by Holly Hart
“What the hell did they use to make you?” I puff.
He grunts. “They don’t make it anymore.”
We find the source of the cry at the corner of Josephine and Geneva Avenue. It’s an elderly woman, and she’s inconsolable, even though an older gentleman, dressed in red trousers and a flat tweed cap (her husband, I assume) is doing his best.
I relaxed. “Just a domestic ya’ think?” I ask, crinkling an eyebrow.
“I’m not so sure.” Patrick jerks his chin. “You thin’ that ‘ither of those two bae the type to put a brick through their own shop winda’?”
A surge of rage floods through me. It’s the same rage that overcame me the other night with Casey – no thought – just blackness behind my eyes; fingers clenching of their own accord.
So it’s not until a couple of seconds later that I realize that my nails are biting into my palms. I ignore the pain. Someone is fucking with my people. My people! That means someone is going to pay for this. It doesn’t matter if it was just some drunk-off-his-ass street punk. That’s just the way things work down here: an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.
I master myself with difficulty, finally speaking through gritted teeth. “Let’s go check it out.”
There’s a small gathering of people in a loose semicircle ringing the vandalized general store. It’s old and quaint: the kind with stained-glass windows that’s probably been there fifty years. The kind of glass you can’t just replace with a click of your fingers these days.
“You’re Seamus’s boy?” the woman asks the second we approach. It’s a question that’s anything but. She launches into her story without waiting for me to reply. Her tears are already forgotten, drying on cheeks that are red with indignation. She strikes me as one of those people who has drama following wherever she goes.
“You’ve heard, then?”
I nod, because it seems the right thing to do. “We came as soon as we did.” When you run the streets, and take care of your people, life for a Byrne is easier when those same people think you know everything, and that you can be everywhere at once. It keeps them on their toes.
“Tell me what’s gone on then, will you, Mrs –?”
“O’Toole. Mary O’Toole. I thought you’d know that,” she remarks acidly. Your father would.”
“And your husband –?” I ask, ignoring her swipe at me, but she cuts me off mid-flow. I can tell who wears the pants in their relationship, and it’s not Mister O’Toole, that’s for sure.
“What are you going to do about it,” she asks. “It’s a disgrace, a disgrace I tell you. What’s the world coming to when ordinary men and women like us, hard-working families, can’t walk the streets without fear of attack? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to stop? Else what good are ye?”
“Begging your forgiveness, Mary –.”
She shoots me a hard glare. “My pardon, Mrs. O’Toole,” I add. “But you still haven’t told me what the hell’s happened here. Mister O’Hanlon here and I want to help, but –”
“Language, boy,” she says in a tone that would put my late grandmother to shame. “Isn’t it obvious?” She chides, pointing at her gaping shop window and all the while shaking her head. “Ye think that appeared by itself, do ye?”
I close my eyes. I can feel the temper beginning to rise inside me, and I bite it back. Still, I feel the blood pumping in my chest, at my wrists and on my neck. Patrick puts a hand on my shoulder, and without saying a word transmits a message. “Stay calm.”
I nod – a tiny, imperceptible movement of my head and the hand disappears. I know what I am – my father’s representative on the streets. It won’t do to succumb to a teenage temper tantrum.
“O’ course not Mar–, Mrs. O’Toole. Did ye see who did it?”
She shakes her head, and her husband interjects for the first time. I have to lean in to hear him. He’s frail, half the size of his wife in both body and temperament.
“I did,” he wheezes. “I was opening up when it happened. I saw some kid with his hood pulled low and something in his hand, but I didn’t pay him a blind bit of difference.”
“Did you see his face?”
The old man shakes his head. “No sir. He was tan, that’s all I saw, so it is. A second later the glass was smashing and he was running about the shop causing a hell of a storm. Maybe two of them, I couldn’t tell ye. I hid behind the counter and let them do their thing. It seemed to last forever…”
“Can we take a look around?”
Mary looks like she wants to continue with her rant, but her husband touches her on the shoulder and pulls her back. I guess he’s fought this battle more times than I care to imagine. I give him a nod of thanks.
“It’d be my pleasure,” he says.
“You smell that?” Patrick asks, stepping through the smashed window just ahead of me. I followed him in and take a deep breath – and regret it instantly.
“Is that –?”
He nods. “Piss. This is personal. You mark my words.”
“Thanks, Detective,” I remark. The truth is, I know he’s right – and the way my gut’s beginning to curdle, there’s more to this than meets the eye.
A can of tomato soup goes spinning off the end of my boot and I stop bothering to pick my way around them. It’s a losing battle, anyway. The store looks like a hurricane has hit it: shelving that used to form neat aisles have toppled on one another; chilling units have been smashed to pieces …
“Awful lot of anger here,” Patrick muses. I turn a corner and he’s standing right in front of me, resting his hands on either side of his body of the shotgun stored in his coat. “What do you reckon they did, the O’Toole’s? They must’ve ticked someone off good ‘n proper like.”
He holds my gaze, and once again I get the impression that he knows a whole lot more than he’s telling me: a lot more about where I was the other night; that there’s something I’m hiding.
