CROW (Boston Underworld Book 1)

by A. Zavarelli

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Have a good night, Mandy.”

  “Have a good rest of your life,” she laughs. “However long that may be.”

  ***

  In keeping with my routine, I check in with Sasha who has nothing new to report. She still hasn’t seen the Russian I’ve been waiting around for, so I go to work. My attempt at doing inventory is a bust. It’s impossible for me to keep count, let alone think straight. Mandy’s threat keeps bouncing around in my head.

  Does Donny know what I’m up to? And how could he unless he’d spent time with Tal and she specifically told him about me? It doesn’t seem likely.

  It’s all I can think about. This isn’t just about Tal or myself anymore. I have to protect Lachlan too. If his men find out that I’ve been lying and snooping around and he was the one who brought me here, I don’t know what they will do to him. I can’t let him pay for my actions. I can’t let my grief over Talia destroy him. Because deep down, I know he didn’t have anything to do with it. His crew? Maybe. Possibly. But Lachlan? No frigging way.

  He’s a good man. He didn’t deserve this. The lies and the sneaking around. I can’t imagine what it would do to him if he found out I was using him. Maybe that isn’t fair, considering he was pretty much doing the same, but it still hurts to even think about it. I don’t know how I’d ever explain my betrayal. I don’t know how I’d make him believe it isn’t that way now.

  But none of that matters. I sealed my fate the moment I crossed enemy lines. I came here with a purpose, and there’s no way I could hide that forever. There was always a chance that things would implode like this. I just didn’t think it would be so hard to leave him when they did. I don’t want to. I’m not ready for that. But with every minute that ticks by on the clock tonight, I feel it in my chest.

  It’s time. I have to leave now. Something isn’t right, and I can’t wait around to find out what Donny’s got up his sleeve. Maybe I can just have one more night with Lachlan. I could… I don’t know… tell him how I feel. Which is crazy and pointless, especially when I can hardly make sense of it myself. I don’t know what to do.

  After the fifth failed attempt at counting, I head back to the bar… only to find Donny watching me from his seat. And for the briefest of seconds, I see it.

  Recognition.

  It’s there in his eyes, and this time it’s clear as day. He isn’t hiding it. In fact, there’s a smug smile on his lips. He does know. In my gut, I know it’s true. He somehow knows, and he’s going to take me down.

  Fuck.

  I walk on shaky legs to the bar and order a drink. If I leave now, he’ll know what I’m doing. So I pretend like everything is fine when inside I’m screaming. I don’t even know where Lachlan is. Shit. I’m not going to have a chance to say goodbye. Goodbye.

  Why does that hurt so much?

  Tears blur my eyes, and the five minutes I wait for him to leave feel like a hundred. When he finally does, I tell Ronan I’m going back to finish inventory.

  Instead, I veer off down the hall and use the back door that Lach usually enters through. His car isn’t in the lot. He’s still gone.

  I should be relieved. I should be running like hell. But instead, I’m practically dragging myself out onto the curb to flag down a cab. My feet feel like they’re weighted down with cement. Perhaps an ominous premonition of my body’s own making. There’s a part of me that still lingers here, that doesn’t want to leave. It isn’t even because of the answers, and that’s what’s so wrong.

  How did this happen? Donny’s fucking with me. He’s going to spill, but he’s been holding out. There has to be a reason, a plan. He wouldn’t just let this stuff slide.

  It doesn’t matter. There’s only one thing I can do now. I don’t have the answers I’m seeking, but all I can think about is how this is going to affect Lachlan. How this is going to blow back on him. There’s only one way to protect that from happening. I have to leave. I have to go back to Lach’s, get all my shit, and leave.

  ***

  Scarlett picks up on the third ring, and I can tell by the din of the bar in the background that she’s drinking.

  “Hey babe,” she says. “How’s things?”

  “Shit’s hit the fan,” I tell her. “And I need you to get out of town for a bit.”

  I expect a fight, but instead there’s a pause.

  “You alright?” she asks softly.

