He didn’t know how wealthy I was, wouldn’t until the day I died and he inherited everything, but that was for another time, another place.
The street was neat, manicured in a way that I didn’t like but dealt with. Everything was perfect. And when I said everything, I meant it. The roads wouldn’t dare get potholes, the houses were all flawlessly painted, not even needing a second coat of paint on them. Driveways were cobbled or tiled or paved without a single weed sticking out from between the cracks.
It was the kind of street where not even the lightbulb on a streetlamp would flicker. And if it did? The city would have someone out within the day to make sure it was replaced.
So what he saw—
Then, I just happened to catch a glimpse of the BMW.
It was black. Dark.
And in the shadows.
There weren’t many on this street because there were a lot of streetlamps, but he’d parked kind of catty-corner, in a way that made him difficult to see from a certain angle.
Our angle.
I cut Seamus a look, then rasped, “Give me the gun, baby.”
He shook his head, but his hands were shaking. “No,” he squeaked. “I have to keep us safe.”
Reaching over, I pressed a hand to his shoulder and murmured, “You know how good a shot I am. I’ll protect us.”
His shoulders quaked, and I could feel his fear from over here. It tinged the air with pungent teenage sweat, and it made me want to hug him, wrap him in my arms, and tell him that I’d protect him until kingdom come, that he never needed to worry.
But there was definitely somebody watching us.
Somebody that wasn’t affiliated with the Points, because I knew how the Points worked.
Outside our door, they were in a massive SUV. If Eoghan had asked for a detail to follow that SUV, it would have been a matching tank, not a sleek sedan that wasn’t even pointed in our direction. That was hiding in plain sight.
The Five Points were blunt objects. Hammers, not scalpels.
I could feel sweat trickle down my brow as I accepted that, somehow, somewhere, we’d become involved in something we had nothing to do with.
Cupping Seamus’s shoulder tighter, I implored, “Please, sweetheart, give me the gun.”
“I saw him leave the car,” he whispered, his hands shaking around the weapon. “He was heading for the SUV.”
Something in his voice had me staring at him. “What did you see?”
He gulped. “Someone was shot.” His mouth worked as he twisted to look at me. “The man who came to the door, I-I think he’s dead.”
I gritted my teeth and tried not to panic.
But who the hell was I kidding?
Fuck!
I reached up and tried to think what the fuck I should do. Then my cellphone buzzed, making both of us jump. It wasn’t so much of an issue for me, but with my trigger-happy son at my side, it rattled us both when he knocked the muzzle into the windowpane.
Thankfully, it was quiet enough for it not to have caused an issue, but I whispered, “Be careful, Seamus.”
He nodded. “Sorry.” I could see the fuzz on his top lip, where he was starting to get a bit of a mustache, was beginning to gleam with sweat.
I reached for my cell and peered at the screen as I tried to cover it so the gleam didn’t reflect in the window. Because I couldn’t see who was calling, I just hit the green button and raised it to my ear. “Hello?” I whispered, half terrified it would be whoever had just killed our guards.
“Aela? It’s Brennan—”
“Brennan! Thank fuck! Someone shot our guards.”
Silence fell on the line, but it barely lasted fifteen seconds before he growled, “Stay on the phone. I’m going to get the cops over there.”
The cops?
My eyes flared wide. “You’re calling the cops?” Was this a parallel universe?
“Of course,” he rumbled, but though he sounded furious, he also sounded calm. Like this was just another day at the office for him, which, of course, it was.
I gulped.
What had I done? Bringing Seamus into this world? I was the one who needed shooting.
Turning my back on the window for a second, I pushed my spine into the wall as I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the clusterfuck going down around me.
Then, realizing it was stupid to leave my son watching over the scene, I twisted around and carried on scanning the front yard.
I didn’t see anyone, and peering into the car didn’t give me much hope either. So I put the phone on speaker, turned the sound down so it was barely audible, and focused on the street.
“They were both killed?”
Seamus squeaked out, “There were three men in the SUV.”
“Three?” Brennan rasped, but his voice was different, tempered.
He knew who he was talking to.
“Yes. Three,” Seamus confirmed, and it was stupid, but I was proud that he sounded so sure of himself. Sure, he was squeaking, but that didn’t matter, did it?
“Seamus?”
“Yes. I’m Seamus,” he replied.
“I’m your Uncle Brennan. I promise, when this is all over, it won’t happen again.”
Seamus was quiet for only a second before he whispered, “Why is it happening at all?”
A sigh sounded down the line. “I don’t know, but I promise you I’ll find out. Now, you said there were three men in the SUV?”
“This afternoon I was doing yard work, and I saw this strange car down the road. No one drives BMWs around here—”
I winced because while it was true, it made it sound like we were living in a ghetto. This was one of the priciest neighborhoods in the area, but it was liberal to its core. Everyone drove Teslas and hybrid vehicles, for God’s sake.
“So I watched because I heard the rumble of the engine.”
My brow puckered at his attention to detail, which rarely came into use when he was forgetting to do things like pick up the laundry in his room or when I asked him to not leave dirty dishes in the sink.
Kids.
