The Trouble Legacy
Page 17
“Tommy, please open the door. I know you’re angry, but I really need to ask you something. Please?” She used her feminine voice, knowing the effect it had on him.
Tommy let out a great sigh then opened the door. Dana stepped back at the sight of him. To put it mildly, he looked unwell. In fact, he looked terrible. Very tired and withdrawn.
“Did I wake you?” she asked.
Tommy shrugged. “What do you want, Dana? Have you come to gloat?” He gave her a slight sneer, and Dana winced, realizing how much she had hurt him. She could see his pain in his once beautiful eyes, eyes that she had once enjoyed staring into for hours. But which now seemed cold and hollow. Something in Tommy had changed, and Dana felt she must have been the cause of it.
“Tommy, your step-father is missing,” she told him. “I mean, no one reported him missing, but I can’t find him anywhere.”
“He’s not my step-father,” Tommy replied coldly. Then he began to close the door, and she stopped him. The icy look in his once warm eyes chilled her.
“I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m sorry about what happened. If there’s anything I can do for you, I’m here.”
Tommy chuckled lightly. “You know what you can do for me, Dana? You can leave my family the fuck alone. In fact, why not blame Camille O’Brien for the whole damn thing?”
And Dana saw Tommy’s true nature. His loyalty to his mother was clear, and he was very much his mother’s son. She recoiled from his wrath.
“You know I can’t do that, Tommy,” she whispered.
Tommy stared at her in silence for a moment, looking at her like he despised her. “I don’t know anything about my mother’s boyfriend,” he said. “I wish you luck,” he told her, as he shut the door.
Dana stood in front of the closed door, unable to move. She wanted to cry, even though she never cried in public. For she too had been in love with Tommy. And she had wanted to give him a second chance to do the moral thing. But now it was clear who Tommy had chosen, and it wasn’t her.
Violet looked up from the bar at the sound of the door opening. She had just set up for the day without Sam. Violet had concluded what Tommy had done for her, but she tried not to think about it too much, because she had cared for Sam.
Tommy entered the pub, looking a little tired and more hardened, physically, as well as emotionally, and Violet imagined the act of killing had been difficult for him, as it had been for her the first time. It took some time getting used to, but once you did, you tended not to think about it too much afterwards.
Violet stepped out from the bar and greeted him in the empty room. She had good news to tell him.
“Tommy, thank you. I’m so proud of you. I always knew you’d continue the legacy,” she told him as she embraced him. “My boy. You won’t miss being a cop,” she teased, but Tommy looked away from her.
Tommy didn’t speak, so Violet kept talking. “Your grandmother’s lawyer called me last night. He was able to get her sentenced reduced. She’s coming home, Tommy. Grandma’s coming home. We’re going to throw her a big party.”
“That’s great,” Tommy said, managing a smile.
Violet also had some other news to tell her son, but it could wait. She planned to keep her enemy close by, giving Camille a large cut of the heroin ring, to get her off her back. She’d come to the conclusion that the only way forward was to make a deal with Camille and Johnny.
Tommy pulled himself out of her grasp, and as his arm slid over hers, she noticed a new set of marks on his skin. She knew the sight well, because she had once been an addict herself. Violet quickly grabbed him.
“Tommy, no! Is that what I think it is?”
He refused to say.
Tommy ducked away from his mother’s hand as she tried to slap some sense into him.
“Tommy! How long have you been using for?” she demanded to know.
He’d been about to answer her, and lie, when the door opened, and two tall, burly men, dressed all in black, wearing ski masks, rushed inside, carrying long guns.
“Shit, Tommy, get down!” Violet screamed.
The men raised the guns, and Tommy jumped in front of his mother, to shield her, but she pushed him out of the way, trying to save him and sacrifice herself. When they opened fire, a bullet went through her head. Violet collapsed to the floor, blood gushing from her forehead. Another one hit Tommy in the shoulder, forcing him to the ground near his dying mother. He knew she kept a gun behind the bar, but he couldn’t get to it. Tommy crawled over to his mother, and put his hands on her face, desperate to stop the blood from pouring out. It was clear to him that Violet had been the intended victim, and he had just been in the way. He felt his mother’s pulse, and found it faint.
Tommy heard the door opening and the men running outside.
He held his mother’s body close to his chest as her breathing stilled, and she was gone. “I’ll get them,” he promised her. “I’ll get them,” he whispered.
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THE END
A note from the publisher
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About the Authors
Best-selling authors E.R. Fallon and KJ Fallon know well the gritty city streets of which they write and have understanding of the localized crime world.