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he had a hand in its design. I didn’t ask him about it, though. He definitely would have denied any involvement. Design wasn’t masculine enough, he would have said. I could practically hear him grunting his denial at me, and it put a big smile on my face.
I put on a pot of coffee and sat down on a stool eating a banana. I had one last day of freedom before I started work at the largest advertising agency in the entire city, and I was pretty nervous. I had plenty of experience, but I had been out of work for a while, and I was worried I would have trouble adjusting to it. Colin told me that I didn’t have to go back to work until I was ready, or ever if I didn’t want to, but I was sick of constantly having to rely on his money. I was living with him while I looked for an apartment, or at least that’s what we were saying. Truthfully, I doubted I would ever leave, and I didn’t think he wanted me to. I could always occupy my dad’s mostly-empty place if Colin got tired of me. I hoped that day never came.
It was a dream come true, all of it. A beautiful apartment, an incredible man, an exciting job; it was everything I had ever wanted. Movies and TV sometimes tried to make it look like getting everything you wanted was some horrible thing, and that it wouldn’t ever make you happy, but that wasn’t true.
Because I got it, and I was
the happiest I had ever been before.
As I finished my breakfast and poured a cup of coffee, the front doorknob turned, and Colin walked in.
“Good morning, Princess,” he said, grinning at me.
“Good morning, my bloodthirsty mobster.”
He laughed and walked into the kitchen. I marveled all over again at the way he confidently entered the room.
“Sleep late?” he asked.
“I did. Break any knees today?”
“Not yet. But it’s early.”
He pulled me to him and pressed his mouth against mine, crushing me in his usual way. It never, ever got old. He still sent shivers down my spine with every touch, and made my panties soaking wet whenever he felt like it.
The kiss ended, but he kept holding onto my waist.
“What are your plans for today?”
“Well, I thought I’d look at apartments. And I have a lunch date with Nick later.”
“Sounds good. How about you sit up on the roof with me first?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He poured himself a cup of coffee, then led the way up a back staircase that opened up onto the roof. We walked out onto the wood deck and sat down on matching chairs. I sighed, stretching my legs out, and looked at the incredible view of the city. The Schuylkill River stretched out in front of us, winding its way to the north, and Rittenhouse Park was down and to the left. We were in the heart of the city, more or less, but we had it all to ourselves. I sipped my coffee, savoring the dark and strong taste. I felt more content than I ever had before.
“Did you know—?” He started, then stopped.
I looked at him. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s stupid.” He looked away and smiled to himself.
“Just say it.”
“No, never mind.”
“Say it or I’m pouring this hot coffee in your lap.”
He laughed. “You’d never risk scalding your favorite cock.”
“Okay, maybe that’s true. But I might dump it on your head instead.”
“You’re so sexy when you’re trying to be tough.”
“Don’t try and distract me. Spit it out.”
“Well, did you know that I built this for you? This roof deck, I mean.”
I blinked. “When? I mean, how?”