Patrick’s gaze barrels in on me, and I wish I was anywhere else in the world. There are a lot of men who can make me quail – not these days – but Pat’s one of them.
My pocket buzzes. I can’t break my eyes away from Patrick’s.
“You gonna get that, Dickie boy?” He grins.
That breaks the spell, and I can move again. Patrick keeps watching as I fish the cell phone out of my pocket. It’s Kieran: saved by the bell!
“What is it, brother?” I ask in a jaunty tone, pressing the old Nokia against my ear. It’s half-forced, half genuine relief that I don’t have to face Patrick’s probing questions, if only for a couple of seconds more. He’s calling me on the burner, so it can’t be great news, but it can’t possibly be worse than this …
He sounds deflated: terrible; like he’s been hit by a car. “Are ye somewhere quiet,” he asks.
“Sure am. I’ve got Patrick by me side, but that’s it.”
“I’ve got bad news: awful news. They took dad into the hospital –”
13
Casey
I don’t know what Declan’s doing, but I bet he’s having the time of his life.
I, on the other hand, am certainly not. If the last few days have taught me anything, it’s that I’m not very good at being bored. There’s a fire in the seat of my pants that kindles every time I sit on my ass for too long, and it’s lighting up again.
I don’t know why that is? Maybe it has something to do with never having time to myself once I had Luke to worry about. Maybe I was just born this way.
Who knows?
The thing is, I promised Declan I wouldn’t go anywhere; and after the mess with Vince, it’s a promise I know I can’t break.
So I’m stuck. I’m trapped in a glass and brick apartment, in a converted warehouse on the South Shore, slowly going stir crazy in a luxury prison.
“Talk about first world problems,” I groan.
It’s not like Declan hasn’t catered to my every need. The fridge is stocked with any and every item of food that I can think of: and
even with some I’ve never seen; like papaya. Who eats papaya?
Judging by the thin layer of dust on some of his crockery, I don’t guess that he does much cooking. But that’s fine. I’m something of an addict. Working two jobs to put Luke through college – when there was still a chance he’d go – I never got the chance. But now, with all this time on my hands…
… It doesn’t feel the same.
I don’t think that Declan knows a damn thing about it, but the items in my room brought a smile to my face. I see wax and shaving foam in a bag that has appeared in my bedroom. Whoever he sent shopping for all of this knows her stuff. It was definitely a woman – some of the touches have a woman’s feel about them. Still, the most intense beauty regime in the world doesn’t fill an entire day. At least, not mine.
Legs? Check.
Armpits? Check.
Crotch? Check.
I’m hairless, and it’s not even lunch.
I leap lightly off the couch. I’m going exploring. There must be something to do in this apartment other than watch TV and cook. It’s too…anemic.
Declan’s a freaking mafia killer, but his place is more Desperate Housewives than the Sopranos. Just like the man himself, there must be more to the apartment than meets the eye. I just haven’t found it yet.
I walk down the long hallway, paying everything more attention than when I first arrived, head still spinning from the zero-to-sixty ride I’d been dragged on. Back then my hair was messy, whipped by the wind, and mussed by Declan’s hand.
I shiver. That memory’s not one I’m going to forget for a long time.
It’s not every day you nearly die with your lips wrapped around a man’s cock.
Family photos mark the walls in a nice, regular pattern. I hide a grin from the empty apartment. I never knew a Mafia family could be so… normal. I guess the impression from the movies is that everything is all explosions and killing: but the pictures on the wall tell a different story: movie nights; family meals; Declan, or his brother Kieran – I can barely tell – draped around his mother’s arms; their dad in the corner, trying, but failing, to hide the proud smile on his lips.
It’s a look at a life I never got. A life, I realize, I’ve a desperate longing to be a part of.
“The hell?” I mutter. My right eyebrow dances upwards of its own accord. “I know you said you had four brothers…” I whisper, reaching up and picking a photograph off its hook on the wall. “But this is crazy.”
The picture shows a long line of men, six strong. Declan’s dad – at least, I assume that’s who it is, is in the middle, and he’s flanked by his two eldest sons. Another set of twins is stood to Kieran’s right, and one last – and comparatively lonely – kid to Declan’s left.
Every single one of the kids – and their mother, caught in the reflection on a mirror taking the photo, has the same shock of white hair in the midst of the black, just over the temple.
“I wonder what happened to you,” I murmur, studying the one out on his own. He’s clearly the youngest – the one Declan mentioned was still at college. “Did you have a brother, too?”
The twin thing clearly runs in the family. I start to wonder who the gene came from – Declan’s mom or dad, and whether it carried on through him. I’d like twins.
“Where the hell did that come from?” I ask the air, gulping with embarrassment. I look around instinctually – as if to make sure that no one else heard me think it. Safe in my solitude, I walk on, still clutching the photograph. I’m not quite ready to give up on the idea. Not yet.
There’s only one door at the end of the corridor, and I try it. It’s locked.
“The hell?”
It’s the only room in the whole damn apartment I haven’t been able to get into: and because I can’t, I want to. I feel like a kid again, like someone’s snatched away my toy. I want it back.
