She groaned, but she didn’t say anything else. We walked in heavy silence to the subway, jumping the train for Brooklyn. She had a little apartment on the corner of a quiet residential street there. It was paid for by money she got from Davis’ life insurance. I was surprised, to be honest, that the man had bothered to change the beneficiary of his insurance when they became engaged. But he apparently did, and my dear sister got enough to buy the apartment outright and pay off her college loans. If there’d been more, she would have gone to graduate school. But there wasn’t, and she wasn’t about to take money from Pops, something I both admired and thought was just plain stupid. If I hadn’t had Pops’ support, I never would have finished school. She should finish school, but it wasn’t like she was going to listen to anything I had to say.
I felt her watching me as we traveled at opposite ends of the train car. She thought she could escape me if she rushed off ahead of me, but she never did. After six months, I could predict her every move before she even knew what she was going to do. She rarely surprised me.
Until tonight.
“Why don’t you come up? Have dinner with me?”
I glanced at her as we walked the short distance from the train to her building.
“Really?”
She nodded, her eyes cutting away from mine.
“Sure.”
She gestured for me to lead the way as we slipped through the front door. I glanced back at her, a little concerned she might stab me in the back or something. It wasn’t like Stacy to be generous, especially to me, but she actually smiled when our eyes met.
“I only have chicken,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mom used to make that baked chicken with the potato chips on it. Remember? It was always my favorite.”
“Mine, too.”
She grabbed a big bag of potato chips and tossed it at me. “Get to work.”
I raised my eyebrows, wondering why she was suddenly being so kind. But I got to work, crushing the potato chips while she got the thawed chicken from the refrigerator. We worked side by side almost like we once did when Mom was still alive. She’d be proud if she could see us now.
“I miss her,” Stacy said a while later as we sat at the kitchen table, digging into the food.
“Me, too.”
“Do you think things would have been different if we’d known sooner? If we could have had a say in her care?”
“She had pancreatic cancer, Stace. She was going to die no matter what we did.”
She nodded, as she dragged her fork over her mashed potatoes. “If he’d told us sooner—”
“It wasn’t his decision. Mom didn’t want us sitting around, watching her get sicker and sicker. She wanted us to suffer as little as possible.” I put down my fork and lifted the bottle of beer she’d provided for me. Just before I put it to my lips, I looked over at her. “Do you think it was easy for him, dealing with all that alone? Do you think he didn’t want us there, that he didn’t want the support of having his family around to help him make choices? It was all her, not him.”
She shook her head and I could feel the heat of her anger burning just under the surface. I knew she’d understand some day, but right now, the grief was still a little too fresh—even though it’d been five years since Mom died. She was close to Mom, maybe closer than the rest of us. I thought maybe she was angrier with Mom for shutting her out when she could have used her support the most—rather than at Pops for keeping her away. But I wasn’t going to say that to her. She’d probably cut my balls off if I did.
“What kind of woman do you find attractive?”
Once again, she threw me for a loop. I stared at her, stared at her body language—she did not look like a woman who was in the frame of mind to have a casual discussion about romance—wondering where the hell this was coming from.
“Why?”
“Do you think Sara is pretty?”
“Sara who?”
“My supervisor. From the ad agency.”
I shrugged, downing half the bottle of beer before I set it down and took a generous bite of chicken. “She’s attractive,” I said around the food.
Stacy looked disgusted as she glanced at me. I wasn’t quite sure if it was because of my opinion or the whole talking with food in my mouth thing. All I knew was that I didn’t like it when she looked at me like that.
I set my fork down and studied her a moment longer. “Why?”
She shrugged. “It occurred to me that if you had a girlfriend, you might leave me the hell alone. And Sara expressed an interest.”
“Pops wants me here. As long as he does—”
“Yeah, yeah, we all know what a loyal son you are.”
“Why are you so averse to me being around? You used to like me.”
“That was before you took his side in all this.”
“In all what?”
“Mom. That new wife of his. The secret baby.”
“She’s hardly a baby. She’s only three years younger than me.”
“Yeah, well, she was still a secret. What do you think Mom would have done if she’d known?”
“Probably the same things she did for you and Ian and Kyle and Kevin. She would have welcomed her into the family with open arms.”
I knew she knew I was right. She pushed away her plate of food and stood, marching into the kitchen. I followed, catching her arm as she reached for a bottle of wine on the counter. The bottle fell and spilled across the counter, making her cry out.
“Asshole! Do you know how expensive that stuff is?”
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“No, you won’t. I don’t want anything to do with your money.”
“Why?”
“Because it comes from him. I don’t want anything of his in my house.”
I grabbed a rag and sopped up some of the spilled liquid, lifting the bottle to keep any more from spilling. There wasn’t much of a spill. The bottle had been nearly empty.
