Mafia Romance

by Aleatha Romig, Skye Warren, Annika Martin, Natasha Knight, Kaye Blue, Michelle St. James, Renee Rose, Parker S. Huntington, Alexis Abbott, Willow Winters

  Paying back the money was a different problem for a different day.

  “Is there anything else I can do to help?” she asked. She was eager to leave, to be outside on the street where she could breathe freely, where Will’s eyes weren’t burning a hole in her back with unspoken questions, where she didn’t feel the weight of her predicament and the choices she’d already made.

  “Not now,” Seamus said. “But I might need you again soon.”

  “Everything all right?”

  He took a drag on his cigarette and studied her through the smoke. “Time will tell, lass. Time will tell.”

  She hesitated, wondering if she was imagining the tension in his voice, wanting to ask more and deciding it would be a bad idea.

  She nodded and stood. “Let me know if you need me.”

  “You do the same.” There was something dark in his words: a promise hopelessly intertwined with a threat.

  She settled her bag on her shoulder and started for the door, her gaze meeting Will’s in the split second before he looked away, his eyes shaded with something that looked like worry but might have been disappointment.

  The expression haunted her as she made her way to the front door. Had Will told Nolan about her work with Seamus? Did Nolan care? Did he pity her? Or did he consider their failed relationship a bullet dodged, Bridget another loser from Southie who would have only dragged him down?

  She lifted her chin as she stepped onto the street. She hoped Nolan thought all of those things, hoped he considered himself lucky to be free of her, hoped he had a new girlfriend who knew which fork to use at a fancy dinner, who was already planning an expensive wedding that would be attended by Boston’s best and brightest.

  She started for the car, ignoring the pain that squeezed her chest and turning her thoughts to Seamus, his words echoing through her mind.

  Time will tell, lass.

  She had an inexplicable feeling that they were all on the verge of a cataclysmic shift, a storm that would blow through the neighborhood like a hurricane, leaving nothing untouched.

  She shook her head as she got behind the driver’s seat. She was being melodramatic. She could call it an upside or a downside, but one thing would always be true: nothing ever changed in the neighborhood—not the little corner stores or the dive bars or the people like Seamus who ran things.

  And definitely not people like her, who were too busy trying to keep their heads above water to worry about changing anything.

  Chapter Six

  Nolan unlocked the door and stepped into his apartment, then held the door for Christophe Marchand to follow him. Bridget’s name had haunted him all the way home, the possibilities circling his brain like water around a drain, a vortex that threatened to suck him under.

  He locked the door, set down his briefcase, and flipped on the lights. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Bourbon, if you have it.” Marchand walked to the wall of windows overlooking the city, its skyscrapers lit like a series of Christmas trees rising from the concrete. “Nice view.”

  “It’s not Paris, but it’s home.” Nolan walked to the bar he kept in the living room, pouring an inch of Maker’s Mark into two glasses.

  “There’s quite a lot to be said about home.” Marchand turned away from the window and accepted one of the glasses.

  Bridget flashed through Nolan’s mind, her hair a halo of fire, her slender throat rippling as she laughed. “Yes.”

  Marchand stood next to the sofa and Nolan realized he wasn’t going to sit until he was asked.

  “Please, have a seat,” Nolan said. He was falling back on his upbringing, pandering to a current leader of the Syndicate, an organization he had no interest in being associated with.

  Marchand sat, took a drink of the bourbon, and stretched one arm along the back of Nolan’s couch as if he were perfectly at home.

  Nolan took a chair across from the couch. “You mentioned Bridget Monaghan.”

  “She’s working for Seamus O’Brien,” Christophe said.

  “I know.”

  “I figured you did,” Marchand said. “What I’m assuming you don’t know is that the Syndicate—under its new leadership—is preparing to launch an attack against O’Brien’s infrastructure. It will be… unpleasant, dangerous for those close to Seamus.”

