This Life II

by Dee, Cara

  Kellan drove. I sat next to him and scrubbed my hands over my face.

  That had to have been the longest church service I’d ever attended.

  “Did Em ask where we’re going?” Kellan asked.

  “I just said I had a thing.” I rolled down the window and lit up a smoke. “She reads me too well and knows not to push it right now.”

  I knew she was anxious about everything—not to mention worried about everyone—and it’d gotten to the point where I’d made the decision to shut her out a bit. Work-wise, nothing else. Off the clock, if there’d been one, I needed her more than air. But right now, I wanted her to focus on herself and our baby. The stress wasn’t good for her.

  I took a deep drag from my smoke and unbuttoned my suit jacket.

  Patrick was three cars ahead of us, and when he took a turn, we took a turn.

  “She’ll be occupied for at least a couple hours with Eric,” I said. “I threw him under the bus this morning and told Emilia she could ask what’s bothering him.”

  Kellan winced and chuckled.

  To be honest, she’d probably get further than I had. I understood his concern; he felt guilty and was beginning to lean toward signing over custody of Autumn to his parents. He loved her stupid, and he wanted her to have a normal upbringing. Being with her grandparents would provide stability at least. My brief advice had been to reconsider because Autumn was a strong girl. She would recover from the damage this year had caused, and once we were all back in Philly, he could get a house near us out in Villanova. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it.

  I’d met Eric’s folks, and they were nice people. Older. They’d had Eric and his brother in their forties, but nice wouldn’t cut it for Autumn. She needed and deserved more than that. I thought she was best off with Eric.

  Besides, these past several months weren’t ideal to base a decision like that on. This wasn’t usually our life. This wasn’t normal. We’d never waged war against a big organization like the Avellinos before.

  We probably could’ve won sooner—much sooner—if we had no issues shedding a lot of blood and didn’t care about making a buck in the process.

  I cared. Our outfit was small as it was.

  It made me think of what Emilia had told me in Paris. To keep us together, to spare John’s life if he really was alive, and to use him to ensure the Murrays accepted the new O’Shea management.

  She had a point. We couldn’t afford to lose more people.

  Problem was, I’d hated that son of a bitch for the better part of a decade now.

  “Here we go,” Kellan murmured. We turned onto a narrow backstreet, and Pat’s car went down into the garage. “Want me to drop you here?”

  “This’ll be fine.” I flicked the smoke out the window. “If you’re feeling charitable, you can give Eric a break from my wife and tell him I want a surveillance report from Barcelona.”

  “I might feel charitable.” He inclined his head and pulled over. “I’ll wait here. The Lord be with you, baby face.”

  I barked out a laugh and got out of the car. “And with your spirit, daddy fucker.”

  He was never gonna forget the time Emilia feared I’d have a baby face underneath my beard. Now, every time I shaved, he called me baby face.

  I buttoned my suit jacket again and entered the building with a spare key. Then I took the stairs up to the second floor and used another key to get into a studio flat with a view of River Liffey.

  The rents here, man…

  The place smelled of expensive perfume and had Sarah written all over it. From designer clothes and handbags thrown on the couch to medical textbooks and, ha, that was funny—applications to Trinity College on the kitchen counter.

  I spotted Pat’s duffel bag by the bed and walked over to it.

  He’d be here any minute.

  I dug through the bag and located the little recorder. This should contain some interesting material I could listen to on the way back to Barcelona tomorrow. Slipping the recorder into the inner pocket of my suit, I trailed over to the couch and stared at the items Sarah had bought. My hands went into my pockets. My brows went up, and I shook my head.

  When I heard a key wriggling in the door, I stayed in place and just waited.

  My mother used to have a bag like that. If I remembered correctly, Pat gave it to her for Mother’s Day one year. Pricey as shit. Two Gs for a purse—Christ. Then again, the thought of picking out Mother’s Day gifts with the kids for Emilia brought a smile to my face. She should have a purse like that. She never bought anything outrageously expensive for herself.

