“Then go. I know that’s what you want. You would rather go do your father’s bidding than be with me. So go. See if you can find happiness there because you’re sure as hell not opening yourself to it here.”
“You know I care about you.”
She laughed, the sound so bitter it almost hurt to hear it.
“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t keep walking away.”
She was probably right about that. But I felt like I had no choice.
I walked away. I heard the thump of something hitting the bedroom door after I closed it. I didn’t stop. There was no point. If I went back, if I said all the words she wanted to hear, I’d still have to get up and leave. So what would be solved?
It was a long drive back to Boston, long enough to consider the direction my life was moving in. Before Carrie, I was content with my life. I worked for my father, both as managing director of Callahan Industries and for his protection racket for the Irish mob. It was dangerous work—the latter not the former—but it kept the blood pumping. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the respect and the power that came with it. There were women, too, any woman I might want, on any given night. It was a good life, but it wasn’t one that felt permanent. It was fluid and I liked that. Permanent was a problem for me. Carrie was right when she said my childhood had screwed me up a little. More than a little, really. My biological family was about as fucked up as any family could be. Then the state intervened—and that life was worse in many ways. I fully believed I’d be dead now if it weren’t for my mom.
Abigail Callahan. She was a social worker who came to my group home to see another kid and ended up taking me home with her. In one snap decision, my life went from nightmare to normal. I went from being alone and constantly afraid to being part of a family. The Callahans adopted me less than six months after that first meeting—and none of us ever looked back.
How could I walk away from that?
It was simple to me. As long as Pops and my siblings—Killian, Sean, Kyle, Stacy, and Kevin—needed me, I’d be there. It wasn’t that I felt like I owed them—although I did—but because that was what family did. It’s what my mom taught me by saving me from my nightmare.
If Carrie couldn’t understand that, then maybe she wasn’t the right one for me, as much as it killed my heart to admit it. Carrie was the first steady relationship I’d had since high school. She was the first woman I got on well enough with to even want to try for some sort of commitment. I wanted to be with her. But I couldn’t allow her to set ultimatums for me. When I felt pushed into a corner, I tended to lash out. I didn’t want to lash out at her.
We’d work it out. We’d done it before. I’d call her when I got to Boston and she’d be calm enough by then to talk it out rationally. Until then…
I should tell my family about her. I don’t know why I haven’t. I guess…I guess I just liked having her all to myself. Once I told them about her, they’d want to meet her. They’d want to throw a party like they did for Kyle last month when he brought home his Vegas bride. And then I’d have to share her…and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
But if it made her feel more secure in our relationship, I suppose it would be worth it.
Maybe.
I just passed the Boston city limits when my phone rang. My heart fluttered in my chest, assuming it was Carrie. But it was Killian.
“Pops wants to meet at his office.”
“Do I have time to stop by my place and shower?”
“It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Does this have something to do with the shooting?”
There’d been a shooting almost three weeks ago during a meeting between Jack McGuire, the head of the Irish mob, and Carmine Rossi, the head of the Italian mob. The two groups had been in the middle of a territory struggle for more than a year. It started as part of a scheme to take down my father. My brother, Kevin, blamed Pops for the death of our mother almost seven years ago. She died of pancreatic cancer, but Kevin got it into his head that Pops killed her while she was in the hospital in order to steal her away from us kids. He’d been systemically trying to take Pops down for the last two years, beginning with kidnapping Brianna, a daughter Pops didn’t even know he had, then the attempted murder of Killian and Pops’ arrest for RICO statute violations. Only after the shooting, a calculated attack that was designed to make it appear that the Irish had killed the Italian leader, did we discovered Kevin was behind it all. We’d been looking for him ever since, but had no luck.
“Yeah. Jack spoke to Carmine, and they’ve come up with some sort of deal.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in a few.”
They were waiting for me in Pops’ office. Killian was lounging against the wall, Sean in a chair. Kyle and Pops were standing close together by the windows at the back of the room, whispering about something or other. Kyle looked up when I came through the door and had this look on his face that made me wonder what he knew that I wasn’t going to like.
“How’s it going?” Killian asked, coming over to shake my hand.
“Fine. Just coming back from doing the rounds in Manhattan.”
Killian nodded. “Stacy wants you to come over for dinner later this week, if you have time. You haven’t seen the baby in a while.”
“Sure.”
“You and Delaney, too,” Killian said, gesturing toward Sean. “We’ve barely seen you since you came back to town.”
“I’ll talk to Delaney. She’s been hanging out at the hospital a lot, but Jack’s going to be released tomorrow night. I doubt Caroline’s going to want her around the house too much.”
“She okay?”
Sean simply shrugged.
I knew that Delaney was Jack’s daughter from one of his many affairs. I knew they had something of a strained relationship until recently. But I didn’t know much more, and Sean didn’t seem all that ready to discuss it. But their relationship—Sean and Delaney’s—was pretty new, so I supposed I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to talk about it.
“What about me?” Kyle asked, coming over. “Do I get an invitation?”