“Keys, keys,” I mutter, searching my brain for any memory of a basket of them. My head drops as I think, and I get an eyeful of light gray carpet. But nothing useful comes to mind. Besides, ever since I tried to make my own path in paying Vince back, it’s almost like Declan doesn’t trust me anymore. The last thing he’s likely to leave lying around is the key, so to speak, to my escape.
The carpet’s frayed.
I stare at it. I’m not hugely OCD, but there are some things you just can’t ignore. In this perfect apartment, this is one of them. It’s the only thing that’s even slightly out of place. I kneel down to tuck it in, and as I do my fingers brush against something hard. I feel something sticking out from under the door.
I reach under it, searching blind, and the tips of my fingers touch cold metal. I pull, and the tiny object comes loose.
It’s a key.
I can’t resist myself: in seconds the key’s in the lock, turned, and I’m in.
I don’t know what I expected: guns, maybe. If not weapons, then perhaps bales of drugs, or stacks of cash. If you would have asked me a thousand times what might lie behind that door, I’d have given you a thousand different answers; but not one of them would have been right.
The door clatters against the far wall and my mouth drops.
The walls are lined with whips, chains, lengths of rope, ribbon and handcuffs. My mind tries to tell me that it’s some kind of torture chamber, or interrogation room, but it isn’t, and it isn’t.
It’s a dungeon.
Not for prisoners, but women: female submissives, I think is the term.
I once asked Declan how he would punish me, and he didn’t give me a response. Now, I have my answer.
Something draws me into the room. I couldn’t do anything else, not after getting this far. I set the framed photograph down on a counter, on top of a selection of sex toys so fast it makes me blush, and forget about it. It seems out of place – something so innocent in a room like this.
My fingers trail across a leather…something in the center of the room. It’s like a dentist’s chair, but with adjustable arms, and legs. I can only imagine what might happen in it.
And I do.
I press my legs together and shiver as a wave of excitement rips through me. It’s me I’m picturing on that couch, my body, while Declan towers over me.
I break myself out of the trance, and push on to the far wall. It’s mirrored, and polished to a fine sheen. Not a single fingerprint marks its surface. I wonder whether he gets someone in here to clean, or –
“I’ve been looking for you,” Declan says, his voice low and throbbing. It almost seems to carry a threat as it rumbles across the tiny room.
I nearly jump out of my skin. I have the feeling I used to get as a kid, when I got caught somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. My heart feels like it’s beating at a dozen times its normal pace, and my tongue’s become the Sahara.
“Declan?"
“Declan?” His name seems to echo through my head; throughout the room.
“Expecting someone else?”
I turn, and there’s nothing I can do to hide the guilty look from my face. To my surprise, Declan doesn’t seem to care that I’m in here, or that I’ve clearly been prying into the only place in the apartment that he was trying to keep secret. He sure as hell doesn’t bother asking why.
He strides forward, closing the yards between us. His face is black, and I start to wonder whether he truly is angry. More importantly, I wonder whether he is going to punish me: and if yes, how…
And will I be able to take it or not.
I wipe my hands nervously on my jeans, and he’s already on me, in my space, and the only thing I can see. I suddenly realize exactly how big Declan is, and how powerful – and that he could crush me if he chose without breaking a sweat.
He grabs my wrists and pins them against the wall. “What are you doing in here?” He asks.
“I –,” I croak, licking my lips. “I didn’t know –”
I don’t know what to say. Any excuse is going to sound like exactly what it is – an attempt to wriggle out o
f the trouble I’m in. Declan’s not acting anything like I’ve ever seen him before. Even when he had to drag me out of Vince’s clutches, he never behaved like this. He was angry, sure, but this Declan is different. He seems… driven by something. I just haven’t the faintest idea of what it is.
“Didn’t know what?” He says, with the faintest hint of a snarl. “That this room was private? That the only goddamn locked door in this entire place might be somewhere you weren’t supposed to go?”
“I –,” I stammer. “I’m sorry.” I say in little more than a whimper.
Declan’s breath is my entire existence. It’s all that I can hear, and it’s stroking my skin. He’s little more than an inch from my face, and I can’t break away from his eyes. The glittering orbs, one hazel, the other green are bearing down on me, and drilling a hole into my soul.
“I’ll do anything you want,” I whisper. “Anything…”
His response is as chilling as it is exciting. He utters just two words. “I know.”
The look, on his face, morphs and changes: it’s not anger; it’s not rage; it’s not even hunger; but whatever it is I can’t pin it down. Something is going on inside that head of his, but I’m too scared to find out what.
He keeps my wrists pressed against the wall above my head with his left hand and slides his right down my body. He’s not soft, or gentle about it, he goes straight for the slit between my legs and grinds his palm against my pussy.
“Declan –,” I groan. I want to deal with whatever the hell’s going on with words, not just sex. But then, we’re not in a relationship. We aren’t on equal footing. At the end of the day, I’m still his property, not his girlfriend. For the next four months, I’m his to-do-with-as-he-wants property, and right now, he wants me.
He crushes his mouth against mine and bites my lower lip, pressing down hard enough with his teeth for a tear to form in my eye.