Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3)

by Serena Akeroyd

  He gulped, but when he nodded, I sensed how badly he wanted to believe me.

  Shay burrowed his face under my chin, reminding me that, no matter how old he thought he was, he was still young. So young. Just a baby.

  It didn’t matter to me that at his age I was just about to meet Dec. That a few years later I was giving birth to Shay. He’d always be my baby. Always. And I wanted something different for him.

  I wanted the best.

  Running my hand over his head in an attempt to soothe him, I asked, “Where’s your dad?” Funny how I didn’t even think to call him Declan.

  “Him and the uncles are in the living room.”

  My brows rose at that. Seemed like we were on the same page—claiming the O’Donnelly clan as ours.

  “Why?”

  “They’re talking about what happened.”

  That had me frowning.

  Why were they using the living room?

  “Is your grandfather here?”

  “No.”

  After what had just gone down, that Aidan Sr. wasn’t here was telling.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetheart?” I questioned, even though my brain was whirring with a million questions.

  “You know the night when I hid in the safe room?”

  Hard to forget.

  “Yes, love, I do.”

  “You remember before you came home, Caro was babysitting me?”

  I hummed my agreement.

  “I saw something on the news.”

  “What was it?” The kid was just throwing stuff at me today, and hell, my brain wasn’t ready to function. Not without coffee. And an Ibuprofen.

  “It was weird. It was about a funeral.”

  “What about it?”

  “I just happened to see it because Caro was watching the news, but it was this man called Benito Fieri. The news was saying how he was an alleged mob boss, and his son had just died in prison.”

  “Okay,” I intoned slowly, wondering where this was going and why my son was talking about a mafia Don.

  It wasn’t like everyone in the Five Points didn’t know exactly who Benito Fieri was.

  “I knew him.”

  “That’s not possible, sweetheart.”

  “It is.” He gulped. “You remember when we were in West Orange? You were making that big chandelier.”

  For a human trafficker.

  God help me.

  I really needed to run some kind of tracing service on my potential clients.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I used to play in the big house. When you weren’t looking, I’d go inside and mess around with some of the sand and stuff. The builders never seemed to mind.”

  I tensed up, and though I was annoyed because I’d worked on Donovan Lancaster’s chandelier back when the property was still a construction site, what was the point in getting mad about old news when my kid was evidently going through something here?

  “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be mad.”

  “Yeah, I would have been. What’s going on, Shay? What else are you trying to tell me?”

  He pulled back to look at me, and his eyes were bright with tears. “I saw something I shouldn’t have.”

  The horror in his voice had me squeezing him. “What was it?”

  “The man on the TV, him and this other guy, they were sitting down in one of the rooms that was finished.” He bit his bottom lip. “There was another man, he was like a guard, and he had a gun pointed at this woman.” He clenched his eyes shut. “The man, the guard, I mean, he shot the lady. But before that, they hurt her. Badly.”

  I stiffened. “What?”

  “I know you won’t believe me, but I swear it’s true.”

  I shook him a little. “Seamus, you saw somebody get killed?” And tortured?

  “I did,” he whispered miserably, and I knew he was on the brink of bawling. Jesus, I couldn’t blame him. I felt like bawling too.

  “Did they see you?”

  “N-No.”

  Relief filled me. “Okay, so that’s good. It’s all good.” I squeezed him. “You should have told me sooner—”

  “I told Caro, Mom.” He gulped. “I trusted her. I-I thought she was your friend. I thought she was safe. That night, I had a bad dream again, and she came in and asked me if I wanted to talk about it. I was stupid, because I did. I never said a word to anyone, not even the shrink, but seeing that guy on the TV just messed with me.

  “H-He was so mean. He just smiled and barked stuff at the guard, and whenever the woman cried out, he’d grin, like he was enjoying it.”

  Everyone knew Benito Fieri was a sadist.

  He would have enjoyed it.

  “It was like I was watching it all over again. It was stuck on repeat in my head, so I told her.”