“Of course,” Killian said. “You and Amelia should come.”
“Amelia’s in Oregon visiting her father. But I’d be happy to be Ian’s date.” He punched my arm lightly. “Then you won’t feel so out of place, bro.”
“Who says I would have felt out of place?”
Kyle shrugged. “Just thought you wouldn’t want to be the odd man out.”
I started to respond, my thoughts immediately moving to Carrie. Maybe I should tell them. Maybe if I invited her to this little dinner, not only would it be an introduction to my family, but it would show her I was serious about this relationship. Maybe then she would back off on the whole moving in thing.
But then Pops cleared his throat, and we all came to attention as we always did. He came around the desk and leaned back against the front of it, his arms crossed over his chest. He glanced at each of us, but his eyes settled on me. I thought for a brief moment that there was a touch of regret in his eyes, maybe even sympathy. And that frightened me just a little.
“As you boys know, things have been a little up in the air since the shooting three weeks ago. With both Jack and Carmine in the hospital, the boys on the street have been struggling. The Italians, some, still labor under the belief that we lured Carmine to that warehouse to kill him. Some of our men believe that Carmine hired the shooters in order to start a street war. Jack and Carmine both want this to end. They want the boys on the street to stop fighting.”
Pops relaxed his arms and leaned forward again, his attention falling to the floor for a moment, as though he had notes there to read from. Then his eyes settled on me for a brief second before moving around the room.
“Jack and Carmine have come to an agreement. They’ve decided to split the city evenly in half, to share in the gun trade and to work together in a sort of partnership.”
Killian and Sean both stiffe
ned—I could almost hear the creak of their muscles as they straightened up—Killian immediately arguing against the idea.
“An equal partnership? But we’ve been running the gun trade in this city since before you and Jack took over, Pops! How could Jack—?”
Pops held up his hand. “Jack did what he had to do to smooth this thing over. If he hadn’t agreed to it, there would have been a full out war, and none of us want that.”
Of course we didn’t. It would mean a lot of casualties on both sides. And it would mean more heat from the cops—which was something no one wanted. Not only that, but it would mean that one or the other would be forced from the city. And if we’d lost, if things had gone poorly for our side, I couldn’t even imagine what our future would have looked like.
No. A war wasn’t the answer.
“We have to support Jack’s decision,” I said, turning to look at all three of my brothers. Killian shook his head, moving angrily back from us. Sean didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t try to argue. And Kyle…he met my eye and studied me again as if he was trying to take a measure of me.
“There’s one other thing,” Pops said slowly. “Ian…if I had been in on the discussion, I never would have allowed for this to even become a thing. But I wasn’t.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
Pops glanced at Kyle. I followed his gaze and watched my brother push away from wall where he’d been standing.
“Carmine has a daughter,” he began. I knew where he was going instantly, and I began to shake my head.
“You’re fucking playing with me, right?”
Kyle held up his hands as if he was trying to stop me from leaving the room. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted to hear this.
“It was Carmine’s idea. He thought if we literally merged our families, it would keep us from going back on the deal at some future date and vice versa.” Kyle glanced at Pops then focused on me again. “He originally wanted it to be me, but he didn’t know I was already married.”
“He wants me to marry his daughter?”
“You’re the only one of us who isn’t already married,” Kyle said.
“Sean’s not married.”
“Sean’s living with Jack’s daughter,” Sean helpfully interjected himself.
I felt like a cornered dog. I backed away from Kyle’s encroaching movements, nearly tripping over a chair that suddenly sprang up behind me. I sat hard, catching myself on the arms of the chair.
“It would only be for as long as necessary to keep the peace and to find Kevin. After that…you could get an annulment if you wanted.”
I shook my head. “Did anyone consider how I would feel about this? Maybe I don’t want to marry a stranger.”
“I understand,” Pops said. “And we wouldn’t ask this of you if we had any other option.”
“Of course you have another option! What about one of Jack’s sons? What about one of his men? Why does it have to be me?”
“Because Jack’s sons are all married and it needs to be someone close to Jack. You boys are as close as we could get.” Pops knelt in front of me, an act of submission that was humbling to us both. He touched the back of my hand. “Just meet her. If you simply can’t stand her, then we’ll figure something else out.”
“This is really important to you?”
Pops nodded. “We need this street war to end as quickly as possible so that we can concentrate on finding Kevin and putting an end to his war against me. We need to stop the chaos and get things back to the way they should be. The sooner we can do that, the better.”
I could see the strain on Pops’ face. I knew how heavy all of this chaos with Kevin had been on him. There was a scar on his lip from where the federal agents beat him when he was arrested. And there, in his eyes, was the guilt over Brianna’s kidnapping, the hitman who nearly killed Killian, the chaos on the streets that had led to the deaths or arrests of many of Jack’s men, our brothers in the organization. Men he grew up with or watched grow up. It was all too much to know that it was his own son, his favorite, who was behind it all.
I rested my hand on his shoulder. “Okay, Pops. I’ll meet her.”
