At first I’m mad, right? No not just mad, furious that she eavesdropped on my conversation, but then again after some time thinking about it, I know I should have expected it. I’m always slipping out bed at odd hours, taking phone calls and leaving her to take them. I guess I should have suspected that she’d grow suspicious. I brush past her and she follows me down the hall. “Well, Sean. Who is she?”
I don’t mean to laugh but I do. “She?” I reach into my closet and pull out a pair of sweat pants.
“Yes, she,” Hadlee snaps, gripping onto my arm and spinning me to face her. “What…What….” she stammers. She’s flustered and there’s a hint of red in her cheeks. “What am I not good enough for you? Are you the type of guy who likes to have his cake and eat it too?”
I freeze. It’s like all the noise has been sucked out of the room with a giant vacuum. Time stands still. The only thing I can hear is my heart. I hear it throbbing. Hammering. Richoceting against the walls of my ribcage. Hadlee drops her hand from my arm. I take her face in both of my hands and study her features. “Is that what you think?” I slip my hand around the back of her head and tangle my fingers in her hair. “Hadlee, never. Maybe some guys are like that, but I am not one of them.” I graze my fingertips against her cheek. “You’re all I’ll ever want. You’re all I’ll ever need. You have to know that.”
She pulls away from me, her eyes cast downward, her voice soft. It’s on the precipice of breaking. She’s struggling to keep a straight face. I have a feeling that flood gates are going to open at any second. “I don’t know what to think,” she says slowly. “There are times where I feel like you’re distracted. Where you aren’t listening to me. Then there are times like this. Where you sneak off in the middle of the night, and do God only knows what.”
I feel guilty for making her worry. But I’m not sure if she’ll understand about my other life. My life with guns, drugs, and glances over the shoulder. My life where the brotherhood comes first, everything else second.
Hadlee starts walking to the door, and I lace my fingers through hers. “A-lainn, wait.” She loves when I call her beautiful in Gaelic. She faces me now, eyes watering, brow creased. I blanket her, covering her with my arms, and holding her close. I bury my nose in her hair, smelling her vanilla scented shampoo. “Hadlee, baby, Connie is a man. A very, very bad man. He’s someone I got mixed up in with some things because I made a poor decision when I was a boy-o. I haven’t told you about the things I’m mixed up in because I don’t want you involved in any way. I don’t even want them to know we’re together.” For Christ sake I haven’t even told Murph yet. And I don’t keep anything from him. “It’s very important that you understand that.” If Connie ever tried to hurt me by using Hadlee, I’m not sure what I’d do, but I am one hundred percent certain that it would involve jail time. And I wouldn’t put it past the old fucker. He has a knack for trying to manipulate the dudes in the brotherhood by using their loved ones.
Hadlee lifts her chin, narrowing her eyes. “What sort of things?”
Gee, I don’t know. The mob. One of the most notorious drug cartels in the state. I could go on forever with this list. “It’s complicated.”
She walks across the room and plops down on my couch. She pats the empty spot next to her, giving me a stern look. “I have time. I can listen. I’d like you to elaborate. I’d like you to tell me about,” she makes quotation marks with her finger, “these things you’re mixed up in.” She exhales sharply. “And I don’t want to hear it’s complicated again. You can’t friggin shut me out, Sean. You have to tell me what’s going on. That’s what you do in a relationship. You communicate. You talk things out. Even when things are bad trust and communication is important. I can’t lie in bed alone every night worrying about you or having jealous feelings. I’ve just now built myself back up to being an almost stable person. Almost. And I don’t want that stability to slip away again. I don’t want to go back to the beginning and have to try and find all the pieces of me to put myself back together again.”
I eye the clock. I’ve got ten minutes to make it downtown. Even though I’d love nothing more than to tell her everything, I know that right now, my time is limited. “Hadlee, I can’t right now but I—”
She cuts me off with a hand gesture and stands, “Forget it.” She storms to my door and grips the knob. I grab her by the wrist, but she wrenches her arm away. “If being honest with me is too much for you then I can’t do this.”
The pain twisted on her features is what stabs my heart. I swallow hard, wanting to scream at her, but I don’t. I want to tell her how much she means to me and how I’d die for her, but I can’t. I want to tell her that she’s brought more into my life in the last three months than anyone has in the last seven years. She’s given me something I thought I’d never have. She’s given me hope. “Hadlee, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.”
Her fingers slip from the doorknob and her voice lowers to a rasp, “Try me.”
“I don’t have time!” I yell in frustration. “Connie hates it when I’m late!”
She glances at me, a glint of anger in her eyes. “Does this Connie guy run your life? Doesn’t he understand that he just called you out of bed at two in the morning? It’s awfully selfish of him to treat you like a dog and expect you to come running whenever he whistles for you.” Her fingers slide up my cheekbones and her eyes flit over my face. She studying me, willing me to look into her eyes, but I don’t.
I won’t.