“He loves you. And he’ll always be your father.”
“He’s not my father. My father was a drunk college professor who couldn’t handle the fact that the woman he loved chose someone else.”
“Pops raised you.”
“He put up with me. Mom raised me.”
I tossed the rag into the sink, wiping the sticky wine from my fingers with a piece of paper towel. “Hell of a way to be grateful, Stacy. If it weren’t for Mom and Pops, you would have been a ward of the state for your entire childhood and then sent out into the world without a penny to your name, expected to make it on your own. Do you think you could have survived without Pops’ help?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“He’s my father. I respect what he’s done for me and for the rest of the family.”
“That’s your problem.”
She started to move around me, but I grabbed her arm and pushed her back against the sink. There was fear in her eyes for a second, but it was quickly replaced by anger. That was the Stacy I knew, the girl who was always willing to stand up and fight for what she thought was right. Even when she was wrong.
“You can’t be angry all your life, Stacy. It’ll start to eat you alive and make you do things you’ll regret.”
“I already regret more than you’ll ever know.”
“Maybe. But when it comes down to it, the only people who won’t abandon you, the only ones who’ll always be there to pick up the pieces is your family. If you keep turning your back on us, you might find yourself alone.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
I studied her face, the funny twist of her full lips, the diamond earrings that spread from low on her earlobe to the tip of her beautiful ear. She hid them under her long, straight hair now, but they were still there, still a peek of her old personality coming through. She was so much more than this corporate wanna-be. I wanted to shake her, to bring the old Stacy back out. I wanted to turn her back into the high-spirited teenager I’d kno
wn six years ago, the one who I loved being around, the one I couldn’t get enough of. I wanted the Stacy I loved back.
But Davis’ death had changed her. I was afraid she would never be the same again.
I touched the side of her face, letting my fingertip run down the angle of her jaw.
“I hate to see you like this,” I said softly. “Mom would hate this.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice little more than a growl. “Don’t use Mom against me.”
“It’s the truth. She adored you the way you used to be, the happy, go-lucky girl you were when she was alive.”
“I was a kid then.”
A flash burst through my head of Stacy walking into the kitchen in nothing more than a black crochet bikini when she was about sixteen. Her hair was cut super short then, a sort of spiky haircut that was all the rage at her high school. She had these earrings, most of them multi-colored balls at the time, and a tiny tattoo on her lower back that Mom laughed off when I expressed shock.
“You weren’t a kid. You were a lot of things then, but you were not a kid.”
Her eyes widened a little. “I don’t know—”
“You were beautiful and intelligent and confident. You were happy and funny and so full of life. You were so much fun to be around.”
“How would you know? You avoided coming home my last few years of high school.”
“I was busy with graduate school.”
“You were busy avoiding us.”
“I wasn’t avoiding anything.”
“Mom used to call you and beg you to come home for holidays, but you always had an excuse. You have a lot of room to talk to me about avoiding family obligations.”
“Maybe you should learn from my experience.”
Her lips softened, and the anger slowly left her eyes. She studied my face, her eyes so warm that I wanted to get lost in them. I touched her face again, and then I pressed my hand against her palm. I told myself it was a touch of affection that any brother might give to his sister. But there was more to it than that. There had always been more.
If I told her now why I avoided going home six years ago, she would probably run for the hills. Literally. It was wrong. I knew that, but I couldn’t help how I felt.
I stepped back.
“I should go.”
“Killian…”
I didn’t even look back. If I did, I wasn’t sure I could make myself leave her ever again.
Chapter 3
Stacy
I watched him go, turning and watching through the kitchen window as he crossed the street to the building that looked down on this one. He had a room there, a rented room that he probably paid more for than he should have. This was an exclusive neighborhood filled with young professionals who lived here more for the address than the accommodations. The apartments were much too small and the parking was ridiculous, but it was an up-and-coming neighborhood that looked good on party invitations and mailing lists. Killian could probably rent a three-bedroom house in Boston for what he was paying for that one room, but he insisted on living there for as long as Brian insisted he watch over me.
I could still feel the heat of his fingers on my skin. I’d have thought it would send chills of disgust through my body, but it didn’t. It was actually kind of nice. Had it really been that long since I’d been touched with that kind of affection?
I wanted to hate him. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him feel the same pain I felt when Davis was killed.
He wasn’t there. He’d been sitting outside my apartment for at least a week before Davis was killed, but that one night he wasn’t there. Why? Where had he been?
There seemed to be only one answer.
Brian didn’t like Davis, and Brian’s way of taking care of people he didn’t like was pretty clear.
Had Brian asked Killian to kill Davis so that I wouldn’t marry him?
It seemed simplistic, but I knew Brian didn’t like Davis. And I knew he was capable of things that most people would never imagine themselves doing. And Killian was just like Brian.
