I grimaced. “Maybe.” Deciding we needed a change of topic, I asked, “Did you love your great-grandparents?”
If I’d expected a yes, I didn’t get it. He snorted before he let out a hoot. “No. They treated Mom like shit.”
“They did?” I asked, annoyed on Aela’s behalf. “Why?”
“They were Catholic,” was his wry retort. “She was unwed and had a baby. She had no desire to get married, did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and it killed them that she was successful at it too. They shamed her for her art, discredited her when they could, but they didn’t deserve to die the way they did.”
I leaned forward. “How did they die?”
He stuck his finger under his chin, in the soft flesh there that was perfectly shaped to take the muzzle of a gun. I’d shoved one there many a time myself.
“Execution style,” I mused, a little taken aback that I was having this conversation with my fourteen-year-old.
I was pretty sure Aela would be pissed if she knew the topic of our discussion, but having made the decision to let the ball lie in Seamus’s court, to let him lead the way and figure out how he wanted to get to know me, how he wanted to take this forward, I wasn’t about to change the subject and treat him like he was a little kid.
He wasn’t.
I knew exactly what boys his age were capable of, and even if he didn’t have the experience I had, he was a lot wiser to the world than I’d thought.
“Your mom know you’re aware of all this?”
“No.”
“How did you find out?”
“You said it yourself. I’m like Conor.”
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath. “That’s exactly what we need.”
Pride made his shoulders straighten, and I almost rolled my eyes at the sight.
Instead, I scraped a hand over my face and questioned, “Why would anyone execute a pair of great-grandparents?”
“They were jerks.”
“Jerks are rarely slaughtered,” I dismissed. “They must have pissed someone off.”
“The Garda said it was a home invasion gone wrong.” He shrugged. “I don’t think that’s true.”
I contemplated that, contemplated his stance, and asked, “Do you want me to look into it? Is that it?”
“If you want to.” His gaze flickered over to me and back to the screen in a flash. “I didn’t even like them.”
But he’d loved them, otherwise why would he ask for help?
“They treated Mom like shit,” he carried on.
“They were good to you though.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Granddad had four brothers. That’s how I know how brothers usually act around each other. He hated two of them, one refused to go to the funeral. Then the other two, he was on speaking terms with, but they weren’t real friendly.”
“We weren’t raised that way. We were raised to go to war for one another,” I informed him softly. “We give each other crap, but when shit rains on us, we always buckle down and protect the family. It’s how we’re wired.”
“That’s intense.”
“I guess it is.” Softly, I murmured, “I’ll ask Brennan. When he was there last, he made some connections in the Garda.” Well, he’d coordinated a mutual exchange with the IRA. We shipped them guns, and they acted as our heroin mules. “He’ll put some feelers out, so will Conor. Once people know who’s asking the questions, they’ll soon fold to the pressure.”
“Really?”
“Really.” But he didn’t sound impressed.
“Corruption in action,” he muttered.
“Yeah. Everywhere’s corrupt, kid.”
“I hate that.”
“Want to change it?” I shrugged. “Not a bad aim for someone to have.”
“Even though that’s how you make your money? Through corruption?”
“Corruption eases bureaucratic paths. It doesn’t make the money. It just facilitates it.”
When his shoulders hunched, I knew he didn’t like that answer. “Do you think it’s impossible to eradicate?”
“Yes,” I replied candidly, but something about the conversation set me on edge.
He wasn’t the only person in the room who could hot read another, and I had a helluva lot more experience at it.
His great-grandparents had definitely been executed. He, without a shadow of a doubt, wanted answers. His great-uncles didn’t get on with his great-grandfather, and he was genuinely curious about the relationship I had with my brothers, but this line of questioning came from somewhere else.
When I was lying on that hospital bed, my heart attacking itself, my body struggling to survive, I’d made a vow to myself. Hell, I’d made several vows. To let the kid come to know me how he wanted. On his own time. But, also, and more importantly, to let him choose his life path.
Even if that meant getting in Da’s face and taking a beating or ten. The old man might not be as strong as he used to be, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have goons who’d hold us in place.
Eoghan was the recent recipient of that kind of a beatdown. He’d been dithering about marrying Inessa, and Da had made the decision for him.
Something he tended to do frequently—make decisions for all of us.
Well, Seamus was mine, and I’d be the one acting as the go-between for grandfather and grandson. First, I had to figure out what was going down here.
It felt like a test.
One I was pretty sure I’d just failed.
“A lot of things are geared toward corruption in this country,” I began slowly, trying to get my thoughts together. I hadn’t expected any of this kind of chatter today. Fuck, we’d talked sports and cartoons since I’d come home. This was heavy shit, and not something I’d figured a kid his age would even be interested in. “It takes a lot of coordinating to elicit change. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just takes a lot of good people investing in the future. Improbable, yeah. Impossible...not necessarily.”
“Same number of letters.”
I smirked. “Smartass.” His grin was swift but sheepish. “What I’m trying to say is that if there are enough people out there who want things to be different, then it can be done.”
