Regular.
I’d also been taught that the cops were pigs and never to call on them unless I had to.
But here and now?
I’d never been so happy for a bunch of blues to make their way onto my property.
“I can hear them, Aela,” Brennan told me, his voice as calm as ever. “Don’t move, and be prepared to fight the other guy. Just because the police are there doesn’t mean that the other intruder will stop. He’s there for a reason, and we both know what happens when you don’t follow the boss man’s orders—being thrown in jail is a kinder fate.”
I gulped, knowing he was exactly right.
My mouth trembled, and even though I was trying to be quiet, fear prompted me to ask, “The Famiglia?”
“It’s likely. We’re at war with them—”
“Rogan told me,” I breathed.
I didn’t have to see his face to know he was surprised. “He did? Why?”
“I knew him back when I was a kid. We were neighbors, lived next door to each other before my dad’s promotion.” Not that you’d have known with the formality between us. I wasn’t even sure why he’d told me the little he had.
Nostalgia?
And now he was dead.
He had to be, didn’t he? Why would he have told me any of that when he fully intended on betraying the family a few hours later?
No, there was no love lost between him and I, but he’d been warning me. The thought of him bleeding out in the SUV had guilt spearing me in the chest, but it was overridden when I heard the sounds of the police rushing into my house, taking over the fight on my behalf.
I kept my Ruger raised though, just waiting for the other guy to come at me, but when he didn’t, when I heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, and a, “Ma’am? This is Officer Fellows. It’s safe to come out now,” I felt like crying.
So, because I felt like it, I allowed myself one weakness after a night of being strong and called back— “On my way down!” –before I placed the gun on the ground, covered my eyes with my hands, and let myself sob, just for a handful of seconds before I had to put on a brave face for Seamus.
Five
Brennan
She was crying, and the sound pissed me off.
I’d always liked Aela. She was good people, strong, and exactly what my brother had needed in a woman. That bitch Deirdre had been all about the position, the posturing. The family name and the family wealth. I’d known she was a money-grubbing slut, had known she was tangled up with Declan for a reason even if, to this day, I had no idea why they were together because I’d seen Dec’s loathing for her every time she stood by his side.
I was surprised the rest of the family hadn’t noticed that either, but sometimes I saw things that no one else did, so it didn’t come as that much of a shock.
While Deirdre was everything I loathed in a woman, Aela was the exact opposite.
She’d have been my type too, if she didn’t have her hooks into Declan, and when I said hooks—I meant it. I’d never seen him go gaga for a chick before, but I got it. Not only had she been beautiful, still was, truth be told, but she was solid, honest, and good. She’d been raised to know that wet work was part of the life. Had been nurtured to accept that the things men did for the family weren’t always the nicest, but it was just how it was.
She wouldn’t question. She would only accept.
But for all that, she wasn’t biddable.
Even back then, I’d seen the spark in her.
I’d actually seen what would trigger a career in art that still took me aback.
A few years ago, I’d seen her in Manhattan, and I’d started keeping tabs on her. Those tabs, however, hadn’t enlightened me to the fact that she was a single mom. If they had, I’d have looked into the kid, because how she and Dec had ended things, over a goddamn grave, it wouldn’t have surprised me if there’d been a baby. And I’d been right.
Which just proved that I should have listened to my instincts.
Heaving a sigh, I pointed at the screen, put my phone on mute so she couldn’t hear me but I could hear her weeping, and I told Conor, “Hack into her security system.”
He sniffed. “Bitch, please. I’m already in. What do you want?”
“Eyes on her.”
“She’s in the bedroom, right?”
“Far as I can tell. Sounded like she activated a safe room though. Maybe she’s somewhere else in the house.” I’d heard the telltale sound of automatic locks that indicated there was some heavy-duty security in the place, and I’d had Conor on the case ever since.
“Useless as always,” he told me, but I ignored him and his snark. He was just pissed I’d woken him up.
We were still at the warehouse, still at Dec’s side after he’d given us all a scare and had gone into cardiac arrest. He was okay, stable again, but he was unconscious, and I had this weird feeling that if I left the warehouse, if I took one step off the property, he’d die.
I knew it was stupid, knew it and was pretty ashamed of it.
It felt far too much like superstition for my liking, but even so, if it meant sticking to his side and keeping an eye on my baby brother, I’d do it.
Dec was good people. One of the best of us. Sure, he was just as deep into this shit as we all were, but I loved him. Not because I had to, but because I chose to.
People didn’t realize there was a difference, but for someone like me, who didn’t love often, who loved seldomly in fact, it was a massive deal.
My thoughts had me glancing at my father. He was snoring away, his head tipped back against the wall with his arm around Ma, who was tucked into his side. Her hair had fallen out of the high bun she usually wore it in to keep her mass of curls out of her face, and she looked exhausted with tear tracks on her cheeks, her face lined from the way she was sleeping.
I loved my ma. By choice.
My da? Not so much.
With them both sleeping, Eoghan and Inessa huddled in one corner napping, and Aidan out front, limping back and forth in front of Declan’s ward, scaring the piss out of the doctors on staff, Conor and I were the only ones around who could help Aela and her son.