  “Bridget isn’t close to Seamus.” Nolan said it even though he had no way of knowing if it was true, had no way of knowing anything about Bridget except the things he couldn’t stop Will from telling him.

  “Perhaps not. But she is close to his operation, and that could prove problematic for her,” Marchand said.

  Nolan’s blood turned to ice in his veins, a veil of rage threatening to drop over his vision. “Are you threatening her?”

  Marchand looked genuinely surprised. “Of course not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “First, because we don’t like collateral damage, and it’s our understanding that Miss Monaghan has suffered a financial crisis and may only be working for O’Brien as a means to mitigate that financial crisis. We thought you might be able to warn her away given your history together.”

  Nolan thought of Owen. He’d only learned about Owen’s diagnosis because of Will, but he’d immediately begun researching the disease, searching for statistics on mortality, information on traditional treatments, possibilities for clinical trials.

  It was action he was sure Bridget had already taken but it was the only way he could feel close to her, the only way he could feel like he was doing something to help even though he would never have a chance to share the information with her. He knew she wouldn’t accept his money, knew an anonymous donation would be attributed to him and returned.

  “Why me?” Nolan asked. “I haven’t seen her in years.”

  It wasn’t entirely true. He’d caught glimpses of her twice. The first time she’d been coming out of The Chipp with Rachel Westwood, her best friend. Nolan had ducked into the vestibule of Marty’s Liquor, waiting for the sound of their laughter and conversation to fade as they walked in the opposite direction.

  The second time had been in the city. That time he hadn’t been sure it was her—he’d never run into her outside of Southie—but there had been something about the curve of her jaw and the way she carried herself that had made him almost positive it was her. He’d followed her two blocks, right until she’d disappeared into an office building on Huntington Street.

  It hadn’t been until she was gone that he’d felt embarrassed and ashamed, that he realized he’d behaved like a stalker. He’d sworn then that he’d stop looking for her in every crowd, that if he ever thought he saw her again he’d turn around and walk the other way.

  “That can be easily remedied,” Marchand said, pulling him back to the present. “I’m sure you know where to find her.”

  “Why not ask Will MacFarland to warn her? He works for Seamus too.” Nolan’s heart was already rebelling against the idea of seeing Bridget again, of coming close enough to hear her voice, see her smile. Even now, all these years later, he didn’t trust himself not to fall into the abyss of his love for her.

  “Precisely why we can’t approach him.” Marchand finished his drink and set the glass on Nolan’s coffee table. “We can’t be sure of his loyalties. Approaching him ahead of a turf war would be dangerous.”

  Nolan nodded, angry at himself for making the suggestion. He couldn’t put Will at risk because he was too much of a fucking coward to approach an ex-girlfriend.

  His mind called the classification a lie. Bridget had never been just a girlfriend. She’d been the food he ate, the air he breathed, the blood in his veins.

  “I see your point,” Nolan said, “but I don’t have any sway over Bridget anymore. I might as well be a stranger.”

  Marchand studied him. “Somehow I doubt that’s true.”

  Nolan stood, as much to get away from Marchand’s probing gaze as to work off the energy winding its way through his body at the prospe
ct of being close enough to Bridget to have a conversation.

  He walked to the bar, poured himself another bourbon, and downed it in one drink.

  “What else?” Nolan asked, his gaze fixed on the wall above the bar.

  “Pardon me?” Marchand asked.

  Nolan turned to face him. “When I asked you why you were here, you said ‘First.’ I can only assume that means you have a secondary reason for being here.”

  “We need help taking O’Brien down. Inside help. And as I’ve said, approaching MacFarland is dangerous—for him and for us.”

  “How is it dangerous for you?” Nolan asked.

  “To enlist his help, we would have to explain our strategy, a course of action that could destroy our opportunity to deploy it should he decide to share it with O’Brien.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  Marchand drummed his fingers on the back of the sofa. “You worked for Carlo Rossi under Raneiro Donati. You left the Syndicate when it fell after Donati’s assassination.”

