I was alive, and he was making me feel even more so.
He pushed me down against the mattress and ran his lips over my throat, my breasts. I moaned, running my fingers through his hair. There was something so perfect about the way he felt. Ricky had wanted so badly to convince me he could provide me with pleasure, but what he didn’t understand was that this was about more than the physical pleasure we could offer each other. This was about love. This about comfort. This was about being with the man who lit up my soul and made me feel like I was capable of anything.
“I love you,” he whispered again and again, but even that was just words. It was his touch that made me feel whole, that made me realize that what I’d done was justified.
This was where I belonged. This was where I always wanted to be.
Chapter 32
Brian
We flew back to Boston. Brianna hadn’t wanted to go at first, but the idea of leaving her mother had convinced her. We stopped by her place the next morning, but she couldn’t make herself go inside. There were too many memories of her ordeal in this place. Cassidy went inside with Ian, and I stayed with Brianna.
“She loves you.”
I glanced at her. “What?”
“My mom. I’ve never seen her look at anyone the way she looks at you.”
“I love her, too.”
“Why didn’t it work out before?”
I shrugged. “I was married.”
“Did she know?”
“Not at first.”
She nodded, her eyes shifting from me uneasily, looking everywhere but at the façade of the buildings around us. “She wouldn’t have been with you had she known.”
“I know.”
“And then I wouldn’t be here. So thanks for lying to her.”
That caught me by surprise. I chuckled. “You’re welcome.”
“If you break her heart again, you’ll have to deal with me.”
“Fair enough.”
“Seriously. I can give quite the cold shoulder.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Cassidy and Ian returned then, shoving a duffle bag filled with clothes into the back before taking their seats. We met the private plane at the airstrip and tried to relax during the long flight. I called Killian halfway through, and he reassured me that Stacy was fine. He was watching her from a safe distance to keep from frightening her, but watching close enough to keep her safe. So far he hadn’t recognized any threats.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what the kidnapper had said though. That she wouldn’t be safe, even with Killian there.
Why was this happening? What did they want from me?
And then I heard Brianna’s soft laughter, saw the smile on Ian’s face—a sight that was so incredibly rare—and the light dancing in Cassidy’s eyes. I didn’t want to care about this bullshit right now. I just wanted to enjoy my family.
“Stay with us,” I said to Brianna. “The house is big and empty. Only Cassidy and I in a house that could sleep up to a dozen people comfortably.”
“For a while.”
“Stay as long as you want.”
She glanced at her mother. “We talked about that. I could find a job with a law firm there.”
“You could. I’m sure they’d all be more than happy to have you.” I reached over and touched her knee. “I’d be happy to have you. I want to get to know you.”
Her eyes dropped. “I guess we all have a lot to figure out.”
I caught her shoot a look at her mother. Cassidy was staring at her hands, not saying anything, even though it was clear she was following the conversation. There was something about the look on her face that frightened me a little.
That night when we were alone in our bedroom, I lounged on the bed and watched her slowly undress.
“Is there something we need to discuss?”
She looked a little surprised when she looked back at me. “What do you mean?”
“You do know that I want you to stay here. Permanently. Right?”
She shrugged her slender shoulders.
I got up and went to her, sliding my arms around her. “I thought we’d discussed this. I love you. I don’t want you to go away.”
“Well, you happened to catch me between residences. I can’t live in that condo, not after what happened, and I severed most of my ties to Austin, though I’m sure my brother would let me camp out on his couch.”
“You’re staying here.”
She turned in my arms and kissed me gently. “And then?”
I lifted her chin. “Do you want me to get down on my knees?”
“I want you to tell me what happens now.”
“We get married. We live happily ever after with our daughter living down the hall until she’s old and gray and sick of taking care of us.”
She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes.
“Cassidy, surely you understood that this was a forever sort of thing. I didn’t think I had to make it official. I just thought…we could fly to Vegas next week…”
She kissed me with more fire than I’d ever known from her. I liked it.
I lifted her and carried her to the bed, digging at my clothes because I couldn’t be inside of her any faster. As I rocked against her, enjoying the feel of her, she kissed me with that depth, with that enthusiasm that took my breath away.
I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I couldn’t imagine ever waking up again and not finding her next to me. I couldn’t imagine facing even a second without knowing where she was, how she was, when she was going to be at my side again.
This was my life. Let that madman try to hurt me. As long as Cassidy was here, I was whole. I didn’t need anything else.
Chapter 33
Cassidy
“I should be doing this for you, you know.”
“Soon,” Brianna said as she finished adjusting my veil. “I just have to meet the guy.”
“You will.”
She stepped back and smiled, her eyes dancing with joy.
“You look absolutely amazing.”
I turned and studied myself in the mirror. The dress was barely down to my knees, an off-white that seemed more appropriate than the startling white dresses the shop had to offer for younger brides. But this one hugged my curves and made me look much fitter than I really was. And the veil made my dark halo of hair shine.
