Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7)

by Bell, Christine

  There was a lot. Doctor bills for me when I was young, a quote for a time when I’d needed to get a tooth pulled. It went on and on, but I was a third of the way through and there was nothing personal indicating that Mick and my mother had a relationship beyond financing my basic needs.

  Matty had set up shop on the bed, and he sat clacking keys, pausing to drum his fingers on the keyboard every so often before starting up again.

  We’d been at it for half an hour, and so far, neither of us had cause to say a word to each other. It wasn’t an encouraging start, but I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. Every minute that ticked by, though, the tension in the room ratcheted up, and the silence seemed to grow louder. I was a hair away from panic when Matty muttered something under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Not sure, but I think I got something.”

  My heart thudded as I stood and moved to the side of the bed so I could peer over his shoulder.

  It was an electronic bank statement. Line after line of data peppered the screen in stark black, but he’d highlighted one in particular with the cursor.

  A $50,000 withdrawal. But the date was more than six months after my mother’s death and had no other significance that I could see.

  A stab of disappointment rocketed through me and I wrapped my arms around my waist. The amount was larger than any of the other transactions, but that was about it. I didn’t want to disregard it after such a long time without a single ray of hope, but without some indication of what that money was for, I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do with that.

  He whipped his head to face me, eyes alive with excitement. “Look at that date. That’s right around the time that prison doctor was killed in a car accident in New Hampshire.”

  It was hard to stay grounded when he looked so hopeful, and I felt my adrenaline start to spike a little too.

  “Okay, so if that might be an account he uses for hit money, go back to previous months and see if there is a second large transaction around the time my mother got sick.” It was a long shot, but it was something, and that was more than we had five minutes ago.

  I dove back into the hard copy files with renewed vigor. This had to work. There was no plan B.

  Maybe it was the power of positive thinking. Maybe it was the magical force of me and Matty working together. But twenty minutes later, we caught a break. I stared at the sheet of paper in total shock as the words blurred before my eyes.

  “Holy shit, we got him.”

  ###

  I walked into the warehouse twenty-four hours later, body slicked in a cold sweat. I’d called in sick the day before when Matty and I had found some hard evidence and tried to figure out what to do with it. Now that the game was afoot, a thousand possible scenarios played through my head.

  Was he going to deny it? Was he going to get all parental-patronizing and tell me that I was crazy and that I should go back home and take some time to think this over? Or was he going to admit what he'd done? Surely, he wouldn't cop to it all. He wasn't the kind of guy to accept the blame for much of anything, so a flat-out confession was pretty much off the table. But maybe he would say there were mitigating circumstances. That it was her fault.

  Every possibility had pros and cons, but that was the one I truly feared. I wasn't sure what I would do. The way I was feeling, it was a fair bet that I'd snap. In fact, I was glad that Matty had convinced me not to bring in a gun. I seriously think I might have shot him.

  I swiped my hands on my denim-covered thighs and made my way down the long, narrow hallway to the main floor. Mick was standing in the center of the ring staring out, clearly deep in thought.

  "Mick?"

  He drew back and looked down at me. "Hey, sweetie. You feeling any better?" His lips were turned up in a gentle smile, but his eyes were filled with concern.

  Fuck you and your concern.

  "I feel a lot better now, thanks. Probably just something I ate.”

  I stepped into the ring with him and leaned against the ropes, willing my voice to stop trembling. All I could think about was getting this over with so I could start to feel better, because right then, it felt like another death looming in front of me.

  "I'm glad you came in early. I wanted to talk to you about something."

  "Actually, I wanted to talk to you too." I pushed away from the ropes and let my quivering legs carry me to the center of the ring. "Can I go first?"

  He nodded, a frown furrowing his brow. "Of course. This sounds ominous. Is there a problem?"

  "Actually, there is." I bit my lip and looked away before meeting his gaze again.

  The calculating gleam that I knew so well slipped in to replace the worry, and I knew he'd picked up on my agitation. He was an apex predator, preparing to make his next move. The longer I drew it out, the more time he’d have to think things through, and I wanted fresh from the tap Mick. The less filter or prep time, the better. So I came at it like a champ, spitting the words out in a rush.

  "I know you had my mother killed, and I need to know why."

  If I'd doubted his involvement, even for a second, those doubts would have been laid to rest in that instant. Whatever he'd expected me to say, it hadn't been that, and the shock and genuine guilt written on his face were as real as could be.

  "Whoa, Kayla, honey, that’s a serious accusation and-"

  "Don't bullshit me, Mick. I know what she was. I know what she did for a living and I know she was troubled.” I shrugged, willing myself not to tear up. “I'm not even sure how I feel about it all. You've given me a great life here, and I appreciate that. Maybe you thought, in order to maintain that, she needed to be out of my life for good. Maybe you had your reasons, and I want to hear them. But the conversation needs to start with you telling me the truth if you want us to go forward having a relationship."