Heaving a sigh and deciding this was not the time to wonder why my son had the wherewithal to notice details in a crisis but was incapable of focus on a regular basis, I tuned back into the conversation, grateful he’d noticed anything at all.
“It pulled up into a position that I also considered odd, because it was parked on the Mandelson’s drive, and they’re on vacation, and I’ve been keeping my eye on it ever since. When I was packing up, I happened to see someone get out of that car, walk over to the SUV Mom said belonged to—well, you—”
“And you as well, Seamus. You’re an O’Donnelly now.”
Was now really the moment to throw that in there?
I didn’t say a word, but my irritation flared.
“I’m an O’Neill,” Seamus corrected, his own anger stunning me, as well as the vehemence in his voice.
Maybe it took Brennan aback too, because he didn’t get mad, didn’t even say a word. Just let Seamus continue.
“There was a shot fired, I heard it, then the guy who rode with us got out of the SUV and walked back with the shooter. Rogan, I think that’s his name… he didn’t get out. I think, I mean, well… that has to mean he’s dead, right?”
My brows rose at that, and I felt a little winded. “Seamus, you need to think very carefully about what you just said there,” I murmured. “You mean to tell me that one of the Five Points’ men got out of the vehicle and went over to the other car?”
“Kind of. They didn’t go back to the car on the Mandelson’s drive. They disappeared.”
All my ideals about the Five Points came crashing down around me, because as far as I knew, traitors weren’t exactly cosseted with gems and riches. You fucked with the O’Donnellys and they more than fucked with you.
“You have a traitor in your midst, and you brought them with us,” I growled, fury and terror whittling down my voice until I was almost whispering in my
outrage.
“The cops are on their way,” Brennan replied smoothly, and once again, I recognized just how like his father he was.
It took a psychopath to register another’s terror and to sound as if we were talking through our takeout order for a Friday night.
I closed my eyes, praying that the cops would make it here fast, but I knew, from my past experience, that luck was rarely on my side.
And that was only confirmed when I heard the tinkling sound of glass breaking.
My heart almost stopped at that, and when I turned to Seamus and I saw the outright terror in his eyes, I wanted to weep.
I’d done this.
Me.
I’d hurt my boy, I’d made him look like this.
I sucked in a breath, determined that if anything happened to him, I’d rather die, so I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and started hauling him toward my bedroom. He began to struggle, but that whole ‘a woman can pick up a car if it means saving her child’ stuff was, I realized, true.
One hundred percent true.
I didn’t care that he was like a brawling cat that was trying to scratch and hiss at me. I just needed to make sure he was out of here and in a safe place.
Dragging him back down the corridor to my bedroom, I was grateful for the thickly woven rug that dampened our footsteps. My door was wide open because I had a thing about never closing them, much to Seamus’s horror, because I’d inadvertently flashed him a few times, and I didn’t stop hauling him in until we were in my room.
“You stay there,” I snarled at him, shoving him into the cupboard that acted as a safe room. “You stay small, and you stay in the corner. You have your gun aimed at the door, and if anyone opens it, you shoot. You shoot straight in the chest, remember like I taught you? Bang in the middle of the torso. But don’t waste bullets,” I hissed at him. “They’re not going to kill you, Seamus. You’re too valuable.” The words annihilated me, but it was vital he was aware of that. “You’re an O’Donnelly, and that means you’re too important. So they won’t kill you, but they will incapacitate you. You make sure that doesn’t happen. The cops will be here soon, and once they are, your uncle will be here next.”
He gulped. “Not my father?”
“No, sweetheart. Remember, he’s in the hospital. He’s too sick right now.” I hadn’t told him about the extent of Declan’s injuries, had just said he was resting up in a clinic. Now I regretted that because it figured Seamus would paint a pretty picture of his father, and instead of Declan being the one to come storming in to the rescue, it would be Brennan.
Of course, it wouldn’t actually be any O’Donnelly. It would be me. I’d be the one who made sure that no one hurt my son.
The thought had me grinding my teeth as I rasped, “Here’s my cell. Stay on the line with your uncle.”
“No,” Brennan replied, his tone modulated. “I want to talk with you.”
I narrowed my eyes, but I wasn’t about to argue, not when I had things to do. I triggered the security alert on the alarmed door, then turned to Seamus and whispered, “Remember the code?” His swift nod had me continuing, “You make sure you fire calmly. Methodically. Don’t waste bullets. But do not—do you hear me?—allow yourself to be moved to another location. They shouldn’t break through the door, but do as I say, okay?”
Seamus nodded, and because he registered my tone, the severity of it, his face turned from pure white with fear to a staunch resolve that told me he was ready for whatever might come his way.
Of course, that might involve listening to me being shot or…
I blew out a breath.
Raped.
Fuck.
I sent up a quick prayer to a God I’d stopped believing in a long time ago, promising, ‘I promise I’ll attend church again if you just make sure Seamus doesn’t have to hear that.’
When there was no answer, no miracle that made things better, I just heaved a sigh, closed the closet door that was part of a safe room I’d had installed before we moved in, and heard the locks click into place.
Rushing around the bed, I turned off the speaker and put the phone to my ear even as I opened the nightstand drawer to pull out a revolver.
