by A. Zavarelli
One of the guys says something in what I’m guessing is Armenian and then laughs. The other nods in agreement and they take a step forward. Crap. This is not my finest moment, but I’m going to have to try to fend them off in my half-ripped spandex dress. But first, I’ll need to catch them off guard.
“Get up,” the man says with a heavy accent. “You come with us.”
Like hell I will. I stand up on shaky legs and hold up my hands as I step towards them. One of them grabs me by the hair and shoves me forward. I take a step and then freeze, slamming my head back into his nose as hard as I can.
He curses and the other guy is on top of me before I have a chance to get my bearings. He throws me to the floor and starts muttering angry words I don’t understand as he slaps me around a bit. My head is throbbing and I’m disoriented, but I know I need to think fast. I need to get a grip on this situation.
The man on top of me starts groping around my chest as he says something to the other guy who’s bleeding all over the place. I use his distraction to knee him in the nuts before I kick him hard in the chest. When he loses his balance, I scramble up on my feet and make a run for the door, only to be met by another hard wall of muscle.
Before I can make sense of what’s happening, Lachlan grips me around the waist and swivels me around. I hear a couple of loud pops and scream when I realize they are shooting at Lachlan. Not just shooting, but shot.
We both fall back against the wall and he manages to pull us out of view before we slide to the floor in a heap together.
“Jesus, Lachlan!” I scream. “You’re shot. You just took a fucking bullet for me…”
He’s bleeding all over the place and I’m freaking out. But there isn’t time to process anything because the guys inside the office start shooting off more rounds through the walls. Chunks of drywall and dust are flying everywhere as Lachlan pushes me behind him and tells me to stay low. He winces and gets down on his belly, crawling back towards the door.
“Lachlan!”
“Mack… shut up and stay down.”
He pokes his head around the bottom of the doorjamb and fires off a couple quick shots. I hear a grunt inside followed by a thud. More gunfire comes our way opposite of the wall, and Lachlan scrambles backward with a painful grimace.
I can’t tell exactly where he’s been shot, and I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to carry on with this. Where the hell are the rest of his men? There’s still gunfire coming from the front of the club, and there’s nowhere for us to go.
Something crashes inside the office, and before I even have time to blink, one of the guys is hurling himself on top of Lachlan. He doesn’t have his gun because half of his hand has been blown off from the looks of it. Lachlan tries to fire off a shot, but the guy knocks the gun out of his hand and sends it flying.
I reach out and grab it while they scuffle, and then stand up on shaky legs, pointing at the guy with the black eyes.
“Jaysus!” Lachlan yells up at me. “Don’t fecking fire that off now. Ye’re liable to finish me off.”
“Then get the fuck outta’ the way!” I scream.
Lachlan smashes his fist across the other guy’s face and it disorients him long enough for Lachlan to stand up.
“Give me the gun, sweetheart.” He holds out his hand, but I can’t move. I’m frozen. I don’t want this. I don’t want to see this guy die. Jesus. What have I gotten myself into?
“No.” My lip wobbles and I try to hide it by biting down.
“Give me the goddamn gun!” he yells.
I take a step back and shake my head. I need to think about this. I need to figure out another way. Surely, there must be another way.
Lachlan lunges at me and pries the gun out of my hands with surprising ease.
“Close your eyes, sweetheart.”
I do. I close them because I can’t see it. But I hear it, and that’s just as bad. Two shots. And like a fucking idiot, I open my eyes and look at the holes in his head.
“Oh, God.”
I turn around and vomit all over the floor. Lachlan’s behind me, trying to pull me against him. Trying to comfort me.
“What the fuck?” I scream. “What the FUCK? You just killed him? You fucking killed him!”
He grabs me by the arms and whirls me around, slamming me up against the wall.
“You’d better cop on to yourself, sweetheart. Just keep your mouth shut until I can get you out of here, ye follow me?”
I fricken’ hate him. I hate him. I can’t believe he just did that in front of me. I can’t believe that Talia was involved in any of this, and now I know. I can feel it in my gut. She’s dead. She has to be. There’s no way she could survive in this world. I can’t even handle it, and I thought I could. But I’m just a big fat phony.
Liquid leaks out of my eyes, and I realize I’m frigging crying. How fucking embarrassing. Proud, tough Mack Wilder from Southie is balling like a little baby.
Lachlan grabs his jacket from the office and wraps it around me to cover me up before dragging me down the hall. The only positive is that the rest of the gunfire has ceased somewhere in the last two minutes as well. The place is dead quiet now, except for the sound of broken glass crunching beneath my heels.
A minute later, I see Sasha, and she runs up and pulls me into her arms. I let her hug me. And I fucking hate hugging. But it’s nice, for a second, at least. I need this right now.
Then Ronan and one of the other guys show up, and Lachlan’s barking out orders.
“Get them out of here,” he says.
Ronan grabs me and Sasha by the arm and drags us towards the front door. I don’t even protest. I’m too weak. Too tired. I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore. Lachlan’s shot and I know he’s bleeding, and I’m worried about how bad it is. But then I just keep thinking about him shooting that guy. I can’t decide what I should do, but apparently it doesn’t really matter what I want to do.
