by Jane Henry
Carson: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance
Dangerous Doms
Jane Henry
CARSON: A DARK IRISH MAFIA ROMANCE
By: Jane Henry
Copyright 2020 by Jane Henry
Cover photography by Popkitty Designs
Cover art by Wander Aguiar
Synopsis
Megan
Carson Flynn is dangerous and brooding.
Intensely possessive.
Angry, fierce...
Haunted.
He's a member of the Clan. A criminal.
And a single father who'd burn the world for his daughter.
When he turns his eye on me, I know I should run.
I should definitely hide.
But it's already too late...
Because when Carson sets his mind on something, he gets what he wants.
And what he wants... is me.
Prologue
Carson
The phone call wakes me out of a dead sleep. I roll over and look at the time. Two o’clock in the morning. I blink, bleary-eyed, when the phone rings again, and stare at the empty bed beside me. Eve’s gone on holiday with a friend of hers, and I’ve been watching the baby on my own. I just got her back to sleep.
The phone rings again.
Keenan.
“Hello?”
“Carson.”
His voice is tight and laced with pain, as if he’s braced himself to make this call. Something’s wrong.
I sit up, my heart racing, and I glance again at the empty bed beside me.
“What is it?”
“There was an accident,” he begins. “The police called me first. They didn’t have your number.”
Cold dread shivers down my spine. I’m fully awake now, and this moment feels surreal, as if frozen in time, suspended in ice, a moment I already know I’ll never eviscerate from my memory.
“What kind of an accident?” I ask. My voice isn’t my own, like it’s borrowed from an alien life form.
He gives me the news that shatters my world.
Rain.
Car accident.
She didn’t make it.
It’s like an invisible hand draws down a shade over my life.
My heart.
My mind.
I slither down into darkness.
Chapter 1
Carson
Six months later
A crisp wind bites through the thin cotton jacket I wear, and I pull my little girl tighter to me, turning her away from the biting cold. She burrows into my chest and curls her chubby fist right under my chin. My heart swells, and I bend, take her hand in mine, and kiss her dimpled fingers.
“Daddy, cold,” she whispers, before she lays her head on my shoulder.
“Aye,” I whisper back. “We’ll go home now.”
She nods her head, her curls bobbing. At two years old, she’s got wispy, chestnut-brown curls that are all her own, but pale blue eyes that remind me of her mother.
Before we go, I bend and place the small bundle of wildflowers Maeve gave me from her garden on the grave.
It was six months ago today that I got the call from the police that Eve was killed in a car accident. Six months ago today my world came to a stuttering, halting stop.
Babies don’t always know when tragedy strikes, every new day as promising as the last. And little Breena was no different. While police headed to our flat, Keenan spread the word, and my brothers poured in to help me and to offer support. Little Breena laughed and played, and for a time, was distracted when she called for “mum.”
The first night, I was able to divert her attention and put Breena to bed. Maeve, the mother to all of us in the brotherhood and granny to all the children, stayed over to help, rocking her and singing the lullabies she likely crooned to her own boys. She got Breena to sleep, but it was only a matter of time before Breena knew that mum wasn’t coming home.
The days run into one another like the waves in the sea below the cliffs. Pushing and pulling, crashing and lapping at the shore. The tide comes in and the tide goes out, the powerful water eroding the craggy rocks.
I push myself forward for Breena’s sake, but still, I know I’m only going through the motions. My heart was buried with Eve.
“Carson.”
I start and turn to see Father Finn in the shadows behind me, his hands shoved into his pockets. He wears a black cardigan and looks even older than when he presided over Eve’s funeral mass. Younger brother to the late Seamus McCarthy, he’s as much a pillar of the community as the younger McCarthys, and I often wonder if his connection is what causes the deep lines between his brows and his receding hairline. Every time I see him, he looks as if he’s aged.
“Father.”
He looks at Breena and smiles. “Fancy a cup of tea in the rectory?” he asks. “The housekeeper left a plate of fresh biscuits.”
I feel my body tighten at his suggestion. This is no casual invitation to tea in his private residence. Instinct tells me he knows something. Something about Eve’s death.
Why didn’t he call a meeting? Call Keenan? Why come directly to me?
Breena looks up at me and places her little fingers on my chin, bringing my eyes to hers. She does this to get my attention, and she gets it, every time.
“I yike biscuits,” she whispers.
I smile at her. “Aye,” I tell her. “I know.”
I give her belly a tickle, and she doubles over in my arms with a giggle.
“Thank you, father,” I tell him. “That would be nice.”
I’m not sure why I agree. I’m a private person, and I tend to keep it that way. I don’t frequent the club my brothers go to, and in the past few months it seems I’ve become even more introverted. I take care of Breena, and I take care of myself.
For a few months following Eve’s death, I did nothing but survive. It was the only option. I got up, fed the baby, walked through the motions of the day. My boss Keenan gave me leave not to work until I “got my feet back under me.” But I worked nonetheless.