  Scarlett is never soft with me. She must be able to hear the emotion in my voice. I’m not in a good place right now.

  “I’m fine,” I lie. “I just want to know you’re safe so I can deal with this.”

  “Sure,” she says. “You know I can take care of myself. But what are you going to do?”

  “I’m leaving too, and I’ll contact you as soon as I can,” I promise. “I have to dump this phone.”

  “Okay, be careful.”

  “Alright Scarlett.” I choke up a little. “Take care.”

  ***

  When I walk inside Lachlan’s house, I’m startled by a noise in the kitchen. I didn’t see any cars outside, so I don’t know who it could be. There’s no way Ronan could have noticed I was gone and beaten me here so fast.

  I hesitate at the door, but then I hear nothing. Thinking I might be going crazy, and definitely paranoid, I walk in to investigate. Which turns out to be a mistake.

  Before I can even fully comprehend what’s happening, someone grabs me from behind and shoves me against the wall. My heart jackhammers in my chest when I feel the rage rolling off his body, combined with the scent of Lach’s cologne.

  He spins me around slowly, pressing the knife he’s holding flush against my throat. One wrong move, and I’m dead. It isn’t too difficult to figure out why. When I glance up at him, the betrayal is written all over his face. And behind him, scattered across the counter, are the contents of my secret hiding place. The photo of Talia. The rolled up notes I’ve been keeping.

  My eyes start to water. This isn’t how I wanted things to go. I was going to leave. Do the right thing for Lachlan and figure out another way. But he’ll never believe that now.

  His breaths are coming fast and hard, and he isn’t talking. The eyes that held a world of vibrant colors and emotions are now a barren sea of stark gray. I’ve never seen him so angry. So hurt.

  “Tell me why,” he demands. “What have ye to say for yourself, Mack?”

  “Talia,” I whisper.

  He slams me back against the wall and the knife presses deeper into my flesh. Blood trickles down my throat as his eyes burn into me. “I don’t fucking believe a word out of your mouth.”

  The pain of the blade is nothing compared to that look from him. The disappointment and the rage, the obvious regret over allowing me into his life. How did it come to be this way? I don’t have a fucking clue. I was never supposed to get involved with him. The water leaking from my eyes starts to spill over now, and there is no pushing it back this time.

  “It’s the truth,” I tell him. “You saw her photo. It’s right there on the counter…”

  “Shut up!” he yells. “Just shut the fuck up.”

  The knife presses deeper still, and he’s panting now. His eyes are turbulent, darting all over my face and I know right now he’s making the decision whether I live or die. But there is no decision. If I’ve been discovered, there’s only one way the syndicate would deal with me. The only escape for me is death. And even then, Lachlan will still probably bear the weight of my sins.

  I won’t apologize to him. I know it wouldn’t do any good right now. So instead, I offer him the one thing I can. The one thing I need from him before my fate is carried out.

  “Would it make you feel any better to fuck your hate out on me?” I whisper.

  There’s a small part of me that fears he’ll outright reject me. The hatred in his eyes is clear. I’m afraid it’s overshadowed everything else we had between us.

&
nbsp; “Ye’re fucking joking,” he laughs darkly. “Ye think that’s going to make me feel better?”

  I can’t get my mouth to work, so I nod. I need to feel him, any way I can. I need this last connection with him.

  “I suppose there’s only one way to find out,” he says.

  He wheels me around and presses his hand between my shoulder blades until I’m flattened over the counter. He holds me down by the throat and shoves my dress up over my hips, using the knife to cut my thong off. Before I can understand what he’s doing, he stuffs the material into my mouth and then clamps his palm over my lips. A slide of his zipper, and he’s buried deep inside of me. Christ, he’s already hard as hell. I don’t know what to make of that.

  “Ye’re wet for me, Mack.” He slides in and out of me, grabbing hold of my wrists behind my back. “Is that a lie too?”

  I shake my head and mumble around the cloth in my mouth. This only pisses him off more. His hand comes down and presses my face flat against the countertop while he pulls my wrists back with his other arm. The position is uncomfortable, as it’s meant to be, but I don’t care.