  “Finnegan?” Sarah spotted me and was quick to frown. “You were just at the church.”

  “And now I’m here. Cars are like magic.” I noticed Pat had made sure to enter last. While Sarah shot me an annoyed look and aimed for the fridge, my brother leaned against the entryway’s doorframe and flipped the car keys in his hand.

  “Whatever,” she said. “Why are you here? I thought Patrick was paying the rent. I know you’re the boss of your little mafia family, but don’t think you can come and go here as you want.”

  I chuckled and scratched my eyebrow.

  “We wanted to talk to you,” Pat said.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket, so I pulled it out. Damn, quick response from Kellan.

  Sec back to normal.

  Well, wasn’t that just fucking interesting.

  I slipped the phone back into my pocket and tuned in to Sarah telling Pat she was gonna read, so whatever we wanted to discuss had to be quick.

  The security being back to normal wasn’t exact proof of someone telling Gio that we were no longer in Spain. We hadn’t been hiding here. That said, an Avellino associate had to have seen us with their own eyes because our presence here wasn’t public knowledge. No photos had been posted anywhere—yet.

  So perhaps it wasn’t proof. It was still a good addition to the damning evidence we already possessed.

  “You and I have never seen eye to eye, Sarah.” I walked to the counter and looked at one of the textbooks she had there. “You’ve seen me as a threat to Emilia, and I’ve seen you as a threat to my family. But I’ve always had some respect for you. You agreed to Pat’s proposal and threw yourself into your arrangement with the single goal of walking away financially independent three years later. That takes balls, and not many would have that strength after the cards you were dealt growing up.”

  She set down her water bottle on the counter and stared at me impatiently. “What’s your point?”

  I lifted a shoulder slightly. “No point, really. Just sayin’. I get where you’re coming from, and you looked out for yourself.” I paused. “But when looking out for yourself puts my family at risk, we put our foot down, and we don’t offer second chances.”

  “Excuse me?” She stiffened and looked between Pat and me.

  I gestured for him to take over.

  He cleared his throat and pushed off the doorframe. “We thought it was weird that Gio increased his security in Barcelona when we got there. Someone must’ve tipped him off.”

  Sarah widened her eyes. “And you think—oh my God, I would never—”

  “So you believe,” I interjected. “I have a question for you. Have you been in contact with the police?”

  For the smallest fraction of a second, guilt struck her expression. She was quick to put on a show—damn quick—and she lied like a professional. Her problem was that we were the actual professionals in this room. Not her.

  “You can stop the act, Sarah,” Pat said tiredly. “To flush out the one who’d spilled too much information, we planted fake trails and lied about new locations. And you were the only one I told about Berlin.”

  “Guess where Gio’s tightened his security now,” I said.

  Panic grabbed ahold of Sarah. “But I haven’t talked to Avellino or his bastard goons!”

  “It’s okay.” I remained calm so she’d chill too. “You’re human, and you fell for the oldest tric
k in the book. So did my wife at one point.”

  “You can admit it,” Pat told her. “Someone approached you in London claiming to be some type of agent.”

  Sarah swallowed hard and shifted from one foot to the other. “I-I… No. I…” Maybe she noticed we weren’t fucking around. Maybe she knew the jig was up. She exhaled shakily and slumped her shoulders. “I want Em and me gone from your lifestyle. I don’t want her child to grow up in this.”

  Anger spiked rapidly and caused my blood to boil, but I managed to keep my shit together. “You made that decision about my child?” I grinned. “You didn’t just take the choice away from me, you took it from Emilia. It’s our kid, not yours. I gotta say, that takes more than a set of brass balls. It takes a level of sheer stupidity I’ve never experienced before. Did you think you’d get away with that? Seriously?”

  “I know what’s best for her!” she seethed. “You wanna talk about balls, Finn? Who the fuck are you? You’ve been in her life less than a year. I’ve been there for her since we were kids!”