Was it possible?
I’d been running it all over in my head ever since Davis’ funeral. Killian stood at my side, my hand tucked into his, telling me everything would be okay. He would take care of me. Wasn’t that convenient? Why was he there? Why did he seem to always be there? There was something not right about Killian’s vigilance. And I…I couldn’t just sit back and let everyone I loved die. I couldn’t live like this anymore. I had to be proactive for once in my life.
I was going to make Killian pay for what he’d done.
The police wouldn’t do anything. Brian had been running around free for thirty years despite the criminal activity he used MCorp to hide. This…I would have to stoop to their level to get my revenge. And what better revenge than to take out Brian’s first born son?
***
The dream was intense. Davis was walking alone down an alley and a man came out of the shadows, his face hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt. Davis held up his hands, but the man didn’t want his money. He fired five bullets directly into his chest.
Overkill.
Then he laughed.
I woke with a start, sweat pouring down my face. I couldn’t quite catch my breath. I closed my eyes, and I saw Davis the way he’d been that night, lying in that cold hospital room, naked and exposed to the world, those ugly bullet wounds in his chest the only deformity on his otherwise perfectly healthy body. But those ugly wounds were enough to take the vitality away from him, to remove the things that had made him Davis.
I jumped out of bed, reaching the toilet just in time to lose what little I’d eaten of my dinner the night before. When I caught my breath, I climbed into the shower and let the cool water take some of the sting from my memories. I hated this, hated the memories, hated the grief that never seemed to let go. I hated living with the reality that Davis would still be alive if he hadn’t had the bad luck of loving me.
It was early when I was dressed and ready for work. I stepped out into the living room, thinking about the project I’d begun at the office the day before. Killian, like a stray cat that always turns up at the worst times, was in the kitchen, watching the coffee filling the pot.
“Morning.”
“You’re like a bad penny.”
He smiled that crooked smile that I bet could get almost any girl into bed. I wondered how much persuasion it would take to get my new boss to get naked with him. Probably not much. The hard part would be convincing her to break up with him the night before he finally committed to something more than being Brian’s henchman.
But I thought I could do it.
“How do you get into my apartment, anyway?”
“Spare key.”
I glared at him. “You stole my keys?”
“No. There was a spare in that drawer when you moved in,” he said, pointing to the drawer where I kept my silverware. “I just took it without telling you.”
“You stole it.”
“How am I supposed to protect you if I can’t get into the apartment whenever I want to?”
“I don’t need you to protect me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that. It’s been six months since…since Davis. If someone was coming after me, they would have tried before now.”
“You don’t know these people, Stacy.”
“Do you? Do you know who’s after me?”
Killian shrugged. “Pops has a lot of enemies.”
“No kidding. But I suppose that comes hand-in-hand with being a criminal.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he poured two cups of coffee and handed me one.
We repeated the same commute we’d taken the day before. I didn’t have to tell him to stay outside this time. He wandered over to the same bench as we approached the front of the building, sighing as he sat as though he’d just finished a long, hard run or something. I glared at him again, wishing he’d go away. He j
ust smiled, waving me off with the movement of two fingers.
Jackass.
The office was busy, the low hum of many voices speaking at once filling the large room. I went to my desk, turning on the computer and checking my interoffice emails before pulling up the document I’d been working on the day before. They wanted a dozen possible tag lines for a company that sold security systems. I had four so far.
“How’s it going?”
Sara was wearing a pants suit today, the high waist on the slacks hugging her impossibly narrow hips. She was the kind of woman I used to watch when I was in high school and wish I could be.
“Great.”
She inclined her head as she came around my desk to see what I had.
“We’ll need all twelve by noon.”
“Okay.”
She gave me a look that suggested she didn’t think I could manage. I tried to ignore it.
“So, I was talking to Killian last night.”
“Killian?”
“My brother.”
Sara’s eyes brightened. “The hunk downstairs?”
“I think he’d be interested in going out with you. Maybe you could go talk to him at lunch time.”
Her smile was almost priceless. “Yeah?”
“He said you were beautiful.”
Suddenly work didn’t seem to matter anymore. Sara went away, almost floating as she retreated through the room. At least that got her off my back for a while.
I worked on the tag lines for a few minutes, then called up a web page I’d been looking at the day before. “Two Men Found Dead in Local Warehouse,” it said. It was from the Boston Herald.
People were dying all around Brian. There was some sort of war going on between the Irish and the Italians. I didn’t understand it—didn’t really want to—but it opened a window of possibility that I’d been looking for.
While Brian was busy with his little war, I could contact someone I knew was connected to the Italians and see if he might be interested in doing me a favor.
Killian was going to regret ever crossing me.
Chapter 4
Killian
“Don’t you get bored sitting out here all day?”
KILLIAN: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 2) Page 3