by Paula Cox
This almost gets through to her. I see it, a chink opening in her armor, but then her eyes glaze over and her face hardens. “This Aedan, is he Italian?”
“You know he’s not—”
“Then you will not see him again!” she hisses.
“You can’t tell me that,” I say, wiping my face. “You can’t tell me who I can and cannot see.”
Perhaps these words would’ve been spoken sooner in any other household, but here, in the Russo household, with Mom, they’re ground-breaking. I have never said anything even approaching this before. I have always been—or pretended to be—the obedient daughter. But what happens when that clashes with what I want? What happens when I want something Mom doesn’t want for me? In a way, Mom has done me a favor. Before she went on this tirade, I didn’t know just how much I wanted to see Aedan again. But now I do. A lot. A hell of a lot. So much that I’m willing to fight with Mom about it, which is almost unheard of throughout our entire lives.
“I am your mother,” she says. “Of course I can tell you. I can tell you anything I want.”
“Listen,” I say, forcing the tears to stay deep down inside of me where they belong. Crying will only make it seem like I’m getting weaker, when in truth my resolve has never been stronger. I’ll give Aedan a shot, I think. I’ll give him a shot and there’s nothing she can do about it. “I want to see Aedan again. I’m going to see Aedan again—”
“Then get out!” Mom screeches, waving her arms madly. “Get out of my house!”
“Mom...”
“No,” Mom says, growling from deep in her throat. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Get out, Livia.”
I look to the Hummingbirds, but all of them stare at the ground, or at their hands, or at the wall—anywhere but at us. Sighing, I turn away and leave the house.
When I’m at the door, I hear Mom, voice pitched loud enough for me to hear: “I didn’t raise her like this. I don’t know where she gets it from.”
I throw the door open and march down the driveway, wishing I could turn back the clock two weeks, wishing I was once again in Aedan’s arms. That beautiful moment where I placed my head on his chest and closed my eyes, the moment which seemed to last forever, listening to his breathing, not worrying, just being... that’s what I want.
Aedan, I think, I’m sorry.
Chapter Seventeen
Livia
I text Aedan: I want to see you.
And then I traipse through New York, going nowhere in particular. I walk through a bookstore, picking up and putting down a hundred different books, all the time just waiting for my phone to ding from my handbag. I hear it go off countless times, only to discover that the sound came from my mind. I leave the bookstore and sit in a café, drinking a coffee. A man across the way, wearing a suit with a clean-shaved face and a Bluetooth earpiece nods at me, giving me the eye. I turn away from him. There’s no way I could go from rugged, manly, sexy-as-all-hell Aedan to a man who wears an earpiece.
I leave the café, and then, legs aching, I realize I’m walking toward The Clover. My legs burn with the effort of walking for what must now be around two hours, but I don’t care. I can’t stand the idea of sitting in a cab, waiting; sitting still and thinking about Aedan, his sexy, sweat-soaked body, his come-soaked cock, his muscles bursting from his skin.
Oh, God, I think, fighting off the thoughts, realizing I’m getting horny.
I check my phone again—nothing.
Throwing Luca in my face, I think, squeezing my fingernails into my palm, glaring at people on the street, causing a couple of people to give me sideways glances. Who is she to throw him in my face? Like I don’t miss him. Like I don’t think about him every day of my life, too. Like I don’t care. Of course I care! But that doesn’t mean I can’t do what I want, does it? Let’s face it. Every other man is going to seem weak and puny after Aedan. If I ever go with another man, I’ll be thinking of him.
When I arrive at The Clover, I expect it to be full again, but it’s a weekday and few of the tables are filled. There isn’t even a smiley-faced teenager to take me to a table. I go to the bar, order a glass of wine, and take it to the booth right at the back, not wanting to be disturbed. All I want is for Aedan to text me back so I can see him, so I can—
“I’m just thinking, is all.”
I sit up. Aedan.
“Thinking about what?” the man with him says.
“Patty—”
Patty!
“I’m just thinking.”
I make myself small, squeezing right up against the wall, crouching low so I’m almost underneath the table.
“Listen, Aedan,” Patty says, whispering. It sounds like they’re in the booth in front of mine, right there, directly in front of me. I know I should reveal myself, but I feel glued to the chair. I have to hear what they’re going to say. This is an opportunity few people get, to listen in on another crime family. “Your job is a very simple one. Gain the trust of the Italians, and then, when the time is right, take out their leader. What, exactly, needs to be thought about? With Bruno gone, the Italians will be in disarray. We’ll be free to swoop in.”
I bite down on my tongue so hard I’m surprised I don’t cut clean through it. His real mission…his real mission…gain our trust…kill my father…gain my trust…Kill. My. Father. I grip the edge of the table, shaking with anger, feeling as though I’m going burst at any moment. I close my eyes and force myself to listen, just keep listening; I can relay the information later. I feel like a bullet is moving slowly through my chest, inch by inch moving toward my heart. He’s going to betray us, I think. Aedan, but that night, the night we shared... but it means nothing now. Aedan!