  “And she will miss you,” I stated. “She’s chosen this life. She chose me. You chose this life too, but then shit got too hot, and you wanted out. That’s fine. We’re not a prison. We would’ve let you go home and start fresh wherever the fuck you wanted once this was all over. But you had to take it too far. My brother told you—we all told you girls—don’t talk to anyone. Don’t trust anyone. And what did you do? You trusted the first motherfucker who came up to you with a badge.”

  It was the first time I saw a range of emotion spill out of Sarah that wasn’t plain anger. Her façade was gone. She was no longer cold and stoic. She was nervous as hell, fidgety, anxious, and defensive. I stopped listening when she spat out that Emilia would’ve gotten over me if she just had the chance to get away, and Pat had no interest in listening either.

  Instead, he demanded the truth. He wanted to know everything she’d told the pretend agent.

  Sarah heaved a breath and wiped her cheeks.

  It seemed she had completely missed it when I said “She will miss you.” Unless realizing that she wasn’t leaving this flat alive didn’t terrify her.

  As she spoke, or rambled, the truths tumbling out, resentment grew within me. We’d been so fucking patient with her. Patrick had given her everything. And she’d taken a big dump over all of it. She’d put all of us in danger, herself included, all because she thought she knew best.

  Moreover, she was going to force my hand. I would have to lie to Emilia again, and it was this cunt’s fucking fault. Because there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d tell my wife that Sarah was dead, not while she was pregnant. It would have to wait. And hell, I didn’t even want to kill Sarah. I’d never killed a woman before. Pat and I were raised believing our women and children were sacred. But how could we let this slide? We couldn’t.

  Sarah couldn’t be trusted for shite.

  “I didn’t know,” she sobbed. “I never would’ve talked to Avellino.”

  No, just the authorities. She didn’t want us killed, only locked up behind bars.

  Go to hell.

  She wanted to take away my future with my wife and children?

  After a while, Sarah was crying so hard she was shaking, so she walked over to sit on the edge of the bed. She admitted she’d told an “Agent Larson” with Interpol that we’d been heading for Barcelona. She’d told him how many of us there were, how we usually traveled, our names, how armed we were, and she’d divulged the roles we played. The positions in the syndicate we held. She’d mentioned the relocation to Berlin and our brief stay here in Dublin. She’d confessed about Eric and me being in charge of everything concerning surveillance and technology.

  She’d told them that Emilia was pregnant.

  It was my turn to grow cold.

  Patrick transformed right before my eyes too. He was as done as I was.

  “Wh-what are you gonna do t-to me?” Sarah wept.

  “Well, may God show you mercy,” Pat said quietly, “’cause we won’t.”

  “We’ll make it quick,” was the best I could promise her.

  I sparked up a cigarette as Pat and I exited the building.

  Kellan was parked in the same spot.

  “You okay?” I asked my brother.

  He nodded once. “I gave her so many chances.”

  “You did. You tried. But she’d made up her mind.”

  Pat sighed and retrieved his own smokes. “I’m so fucking tired, bro. I can’t wait for this to be over.”

  Same here. I ached for an ending, to the point where I’d gone ahead and hired contractors for my future home. It was going to be a surprise for Emilia.

  Kellan rolled down the window across the way and nodded at us. “Cleaner?”

  I shook my head. “Taken care of.”

  We’d filled Pat’s duffel with some shit and wiped any prints we may have left behind. Rent was paid for another two months. A few pill bottles had been placed around Sarah’s bed, and there was an open bottle of vodka on her nightstand. She’d died of suffocation, something that didn’t leave much to go on. The police would speculate about her lifestyle when they eventually found her.

  We’d done this before.

  I clapped Patrick on his back. “Lemme buy you a pint back at the pub, big brother.”

  He nodded. “Won’t say no to that. I need a shower first. And I should call…you know.”

  Right. The junkie.

  He was waiting for me to make a decision about her, and even though I heard our father loud and clear in my head, I couldn’t bring myself to go there this time. I didn’t trust this strange woman, but I trusted Patrick.