  My jaw clenched as reality hit.

  Caroline hadn’t just lied to me for years, pretending to be my friend… she was also a Famiglia informant. That was why, when I got back from Manhattan, the hitman had sneaked into our house… They weren’t after us because we were tied to Declan. But because of what Seamus had seen.

  And whoever the woman was, it was bad. Bad enough to need to kill a small kid.

  The murder charge wouldn’t matter. No, she, their victim, was the reason for the hit.

  Before nausea could strike, Seamus’s shaky voice continued, “Today, at the boardwalk, I heard one of the guys who killed George—” Wait! George was dead? “I-I heard him ask for the Westie boy.”

  They’d known we were there?

  Oh, sweet fuck. That meant either Jerry or Liam worked for the Famiglia too? Only they and George had known where we were going today. And if George was dead, then…

  A shaken breath escaped me as I tried to process a million things all at once. I hadn’t woken up with a headache, just stiff and sore everywhere else, but I sure as hell had one now. Unable to compute what he was saying, a little dumbly, I asked, “Did you tell your father?”

  He tucked his face into my throat again. “I did.”

  Though he wasn’t as creative as me, I knew how his brain worked, and I knew what he’d seen had been torturing him for a long time, so I did what I always did—I tried to soothe him in the only way I knew how. “Describe the lady to me.”

  When he did, it was like I’d cut open a festering wound that gushed its poison all over me. As I rubbed his back, as he talked, relief hit me, and I realized I was thankful. So fucking thankful that Declan was at my side, and that the harsh realities of his life were tangling with mine.

  Because the threat against Seamus would be taken out immediately.

  Caroline Dunbar, did she but know it, had just signed her death warrant, and call me a cold bitch, but I’d be the first to dance on her grave when Declan protected our boy and shoved a bullet in that pig’s skull.

  And when Benito Fieri, who dared to think he could take out my son who’d witnessed his sins, went for a swim with concrete boots, I’d piss on his grave after and I’d laugh as I did it.

  Twenty-Nine

  Aidan Jr.

  When Da strolled in, his brow furrowed, his eyes loaded with the wildness that overtook him when he was involved in wet work, I threw him a towel.

  “What’s so important that you disturbed me?” he growled, wiping his bloody hands on the fabric as I leaned back in my seat.

  Ever since we’d learned the extent of the holes in our organization, we’d been getting deeper down the rabbit hole as we struggled to find out who we could trust.

  And who we couldn’t.

  The poor bastard at the end of my father’s wrath tonight was Jerry, an old Five Pointer who’d been close to retirement. All he’d had to do was drive Aela, my brother’s woman, and their kid around the city. Nothing more, nothing less. But he’d turned traitor.

  With George dead, and Liam half dead in the ICU, we knew it was Jerry who’d given the Italians Aela and Shay’s location, and no
w my father was currently squeezing details out of him like juice from a lemon.

  “I called this meeting tonight because it’s time we discussed the next steps we’re going to take.”

  Da frowned as he peered around the council room. It was inside a safe room, the air controlled, the sound proofed. It was like being in an iron lung. I fucking hated it, even if I understood the necessity.

  The urge for an Oxycontin was like a mosquito bite I needed to scratch. This was just the start too. It’d work its way up to chickenpox that would make skinning myself just to alleviate the inflammation a wonderful prospect.

  At the moment, it was manageable

  Barely.

  “Where are Tony, Mark, and Paul?” he grumbled, referring to the men he considered his advisors. “They should be here for this.”

  “How do we know they haven’t gotten to them too?”

  “We don’t even know who they are,” Da snapped.

  “Yeah, so while shit’s up in the air, we need to keep things nice and tight, don’t we, Da?” Eoghan pointed out, and because, for some weird fucking reason, our father always listened to his youngest before he listened to his goddamn eldest, Da simmered down.

  The council room was simple, chairs and a table, not much else. But there was a very fine drinks tray, and uncaring that his fingers were stained with Jerry’s blood, he strolled over to it, lifted the bottle, and poured himself a shot.