As bookkeeper for the McCarthy Clan, my job is difficult, but I’ve always liked good, hard work. They kept me out of the harder work of the Clan, though. I haven’t been to a meeting, voted on a decision, or done damn near anything since Eve was taken, and I’m done with it. I’m ready to resume my life again. That part, anyway.
I turn again to shield Breena from the wind as I follow Father Finn’s steady footsteps up the roughly hewn stone steps that lead to the rectory.
I haven’t been to the rectory since I was a lad, as an altar server for Holy Family Parish. Maeve talked me into serving, said my mum would be proud. The graveyard sits right behind the church, both new and ancient tombstones stark reminders of our mortality, and from where I stand, I can see the darkened stained glass windows of the church. I wonder if it smells the way it did when I was younger, like incense, burning candles, and old wood polished with lemon oil. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been to church in ages.
I watch Father Finn’s slow, deliberate movements, mulling over what he’s about to tell me. Uncle to the Clan Chief Keenan, vicar of Ballyhock, there isn’t a life that begins or ends without his knowledge. Over the years, he’s become an informant to the Clan, though he has compunctions about how and when. It’s a fine balance serving both God and the Irish mob.
The heavy wooden door shuts with a bang behind me. Breena shivers.
“Where are we going, daddy?” she whispers.
“Biscuits, remember?” I say.
“Home?”
“No. We’re going to the rectory.”
She quiets, but ho
lds tighter to me, as we walk up the rickety stairs to the back door. I’m unprepared for how my memories return, stark and vivid. My mother, scrubbing the floor of the rectory, not because she was hired to do so but out of the goodness of her heart. Housekeeper for the McCarthys, she would do her work there first. But she came of the generation that believed men of the cloth were to be revered, and during her spare time she would cook for the priests and clean their home.
I can still hear her talking to me in her clear, determined voice, thick with the brogue of Northern Ireland. “I may not be an educated woman, son, but I take pride in the work that I do. And if there’s anything I’ve taught you I hope it’s this: hard work and education will never fail you.”
She died when I was a child, leaving me in the care of Seamus McCarthy. I don’t know if she ever fought to reconcile her allegiance to the Clan and to the church, but if she did, she’s not alone. Father Finn straddles the line as well.
“Come in,” he says with a rare smile at Breena. He’s a sober sort, but when he smiles, he reminds me of Father Christmas. Breena buries her head on my chest shyly.
It’s more brightly lit here than I remember. Some of my brothers of the Clan have come here to pay Father Finn a visit, but for some reason, I’ve not been one of them. I forgot how the old wood gleams under the overhead lighting. I forgot how the Celtic cross, larger than life, crafted with fine silver, hangs in the main entrance. I forgot the ancient, oval-shaped painting of the Madonna that hangs in the hallway near the stairs.
Threadbare burgundy carpet lines the floor, snaking upstairs along the stairwell to the second floor, where the bedrooms lie. Back when I was a child, four priests took residence here, though now Father Finn’s the only one. Occasionally, a seminarian from Europe will pass by, but he’s mostly alone.
“Cup of tea?” Father asks when we make it to the kitchen.
“Please,” I tell him.
“Yes, please,” Breena says.
I smile and catch Father’s eye. “She takes it plenty sweet with lots of cream.” In other words, only flavored with the barest hint of tea.
“Certainly,” Father Finn says.
He looks with concern at Breena, then back at me.
“I’d have preferred to have this conversation alone, Carson,” he says softly, after our tea’s made and sitting in front of us at the small, circular table.
I give him a sharp look but don’t respond.
“However, it’s time. I considered going to Keenan, but I’m afraid if I do, I’ll stir up trouble among clans.” It’s odd to me he’s chosen not to inform Keenan, my Clan brother and Chief. What is it he has to tell me?
I lift my cup and take a long pull from the steaming mug. I welcome the piping hot drink, allowing it to brace me for whatever he has to say.
“I know when… Eve was killed in that car accident, the men of the Clan investigated.”
“Aye,” I say, eying him warily. He’s one of our chief informants and allies in Ballyhock. Though the residents don’t know the intricacies of the jobs we do, they turn a blind eye happily. They don’t much care about illicit gun trade and financial transactions. Since Keenan’s took over leadership, we no longer contract paid hits, and we avoid the seedier work of drug trade and worse, leaving that to rival or neutral clans.
But when the livelihood of our brotherhood is at stake, it seems Father Finn is always in the know. He won’t betray what’s whispered to him in the privacy of the confessional, says he’s bound by vows to Rome to keep the sanctuary of the confessional. But he hears much within the walls of this church.
“And after your investigation, it came to light that it was an accident.”
I nod warily. I never believed it was an accident, but Keenan investigated as thoroughly as he could, and I believed what he told me. But now… now, the prickling suspicion that I’ve buried since her death resurfaces.
That her death wasn’t an accident.
That someone was, indeed, responsible for her death.