“Listen,” Patty goes on. “I know I’ve never been the best father to you. Believe me, Aedan, I know that. But if you do this for me, we’ll be closer than ever. Your mother... well, she was never happy, I know that. But maybe we can make something different, eh? Maybe we can find something to be happy about, once all this is over.”
“Do you mean that?” Aedan asks, and the hope in his voice makes me sick.
So this is it. Patty is his father; Patty is his father and Aedan is the bastard son and all along he’s been playing us for Daddy’s approval.
Did he mean any of it? Has he ever been truly attracted to me? Did he—the very thought sickens me, but—did he fuck me as part of his twisted plan? All along, since that first day he came in and the sparks flew between us, he’s been playing us, playing the Russos like we’re nothing, like we’re just something to be toyed with. He fucked me, he fucked me as part of his plan!
The table begins to shake as I grip it harder. Tension moves from my chest, into my shoulders, and down the length of my arm. I clench my teeth, sucking in ragged breaths, but all the while still trying to keep quiet.
“Of course I mean it,” Patty—Aedan’s father—says. “Of course I do, son. I’m... I’m not a bad man.”
He isn’t falling for this, is he? I think. Patty’s voice is like the voice of a salesman, without the slightest hint of genuine affection, just hunger and desire. He’s using Aedan and Aedan is too damn stupid to know it!
I swallow, but then the bullet hits my heart, and a fresh wave of anger pulses through me. He. Betrayed. Me. I tell myself to calm down. But I can’t keep the thought from my head. He. Betrayed. Me. Over and over, it resounds in my mind.
“I always loved your mother,” Patty goes on, in that same obviously-fake tone of voice, the tone of voice of the proverbial Snake Oil Salesman. But Aedan is hypnotized. I can hear it just in the way he goes uh-uh every few moments, interjecting Patty’s speech. “And I’ve always cared for you, in my own way. It’s just that... well, affection doesn’t come for free.” It’s supposed to, you twisted animal. You shouldn’t hold it at ransom, especially with your children. What the hell is the matter with you? “Everything in this world has to be earned.”
I realize I’m angrier at Patty than I am at Aedan—though I’m furi
ous at both. Aedan, though... how long has he been under the spell of this twisted, megalomaniacal man? How long has he had to listen to these bare-faced lies? But Aedan, too—I just want to know if he meant it, meant those kisses, meant that sex, meant it when he hugged me close.
Okay, I think. I’ll just wait here. I’ll just wait here until they leave, and then quietly I’ll leave—
“We’ll rule this city,” Patty says. “Me and you, son. Nobody will be able to stand in our way. Me and you, we’ll take out the Russos and then...”
Suddenly, I’m on my feet. I will myself to return to my chair, tell myself this is about the stupidest thing I could do in this situation. I’m on enemy turf, really on enemy turf this time, but my feet and my legs don’t seem to care much about that. My feet and my legs don’t give a damn. They just keep propelling me forward until I’m standing next to the booth, glaring down at them both.
“L...?” Aedan tilts his head at me, squinting as though he can’t believe his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Aedan,” I say, and I hate the way my voice cracks.
The man beside him is thin, ginger-haired but bald on top, and wearing a clean blue suit. Patty waves a hand at me as though I am a bothersome insect, not turning his head. “Who is this, Aedan? One of your whores?”
“No,” Aedan whispers. “This is...” He cuts short, glancing at Patty. “Yeah, this is one of my girlfriends. Yeah. Come on, babe. We’ll talk about this in the back. Come on.”
Before I can reply, Aedan shoots to his feet, takes me by the arm, and drags me into the backroom. I’m too numb to do anything but let him drag me. I keep thinking about his hand on my arm, the feel of it, how much I savored it the last time he touched me. It was so hot—hot and wet from my pussy—and it was like there was electricity buzzing over my skin. It promised so much pleasure. Now—nothing. Liar, there’s something, you just don’t want to admit it.
Aedan drags me through a backroom where about a dozen Irishman sit in various positions of relaxation, a few sitting around a table playing cards, a few reclining on couches watching TV, a few more sitting in front of a video game, controllers in hands. Most of them are red-haired, but none of them are as rugged or manly-looking as Aedan. A few give us curious looks as we pace through the room. Finally, Aedan takes me into another backroom so that we’re alone.
We stand next to crates of whisky and beer, a refrigerator off to one side, humming.
“So you never cared a bit about me,” I say, my voice a low growl. “You never cared.”
“That was stupid, Livia.” He nods toward the restaurant proper. “What were you thinking? I almost said your name. You were lucky the old man didn’t take a proper look at you. He would’ve recognized you, I reckon, and then—”
“And then you would’ve held me down whilst he slit my throat!” I snap, pacing across the room and standing close to him. I glare up at him, my entire body burning with pain and betrayal. Though—no, no, no—though I wish it was just pain and betrayal. My mind is livid and outraged and disgusted, but my body only registers how close we are, the heat emanating from his body. Still, I force down the inappropriate lust and hiss: “You would’ve killed me, wouldn’t you, just like you’re going to kill Dad?” I choke back a sob. I can’t sob in front of him. I won’t. “I hate you, Aedan.”