My words had his cocky humor disappearing, and in his eyes, I saw I’d replaced his uncertainty with hope.
Hope was a dangerous thing.
But in my kid, it was the only thing I wanted to cultivate.
AELA
“You didn’t have to do that.”
One thing I liked about being in the kitchen was the ability to hear everything the two men in my life had to say, all without having to be in there. I wanted Seamus to get to know his father because, whether I wanted it or not, I had no alternative. If we were going to be here, if we were stuck together as a unit, then Seamus needed to understand what and who his father was.
“Of course I did.” He tipped his chin up at me, slowly turning his head to the side and switching his focus off his phone and onto me.
I hated how my body responded to having his full attention. There was a time when that was all it would take for me to leap into bed after having stripped. Like I was nothing but his personal sex doll. Only, he’d never made me feel that way.
I’d always felt loved.
Which was the biggest joke of all. Something I’d figured out way too late for my own good.
“You heard the conversation?” he queried, and I dipped my chin.
“That’s the beauty of having walls made out of paper, I suppose,” I mused, as I strolled into the living room, deciding to get closer to the beast. Closer than I’d come in days.
Call me a chickenshit, or call me busy, but I’d been staying out of his way. Not only so he and Seamus had time together, but also because I…
God.
I didn’t like me around Declan.
It had taken the few hours I’d been with him the day he’d come home from that freaky hospital setup to realize that.
&n
bsp; Plus, aside from being honest with myself, I also had a lot of things to deal with. The dean at the art school where I worked wasn’t happy with me quitting without notice, and I felt really shitty considering I’d been helping a lot of students and was leaving them in the lurch.
Even though Amaryllis had gotten me into this mess, she was one of the pupils I was going to miss. Her art? Incredible. Absolutely astonishing.
I saw true talent in her, and while I was supposed to cultivate it in all my students, sometimes, it was easier said than done. Sometimes, the technical ability was there, but the spark? It wasn’t.
I came across a lot of sparkless people, but Amaryllis and a handful of others, like Chloe Downrey, a potter, and James Vance, a sculptor, were three of them.
Then I’d had a few long calls with my new lawyer over my financial records, and the Feds had demanded I turn over all communications with a couple of people who’d once paid me a lot of money to create something for them.
I was cooperating, because I saw no reason not to.
I’d done nothing wrong…
Of course, I’d tell them where to go if I didn’t have Seamus. Amazing what having a child did to you. Had you turning against your past, your instincts, your smarts, and doing what was right so that it could be a teachable moment.
“You knew he was aware of his great-grandparents’ deaths?”
There was very little love lost between my grandparents and myself. Mostly because I’d grown tired a long time ago of being called a slattern. Still, Seamus was right. They hadn’t deserved to die that way.
“I did.” My lips twisted as I leaned back on my hands. “Seamus knows most things. He has an uncanny way about him.”
“That why you’re here now? When he’s taking a shower?”
“Yes. As eco-conscious as he is, what he finds to do in the shower is usually long enough to make a three-course meal.”
He smiled, even though I knew he didn’t want to. “The joys of the fully functioning penis.”
My nose crinkled. “I’m well aware of how they work.”
“I know you are. I taught you most of what you know,” he rumbled, but I saw the flash of anger in his eyes.
Call me stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself from rising to the challenge. “What about the way I’ve lived my life tells you I’ve been a saint since I left?”
His mouth tightened, but it was a testament, I thought, to how tired he was… he didn’t take the bait. “He’s idealistic.”
“He is. Very. He wants to change things. I’m glad you picked up on that before you broke his heart.”
“Would you have let me?”
“I wouldn’t have leaped into the conversation to save him. Idealism hurts. And the truth hurts even more. But I know, coming from someone like you, with your background, he’d have responded either way.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he rasped, a nerve ticking in his jaw.
I tapped my fingers against the table as I let my gaze drift over him. Maybe it was a proprietary glance, maybe it was more of a scan, I’d never be able to say, but what I could say?
“If you’d broken his dreams, he’d have been angry. But he’d have figured out a way to temper the dreams and make them reality. He isn’t the kind of kid just to give up without a fight.
“You didn’t break his dreams though. You gave him hope. As dangerous as hope is, that you’re you, that your background is what it is, it fuels him further.”
“He told you what he wants to be when he grows up?”
I laughed, unable to stop myself, and he groaned, knowing full well what my answer was going to be.
“A lawyer. Or a cop, let me guess.”
The smile hit my eyes. “You’re in luck. A lawyer.”
He blew out a breath. “Thank fuck for that. Da’s getting on. He’s not as young as he used to be. If he found out his grandkid wanted to be a cop, he’d be the one having a heart attack.”
Probably.
“I was relieved as well, but I didn’t instill blind faith in the police system.”
“Smart lass.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. We both know what blind faith leads to.”
His mouth twisted. “Adoration?”
“Yeah.” I caught his eye. “What are we doing here, Declan?”