I did look good. I guess that’s what love does for you.
“He makes you happy. And all this flying around in private planes is pretty awesome.”
I laughed. “Then you like him?”
“Love him.”
I hugged her tight. “I’m sorry I never told you the truth.”
“You had to have known I’d figure it out myself eventually.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I stepped back and studied my daughter. She was dressed in red, a color that shouldn’t have worked on her, but did. Her skin glowed, her face beginning to round out again after a few weeks of good food. She had nightmares at night sometimes. I would wake and hear her call out. I’d go to her and we’d talk for a time, sometimes the rest of the night. But she rarely talked about what had happened to her while those men were holding her.
Just as I hadn’t told her what I’d done while they were holding me.
We hugged again, then she gestured to the hotel room door. “We should go.”
The car was waiting for us outside the casino. We held hands all the way to the small chapel. It was decorated with lilies and carnations, my favorite flowers. And Brian was waiting, four of his sons standing beside him at the altar.
Brianna took my arm and slid it through her arm. She walked me down the aisle, a vision in her dress, a contrast to mine. There was a photographer and witnesses, but I only saw Brian. He watched us, a smile that was so big and beautiful that I couldn’t imagine anything better.
I was marrying the man I loved. Who could possibly ask for more than that?
It wasn’t a c
heesy, awkward ceremony. It was very simple and perfect. The pastor was respectful, the witnesses kind. And our children, smiling as they watched us commit ourselves to one another for the rest of our lives.
It was more than I’d expected a Vegas wedding to be.
But I was pretty sure my mother was spinning in her grave.
“To happiness!” Brian lifted his glass, as we sat around a table at an Italian restaurant in the lobby of his casino. “May we all find the one person who makes us want to have a Vegas wedding.”
The boys laughed and Brianna made a face, but they all understood Brian’s sentiment. And when he kissed me, they all looked away, then, as if on cue, made faces and groaned.
“Yuk!”
I laughed. Brian threw ice at them from the wine bucket, crying, “Disrespect!”
But, all in all, it was a beautiful evening.
We were nearly done with our reception when Ian moved away from the table. I felt the tension come over Brian as he watched him go. I took his hand and squeezed it, trying to reassure him.
We’d all been on pins and needles these last few weeks. We had no idea when, or if, the men behind Brianna’s kidnapping would return to hurt us again. We couldn’t go to the police now, not after the fact. And there was likely nothing the police could do, anyway. And Jack had basically told Brian all of this was his problem, so he was unwilling to put his men on it. Ian did as much as he could with the camera the kidnappers left behind at the warehouse where they held me. But there wasn’t much on it.
All we could do was live our lives and hope it was over.
I looked at my daughter and hoped it was over.
“To Pops and Cassidy,” Kevin suddenly said, holding up his glass of wine. “May you find happiness in your future and forget the pain of your past.”
“Amen,” Brian said.
“May you spend your glory years together in bliss,” Sean added.
“May you always find warmth in your bed, not coldness,” Kyle said.
Brianna looked around, a little confused. But then she stood and held up her glass. “I guess this is an Irish thing. I’m not good with toasts.” She studied Brian and me. “May you always love each other no matter what the future might bring.”
I inclined my head, touched by her words.
We tapped glasses and drank the last of the champagne, as Ian came back to the table. There was tightness in his expression. I didn’t know him well. He came to the house a few times a week, but it was usually to take his father into another room and speak to him, sometimes for hours. But I could always tell by his expression when he had bad news.
“Not now,” Brian said as Ian approached him, also warned by the look on his face. But Ian ignored the admonition.
Ian whispered something in Brian’s ear that made his shoulders slump and the joy leave his face.
“Fuck,” he whispered softly under his breath.
“What?”
Everyone was watching the two of them now.
“Stacy’s fiancé,” Ian said, glancing at Brian. Brian simply nodded. Ian continued. “Stacy’s fiancé was killed this morning. It looks like a mugging gone wrong, but there are no details to be had just yet.”
An uneasy silence settled over the table.
It was clearly not over yet.
~~~
KILLIAN
Prologue
Stacy
I stood in front of the mirror and studied my reflection. I wasn’t the kind of girl who liked to stare at herself for long, but I was wearing my wedding dress, so I figured this could be considered one of those exceptions that everyone always manages to find when doing something they don’t really want to be caught doing. Tomorrow was my wedding day. I was going to walk down the aisle—by myself since my father was busy attending his own wedding clear across the country—and commit myself to the man I loved first thing tomorrow morning. We would exchange our vows in front of our friends—the only people who truly loved us—and party all afternoon as if it was the first wedding ever. Then we were due to fly to the Bahamas tomorrow evening, off to begin our life as husband and wife.
I was getting married.