  It was a lie, but I spoke it like it was the God's honest truth. Not that it mattered. People expected other people to behave the way they would in a given situation. If I was a thief, I'd always be on the lookout for people trying to steal from me. Because Mick was embroiled in a world of violence and supreme selfishness, it would seem totally logical that I would want to maintain the status quo, keep my cushy life, and eventually accept that Roxanne James' death was just collateral damage.

  He didn’t disappoint. He pinched his eyes closed and blew out a long sigh. "Shit, sweetie. I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I don't know what to say."

  "Just the truth, Mick. I need to hear the truth."

  My whole body tingled in anticipation as I waited. This was the pivotal moment. This was where his decision was made, and that would decide everything from here. Whatever he told me now, he was going to stick to it and no amount of pressing him would get him to give up the truth once he'd dug his heels in.

  "Please. I heard the rumors a while back and it's been haunting me." I let the emotions choking me loose now and my voice cracked. He didn't have to know it was because I was practically imploding with hatred. “I thought you said we could always be honest with each other?”

  "You heard this a long time ago and you didn't say anything?"

  Not an admission, but a great start. I nodded. "Yeah. I wasn't sure if I was going to mention it at all. It's ancient history. The past, and I'm finding the older I get, the less I want to dig stuff like that up. I'd just as soon forget it all and focus on the future. But this…I just can't get it out of my head. I need to understand why."

  He scrubbed a hand over his face and his shoulders seemed to slump. "You already lost her, kiddo,” he said softly. “She was addicted to more drugs than I can count. She was falling apart mentally. You had suffered enough. When I found out she was going to sell me out for a reduced sentence, I had to think of you. I'd go to jail and lose everything I'd worked for, leaving you and her both destitute. You’d be in foster care until she finished her time and then you'd be forced to live with her again in horrible conditions. You'd already seen so much, sweetie. I couldn't
stand the thought of you seeing more."

  He shook his head mournfully. "It wasn't supposed to go like that. You need to believe me. It was supposed to be a quick thing. A prison fight that got out of hand. A jab in the right spot with a shank and a near painless end. We ran into some problems and..." He trailed off, clearly not comfortable with saying it out loud.

  We had enough. I was sure of it, but I had the perverse need to hear him say the rest.

  I swallowed back the bile bubbling in my throat. "So how did they make it look like cancer? Someone poisoned her food or?"

  "Look, we don't have to hash the details out. You wanted to know why, and I told you. Don't put yourself through this. I already have to live with the guilt of remembering what this did to her physically. There's no reason you should too."

  "I won't ask anything else. It feels like I just need to know. For closure."

  "Licorice. She always had a sweet tooth. One of the guards was paid to turn the other cheek when contraband like that came in."

  I needed to go. Call it quits before I exploded. My whole body was trembling from the effort of holding still when I wanted to claw his evil face off.

  And still, I pressed. "And the doctor who diagnosed her with cancer?"

  "Paid him to look the other way, file his reports and keep his mouth shut. Nobody looks too hard at prison deaths."

  It was the shrug that did it. Like, “What can you do? Sometimes you have to poison people to death, am I right?”

  One second, I was standing across the ring from him. The next I was flying through the air, foot first, howling with rage.

  The first shot, a scissor kick straight to his jaw, sent a rush of sheer adrenaline through me. It made the most satisfying sound, a crack that echoed through the silent space. He stumbled back and I kept coming, fists flying as I let loose a tight combo, cheek, chin, cheek, pap- pap-pap.

  I bounced back on my heels, my erratic breathing the only sound in the room as he shook his head to clear it and swiped gently at the blood trickling from his nose.

  “You got that out of your system now, kid? Because I’m about done. I know you’re hurt, and we can work through that together. But if you hit me again, the next one’s gonna cost you.” His voice was deceptively soft but the words penetrated my haze of fury and I smiled at him.

  “I’d love to see you try it, old man.”

  He took a step toward me and then stopped in his tracks, gaze flickering to my chest and then back to my face. The snake-like gleam in his eyes faded, leaving behind genuine shock as he stumbled back, this time, without my help.

  "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

  Stomach churning, I reached down and laid a hand over the collar of my blouse. It must have lost a few buttons when I’d gone after him, because it gaped open, leaving the black wires taped to my chest exposed.

  “You stupid little cunt,” he whispered, and pressed a hand to his heart. He stepped toward me, the violence in his expression enough to send a chill through me, but he didn’t get far. The door burst open and four men clothed in all black with the word SWAT emblazoned on their vests rushed into the room, shouting various phrases, ranging from, "Put your hands up” to, "Step away from the girl".

  Far louder than all that noise to me, though, seemed to be Mick's words. "How could you? I did everything for you." His eyes blazed with accusation as he shook his head slowly, and raised his hands high.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, refusing to let myself think of anything but the now. And right now, no matter what had happened in the past, Mick Flynn was an unrepentant career criminal who would sell out his own mother if it benefited him. Just because he had a kernel of decency that forced him to support me growing up and didn't let me stay with my molester of an uncle didn't make him a person who deserved my love or compassion. I’d let my feelings of gratitude hold me to his side far longer than I should have.