I can’t.
“Sean, you don’t have to go. You can stay here. You can talk to me. I promise you, I’ll do the best I can to understand.”
I let out a chuckle laced with a chill of madness. “I have to go.” There’s so much I want to say right now, but I can’t. Not only can I not find words, but there’s pressure building in chest. I feel like I can’t breathe. I know what’s coming. I know that the only person I’ve ever cared about, or maybe even loved is about to walk out of my door.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop her.
Chapter Thirty Three
~Hadlee~
I’m doing my best to keep myself together, but every now and then I feel a piece of me fall apart.
At first my eyes water.
My lips quiver.
The pain in my heart is overwhelming and I have to fight the urge to clutch my chest.
With every passing second I feel like I’m melting and soon I’m going to be a puddle of emotion on Sean’s hardwood floor.
Sean backs away from me, his eyes on the face of the grandfather clock in his living room, and when he starts to brush past that’s when I lose it. “I know you think you’ve done some bad things,” I tell him, tears dripping down my cheeks. “But I refuse to believe that you’re that guy.” I wipe my eyes as heat rises to my cheeks. “Everyone makes mistakes, Sean. You can start fresh. Build a new life. You can redeem yourself.”
“I’m not that guy.” His voice has taken on a hard edge. Then he shakes his head. “That’s what you don’t get, Hadlee. I made a pledge to Connie. I made a pledge of my loyalty in exchange for the well being of Teagan. And when you pledge your loyalty to this organization the only way out is death.”
The word death rings in my ears and knocks the wind out of my lungs. An image of him, lying lifeless on the pavement flashes before my eyes. More tears spill out of my eyes. I’m desperate to make him believe that he’s worthy of having a happy life. That he can get out of this mess and overcome anything if he puts his mind to it. I reach out to him, but he backs away from me. “Then we’ll take off. You and me. We’ll start over.”
“Cowards run,” he snaps. “I’m not and will never be a coward.”
“It’s not cowardly to look back and admit to yourself that you made a mistake. It’s not cowardly to want and hope for more out of your life. It’s not cowardly to try to redeem yourself. That’s where you’re so, so wrong, Sean.”
At that moment he loses it. His jaw clenches. His h
ands ball into fists. “No! Hadlee! No! I can’t go anywhere! I can’t get out! It doesn’t matter if I want it or not! Hope means nothing to a man like Connie! Life and death means nothing to a man like Connie! If I leave he’ll go after Teagan and that’s not someone’s life I’m willing to bargain with! For fuck’s sake, I sold my soul to the devil and that’s my burden to bear!” He pushes past me, grips the doorknob, and swings the door open. “And if you can’t understand that, than it’s best that you get out now.”
I feel like I’ve been holding breath for the last five minutes and when the door finally slams that’s when I let everything out. I bury my face in my hands and fall back onto his couch, tucking my legs into a ball.
I rock back forth crying harder than I ever have before.
I want to go after him.
I want to tell him that I’m sorry. That I care about him. Worry about him. That they might as well put me in a body bag too if anything happens to him. It’s during that moment, when I lift my head and stare at the closed door, that I know that I love him.
I know it and can feel it vibrating through my heart. A pain so deep, and so intense that it’s consuming me. Swallowing me like a tidal wave in the Atlantic ocean. The only thing I can do is choke on my own sobs and hug my legs tighter, burying my head in my knees.
He was right, though.
He’s mixed up in some bad, bad shit.
I could tell just how bad and dire his situation is by the tone in his voice.
And he’s right, I should get out now.
I should.
But I’m not sure if I can make myself.
Every second I spend with him, I feel like he’s pulling me under. I feel like I’m floating on top of crystalline blue waters, and when he drags me down to his depths I don’t care if I suffocate. I don’t care if I drown.
I do know one thing for sure though. He said cowards run. I think there is a bit of truth to that statement although I can’t agree entirely.
In our situation, if I walk out on him now, when he needs me the most, yes, I’ll be a coward. It will be so much easier for me to run away and pretend like we never happened. It will be so much easier for me to abandon him. Yes, it will break my heart, but it will be easier.
It will be better.
Right?
Right?
It doesn’t matter how many times I try to tell myself I’m right, because deep down I know I’m not. I know all too well, that the only way to help Sean, to be there for him, and love him is to fight for him.
Even if I get hurt.
Even if I wind up in pain and with a broken heart.
Even if it takes me back to that dark place in my life.
Even if I wind up scattered across the hard wood floor in pieces.
I have to fight for him.
There’s no more debating it.
I have to.
Because God only knows when he’ll be willing to fight for himself.
Here’s a sneak peek at the next book in the Knockout Series.
13 Rounds
November 2012
~Connie~
Teagan Reilly was a mouthy little bitch.
“Do you know how much trouble you’re gonna be in?” Connie made sure Aidan duct taped her to a chair so that she wouldn’t be able to escape. “Do you know what my brother is going to do when he finds out what you’re gonna do to me? He’s gonna cut your—”
WHACK!