“Don’t say that,” he mutters, staring down at me with eyes shot with blood. “Don’t say that, Livia. It’s... complicated.”
“Complicated?” I jump back, not caring when the edge of a crate smacks into my ass. I barely feel it. All that exists is Aedan, his conflicted expression, the way he runs the fingers of one hand over the knuckles of another. “What’s complicated?” I snap. “Tell me which part is complicated. The part where you agreed to kill my father? Or the part where you fucked me even though you knew you were going to kill my father? Or the part where you kept it a secret from everybody that you were Patty’s son? The leader of the Irish mob’s son, Aedan. You were going to kill…” Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you dare. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
But looking at Aedan, nobody would ever think he was satisfied. He stares down at his hands. “I can explain,” he says quietly. “I can…”
“I don’t see how.” My voice is meaner than it’s ever been, meaner than Mom’s was back at the house. And she was right. She was right all along. “You agreed to kill my father—you fucked me. How can those two things ever be reconciled? I know the truth, Aedan. I was right at the beginning. You’re just a fucking animal.”
“Maybe that’s true,” Aedan says, sounding more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard him sound before. He doesn’t sound like a broken man—I don’t think anything could ever break Aedan, not really—but he sounds like a man who’s halfway to becoming broken. He sounds how I often feel: pulled between two halves of myself, always warring to find the in-between. “But it’s always more complicated, Livia. I…my mother died a few years ago, and she was an unhappy woman until the end.”
“I don’t care,” I say, but my voice softens. There’s something about him, about the way his dark eyes stare into the distance, as though the past is rising through the floor and playing out before him.
“It’s just that…she died miserable and she never loved me, not really. I tried to make her love me, but she hated my father and—and I guess she just saw me as an extension of him. And when she died, I promised myself I’d win my father’s approval, instead. But then I met you, and everything changed. You have to know, Livia—”
Gunshots tear through his words, coming in a series or rat-rat-rat-rats from the direction of the bar.
Aedan at once hardens, becoming the hitman, and makes for the door.
“Wait here,” he grunts.
“Like hell I will,” I shoot back, following him.
What was he going to say? I wonder. What do I have to know?
Chapter Eighteen
Aedan
“Wait here,” I tell her, but she won’t listen. Dammit, fucking dammit. My head feels like it’s just been punted like a football, just punted over and over until all thinking is ten times as difficult. First Dad was giving me a little speech, starting to make me feel that maybe one of these days he might show me something approaching affection, and then along comes Livia, seemingly from nowhere. And now... Gunshots, in The Clover, what the…
As I run from the backroom, I’m all too aware of Livia at my side. I want to tackle her, force her to stay hidden, but there’s a devil in her eyes and I know there’s nothing I can do to stop her. She’s fierce, I think, the thought making me ache. She’s fierce. And she could’ve been my fierce lady. Hell, maybe she still could be... But I can’t think about that right now. I’m aware, too, that the backroom is empty. The other hitters must be in the bar.
I kick open the door, reaching for my gun—and then immediately raise my hands in the air.
Around twenty Mexicans, all of them holding assaults rifles, shotguns, or submachine guns, stand around the bar, weapons aimed at the Irishmen, who have all got their hands raised like me. The bar suddenly seems tiny, everyone squashed into this little space. Livia pulls up beside me, panting. I look at her, feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world for not locking her in that cupboard.
“Raise your arms,” I say.
Livia does as I say, which is a damn good thing because the man himself has two pistols aimed at us, one at my head, the other at Livia’s.
Carlos Rio is a huge man, far bigger than any man I’ve seen before. He’s at least seven and a half feet tall, but he’s thick, too, giving him the overall appearance of a tank. His neck is thick, his arms are thick, even his face is thick. He wears a bulletproof vest over a bare chest, his tribal-tattooed arms on display, arms five times the size of most men’s. A jagged scar runs down the left side of his face, from his forehead to the corner of his lip, and his head is shaved bald. Even his men, Mexicans with vests and tattoos, some of them with bandanas or balaclavas, glance at h
im in fear. He’s grotesque.
“Lock the doors,” he says to no one in particular, and half a dozen Mexicans run to carry out his order.
He gestures at me and Livia with his pistols.
“I am the surprise man,” he says, grinning. His canine teeth are capped gold, glinting. “And who is this? I know you. You are Aedan O’Rourke, and this man is Patty, your father—your bastard father.” He laughs, and the sound is girlish and damn strange coming from his mouth. The Irishmen, all of them on their knees in front of the bar now, the Mexicans tying their hands behind their backs, gasp when they hear that Patty’s my dad. One of the Mexicans whispers something in Carlos’ ear, which entails the man standing on his tiptoes and stretching up like a giraffe. “Oh, really?” Carlos’ grin gets wider. “This is Livia Russo. What an unexpected delight.”
Dad, on his knees at the front of the group, stares daggers at me. “Livia Russo!” he roars, and then looks at her. “Yes, it is. Dammit, Aedan! What a disappointment you are!”