  “So?”

  “You can’t be called a Syndicate loyalist, but you do have experience working in the organization, and you know O’Brien from the neighborhood.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Nolan said.

  “You can get into O’Brien’s operation,” Marchand said. “You can get the information we need to take him out, replace his operation with a new model, one we’ve been rolling out all over the world since Donati’s death, one that is in keeping with the twenty-first century, that has a semblance of honor.”

  “And profit I imagine,” Nolan said.

  Marchand’s smile was faint. “Of course.”

  “What kind of information are you looking for?” Nolan asked.

  “That is something I’m prepared to share should you decide to work with us.”

  Nolan shook his head. “I can’t get into O’Brien’s operation. And I don’t want to. I left all that behind a long time ago.”

  Marchand nodded. “And how are you enjoying your new endeavors?”

  Nolan gestured to the apartment with his drink in hand. “What do you think?”

  Marchand hesitated. “I think you’re a complex man—a man not easily satisfied with the trappings of wealth and tradition. I think you still care enough about Miss Monaghan to want her safe, and your friend Will too. I think this might be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.”

  Nolan forced himself not to squirm under the other man’s observations. Not to give weight to them by considering how close to the mark they might be. “Opportunity for what?”

  “To reconsider some of the choices you’ve made. To fight for the life you want instead of the one your name is prepared to give you.”

  The comment stung, not because of the insinuation that Nolan had been handed his privilege—that was true—but because of the accusation that he had been a passenger in the vehicle of his life since leaving the Syndicate, that in leaving it, in letting Bridget go without a fight, he’d given up.

  “What if I don’t want to reconsider?” Nolan asked. “What if this is the life I want?”

  “Only you know if that’s true,” Marchand said. “But I would hope at the very least you would be concerned with the first of my reasons for coming.”

  Bridget. He was talking about Bridget. Marchand was banking on the fact that she was the one thing Nolan couldn’t easily cast off.

  And the fucker was right.

  “I’ll talk to her,” Nolan said. “But that’s it. Whatever she says, whatever she does, I’m out after that. No infiltrating of O’Brien’s operation. No getting involved.”

  Even as he said it he wondered if he would have the strength to stand by the assertion. If he would be able to walk away from Bridget Monaghan a second time. If he would be able to go back to pretending she wasn’t the most important thing that had ever been his.

  Chapter Seven

  “Are you sure this is a good idea, Bridge?” Rachel’s brow was furrowed, her deep blue eyes filled with concern.

  They were at The Chipp having their customary Friday night beer before it got packed with neighborhood boys pretending to be men. Bridget had filled Rachel in on the meeting with Seamus, on her feeling that something big was coming, something dangerous.

  “We’re way past whether it’s a good idea,” Bridget said, taking a drink of her beer.

  “Okay, but there’s never going to be an ideal time to get out. At some point, you’ll have to make the break and deal with the consequences,” Rachel said, tucking a piece of dark hair behind one ear.

  “It’s not that simple.” The words came out harsher than Bridget intended.

  “I know,” Rachel said. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” She turned her head and looked around the bar like someone might overhear her. “I’m just worried about you is all.”

  Bridget sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Rachel had been her best friend since the first grade when Jimmy Blaine had tied Bridget’s shoelaces together, causing her to trip. Rachel had repaid him in kind, then kicked him in the stomach while he was down, something that had caused her to get the belt from her dad, who was not soft with the belt.

  “We could try fundraising for Owen,” Rachel suggested, ignoring the tense exchange. It wasn’t the first time they’d gotten bitchy with each other and it wouldn’t be the last. “I bet the neighborhood police and fire departments would help. We could even set up an online push, record some videos, see if we can get something to go viral, maybe get a celebrity involved.”

  “That sounds awful.” Bridget laughed. “But thank you.”

