“Vegas is a very small town, brother. It’s in the papers…and so it’s on the internet. Callahan is a big name these days, especially after Pops’ arrest last month.”
There was amusement in his voice at first, but as he mentioned the family name, and Pops specifically, the amusement was replaced by a touch of steel.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated with you, Kyle.”
“I know that, but this time it really is.”
“Who is she? Some showgirl?”
“A cocktail waitress.”
Ian groaned. “That isn’t much better. You realize that, right?”
“She’s not what you think she is.”
“How long will the divorce take?”
“We’re not getting divorced.”
“Annulment, then.”
“Not happening.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Kyle,” Ian said. “If you cause any trouble for Pops, you’re going to have me and Killian to deal with.”
“I know.”
“The family can’t take any more hits right now. We’ve been through enough, and we still don’t know who kidnapped Brianna or set that hitman after Killian. We don’t know who’s trying to take Pops down. So we can’t really deal with more drama from you or anyone else.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, my voice crisp.
“Don’t get upset with me, Kyle. I’m not the one running off and marrying some Vegas cocktail waitress.”
“No, Ian, you wouldn’t do that, now would you? You’re too perfect for that sort of behavior.”
“Look,” Ian said after another long pause, “we’ll deal with this, whatever it is, later. Right now we need to focus on the Italians. That’s our problem now.”
“How’s Pops?”
“How do you think? He’s still struggling to pull together the edges of his tattered reputation. Killian did a hell of a job spinning this thing in the press, but there are still some people here in town who don’t believe the spin. And others…it’s a mess. Some want him hung for crimes he wasn’t even charged with, and others want him made a saint. It’s going to take time for all this to settle.”
“And Killian? The baby?”
“The baby’s fine. Kind of cute, actually.” Ian’s voice softened. “He looks a lot like Stacy right now.”
“Lucky kid. He could look like Killian.”
Ian laughed. “Yeah.”
I looked over at Amelia, the way her face was cradled in the palm of her hand. She had such smooth skin, like the top layer of cream on an ice cream soda. I wondered what a child with her would look like, mixed with my crazy mutt of genetic material. Probably have her blue eyes and the same narrow, patrician nose, but probably the little tilt…what the hell was I thinking? This wasn’t going to last. That girl was probably scared to hell of me after what I’d just made her do. She’ll probably run for the hills the first time I take my eyes off of her.
Women did that. A man dropped his guard and opened his life to her and the first thing she did was run. My mom…she was gone soon enough. And Abigail. It might not have been her choosing, but she still left me at a time when I needed her. Stacy, too, running off to New York the second she graduated high school. They all ran. It was stupid to think anyone would ever stick by me long enough to test my ability to remain faithful.
“The plane should land in an hour or so. Send a car to meet us?”
“Us? You brought her with you?”
“Couldn’t just leave her in Vegas.”
“Maybe you are finally growing up, brother.”
***
I felt like a different man as we stepped off the plane. I’d changed into a fresh suit and cleaned myself up as best as I could in the tiny bathroom. But it wasn’t just that. It was walking off that plane, knowing what waited for me at MCorp, what waited for me at my father’s house. And knowing that I was coming home with a little extra baggage.
Amelia seemed surprised when I woke her, her eyes moving slowly over the length of me as she sat up and shook the dreams from her confused mind.
“We’re in Boston?”
“We are.”
“Should I change?”
I shook my head. “I’m sending you to my place. I want you to wait there for me.”
“Alone? Where are you going?”
“I have some business to deal with. I’ll only be a few hours.”
She looked a little startled, but she didn’t say anything as I led her off the plane. There were two cars waiting, both dark SUVs like we were some sort of clandestine team or something. I turned her toward me and trapped her between the car and me for a long second.
“Things are a little complicated here. You’ll have to bear with me for a few days, okay?”
She nodded, her eyes everywhere but on my face. I lifted her chin and forced her to look me in the eye.
“Go to the house. Don’t be calling all your friends. Just watch a little television and wait for me.”
“Okay.”
I kissed her gently, my lips brushing hers for a long second.
I could get used to this, to having someone whose kisses I actually missed when I turned and walked away. I could get used to the idea of having someone waiting for me at home. There was something to the whole commitment thing. I was just…a man who had something…had something to lose.
I kissed her a little harder, then I pushed her back into the car. She was still watching me when I slammed the door.
“Make sure she stays at the house,” I said to Colin, one of Jack’s men, the man driving the car.
“Will do, boss.”
I watched them go before I climbed into the other car. Luke, another of Jack’s guys, handed me my gun and holster. He’d retrieved it from where I’d left it at my house. I shrugged out of my jacket and slipped the rig on, checking the gun’s clip before I slipped it into place. The jacket back on, I felt almost like the man I’d been before my little birthday celebration in Vegas.
“This meeting…”
“Jack’s arranged to meet with the head of the Harbor Point Bloods again. He wants their help in pushing the Italians back a little.”