I stared a moment longer, loving the way the lace and satin flowed from my curves. I was not a conventional bride—hence the pink hair—but I thought I was kind of pretty. I wondered what my dad would say if he could see me…then reminded myself that I was angry with him and I didn’t want him here. It was easy to convince my head, not so easy to convince my heart. Brian was…he was my father in every sense of the word except biology.
I was adopted when I was ten. Well, technically, I was never adopted because of some snafu with the paperwork downtown or something. But the Callahans took me in and raised me as their own. Abigail and Brian Callahan. They loved me, I know they did. But then Abigail got sick and Brian didn’t tell me until it was too late to spend any time with her. And then Ian, one of my five brothers, told me that Brian had a biological daughter all this time that none of us knew about. Just when I was on the verge of forgiving him for cutting me out of Mom’s final days, he goes and replaces me with some girl he’d just met.
Brianna. She was even named after him.
A part of me desperately wanted my dad here for my wedding. My dad and my brothers. But another part of me…
I could see him now, through the windows in my living room. Killian. He was my oldest brother—the oldest of Abigail and Brian’s two biological sons—standing on the street in front of my building like he thought I couldn’t see him. Like he couldn’t see me, standing there in my wedding gown. I knew that was Brian’s doing. He was watching over me as if I was a child, making sure I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t. Whatever that might be. It was infuriating. They treated me like I was still that messed up ten-year-old girl my mom—who happened to be my social worker at the time—brought home one night when she couldn’t find a better foster home for me.
My biological family, if you could call it that, consisted of a mom who disappeared when I was less than a month old and a father who was so brokenhearted by her disappearance that he fell into a bottle and never found his way out. I was eight when he died, in and out of foster and group homes until Abigail Callahan became my social worker. I was a handful by then, a ten-year-old who’d pretty much raised herself. Things that should have made Abigail want to pull her hair out made her smile. She was so happy to have me around, so thrilled to have a little girl to counterbalance some of the testosterone at home, that I could have done a line of cocaine at her kitchen table and she would have found the silver lining in that particular cloud.
And tomorrow I became a part of a new family. My own family.
I wished Mom were here to see it.
I went back to the bedroom and reached behind me to undo the long line of buttons that held the dress to my body. I was nearly to the last when my cell phone rang. I smiled when I saw my fiancé’s smile looking up at me from the wide screen.
“Hi, baby,” I said softly. “You know we’re not supposed to—”
“Ms. Callahan?”
I frowned, fear cold in the center of my chest. “Who is this?”
“My name is Jane Fromer. I’m a nurse at Western Medical Center.”
“Why are you calling me on Davis’ phone? What’s happened?”
“I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Grant was brought into our emergency room with a gunshot wound to the chest. The doctors did the best they could, but they were unable to save him.”
My knees went weak, but I didn’t give in to it. I ran to the living room windows and searched the street below.
Killian wasn’t there.
“Ms. Callahan?”
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.
“Ms. Callahan, we need you to make arrangements for Mr. Grant’s body. You were listed as his next of kin in his phone, but if there’s someone else I could call…?”
He was gone. Where was he?
Chapter 1
Stacy
Six Months Later
I was still twisting my hair into a single braid at the top of my head, my slacks singing as I walked quickly across the living room to the kitchen. He was standing in front of the coffee pot, pouring the liquid caffeine into a simple white cup.
“Here.”
“I wish you’d stop letting yourself into my apartment. Where did you even get a key? This is my house, not yours.”
“It’s cheaper to get coffee here than to go to that shop on the corner.”
“Yes, that’s why I set it to brew a pot for me. But I don’t brew it for you.”
“But if I’m going to be here anyway…”
“You could always go home.”
“I would if I could. I’d much rather be twisting rumors about MCorp than watching over someone who doesn’t want to be watched over. But this is what Pops wants.”
“Pops? Why do we care so much what Pops wants? Isn’t Pops busy with his new bride?”
“Probably. Lucky guy.”
I brushed passed him and opened the fridge, digging out a small container of cream.
“You would admire him. Don’t you have any loyalty for Mom?”
“Of course I do. But she’s been gone for nearly six years now. Is he supposed to act like he died with her?”
“Why not? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you love each other?”
“I think Mom would want him to be happy.”
“With some floosy he had an affair with when you were just a baby? When he was still married to Mom? I don’t think so.”
“She loved him. She wanted him to be happy.”
“If I was married to a man who cheated on me, even if we were separated at the time, I would make damn sure he never saw that woman again.”
“How would you stop it?”
“I’d castrate him before I died.”
“Remind me to never cross you.”
He smiled as he said it, my dear brother Killian, but I hadn’t meant it as a joke. I took the coffee he held out to me and jerked open the refrigerator door, looking for something, though I wasn’t sure what. I just wanted to have an excuse to move away from Killian.
THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series Page 16