  I yield to him. This is a punishment fuck. He’s coming at me hard and fast now, yanking me around like a sex toy for his pleasure. I’ll take it. He has unconditional power over me. I deserve whatever he gives me. More than that, I want it. I want him so fucking much it hurts.

  I manage to twist my neck a little under the weight of his bruising grip and peek up at him. I make eye contact and he uses his palm to shove my hair into my face, darkening my world again.

  “I can’t even look at you,” he roars. “Fuck! Mack. What have ye done?”

  He keeps fucking me, but he’s not enjoying himself. I can tell. He’s squeezing my waist with both hands now, barreling into me. His chest collapses against my back and he buries his face in my hair, inhaling.

  “You’ve wrecked me, Mack,” he says. “You’ve fucking wrecked me.”

  More tears spill over my eyes, and I try to apologize. It’s too muffled for him to understand. He releases my mouth, and I spit the cloth out.

  “Goddammit.” He pulls out of me and spins me around, lifting me up so that my ass is hanging off the counter and I’m facing him. “I have to look at ye,” he grunts as he slides back into me. “I don’t want to. But I have to. You lying fucking…”

  I reach up and yank his face to mine. For a second, he kisses me back, as if he’s forgotten. And then he bites me and pulls away. My lip is bleeding, and so is my throat. He smears the blood with his fingers before he wraps his hand around my neck.

  “I should just do it now,” he says. “It was all an act to you. A fucking game.”

  “No,” I protest weakly.

  He slams into me at my denial. “Every word ye told me was a lie.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  He thrusts harder. So hard the counter creaks beneath me, threatening to snap from the force of his anger.

  “Every goddamn word,” he yells.

  I feel like I’m going to snap too. It isn’t the rough fuck. It’s his words. He keeps saying them over and over. I’m a liar. It meant nothing. I did this to him. I betrayed him. And it sends me over the mental edge.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I sob. “It wasn’t a fucking act! I’m in love with you Lachlan!”

  He freezes mid-thrust, his eyes brutally cold as they examine me. I can’t look at him when he’s like this, so I bury my face against his chest. It doesn’t matter if he believes me. I told him. And I haven’t said those words to anybody in a very long time.

  The world around us goes silent and still. He doesn’t move. I don’t either. I won’t look at him. After a while, he cups the back of my head and starts to move inside of me again. It’s nothing like before. This time he isn’t trying to hurt me, he’s trying to finish. The sounds that I love spill from his throat as he pulls me as close as he can get me.

  He whispers something so low I can’t make it out, and then he comes with an agonized sigh. One last time. A sob wrenches from my throat when the realization washes over me.

  When I open my eyes, he’s still inside of me. His eyes are plastered to my face, torn. I know what I should do. I should just ask him to do it. I want him to be the one to do it. I know he’ll be good to me. He won’t draw it out or torture me. He’d make it quick. But I also know it’d kill him to do it.

  Maybe I could run. I could just leave and go somewhere else, far away. But I know there’s no chance of that happening.

  In my heart, I already know it’s going to be him or me.

  My eyes dart to the knife laying on the counter within reach, and before I can give it any thought, he grabs it and hands it to me. There’s nothing on his face. No anger. No emotion. Nothing. Because of me and what I did to him.

  “Go on,” he says. “That’s probably the best solution, Mack. Because I sure as hell don’t want to use it on you.”

  My lip quivers, and my hand starts to shake. Jesus, I’m really losing the plot here. There was never any question about it, I can’t hurt him. I’ve done enough of that already.

  I pull the knife away and throw it across the room with a sob, and Lachlan crushes me against his chest.

  “Goddamn you, Mack. I knew I should have avoided ye.”

  “I know,” I whisper back. “Why didn’t you?”

  His eyes grow dark, and instinctively I know I’m not going to like the next words out of his mouth.

  “I had no choice in the matter. The Russians wanted to trade you for their rat. They want ye dead.”