Finn draws in a deep breath and hands Breena her treat. She won’t understand what we talk of, won’t know what he means.
“It wasn’t,” I say, confirming my suspicions before he can.
“No, son,” he says sadly, shaking his head before he runs a hand across his brow. “I think very little is when it comes to rival clans.”
Rival clans? Bloody hell.
“Who?” I ask him.
He hesitates, looks over my shoulder, and works his jaw for a moment. “I can’t confirm for sure.”
My temper rises, and I keep it in check with difficulty. If he can’t confirm it, what’s the fucking point of this conversation? It’s always the same way with him, giving us just enough information but not enough to implicate himself. I’d forgiven his cryptic messages before now, but this is personal.
“I can tell you this much. Before the night she went missing… A while back now, the whole Clan looked for her.” I nod. “You found her in Stone City.”
“Aye,” I say warily. I remember it well. She didn’t come home when she said, and I feared foul play. I found her in Stone City, unharmed, but after that night she came home different. Reserved. Afraid. I never could get her to tell me what troubled her and finally passed it off as my imagination. When you live among the men that I do, when your life is constructed of rules and codes and you’ve encountered enemies of the worst kind, you learn to suspect damn near everyone.
“She’d met up with an old time… friend of hers.”
Breena happily munches her biscuit, unaware of the fact that we’re talking about her mother. She reaches a tentative finger to my neck, tracing the signature Clan ink that marks me as mafia. It’s a stark reminder of who I am.
“I play on your phone, daddy?”
I take my phone out and hand it to her wordlessly. She grins, swipes it on, and starts slashing fruit with her fingers.
“Who?” I ask him. I can feel the familiar tightening in my body, my spine ramrod straight, heat rising in my chest.
“A friend from primary school,” he says. “Someone who knew her past and knew how to manipulate her.”
“Are you going to talk to me in riddles or tell me the truth?”
He puts a hand out palm down to calm me. I wait for him to speak. I’m thankful Breena’s occupied with her game, because normally she picks up on my mood. And right now, my mood is dark, angry, and brooding.
I’ve been working on moving on, knowing my woman wasn’t murdered.
But if he knows something else…
“There were things about Eve’s past she didn’t want you to know.”
“Aye.” I knew she came from a broken, dysfunctional home. I knew she lived in Stone City, one of the poorest cities in all of Ireland. She didn’t like to talk of these things. She hid them. But I knew.
“I don’t know who was ultimately responsible. I know who I suspect. But I can tell you this.”
I watch him wordlessly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“The answers you need are in Stone City.”
“You always do this.”
If he notes my anger, he doesn’t show it, his face as placid as if he were saying his prayers.
“Do what, son?”
“Give just enough information to piss someone off.”
Breena stills, watching me, so I modulate my tone. “It’s never enough of an answer.”
He nods slowly, methodically, as if thinking my words over.
“I can see why you’d think that,” he says. “But the truth is, it’s the only way.”
“The only way to what? Keep your nose clean?”
My mother would’ve backhanded me for mouthing off to a man of the cloth, but for Christ’s sake I have no patience. Not when it comes to Eve’s death. Not when I have to plan vengeance, fucking alone.
“No, Carson. To maintain the peace of Ballyhock. What you boys do is on your own terms, and you know that. I don’t interfere. I don’t agree with everything y
ou do, but I give you space to act how you think you should.”
Of course he does. He couldn’t control us if he tried. “But if I get too involved, I fail to be neutral. And I can’t do that.”
“But you’re a McCarthy. How can you be neutral? By birth you’ve already defied neutrality. You’re the brother of Seamus McCarthy.”
His jaw tightens, and for the briefest of moments, his eyes grow hard. “Because I serve both my family and God. And no, I haven’t given you enough information to simply anger you. I came to you because I know Eve’s death was no accident. I want justice for her, and for you. But going to Keenan brings war to Ballyhock.”
Always avoiding war. Always looking for a peaceable solution when none fucking exists.
I sigh. I know there’s no moving him, and there’s no point in needling him if it gets me nowhere.
“Can you at least tell me everything you know?”
Dread suffuses me at the thought of facing any of this without the backing of my brothers, or worse, having to deceive them.
“I will,” he says. “You have my word.”
I’ve never fed the flames of revenge. I’ve never sought justice for the life of someone I loved. I’ve never plotted to betray the men whose lives I’ve vowed to defend.
But tonight… tonight, everything’s changed.
Chapter 2
Megan
“Honest to God, Megan, I understand what you’re saying.” Aileen McCarthy, wife to my cousin Cormac, has had so much to drink her eyes are unfocused, and she’s having trouble standing. Her long blonde hair’s in a messy blob on top of her head, swinging precariously when she takes another drink. She holds her glass out to me, and instead of filling it, I take it from her and put it in the sink.
She frowns. “Hey!”
“Hey yourself,” I tell her. “If we send you home drunk off your arse, that behemoth of a husband of yours will come out swinging, and I’m not in the mood for wrestling cavemen this week.”