“We can invite her to our dinner party,” Killian said helpfully.
The idea of having my brothers around when I met her was something of a double-edged sword. They’d be there for support if she was what I expected her to be—I mean, her father wasn’t the best looking man in the world!—but they’d be in the way if she was someone I wanted to get to know.
I couldn’t think about Carrie right now. That would just make all this impossible.
Chapter 2
Mia
“I won’t! I don’t want to marry some stranger!”
My mom came up behind me and rested her hands on my shoulders. “You know how important this is to your father.”
“He’s only doing this to get me away from Spider.”
She met my eyes in the mirror. “To him, it’s a win-win situation. He gets you away from that boy…and he saves his people from a street war.”
“And what if I meet this man and decide I just can’t stand him?”
My mom kissed my temple. “Then your father and I will have a discussion.”
I turned and looked up at my mother—my tall, gorgeous mother—and studied her face for a moment. It was so familiar that it almost hurt. I was happy to be home, really I was. I’d missed my family in the four months I’d been living with Spider in Chicago. I don’t know how many times I cried myself to sleep, regretting my impulsive decision. I was almost relieved when I got onto that bus to come home after my dad was shot. It was a bad thing to be relieved when your father is shot. Maybe that was why I’d agreed to this crazy scheme in the first place.
I’d already been stuck with one guy I didn’t love for longer than I should have been. I didn’t want to immediately find myself in the same situation—even if it was for a better reason.
“Based on everything I’ve heard, this Ian Callahan is a good man. Good with computers. And honorable.”
“That’s what Daddy said.”
“All the Callahans are…unique.” Momma lifted my face so that she could see my eyes. “I know it’s difficult, having to marry a man you hardly know, especially a man who a month ago was your father’s sworn enemy, but your father wouldn’t put you in this position if he thought he was doing you a disservice.”
“What about Spider? What about my right to choose the man I love?”
She touched my cheek lightly. “Your father loves you, Mia. He’s trying to protect you in his own strange sort of way.”
“But Momma—”
“Can you look me in the eye and honestly tell me you love Spider?”
I couldn’t. I let my eyes drop to the floor. She lifted my chin again and studied my face.
“You meet this man tonight, talk to him for a while, and if you really don’t want to have anything to do with him, we’ll confront your dad together. We’ll make him find another way to stop the street war.”
But that wasn’t really reasonable, either. My two brothers were out there on the street, trying to keep the Italians from killing the Irish. One came home two days ago with a knife wound on his arm after breaking up a fight with a couple of his men and a young Irish guy. His wife was eight months pregnant, crying her eyes out when she called Momma to tell her what’d happened. We thought for a while she’d go into labor from the stress.
I couldn’t be responsible for something bad happening to one of my brothers, or my sister’s husband. But the idea of marrying a man I didn’t know, who was Brian Callahan’s son, a man I’d learned to hate since I was a toddler, was just too difficult to wrap my mind around.
It didn’t matter if I liked him or not. It was simply against everything I’d ever been taught to even talk to the man, let alone build a life with him.
However, I’d rebelled against my family once. I wasn’t sure I could do it again.
“I can’t
go by myself.”
“Of course not. Seraphina’s going with you.”
I tried to imagine that. I was supposed to meet my betrothed at a dinner party at his brother’s house. It all sounded so common, so normal, but Daddy had railed against Jack McGuire and Brian Callahan, the Irish jackasses who were ruining his business by constantly encroaching on his territory and luring away his customers and his men, for years. I’d been taught that the name Callahan was to be spit upon. And not just me. My brothers, Carlo and Carmine Jr., and my sister, Seraphina, too. And Seraphina…to her, the Callahans were the devil.
Seraphina was married to Aldo, and Aldo was one of my father’s lieutenants. He was there whenever anything significant happened, such as the shooting that left my father in the hospital these last few weeks. The Callahans were probably the last people with whom she wanted to sit down and break bread.
I turned back to the mirror and studied our reflections. Momma was tall, her complexion a classic olive, her eyes dark, her hair black as night. She had high cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and a svelte figure that could have given her a job in Hollywood if she’d ever tried. She was beautiful. Everyone always said so. Seraphina looked exactly like her, even after three kids had widened her hips ever so slightly. And my brothers…well, they looked a lot like Daddy. They were tall, but they tended toward heavy, too. Me? I didn’t look like either.
I was slightly taller than average, but not nearly as tall as Momma and Seraphina. I had curves where they were more model-esque. My hair was dark, like theirs, but I had blond highlights that shot through it. And my eyes were a deep green where everyone in the family had dark brown—almost black—eyes. My skin was like cream, and I burned like a redhead whenever I went out in the summer. The family used to joke that I was some sort of alien, that I’d come to the family through some sort of accident. In truth, Momma pulled me aside and confided that there was a blond in her ancestry and that likely explained my paler coloring. But I’d always felt like the odd one out.
Plus, I was the baby, some five years younger than my siblings were.
THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series Page 63