Our nephew.
Fuck.
I rubbed my chin as, on the screen opposite us, a screen that had been installed earlier today at my insistence and for an occasion such as this—although I’d never anticipated one of our men turning traitor, nor had I expected an attack on Declan’s woman and son, I’d just foreseen her running and had wanted eyes on her—a video of the house’s layout popped up. Conor’s skill never ceased surprising me.
Or terrifying the piss out of me.
For all that, it was pretty much how I imagined it. Aela was a bold woman. A strong one. I didn’t think she’d have a white, blank space for a home, and my belief was merely confirmed as I peered into all the rooms where cops were storming through the house, trying to find the second invader I’d warned them about when I’d made the 911 call.
Getting to my feet, I practically tiptoed past my parents, because I wanted them to stay asleep, then I reached the screen, squinting into each room to see where she was.
I could hear her weeping still, and the sobs were heavy enough to tell me she’d be burning out soon after the adrenaline wore off.
She wasn’t used to violence, which was both good and bad. Good, because it meant she’d been safe in the years she’d been away from us, but bad because our world wasn’t safe. Not while we were at war with the Italians, and not, in all honesty, on any day.
There was always danger. Always the threat of violence. It was just how we rolled.
When I found her in a bedroom, I narrowed my eyes on the body on the ground. He was splayed on his back, mouth wide open as he ate dust now that he was dead.
I didn’t recognize his face, so that told me he was Famiglia because they had a seemingly endless list of goons they could ship out on jobs. This was why we were better. We gave a shit about our people.
I
saw her tucked against the side of the bed, her shoulders shaking, huddled up small as she came to terms with what had just happened. Knowing her, she wasn’t upset by the killing of someone, just by the fear that had struck her hard. Aela was strong. She was born into violence. She knew how things worked. Tonight could have ended a lot differently, which was what she was processing.
Slowly, she rolled herself onto her hands and knees and started toward the foot of the bed, rightfully cautious.
Her reaction prompted me to take her off mute.
“Aela, you don’t need to worry. The shooter’s dead. Keep me on the line while you’re dealing with the cops. I’m recording everything.” I shot my brother a look, making sure he started picking up on our conversation. “I want to make sure they deal with you fairly.”
I knew she appreciated my calmness, because I saw her face pucker for a second before it flashed clear. There was no irritation at my lack of expression, not like there would be with some people. If anything, I watched her suck in a deep breath before she whispered, “Okay. I-I’ll make sure you can hear everything.”
She’d changed since she’d left the warehouse earlier today, and was wearing a kind of plaid shirt, one that had a breast pocket. I watched her as she tapped the screen, turned her phone upside down, and slipped it down into the fold. When the sound didn’t cut off, I knew she’d put me on speaker, so I made sure to mute mine again as she headed over to the closet.
My heart was in my throat as I waited on the door to open, to see my nephew for the first time.
“Seamus, kiddo, it’s me. You can open the door. The cops are here.” She tapped it, then the automatic clicks of the locks sounded, and in a blur of motion, someone rushed out of the small room and hurled themselves at her.
When they collided, my mouth tensed as I saw his fear, his need to protect her, and I understood it. I’d been there myself. I knew how that felt.
Sucking in a sharp breath as I watched them hug, I didn’t twist around when I felt someone at my side. Someone who was just as affected as I was by what I was seeing.
“They’re close,” Conor rasped.
“They are.” That much was clear.
“We need to make sure Declan doesn’t fuck this up.”
“I don’t think he will,” I said softly, and I hoped I was right. His response to the news he was a father had come as a shock, but it hadn’t been a devastating blow to him. Not like I’d expected, at any rate.
He’d seemed stunned by the prospect, but he hadn’t been angry. If anything, I thought the news had turned him introspective, and that was never a good thing where he was concerned.
He tended to overthink things by nature, and after Ma had left his ‘room’ sobbing, I got the feeling from the trace of guilt in her eyes that the reason she was sobbing was because of the words they’d shared before he’d gone into cardiac arrest.
Whatever he’d said to her had made her cry. Though that pissed me off, I got it.
I did.
Ma had learned she had a grandson, and she was all for family. Declan had probably been setting shit straight, and I didn’t blame him. Sometimes, especially with Ma, that was imperative. She was Da’s benchmark, after all. If she accepted something, he would shortly after. Well, where the family was concerned. Not with business.
Rubbing the back of my neck as I stared at mother and son, I watched as she hooked her arm around Seamus’s shoulder, then rumbled, “Don’t look at the foot of the bed, Shay.”
He shuddered, and of course, he looked at the foot of the bed. But she grabbed his chin and ground out, “Listen to me. There might be a time when you’re ready to see that stuff, but tonight is not that night. I took care of things. You don’t need to see how.”
I wanted to tell her that, by fourteen, I’d already killed a few men, but Seamus, Shay, wasn’t like me, and I was glad for that.