  Rachel was a marketing coordinator for an investment firm downtown. Like Bridget, she’d worked her way through night school to get her degree and was working two jobs to pay down her student loans and help her parents with expenses at home.

  “You wouldn’t have to do a thing,” Rachel said. “I could handle the whole thing for you. I’d love to help. Then you could start paying Seamus off out of your salary from the clinic.”

  Bridget squeezed her hand. “I appreciate it, but Owen wouldn’t want to be put on display like that. He’s already embarrassed by what’s happening to him. I couldn’t do that to him.”

  Rachel opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it and finished her beer instead.

  “What?” Bridget asked.

  Rachel shook her head. “You’ll just get pissed.”

  “I’ll get over it. What were you going to say?”

  Rachel bit her lip. “You could go to Nolan.” Bridget started to interrupt and Rachel held up a hand to stop her. “Just hear me out, Bridge. He loved you. Like, he really, really loved you. And that kind of love doesn’t just disappear. He would help you if he knew you needed it, no strings attached.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You can,” Rachel said. “It’s not like he’s going to miss it.”

  “It’s not about that.” She hesitated. “I just… I can’t. I can’t go to him for help without telling him about the money from Moira, and I could never face him again after telling him about that.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of.” Rachel’s voice was heated. “Fucking Moira Adams is the one who should be ashamed, trying to buy off her son’s girlfriend.”

  “She didn’t just try—she succeeded.” Bridget had always thought the more she said it, the less ashamed she’d be, but it never seemed to work out that way.

  “Because you were trying to save your brother’s life!”

  Bridget looked around. “Let’s not announce it to the whole neighborhood.”

  “Fuck them,” Rachel said. “I’m just saying, if you tell Nolan what happened with Owen, if you tell him why you were afraid to say something, he’ll understand.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Bridget said. “I can’t tell him without outing Moira, and I’m not coming between Nolan and his mother.”

  “You’re not the one to blame if Nolan finds out
and holds it against his mother.” Rachel looked at her phone. “Are we staying? Because if so, I’m ordering another beer.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost eight,” Rachel said.

  “I better not. My dad’s driving tonight and my mom could probably use some help getting Owen settled for bed.”

  Rachel slid off her bar stool. “Okay, but we should go out sometime soon, really go out—heels, makeup, dancing, the works.”

  “Sounds great,” Bridget said.

  It was something of a lie. Bridget had never been one for partying—staying in with a movie and takeout in her pajamas was more her speed—but she’d play along for Rachel’s sake.

  They paid their tab, left a tip for Derry, and made their way outside.

  Rachel shivered as they stepped onto the sidewalk. “Jesus, it’s getting cold.”

  Bridget looked up at the sky, dark beyond the street lights and the glow of downtown. “Hard to believe it will be Thanksgiving soon.”

  Another year with Owen. Another one without Nolan.

  “Bite your tongue,” Rachel said. “I’m not ready for the holidays, not with my family.”

  Bridget laughed. There was nothing wrong with Rachel’s family. They were just big and boisterous. “You love it and you know it.”

  “I love it for the first two hours of Thanksgiving,” Rachel said. “After that, you can have them.”

  They embraced and said goodbye. Rachel started for her house four blocks away while Bridget stood on the pavement, looking up at the sky and breathing in the cold night air. Then she got into her car at the curb and started home, Nolan and her conversation with Rachel about him fresh in her mind.

  He loved you. Like, he really, really loved you.

  That kind of love doesn’t just disappear.

  She was still thinking about him when she pulled up in front of the house. She gathered her bag from the passenger seat and got out of the car, determined to put him out of her mind.

  Rachel wasn’t wrong about everything. Nolan would forgive her for taking the money, but he would never see her the same way again, would never trust her again. He wouldn’t admit it, but he would see her just like his mother saw her: as a cheap gold digger who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of his wealth if she thought the situation called for it.