“Will they help?”
“They said they would. But Jack’s a little worried that the Italians might make them a better deal. You know how it works…the Bloods go where the money is.”
“Isn’t that the way it is with just about everyone?”
Luke shrugged. He didn’t seem terribly impressed with my banter.
I stared out the window, watching the familiar landscape of my hometown fly by. I wondered what Amelia thought of the city. When there was time, I wanted to give her the real tour, the one tourists would never get. I wanted to show her the neighborhood where my Pops grew up, the place where our family began that he often took us to, where he told us the stories of his childhood over and over again until we couldn’t remember if it was his memory or ours. I wanted to show her the world that made me who I am.
“You get married?” Luke asked.
I glanced at him, and he gestured toward my hand. I’d almost forgotten the gold wedding band that still sat on my left ring finger.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Is it one of those Vegas things, or real?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
We pulled into the underground garage at MCorp a second later, so I didn’t have a chance to answer, not that I was going to anyway. Jack was waiting, sitting in the backseat of yet another SUV, surrounded by three or four of his men. I climbed in beside him, and the car headed out before I was seated.
Jack tossed a manila envelope at me.
“Where’s Sean?”
I shrugged as I worked the envelope open. “Don’t know. Why?”
“I’d like to hear from my daughter every once in a while, but I haven’t heard a word since they headed for Europe.”
“I’ll let
him know the next time he calls.”
“You do that.”
There were multiple pictures inside the envelope. A couple of guys who were members of the Bloods…and a couple of guys I didn’t recognize.”
“These guys are going to be at the meeting. I want you to watch the one with the long scar. He’s been known to go a little crazy when he doesn’t like what’s going on.”
“Okay.”
“This is important, Kyle,” Jack said, leaning forward and resting his hands on my knees. “I’m glad you’re here to be a part of it.”
“Me, too, boss.”
A week ago, that sentence would have been completely true. All I’d ever wanted was to be a part of what Jack and Pops had built. But today I was distracted. It was dangerous to be distracted in this line of work.
Chapter 7
Amelia
Kyle’s friend drove into Beacon Hill, a part of the city that even I could recognize. It was a quiet, lovely part of the city that was clearly populated by people of a certain income level. He pulled into an underground garage off one of the side streets, parking next to a sports car that had the Jaguar emblem on its hood.
“What is this?”
“Mr. Callahan’s loft is just this way.”
The man, a tall, blond man, slipped out of the car and opened my door, gesturing for me to get out. I slowly slipped out of the car, staring around me at the large, open space. There was an elevator hidden off to one side that he led me to, using a key to take us up two flights. When the doors opened, it was to reveal one of the most incredibly spacious, masculine spaces I’d ever seen. There was wood everywhere. And dark colors. And so much space.
When I imagined where Kyle lived, this wasn’t even on the radar.
“This is Kyle’s?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I was almost afraid to walk through the rooms, afraid of touching something because it all looked so perfectly arranged. Even the magazines were stacked in what looked like a calculating arrangement. Like he had a decorator come in here every few days to set it up for potential buyers or something.
“The kitchen’s through there,” Kyle’s friend told me, “and the bedrooms are upstairs.”
I was still fascinated with the idea that this was Kyle’s. The man I’d met in Vegas, the man who danced with me at our wedding reception, the man who laughed when I admitted that I liked Green Day was not the kind of man who would live in this kind of impersonal luxury.
“How long has he lived here?”
“The loft was a gift to him for his college graduation. So…about three years?”
I glanced at the man following me through Kyle’s living room.
“You know him well?”
“I’ve known him for years.”
“What kind of man would you say he is?”
The guy shrugged. “I guess that’s something everyone has to figure out for themselves.”
Yeah, I guess it is.
I sat on the edge of the couch, touching a fingertip to the magazines, but not really moving them.
“You can go. I’m okay here.”
“Mr. Callahan asked that I stay with you.”
I looked up. “Is he afraid I’ll get lost in this place?”
A small smile slipped before he could hide it.
“We should at least know each other’s names. I’m Amelia.”
“Colin.”
I nodded. “Nice Irish name.”
“This is Boston.”
I chuckled. “It is that.”
I stood again, crossing to the massive windows overlooking the city. It really was an impressive place. Nothing like the mountains and trees of Oregon, but beautiful just the same. I tried to imagine Kyle growing up here, of him standing at these very windows, staring down at the city, but I couldn’t. It just didn’t seem to fit with the man I knew.
Maybe I didn’t know the real Kyle.
“What’s he doing that he thinks I need a babysitter?”
“I think that’s something you should ask him.”
“He said he had business.” I turned. “What kind of business requires a babysitter for his wife?”
Colin opened his mouth to answer, but he seemed to hesitate as I finished my question, as the word wife slipped from between my lips. He studied me a little closer then, his eyes falling to the simple gold band on my left ring finger.