We’d started in the life way too early, Declan younger than any of us thanks to Da’s belief he was gay, and that was a rite of passage I hoped we wouldn’t pass onto our own kids. I sure as fuck wouldn’t be letting any son I had, if I ever had any, roam around learning the ropes at fourteen to make sure we were man enough for the job ahead of us.
I watched as she grabbed his head, tucked his face into her throat, and practically frog-marched him out of the room. He didn’t have a chance to see the body on the ground, not one chance, and admiration filled me.
Conor hummed at the sight too. “She’s a good mom.”
Of course that was a generalization, and since he wasn’t the kind to make such sweeping statements, I cut him a look.
“She might be a shit mother.”
He shook his head, keeping his eyes glued to the screen. I wasn’t sure how he’d done it, but the security system followed her, tracing her every move, meaning that as she walked out into the hall, the camera switched, and the screen followed her path. She walked toward us where, at the top of the stairs, the police were slowly approaching the upper landing.
She called out, “It’s me, Officer. I’m Aela O’Neill. I own the property.”
Cops surged upward at that, but what I saw surprised me.
There were eight officers, which was unusual enough. I highly doubted the local force sent out eight cops for a regular home invasion, so that was more than sufficient to have my brows rising. But throw in the plain-clothed detectives, two of them, and one a face I recognized?
Huh.
I cut Conor a look. “Caroline Dunbar.”
He dipped his chin. “Fuck.”
My mouth twisted at his statement. “Fuck about sums it up. What’s she doing there?”
That had him rolling his eyes. “She’s a Fed. Her jurisdiction is everywhere.”
“I know that, dumbass, but she’s normally stuck around us. Like flies around shit.”
“Ha, flies. More like bees around honey.”
I grinned a little at that, but I zoomed in on Caroline’s face.
What surprised me more was that Aela recognized her. Her shoulders stiffened at the sight of her, but Seamus only confirmed it with his, “Caro? What are you doing here?”
Cutting Conor a look when he growled, I muttered, “Entrapment.”
“The beginnings of. Why the hell would the Feds target Aela? They had to know we weren’t aware of Seamus. There are no records of child support payments. Nothing that would indicate there are any links. Anything she knows would be at least, what, fourteen years old?”
“Doesn’t mean there aren’t some crimes we can’t still be tried over, does it?” I arched a brow at him. “Murder doesn’t come with a statute of limitations.”
“True.” He scowled. “What the fuck could Aela know though? Declan wouldn’t have kept her in the loop.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m even asking. I had no idea they were boning anyway. I thought he was stuck on that Deirdre bitch.”
“No. I have no idea why he was with Deirdre, but I knew about Aela. He was always useless at hiding things from me.”
“Aren’t we all?” Conor muttered glumly.
But I didn’t even crack a smile at that. “Wonder if it’s Deirdre,” I mused out loud.
“What about her?”
“Her death? We covered it up, but fuck knows what that bitch has got her claws out for.”
Caroline Dunbar was a severe pain in the ass.
She had a habit of turning up out of the blue with random pieces of evidence that she tried to use to bring us down. It never worked. Even if she had a shot of us with a gun in our hand and the bullet flying out of the muzzle before it penetrated someone’s chest, it wouldn’t matter worth a damn.
We operated like ghosts in this city because everyone was in our pocket.
Didn’t matter what department it fell under, didn’t matter worth a damn. We were untouchable. But she kept on forgetting it.
It was my turn to growl as Aela asked, “You’re a detective?”
Dunbar dipped her chin. “Of a sort. I’m an
agent with the FBI. I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
Ha. More like surveilling her.
I could see from the tension in Aela’s face, the rigidity of her posture, that she didn’t believe that either. She knew a pig always stank, and it didn’t matter if it looked like they were on your side or not—they never were.
She did us proud as she demanded, “Why? What do you think I know?”
Seamus, his gaze whipping between the two women, questioned, “Mom? What’s going on? Why is Caro here?”
“She’s not here to babysit you, butt face,” Aela replied calmly, but her gaze was stony as she stared at Dunbar.
“She worked her way in as a babysitter?” Conor hissed. “Well, that’s a new low.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“I’m here to help,” Dunbar insisted, her arms spreading wide with entreaty. “There was chatter about you, and I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“You’d only hear the chatter if I was on someone’s radar, and if you were trying to keep me safe, then you’d have told me I was on a radar in the first place.” Aela’s mouth turned down at the corners, but I saw a flash of grief whisper across her features, one that told me she was upset. Not just about what had happened, the safety scare, but also the fact that she’d liked Caro.
Had maybe trusted her?
I got the feeling Aela didn’t trust many people with her son. Somehow, and I had no idea how it was possible, but she’d managed to keep Seamus under wraps. Not a single article I’d read about her had included the information that she had a son. Not a single one. And with a rep like hers? That was impossible.
She was an artist, sure, but she wasn’t a starving one. If anything, she was rich, and well renowned for her work, to the point where I’d admit I was even proud of everything she’d achieved. But somehow, she’d kept Seamus out of the limelight. I knew that was because of us. The second a picture of him flashed online, it was more likely we’d spot it and spot him. Declan and Seamus’s likeness was incredible. There was no doubting his heritage.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 7