  His hackles were up, even though Eoghan had calmed him down. I knew why too.

  We prided ourselves on loyalty.

  We weren’t a brotherhood, but a family.

  Da looked after people. They did right by us, we did right by them.

  They didn’t, we ended them.

  But to learn that someone, some-fucking-how, had managed to get to my da’s grandson had tipped him over the edge. Jerry wasn’t going to last much longer than a night, and that was without Declan getting his hands on him.

  By rights, Dec should be the one doling out the punishment, but where Da was concerned, and when he had that look in his eye, you never said no to him.

  I didn’t even think Ma did in those circumstances, and she had more control over him than any of us.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he rumbled. “Got men turning tail who’ve been like family to us. Men getting killed who’re loyal. I don’t like it.” He took a deep sip. “I don’t like it at all.”

  Declan cleared his throat, and I knew he was nervous. We’d all decided that there was no need for any light to be shone on the fact that Caroline Dunbar had been blackmailing Dec for years. We were focusing on shit that needed attention, not old news.

  Sure, that old news was incendiary, but we didn’t need to split Da’s attention. Killing Dec for past indiscretions when he’d been nothing but a kid wasn’t going to get us anywhere.

  “Caroline Dunbar’s been a thorn in our side since Jimmy D died. It fits that she’d try to get us to betray one another.”

  “True. I never understood it. He was a fucking snitch. What kind of father is that to be proud of?”

  We all looked at each other, a rueful resignation in our eyes. Da couldn’t see the forest for the trees sometimes. He’d never think that he wasn’t much to look up to either. That would simply never occur to him.

  “Well, either way, she loved him, and she’s been trying to get back at us for years,” Declan replied. “I’m just surprised she has the Italian’s ear.”

  Da spun around at that. “This war’s been going on too long.”

  “We’ve been thinking about that. We know Domenico Rossi is the next in line after Fieri. If we take him, use him as leverage, get them to stop the war—”

  Da raised a hand to stop me. “Fuck that.”

  “Da, we can’t afford to be fighting a war on all fronts,” I argued.

  But he shook his head. “We don’t go in there like pussies. It’s time that fucker was taken out. Fieri thinks he can target my grandson?” he raged. “Then he’ll learn the price that comes with that.” He pointed at Eoghan with a hand that was stained with another man’s blood. “He’ll be well protected. You figure out a way to get to him, take him out without putting yourself at risk, and do it fast.”

  “It’ll take time. You know I need to learn his routine,” Eoghan said simply, unaffected by the prospect of killing the Italian Don.

  Not that I blamed him. We were all too at ease with killing. It was shameful really.

  “That’s not a problem. Learn it, learn it well, but take him out. I want no mistakes,” Da rumbled as he slammed his whiskey back. “As for that bitch, kill her too.”

  “No. We need to know what she knows,” Finn argued. “She’s a fountain of information that we can twist to our own benefit.”

  “You’d let her live after the stunt she pulled?” Da challenged, his eyes flaring wide. “Impossible.”

  “There’s a wider game at play, Aidan. You have to see that,” Finn reasoned. “People are pulling strings, and the only way to know who’s at the top is to get close to someone who’s a part of the organization. Caroline Dunbar’s been playing games throughout her entire career. We need to make her scared. We need to turn her to our side. We need the information she has.”

  Da’s jaw ground down so hard it was a wonder his teeth didn’t turn to dust, but even though he was half feral, I knew Finn’s cold logic had gotten through to him.

  “What if she turns on us?”

  “We have leverage on her,” I confirmed, casting a glance at Conor who nodded.

  Not just how she’d been blackmailing Declan for a decade or more which none of us wanted to use considering it would implicate Dec in a cover-up, but ever since Brennan had picked Dunbar up last night and stored her at the warehouse for processing, Conor had been burrowing into her life. It was a lot easier when you had the key to her house.