“It’s best if you ask him,” he finally said.
So he hadn’t told this man who I was. What kind of loyalty did Kyle inspire that allowed this man to watch over me without question, without a moment’s doubt?
No one had ever felt that sort of loyalty for me. Not even my own father.
I shivered a little as I looked down on the city again. I knew Kyle worked for Jack McGuire, and I knew that Jack ran the Irish mob. And I knew that the Irish mob was currently at odds with the Italian mob who ran the streets on the opposite side of town. It wasn’t common knowledge, all of this, but I knew more about Kyle than he thought I did. I thought it was smart to know what I was getting myself into, but now I was wondering if it wouldn’t be easier to stand here and wait in ignorance.
“He’ll be back in a few hours. Until then, you should get some rest.”
I turned and regarded Colin. “Do you think he’d mind if I went up to the bedroom?”
“No, ma’am. You are his wife, after all.”
The thought of a shower—with my own soap and my own toothbrush—was appealing. And it would use up an hour or so. I headed for the stairs and Colin followed behind with my bags. Halfway up, my shoulder bag began to buzz. My phone was ringing. I stopped and dug through for the phone, but the instant I dragged it out, Colin took it out of my hand.
“Mr. Callahan doesn’t want you speaking to anyone outside of the house.”
“But it’s my father’s assisted living center! There might be something wrong!”
Colin studied my face for a second before glancing at the screen of my phone. He nodded.
“Make it quick.”
I took the phone and answered it just before it would have gone to voice mail. Almost immediately, a mechanical voice spoke to me.
“You have done well, Miss Wallace. You convinced Mr. Callahan to marry you quite expertly.”
I blushed, turning away from Colin so that he wouldn’t see the discomfort on my face.
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Continue doing as well as you are and your problems will be taken care of.”
“My father?”
“Your father will be given what you asked.”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
“Just make sure you don’t deviate from our plan, Miss Wallace, or there will be consequences.”
“I understand.”
The call ended. I stood there for a long second, the phone still pressed to my ear as though the call was still active. I needed to catch my breath. I finally turned and handed the phone to Colin, forcing the biggest smile I could manage.
“Thank you.”
I just wished it had been my father’s assisted living center.
***
I got the first call three months ago. Some mechanical voice asking me if I wanted help paying back my father’s debts. I’d laughed and hung up. The second call came a week later, just after I’d received yet another subpoena in the mail. This time he had details, information that no one outside the family and my father’s law firm should have known.
I still hung up.
Then the third call came almost a full month after the first. I thought whoever it was had forgotten about me, that he—I assumed it was a he, but couldn’t really tell by the voice altering app—had moved on to some other person who was more susceptible to that sort of harassment. That’s what I thought it was, basic harassment. I thought someone had read about my father’s financial troubles in the Oregon papers and thought it would be funny to tease me about them.
I was wrong. This guy…he kne
w way too much about me to be just a run of the mill harasser.
He told me he knew how the crash of the housing market had destroyed my father’s company. He said he knew how, when my father and mother tried to begin again in the year after the crash, my mother had a brief affair with one of their investors that nearly destroyed my father. He told me he knew the divorce crushed my father’s spirit and that his health began to suffer as he fought to rebuild alone. And then he told me that he knew how my father trusted the wrong people and was now taking the responsibility for what was essentially a pyramid scam that, in the aftermath of Bernie Madoff, people didn’t take lightly. He was ruined, really, and everything I did, everything our lawyers did, couldn’t fix what was a really big, really fucked up mess.
My father was ruined. I was ruined. Everything was gone. My father was suffering from so many health issues that he was never going to live on his own again and likely wouldn’t survive more than a few weeks in prison, if it came to that. It was a nightmare that I had taken on my shoulders simply because that was what family did. My mom…I had no idea where she was, what she was doing. She was gone the moment my father learned of her affair.
So much for thirty years of marriage and all that entailed.
This person on the other end of the phone knew all this. He even knew that I’d left college half a semester short of graduation to help my father, knew that I’d spent my trust fund to pay for the lawyers who eventually brokered a deal and saved my father from prison. He knew that I’d moved to Vegas because my family name was mud in Oregon and it was the only place where I could find a decent job. And he knew that I sent every penny I earned—beyond basic living expenses—to my father to pay for the assisted living center where he lived and all the medical care he required.
And then he made his offer:
Marry Kyle Callahan and keep him distracted for a period to be defined by my mystery caller, and he’d wire enough money into an untraceable bank account so that I could fix my father’s mistakes and make him comfortable.
It was an offer I couldn’t pass up.
Once I agreed, contact switched to text messages. He sent me information about Kyle, told me what would get his attention and what would turn him off. He told me everything I would ever need to know to get Kyle to ask me up to his room, and then to get him to walk into that chapel. The rest…Mickey was involved somehow, but I wasn’t sure how. And I didn’t want to know.
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