  Before we got in the car, I sidled up next to him as he dumped the duffel in the trunk.

  “You can’t send her to rehab,” I said quietly. “There’s no way to ensure she won’t talk.”

  His jaw ticked with tension, but he tilted his head at me and heard me out.

  “When this is over, you take her somewhere,” I went on. “Just you. Read up on whatever you might need, but you go alone—and far away. Secluded. You get her through detox and the worst of it. Then we can see where we go from there. Yeah?”

  He exhaled in relief and squeezed my shoulder. “Thank you, Finn. She’ll show you, I think. There’s strength in her.”

  We’ll see.

  Either way, Patrick deserved a break.

  On our journey back to Spain the following day, we made some changes in our travel style. We rented bigger vehicles and got off the road when tourists generally stopped for the night. Emilia and I traveled with Eric, Autumn, Kellan, and Luna in an RV, and the others shared a van.

  Something was definitely up with Luna, so I was ready to kick her from the crew. It was why I’d asked Liam to return with us to Spain instead of going back to Philly.

  “What’cha listening to?” Emilia sat down across from me and opened a bag of chips from our last stop at a gas station.

  “Podcast,” I lied, smiling slightly. She was too fucking cute. If anyone enjoyed traveling in an RV, it was her. She took the opportunity to check in with everyone, wherever they were scattered in the vehicle. After lunch, Luna had claimed the back as her own, and she was asleep in the bed. Autumn was with her, watching movies on her tablet.

  With Eric and Kellan up front, I had the seating area to myself, mainly because the wife couldn’t sit still.

  “Anything interesting?” she wondered. “By the way, do you want a soda? Kellan stocked up the fridge at the gas station.” She was legit giddy about the fact that the RV had a fridge. As all RVs did.

  “I’m good,” I chuckled, removing one of my earbuds. “It’s about a new software—”

  “Spare me.” She widened her eyes comically, and I snorted in amusement. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s plenty interesting.” I did occasionally listen to podcasts about advances in technology, but not this time. Now I was just listening to whatever the recorder in Sarah’s flat had
picked up. Eric had scanned the results to save the parts where sound was registered, but it was still mostly static and Sarah humming to herself.

  “How am I still hungry?” Emilia mumbled to herself. She was really going to town on that bag of chips.

  It made me smile. I had noticed she’d eaten a lot for both breakfast and lunch.

  “If there’s a boy in there, you gotta realize you’re feeding a bottomless little monster.” I leaned back a bit and clasped my hands over my stomach. “Ma loved to tell Pat and me that we never stopped eating.”

  Emilia feigned a nervous grin that reminded me more of the emoji with the clenched teeth.

  I smirked.

  “She once told me you were both over ten pounds,” she said. “Is that true?”

  I laughed and lifted a shoulder. “I don’t see why she’d lie about that.”

  “Wonderful. I do remember seeing photos of you as a baby.”

  Oh yeah, I was a fat kid up until I started school, and it wasn’t until I hit puberty that I lost the last of the extra pounds.

  When Emilia had finished the chips, she yawned and glanced around us. “Eat more or nap? That’s the question.”

  I patted the seat next to me, then lifted my arm. “We can nap together, then snack. We have a few more hours before we reach the border.” And the border between France and Spain was heavily trafficked. We would get stuck, considering the hour, and I wanted us alert then. Just in case.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” Emilia mused. “Home sweet home?”

  I grabbed our bags and started carrying them up to our room. This wasn’t home to any of us, but I was glad Emilia enjoyed herself here. Before we’d left for Dublin, she’d been carefree and relaxed. I wanted to see it again. I wanted her back in her gypsy skirts and soft tops. Feet bare and hair down.

  That said, we would hopefully be out of here by dawn the day after tomorrow.

  After dumping our bags in the master bedroom, I met up with Eric, Liam, Sullivan, and Kellan in the study.

  Pat would be here once he’d checked in on his junkie girl.

  We all felt the frustrations and the impatience, making it more important than ever not to rush anything.