  “We do. There’s a safe as well. She must keep a lot of information in there. I’m sure that will help tie her to us.”

  Da’s shoulders bunched up. “I don’t like it. She’ll try to betray us.”

  “So we have to outsmart her,” Finn countered. “I think Conor and I are more than capable of doing that.”

  Because the pair of them had proven themselves time and time again, Da grunted. “The second she tries something, you slice her throat. You got me?”

  “We got you.” We all said it in one voice, incidentally, but it seemed to pack a punch.

  He grunted again, then made for the door. “You find out if Tony, Mark, and Paul are dirty. Let me know, because I’m in the mood for slicing some throats myself tonight.”

  As he walked out, Conor muttered, “I might plant some evidence against them myself. I hate those fuckers.”

  “You’re not the only one,” I said dryly, but I turned to Declan whose fists were strained as he curled them about his seat. “You doing okay, deartháir?”

  His mouth tightened. “I should be at home. Either that, or I should be killing Dunbar.”

  Finn shook his head. “I get it, I do. But you know why we’re doing this.”

  He gritted his teeth, and at that moment, he looked so like Da it was uncanny. “Just because I understand something doesn’t mean I like it.” He slammed his hand into his fist. “Da’s going to have to share his spoils.”

  When he stormed off, following Da, I watched him go.

  “This is a clusterfuck,” Eoghan rasped.

  “I can’t believe they tried to target one of our kids,” Finn concurred, and I saw, deep in his eyes, how that infuriated him. With Jacob still so young, I got it.

  How couldn’t I?

  “We’ll show them,” I replied, my voice as soothing as it could be when I was furious too.

  “That a promise?” Finn asked, his gaze on mine.

  “It’s a fucking vow.”

  DECLAN

  Three weeks later

  As I grabbed the leg of the stool with my foot, I dragged it over the rough concrete floor. When the bitc
h flinched at the admittedly annoying noise, her head whipping from side to side as she tried to process what was happening, I carried on. Not stopping until the stool was directly in front of her.

  She dangled.

  There was no nicer way to phrase it.

  Her arms were behind her back, cuffed with her own handcuffs, her feet were tied together, and her graying ponytail was hanging on a meat hook. Just high enough that she had to stand on her tiptoes. It was a delicate kind of torture, but the strain was wearing on her.

  I was kind of hoping she’d make herself bald.

  The fucker deserved it.

  Before I took a seat, I reached up and quickly tore off the duct tape from her mouth. As she screamed, she swayed, and as she swayed, she screamed even more as her hair pulled at the roots.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Caroline Dunbar hollered.

  “I think you know who I am,” I rumbled, watching as she tensed. Her head tilted to the side like she was trying to process all the information I gave up with that one sentence. For three weeks, we’d held her, and that she was starting to crack up was only a bonus to what I had planned tonight.

  “D-Declan O’Donnelly.”

  “Give that girl a coconut,” Brennan called out.

  “I’ll give her something,” I growled, leaning forward to shove her.

  Her scream, her pain shouldn’t have been a delight to behold, but it was.

  If this cunt had her way, my kid would be dead.

  She’d put him in the crosshairs.

  And though it was painful, though it fucking hurt, I was doing this for Seamus.

  I was going to let her live for him.

  Someone was going to die tonight, but it wouldn’t be her. Eoghan was out, seeing to that particular job, and here I was, allowed to let loose on the woman who’d nearly torn my family from me before I had a chance to start living for the first time in my fucking life.

  But I had a choice.

  I could think smart or I could think vengeance, and in the days ahead, I knew we had to think smart.

  Jerry, a Five Pointer who’d been with us for forty-four years, had been turned. Fucking turned. The Italians had used their little battle as a cover-up to get to my boy, all because Jerry had told them where he was taking them to. Now George was dead, Liam would never be the same again, my son was screaming the fucking house down at night whenever he managed to get to sleep, and we had, only fuck knew, how many rats and snitches just waiting to sell us out.