We’re shoved into the backseat of a car and then there’s nothing but the sound of burning rubber as Ronan gets us out of dodge. Sasha is still crying, huddling on her side of the seat while I stare blankly at the streets before us.
I don’t know how long we drive for. I don’t even know where we are. It feels like forever. I just want to go back to my motel and take a long hot shower and drown myself in a bottle of tequila. But Ronan’s phone rings, and he mumbles a few quick words before banging a U-ie and turning around. In the complete opposite direction of where I need to be.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Ye’re going to stay with Lachlan.” He meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. “He took a bullet for ye. I think the least ye can do is take care of him.”
14
LACHLAN
“WHERE ARE the rest of the girls?” I ask.
Dom points across the room where a few of the other girls are shaking and crying hysterically. Jaysus. This is the last thing I needed. I’m bleeding all over the place and my shoulder hurts like a bitch. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot and I doubt it’ll be the last. Lucky this time it’s just a graze, I think.
The idea of this being another inside job is what hurts the most. I don’t take to betrayal lightly. One of the Russians has to be feeding the goddamn Armenians information.
I take mental inventory of everyone when I realize something.
“Where’s Mandy?”
“She said she felt sick and went home,” Rory answers.
Sick, my arse. She’s pouting because I wouldn’t have her.
I glance across the room at Sean, who’s barking out orders that don’t even make any bloody sense.
I bend down and grab the bloke who’s bleeding from a leg wound. Unfortunate for him that this particular wound won’t kill him straight away. He mutters something in Armenian before I slam the butt of my gun against his temple.
“Have ye anything to say yet?” I ask. “Or would ye rather enjoy some long company with the reape
r? I give ye my word, you’ll like him even less than ye like me.”
“Fuck you,” he spits.
I slam his head against the floor and rise back up to my feet.
“Take him downstairs,” I tell Dom. “Ronan will be along to take care of it after.”
He nods and calls Conor over to help him. Conor is young and his heart is in the right place, but he’s got a long way to go yet. He’s gray in the face and I have some serious doubts about how much of this he can handle.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Detective James isn’t on call tonight.”
“Fucks sake, Conor. Do I have to do everything meself?”
He glances at the floor and then back to me. “Sorry, Crow. What should I do?”
My shoulder is killing me. I swear sometimes I need the patience of a goddamn saint to deal with this lad.
“Ah, what the fuck do ye think? I don’t care if he’s in the middle of his own wedding, ye get him down here now.”
“On it, boss.”
Right after he scuttles off, the boys in blue start to arrive. I head to the bar and grab a bottle of whiskey. It’ll have to do for now.
15
MACKENZIE
WHEN I THOUGHT about where Lachlan lived, I imagined Adam’s Village or maybe even Charlestown. Those would have been the obvious guesses. So when we pull up to a house in Beacon Hill, it throws me for a loop. It’s smart, if you think about it. The unsuspecting brick row house that borders Boston Common and the Public Garden could belong to any regular Joe. There’s even frigging rose bushes out the front.
“Is this like a safe house?” I ask.
Ronan purses his lips, but doesn’t answer. He’s obviously not real pleased to be bringing me here, and that’s answer enough. The murderous Lachlan Crow lives in a quaint little house that nobody would ever blink twice at. Go fucking figure, asshole.
“Sash?” I lean over and almost pat her on the shoulder before I snatch my hand back. I’m not good at this shit. “You… uh, want to grab my number in case you need anything?”
“Already got it.” She gives me a little nod. “Lachlan gave it to me in case I need to get a hold of you.”
“Okay, well… Ronan’s gonna’ take care of you. Isn’t that right, Ronan?”
He grunts and I shoot him a glare as I get out of the car and shut the door.
“I mean it.” I poke him in the chest. “You fucking take care of her.”
He glances at the car and pushes my hand away from him like he’s just been caught cheating or something. Fricken weirdo.
“You just worry about taking care of Lachlan,” he says.
“Yeah, yeah…”
I don’t get to finish because he shoves me inside the door and slams it behind me. I make it two steps inside before I freeze again at the sound of angry grunting.
“I don’t see anything in there.”
“Ye don’t know your fecking arse from your elbow ya bloody muppet. Give me the goddamn things.”
I hotfoot it into the parlor to find wounded men strewn about the place like furniture. They’re propped on sofas and kitchen chairs, several of the unwounded men trying to tend to their wounds. Lachlan is sitting in a recliner, bent forward, while another one of his men pokes around his shoulder wound. Now that I can see where it’s at, I know for certain he saved my life. It’s about level with where my head would be on his body. If he hadn’t spun me around…
I shudder, and rush over to his side.
“Jesus, Lachlan. You guys need to go to the hospital. What the hell are you idiots doing?”
The man that’s sitting in front of him stops to look up at me like I have a death wish for talking to Lachlan that way. Lachlan just grins.
“Your concern touches me, sweetheart,” he slurs. “Truly. Ye think you can do better than Conor? I’m liable to believe you can.”
Jesus, he’s half-drunk to boot. I snatch the bottle of whiskey out of his hand and take a swig of it myself.