  "I'm sorry it had to be this way, Mick." That much was true. I was sorry that he had done it. I was sorry things ended this way. "But I'm a Flynn, after all. You didn't think I was going to let you get away with murdering my mother, did you?"

  The SWAT guys got to him then and shoved him to his knees in front of me. I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders and a second later, was whisked from the ring with a blanket wrapped around me.

  "Are you all right, miss?" A low, calm voice sounded in my ear and I nodded blankly.

  Was I, though? I'd thought I would feel more. Some sense of relief, or at least the elusive and much-lauded closure. Instead, all I felt was sad and kind of empty inside.

  "Red."

  At the sound of Matty's voice, I turned to see him standing there with the sergeant who had helped plan the raid with us.

  "You can take her outside. Let the EMT check her out, make sure she's not in shock or anything. We'll be out shortly to take her in for a statement."

  Matty reached for me but I held up a trembling hand. "Did you get it all? Did you hear him say it?" I stared into Sergeant Taylor's enigmatic onyx eyes and waited breathlessly for the verdict.

  "We got it," he said with a clipped nod. "Every last word. He's not getting out of this one."

  The relief I'd expected when I'd confronted Mick came now, and in one, overwhelming rush. My legs gave way and Matty stepped in, wrapping his arms around me and taking the majority of my weight.

  "Go ahead, Sergeant. I've got her."

  Matty led me down the hall that was now buzzing with activity as plainclothes cops flitted from room to room, riffling through file cabinets, packing up computers and leading Mick's goons away in cuffs.

  "Did he hurt you?"

  Matty's voice was low in my ear, but the concern mixed with fury there was impossible to miss. For some twisted reason, that comforted me.

  "No. I hit him. He didn’t have a chance to hit me back." My knuckles were a little sore, but they’d be fine in a day or two. The rest…the inside stuff, was going to take a lot longer to get over, but there was no need to tell that to Matty. His family life was as fucked up as mine and he knew what it took to try to heal from the kind of damage Mick’s actions had wrought.

  And when you leave Boston, you'll never find someone like that again.

  Someone who would understand me without me having to explain a thing. Someone who knew what it was to live in fear and terror and come out of the other side of it, scarred but alive and not willing to let it ruin the rest of your life.

  God, I was going to miss him.

  "I don't need the EMT. I just want to sit for a minute and wait for Sergeant Taylor."

  I bit back the urge to ask him what I was going to do after that. I had nowhere to go and no one to run to. But today was the first step toward my new life, and I had to stop leaning on Matty. I wouldn't have him soon, and I'd need to learn to stand on my own two feet.

  I straightened and wriggled away from his grasp to walk the rest of the way to the row of police cars on my own steam. "If you don't want to stay, I can handle the rest."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  His voice was flat when he said it and I could tell he realized I was pulling away from him. Better now than later. His whole life was here in Boston. Even if I could imagine getting past what had happened and see a way to having a future with Matty, there was no way he could leave Southie and there was no way I could stay.

  "Miss James, can you come to the side here so I can take care of that wire?"

  I looked up to see the young, female officer who had fixed the listening device to my chest standing there with an encouraging smile on her face.

  "You did great. Really. If you ever find yourself looking for a new career, you might want to think about undercover work."

  I turned my back to Matty and allowed her to remove the sticky tabs affixing the wire.

  "Thanks. I had a lot riding on this. I appreciate all your help."

  She finished quickly and then jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward one of the cars. "If you want to si
t in there and wait, the Sarge should be out shortly."

  The place was still bustling with activity, but as I made my way to the black and white with Matty by my side, the noise seemed to fade into the background.

  I stopped outside the car and looked up at him. The concern on his handsome face almost did me in. The desire to launch myself into his arms, wrap myself around him and never let him go was so strong, I was drowning in it. Instead, I laid one hand on his chest.

  "Matty-"

  "Don't say it." His jaw flexed as he stared down at me, the look in his eyes making me want to weep and curse the gods. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he loved me. It was written all over his face. What a sad state that it didn't matter one bit. There was no point in prolonging it.

  "I'm leaving Boston tomorrow."

  He flinched and I felt the sting of my words just as sharply. My throat ached as I tried to force the rest of it out before I couldn't get it out at all. "I can't stay here. Too much has happened. There are too many memories here. Too much history. I want to heal and start a new life. I can't do that here."

  I wanted to say more, but what else could I say that wouldn't just make it worse?

  I love you.

  I need you.

  I want you.

  But I still need to go.

  Who the hell needed to hear that? Better to leave it as it was.

  It didn't feel better, though. In fact, of all the pain from the past twenty-four hours, none of it hurt as badly as when he nodded.

  "I understand," he said softly.

  The sergeant came over then. “We’ve got to head to the station and take her statement. Get her set up with some security. It’s just a precaution. There’s no point in Mick going after her in this case. We have too much other evidence, but it can’t hurt to be extra careful. You can ride over with us to the station if you want to.”

  We locked eyes and I shook my head slowly, heart breaking a little more with every second that passed. “It’s just going to be me.”