Connie shut her up with a palm across her jaw. He half expected her to cry, but when he saw her lift her head, blood trailing down her smooth ivory skin from her pink lips, a mixture of hatred and rage flashing in her eyes, he knew she wouldn’t shed a single tear. She was strong like her mother was.
And had her temper too.
She squirmed beneath her restraints, moving the chair she was tied to and let out a scream loud enough to shake the whole building. She panted, and continued squirming, but she was starting to wear herself out. Connie nodded at Aidan who stood in the doorway. Aidan then with a furrowed brow came over and placed a piece of silvery duct tape over her mouth. He turned on his heel, shook his head, and gave Teagan one last tortured glance before making his exit.
Connie closed his eyes, let out a calming breath, straightened out the lapels of his suit jacket, and took a seat on the edge of his desk. He glared at Teagan and his lips quirked in a wicked grin. Picking up a tiny flat circular object, he held it an inch away from Teagan’s face. “Do you know what this is?”
Teagan grunted and shook her head. He picked up his cell phone and took the back off. He demonstrated how to insert the object into the back of the phone. “It’s a phone tap,” he informed her. “Aidan planted one in your phone so that we were able to monitor your phone calls.” Teagan trembled violently, not out of fear, but out of rage. “We found some very incriminating things, Teagan. Very incriminating.” Connie stood and walked around the back side of his desk. He sat down, hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. “I think you know that I can’t stand a rat.”
“I’m not the rat!” Teagan screamed, her voice muffled from the tape over her mouth. “I’m not the rat!”
“Your phone conversations say otherwise.” Connie closed his eyes and sighed in frustration. “Teagan, Teagan, Teagan,” he tsked. “You can argue this all you want, but it’s not going to make much of a difference. Let me ask you this, who is Emerson?”
Teagan’s jaw clenched and she lowered her head.
“Oh,” Connie’s eyes widened. “Silent now, aren’t we?”
Teagan’s eyes cut into him flashing pure and utter hatred. She started wiggling again, trying desperately to free herself.
Connie let out a deep, booming laugh. “There’s no use in wearing yourself out, Teagan.” He lowered his voice. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Teagan shrieked.
And shrieked louder.
She continued shrieking.
Even though her voice was muffled it was starting to get on Connie’s nerves. “Enough of this shit,” he grumbled under his breath. He stood, strolled over to Teagan, whipped his gun out from the inside of his suit jacket, flipped it around, and whacked her on the side of the head with the butt of it, hard. Teagan’s head slumped forward and Connie nudged her.
She was out, cold.
Tucking his gun back into the inner pocket of his suit, he sat back down at his desk. He leaned his chair back, and propped his feet on the top of his desk before crossing them. He didn’t doubt what Teagan said earlier about her brother coming for her. Connie knew he would before she even said anything. The truth was her threats involving her brother doing anything were mild. Connie knew just how violent Sean could be when he wanted to be. Especially when people he cared about were involved. And he intended to use that to his advantage.
“Big boy!” Connied shouted.
Seconds later, Murphy O’ Fallon hustled through the door and his eyes immediately centered on Teagan, widening. “Holy shit!” He glanced back at Connie. “Is that Teagan?”
Connie gave him a slight nod then said, “Call together a meeting of the brotherhood. Tell them we’ve found our rat.”
Murphy’s mouth dropped open, but he closed it quickly. He hesitated, glancing in between Teagan and Connie. His hesitation irritated Connie. “Did I stutter, boy?”
“No, Connie.” And just like he entered, Murphy O’Fallon hustled through the door, the sound of change jingling in his pockets as he made his exit.
You see, Connie knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that the big guy was Sean’s best friend. In a way this was also a test of Murphy’s loyalty to Connie and the brotherhood. He had this gut feeling that the guy would fail, being that he and Sean had been friends for decades, but then again the kingpin had seen stranger things happen. Like people turning against their own just to save their own ass. Cowards. Connie was the type that would rather go down guns hot than rat someone out.
Teagan stirred in her restraints as she slowly regained c
onsciousness. Connie kept his eyes on her. In a way, Teagan reminded him of Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships. But unlike the Trojans, Connie was prepared for the battle he knew Sean would bring when he saw that he had his kid sister, and when he found out what his intentions were for her. But Connie was the ultimate strategist. He wouldn’t let any wooden horses sneak past his gates. Yes, Connie loved a good battle. Especially this one.
Because it was one he was certain that he would win.
Author Bio
Lauren Hammond is the Amazon Bestselling author of If I Can’t Have You, A Whisper To A Scream, and He Loves Me…He Loves You Not. She serves as the Executive Literary Manager for ADA Management Group, representing a group of extremely talented writers. When she’s not writing she can be found at any random coffee shop or perusing the YA section at her local bookstore.
12 Rounds Page 20