It dwarfed my hand, and looked a little ridiculous in my grasp, but it could look stupid all the way to the bank. I didn’t give a damn so long as the fucker worked.
“How long until the cops get here, Brennan?”
“They’re saying four minutes ETA.”
I gulped. “A lot can happen in four minutes.”
“You’ll be fine,” he told me, his tone almost soothing.
In a previous life, Brennan had either been Sigmund Freud or a hypnotist. I wasn’t sure which.
I checked that the gun was loaded—even though I knew it was—and when I found it packed with ammo, I sucked in a breath and settled myself at the side of the bed, my back to the nightstand, my arm on the mattress for support.
With my butt on the ground, I listened to the reassuring sound of Brennan breathing—slow and deep, no panic to it. No rush. And I forced my heart to stop pounding, forced myself to calm down and to emulate his breathing.
“You did good, Aela. You taught him well.”
“Had to. He’s one of you even if I tried to protect him from all this. Would be like sending a baby chick into a fox’s den and expecting him not to get bitten.”
Brennan’s snort said it all. “Maybe, but I never expected you to instruct him the way you did. You did good.”
Because I didn’t live for any man’s approval, I said nothing and just rolled my eyes. I was a mom, for God’s sake. What did he expect me to do? Leave my baby unprotected?
Of course, I apparently had. Somehow my security system had been bypassed. That was a half a million down the drain, but more than that, Seamus wasn’t safe.
God help me.
Tuning my ear into the silence of the house, I had to wonder if I was overreacting, if I’d even heard the glass breaking, the sound reminiscent of someone messing with the back door to gain access to the handle. If it had happened, why hadn’t that tripped the alarm? I didn’t get it. Unless…
I’d set the alarm, hadn’t I?
In the mayhem, had I forgotten?
Christ, I couldn’t remember.
And when I couldn’t hear a single footstep, didn’t hear a squeak that indicated where they were, it merely made me question if I’d heard right in the first place, but then I figured that it would make sense for there to be no noise. After all, if the carpets I had down in all the rooms protected us from making random sounds, why wouldn’t it help our intruders?
A gentle hushing noise, so soft that I almost missed it, and would have if Brennan’s breathing hadn’t calmed me down, ricocheted outside in the hall.
I tensed, preparing myself for anything, and when the door opened, gliding inward, panic filled me because my senses hadn’t failed me, but I forced myself to calm down as the door carried on moving inward gently, as if the person was trying to make sure that the hinges didn’t squeak. I waited until a shadow hovered in the open space, then I sucked in a breath, aimed my gun, and fired.
The explosion triggered the intruder’s weapon, but even though I heard the whistle of the bullet, it missed.
Mine didn’t.
His yelp of agony was quickly hushed up, but I heard the bastard drop to his knees. The thump was heavy, heavy enough for me to feel the vibration through the rug under my butt.
I waited, watching, not wanting to give away my location, so I stared into the darkness, pierced only by the glow of the streetlamp, and waited for the home invader to make a decision. Was he going to get up, was he going to take another shot?
Behind me, about two feet to the left of my head, the dust and plaster from the dry wall cracked and shifted, sending little plumes of motes into the air. They tickled my nose, making it next to impossible not to sneeze. I drew in a breath, trying to stop it, but nothing would.
The explosive sneeze tr
iggered a gunshot from across the room, but it also gave me a location—he was hiding beside the foot of my bed.
I’d never be able to get a shot at him there.
Of course, Seamus said there were two men, and this was only one of them.
Was the other in the house? Or somewhere in the hall? Just waiting on us to rush out, thinking we were safe, only for us to fall into his clutches?
My heart started roaring again, but even though I could hear the gentle whisper of Brennan’s breathing, it wasn’t enough this time.
I had two invaders in my home. Two people who maybe wanted me dead, and who, very likely, wanted my son alive to kidnap. I could just imagine what the O’Donnellys would be extorted to pay for his safe keeping.
The only heir to the O’Donnelly throne?
Jesus Christ.
I pinched the bridge of my nose when another sneeze started to build as dust made its way into my sensory receptors. But this time, as my eyelids clamped down with the beginnings of the internal explosion, I blindly pressed my finger to the trigger and pulled.
When the guy yelped again, I tensed, unable to believe that had worked, and figured he’d moved out into the open because he’d been about to take a shot at me. But I still wasn’t taking any chances. Waiting for the bastard to make another pop at me, I aimed my gun higher, finding it next to impossible not to carry on firing into the dark, Scarface style, but that would only waste precious ammo, and while I had some of that in the cupboard downstairs, that was exactly the issue.
It was downstairs.
Only the shooter didn’t make another move. Had I killed him?
Were we safe?
Grimly, and feeling the sweat beading my brow, making my skin slick with it, as well as the strong scent of body odor from my pits as I went through worse sweats than I’d endured during childbirth, I waited for something, anything…
And I got it.
Sirens.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to whoop and holler with joy.
I was the daughter of a gang member, I’d been raised in the life, had been reared to understand that business was business, and that sometimes, Daddy would come back from work with blood on his fists and bruises on his face, and to accept it as normal.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 6