  “What?” I choke out. “Why do they want me dead?”

  “Think about it, Mack.”

  I swallow down nine years of pain and guilt as I reach into his eyes and pull out the answers for myself.

  “You were going to give me to them, weren’t you?”

  Lachlan scrubs his hands over his face and looks away. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck I was going to do with ye, Mack. It doesn’t matter now though, does it?”

  My hands fall away from his shirt as I nod. It would have hurt less if he had stabbed me.

  “Do you know who killed my father?” I ask quietly.

  “Aye.”

  I force my eyes to his even though it’s the last place I want to look. “You have to tell me.”

  “That I can’t do.”

  “Because of your precious fucking syndicate?” I yell.

  “No. Because I know how ye are, Mack.”

  My lip wobbles as I try to make sense of his words. I know what he’s going to do. I know it in my gut already. So why does it matter if he tells me who killed my father?

  “I’ll sort it out,” he says. “Ye have my word, Mack. The man who did your father will no longer walk this earth, even if it’s the last thing I do.”

  I’m too choked up to speak, so I just nod. It isn’t good enough, but there’s too much happening right now for me to wrap my head around.

  “Donovan knows,” he continues.

  “How?” I ask.

  “Said he remembers you from Southie. He knew you and Talia were mates, somehow. Connected the dots. I don’t know.”

  “He didn’t grow up in Southie,” I argue. “And I don’t know him. That’s complete bullshit.”

  Lachlan shrugs. Regardless how Donny found out is a moot point. The only thing that matters now is the aftermath.

  “Ye should have come to me,” he says. “I’d have told you then I had nothing to do with Talia’s disappearance. Neither did any of the lads.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  His throat works, and he pulls back to look at me. “I do.”

  I open my mouth, but it takes me a minute to get my voice to work. I’m afraid to hear what he has to say. “How?”

  “She was spending her time at a different sort of club,” he says. “With one of the Russians.”

  I look away because I already know
in my gut what he means. He’s confirming what I’ve suspected all along. It was the Russian that she talked about. And now my time is up, and I’ll never know who he was.

  My voice is hoarse when I speak again. “So what now?”

  Lach remains quiet and solemn as he pulls out of me and tucks himself back into his pants.

  “Now we get in my car and drive.”

  ***

  The car is deceptively quiet for all of the loud thoughts hanging between us. We’re at odds. An ocean of lies tethering us together and tearing us apart.

  When Lachlan said drive, I didn’t think he meant for hours. I don’t know where he’s going. I doubt he does either. I know he’s working up the courage to do it. It’s taking him a long time.

  I accepted my fate the moment I climbed inside of his car. I know what he has to do, even if he can’t admit it himself. There’s no other way. This is the code he lives by. His loyalty lies with the syndicate, and I’m not stupid enough to think I can change that. I won’t let myself believe I can change that. It’s easier this way, knowing and accepting what he’s going to do. I won’t fight him.

  It’s him or me.

  That’s what I keep telling myself.

  I’m trying to forget the fact that he was planning to hand me over to the Russians. That he knew all along he’d probably have to marry someone else and we couldn’t be together. He’s lied to me, and I to him. We can’t get past these things. There’s no overcoming them.

  And what life do I have to go back to anyway? Talia’s gone. Scarlett is a lone wolf. I never realized how empty my life had really become until I had him in it. He did that to me. He said I wrecked him, but he completely destroyed me. Everything was fine when I was alone. When I didn’t have to feel or think or care about someone else. Sure I was sad and broken, but I was okay. Now, I’m anything but.

  He made me want things I was never destined to have. He made me cry and say the words I never thought I’d say again. If my father were here, he’d tell me I was pathetic. That this was my own fault for being weak. And he’d be right. But there wasn’t any other option. I think I’d always been weak as far as Lachlan was concerned. He dissolved my armor with a single look. A touch. One command from his lips, and I was his. I’m a slave to this man. The power he holds over me is ridiculous. And now that I’m going to die, I can admit that freely.