He didn’t act coyly, didn’t try to prevaricate. “You know what you’re doing here, Aela.”
“I can read between the lines, but you have a life that has nothing to do with me anymore. And vice versa. You probably have a girlfriend, maybe even a significant other.”
He snorted. “What do you think I am? A legitimate businessman? A significant other—” He hooted out a laugh like that was the funniest shit I could have ever said.
I scowled at him. “If you’re not going to take this seriously—”
“I’m taking it seriously. Very seriously. We’ll be getting married the second I can stand up to take a leak—”
Nose crinkling at his crudity, I grumbled, “Gross.”
“Thought you’d be used to worse with a teenager around the place.”
“He’s a lot more respectful than you are,” I said with a sniff.
“Wouldn’t be hard,” he agreed.
“What if I don’t want to get married?”
“The second you kept Seamus, you knew, someday, you’d end up with my ring on your finger. Don’t try to lie to me.”
“After Deirdre died, I thought you hated me. I knew it was a possibility, but…”
“But?”
“But you looked at me like I was a piece of shit on your shoes, Declan,” I murmured. “Sure, I knew you’d want to marry because of Shay, but I wasn’t sure if you’d ever be able to put yourself through it.”
He reached up and plucked at his bottom lip, tugging it from his teeth, before fiddling with the soft morsel. Once upon a time, I’d owned him as much as he owned me. If I wanted to bite him there, I could. I would.
Now? He was a stranger. A stranger whose body I knew intimately. Who knew my body intimately.
The way he stroked his finger along his bottom lip had my senses stirring in a way they really shouldn’t.
Declan was thinner than the last time I’d seen him, he had a white pallor—like he was sick, which he was, and like he was in a lot of pain, which he was—and he was wearing basketball shorts and nothing more. The man I knew existed in expensive leather jackets and jeans that cost a month’s rent. If not that, then suits which made a mortgage payment look cheap. And I wasn’t going to lie, my art might be all about the anarchy, raging against the machine, but there was no prettier picture than this man in a tailored suit.
Who in God’s name needed porn when you had him all gussied up for work?
“If I tell you the truth, you won’t believe me.”
His words had me scowling at him. “Won’t believe you? Maybe you should give me a chance to figure out for myself whether I believe you or not, huh? Jesus, I’m not fifteen anymore, Declan. I have a brain, a rational one. I can think of—”
Before I could continue, my cell phone rang. When Caro’s face popped up on the screen, I grimaced. Declan, seeing it, grunted, and held out his hand for my cell.
A little agitatedly, I clutched my phone to my chest and asked, “What are you going to say to her?”
“Only what needs to be said,” was his calm reply.
I was a woman who’d been independent from the age of seventeen. Who’d raised a child alone in a family who thought unwed mothers should be sold off to convents to do the goddamn laundry, and their babies should be separated from them to be handed off to ‘good’, childless, Catholic families in the parish. I’d started a career that had made me millions, was a name to be envied in certain circles.
I did not need a man to look after me.
But the way the O’Donnellys did it, God help me, it twisted me up inside.
They didn’t coddle or overshadow. They didn’t overwhelm. There was just no shadow of a d
oubt in their mind that certain things were women’s work and other aspects were men’s.
Of course, that was going to get fucking irritating over time. I hated being pigeonholed. But damn, right now? With this investigation driving me batshit?
I slowly held out the phone for him to take.
One phone call to a traitorous FBI agent wasn’t me giving up my independence.
It was me letting someone who knew these people better than I did take charge.
“She clearly wants to talk, or she’d have hung up by now,” he noted, before he connected the call, put it on speaker, and as he raised his hand to his lips in the universal sign for silence, he murmured, “Why, Special Agent Dunbar, what can I do for you?”
The line throbbed with irritation. Seriously. I didn’t even know that was possible, but Caro had just proved it was.
“This is Aela O’Neill’s phone. I’d like to speak with her, please.”
“You won’t be talking to my fiancée again, Special Agent,” he said cordially, even as a wicked light danced in his eyes when I harrumphed at him.
He knew there’d be hell to pay for that later.
We both knew the marriage certificate was a done deal. There was no getting out of it for either of us. But that didn’t mean he could talk about it all blasé. Not without me giving him shit over it.
“Your fiancée?” Her voice cut off on a squeak of surprise, which, in turn, bewildered me. If she was into the O’Donnelly’s business as Brennan and Conor had made out on the drive to NYC, well… surely she knew how they rolled?
Kids outside of wedlock just weren’t the done thing.
“Yes. We’re engaged. Now, I’m sure you’re well aware of what that means. As rich as she was before, as powerful, she’s coming under the umbrella of my position.”
“What position is that, O’Donnelly?” she snarled. “A gangster? A drug lord? A kingpin?”
His lips twisted, but his gaze broke away from mine and he turned to look out the window beyond. “Such a low opinion of me, Dunbar. I mean, what did I ever do to make you think I was anything other than a legitimate businessman?”
“I’ll get you one day, you son of a bitch,” she sneered.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 16