“You.” I point at the kid doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. “You’re outta’ your mind. Get the hell off him, now.”
“Oh, thank God.” He hands me the tweezers and bolts to the garbage can to vomit. Frigging maniacs.
“Ye gonna’ patch me up?” Lachlan asks.
He’s got a stupid grin on his face like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I want to slap it off him. Instead, I sit on the arm of the recliner and push him backwards so I can work. I sterilize the tweezers and clean some of the blood around the wound, and Lachlan reaches up to grab my wrist.
“Do ye really know what ye’re doing, sweetheart?”
“Do you think I can be any worse than this guy?” I gesture at Conor, who can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the blood but still looks like he’s going to faint at any moment.
“Go fix the guys some sandwiches,” I tell him. “They’ll need something to soak up all this alcohol.”
Lachlan laughs and Conor nods, walking back into the kitchen with a new purpose.
“Ye should tend to the lads first,” Lachlan grunts. “Mine’s just a graze.”
“I’m tending to you first,” I snap. “So sit back and relax. This is not going to be pleasant.”
Once I have the tools cleaned, I bring the bottle to his lips and let him take another swig. Then I go in. His shoulder is a mess, and the wound is right at the top of his bicep muscle. It’s still bleeding a lot, but it doesn’t bother me. I’ve seen it plenty of times before. Lachlan’s still watching me closely, like he can’t believe I’m really doing this. Every once in a while he grunts in pain, but he never tells me to stop. After a minute of poking around, I confirm he’s correct. No bullet, it’s just a graze. So I set to cleaning him and stitching him up.
“Where’d ye learn to do that, butterfly?”
“You know Doc Kilroy?” I ask.
Lachlan watches me, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and a flicker of curiosity. I suspect it’s the only thing keeping him awake.
“Aye, I knew him.”
His tone is one of respect, and for some reason, that makes me happy. Doc Kilroy used to help out with the aftermath of the fights in the underground. He died a couple years ago at an ancient age that I’ll probably never know. But the neighborhood just isn’t the same without him.
“He used to come over and patch up my dad and the crew he ran with,” I explain. “Got sick of the house calls at all hours of the night, so he taught me how to do it.”
That’s what I tell Lachlan, but the truth is I think Doc Kilroy saw the kind of guys my dad was getting involved with. He didn’t want to be anywhere near it. Can’t say I blame him.
After Lachlan is stitched and bandaged, I move to grab up my tools and tend to the other men. But he halts me by grabbing my hand and brushing his thumb over the back of my knuckles.
“Thank you, butterfly.”
“No biggie.” I clear my throat. “You should all probably get some antibiotics though.”
“Ronan’s on it,” he says. “Now, if ye don’t mind tending to my mates.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I assure him. “You get some rest.”
He nods and I slip away, but as I clean and patch up his men, he never takes his focus off of me. It isn’t suspicion this time, but something else in the depths of those gray eyes. Something that makes my belly flutter and my heart beat just a little bit faster.
When it’s all over, I head to the kitchen to see what Conor came up with. There’s a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches waiting on a plate, and he’s snoring like a baby propped against the refrigerator.
I grab the sandwiches and cut them into two triangles out of habit and get a sharp little pang in my chest when I remember why. Talia and I used to share sandwiches this way. She insisted they tasted better when they were cut diagonally instead of vertically. She was right, of course.
I close my eyes and get a grip before taking the plate out and passing them around. The guys take them
eagerly and chow down while I take the last one and head for Lachlan. I pause halfway and wiggle it in his direction in question.
“Come here to me,” he says.
I take a step closer, and he pries the plate from my hands and sets it on the table beside him. Then he reaches up and grabs me around the waist and tugs me straight into his lap. I can smell the whiskey on his breath, along with the scent that’s uniquely his. How he can still smell good after bleeding all over the place and taking part in a gun fight, I’ll never know.
“Do we need to talk about tonight?” he asks.
Despite his half-drunken state, he’s got a clear enough head to initiate this conversation. His expression is serious, appraising, and I have no doubts he’ll remember every word I say come tomorrow. I stare down at my heels and kick them off, wiggling my toes as I think about my answer. Logic tells me there’s only one thing I can really say. I know what Lachlan’s capable of. I knew it before I ever got involved with all of this. I’m not going to change that, and neither is anything I say. So for my self-preservation, and to build trust, I tell him the only thing I can.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Crow. What happened tonight?”
He grips me by the chin and gives me a drunken lopsided grin. “Ye’re a clever girl, Mack. I like that about you.”
“Yeah, well can’t say I’m surprised,” I mutter. “Most of the chicks you bang probably don’t have two brain cells to rub together. You like to get in and out, am I right?”
A dark look passes over his face and the arm that’s wrapped around my waist pulls me a little tighter. “Ye know this changes things, butterfly.”
I look away, knowing he’s right. I saw something tonight that I wasn’t supposed to. Something that makes Lachlan vulnerable. And there’s a whole philosophy about that with organized crime syndicates. The philosophy is that the vulnerability always disappears.
“What do you want me to say, Lach?”
“I need to know I can trust ye, sweetheart. That’s all.”