The Dirty Dozen: Damsel Edition

by Kay Maree

  Silent Echoes

  Some people touch lives

  Others take them

  I do both

  THE DIRTY DOZEN – DAMSEL EDITION

  Aleisha Maree

  SILENT ECHOES

  By Aleisha Maree

  Copyright 2020 Aleisha Maree

  All Rights Reserved This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. This e-book is intended for adults ONLY. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  *Potential triggers lie within this book.*

  This book is gritty and contains dark content.

  Formatting by Susan Horsnell

  Editing by Elizabeth Gardner

  Proofing and Alpha Reading by Kym Young and Nicole Powell

  Dedication

  For all who have lost beyond repair. For the ones who have been broken into a million pieces and thought they couldn’t be placed back together. Be patient because with hurt there is always happiness. With tears there will always be a smile. With loss there is going to be love.

  It’s coming…. Believe me for I found it when I was shattered to the point where I didn’t see myself ever being anything else. Look at me now. Your time will come, broken wings repair and you will soar.

  ~ Aleisha Maree

  Acknowledgements

  To my readers without you all there would be no Aleisha Maree. Thank you for loving my words as much as I love writing them for you all.

  My husband you love me regardless of how insane I am. You keep me inside safe hugs and cherished stares. Forever will I be your wild girl from the South Island, and always will you be my beast from The North.

  My children I will love you forever under the moon and over the stars. Thank you for letting me love you crazy intense like I do and kissing and hugging you in public. I know my boys are hating on me silently especially the 22-year-old. Sorry boys but Mumma loves you hard.

  To Susan without you I would be lost, you are truly the most beautiful soul I know.

  Kym and Nicole, Vic and Cass, Lyssa and Ruby, Kay and Cathy, I am one lucky lady to have you beautiful souls in my life. I am me and you guys just take that and roll with it. I finally feel like I can be me and crazy and it’s all ok. Thank you all so much for loving me.

  Elizabeth you are just amazing. I message you at such random times and you’re like always there answering, talking me through things, making suggestions that rock and polishing my words so it doesn’t sound too crazy but just crazy enough to be cool. Thank you so much for always being there, patient and willing. You’re one remarkable lady.

  Glossary of the IrishGaelic language

  Fan deartháir sàbháilte -Stay safe brother

  Déan è a Ioc as an dearthàir tromlui ar fad -Make him pay for all the nightmares brother

  Feicfidh mè go bhfuil tu sa solas saor in aisce anois mar gheal ar dhioghail mé do na h-anamacha. - I will find you in the light rest free now for I have avenged your souls

  Slàn garmhac - Good Grandson

  Slan Seanbhuachaill - Good old man

  Go leor leis an seanfhear - Enough with the old man

  Is maith liom è seo ach pian an chinniuint nò an è an fáth go bhfuil tu mall? Amanna anseo a thagann sé - Riddle me this is pain just an illusion of fate or is it the reason your late? Times up here he comes.

  Is maith liom…. Tagann sè an là an dorchaclas ar oicheanta oighreata agus là geal. Tagann sè go dti na cathain agus na leapacha leapa. Tithe agus ď áit oibre. Nuar a thagann se, tagann sè ina aonar, deanann sè sciath ar guhalainn, ansin tà sé imither cè he….? - Riddle me this… He comes to bedsides, icy bridges, battlefronts, and crumbling ridges. When he comes, He comes alone, taps a shoulder, then is gone. Who is he…..?

  Theme Song – I Refuse by Five Finger Death Punch

  Spotify Playlist –

  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nXvczSqr69hZkzbe5K85A?si=3o0T73W7SW6l5wPZcK_w2A

  Spotify Profile - Aleisha Maree Author

  https://open.spotify.com/user/p7tej673vwh280o7jvl3191qw?si=EVY7ZznwTLamo7_WSL-0jQ

  Distrust

  Noun – The feeling that someone or something cannot be relied upon.

  Verb – Doubt the honesty or reliability of; regard with suspicion.

  Dishonor

  Noun – A state of shame or disgrace

  “They have bought dishonor upon our family.”

  Verb – Bring shame or disgrace on.

  The Beginning

  Nightmares and terrors of echo’s from a past.

  ~ Micha Ragen

  Tears stream down Mom’s face as I drag her into the hidden compartment inside the closet. It’s our safe place my big brother built and told me if anything bad started to happen within the walls of our home I was to take Mom and run to it and hide. To do it quietly and not ever make a sound. The safe room was inside the closet in his and father’s office that they shared for working on the family business.

  The god damn Mafia, we were the Mafia and hated by many, loved by few.

  They said no one would even know and they would never look there for us. We would be safe.

  So, with my mom wrapped in my tiny arms I tried to keep her safe and quiet like my big brother told me to do. You’re the man of the family if anything happens to father and I.

  We can see everything happening inside the room from the peephole. Why would you place a peephole in there? It’s haunting but I can’t seem to look away.

  They can’t see us, the bad men dressed in black, but I can see them. Each and every one of them. I burn their faces into my memory.

  I never understood why we would need it.

  Until now.

  I run my tiny hands over my mother’s back calming her, trying to sooth her with my shhh’s it’s ok mom, it’s all ok. I said it over and over until she was sobbing quietly, the silent echo’s inside the tiny space mixing with the sounds of extreme violence outside the door. I watch the whole thing unfold and end around me.

  The men in black came in with guns—the kind that are from the movies that my big brother watches in his room. I’m not allowed to, my mom said, but my brother used to let me lay in his bed watching with him in secret. Don’t tell mom he always said. She would have a fit if she knew. I was different, she said to father all the time. His mind is too brilliant to be wasted on violence. I never understood what she meant.

  Big knives, they pulled big knives out with their guns and the sunlight hit the cool sliver sending shards of light over the walls inside the office.

  One man in black charged at my brother who has a knife of his own. His knife slices over the man’s right cheek. Blood drips from the wound, the flesh sliced open and that angers the man, so he wildly swings at my brother.

  Another man comes up behind my brother wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight as he tries to fight him off. The man who he cut advances on him and stabs him over and over and over again. His pained grunts fill the room along with father’s angry screams. He’s begging them to stop. To leave, just go. My mom is begging them to stop and it silently echoes around me, while inside my head I am screaming at t
hem to stop as well. Just stop! That is my family!

  It hurts to hear my father beg and my mother cry. As my brother gurgles out within the arms your hate. This attack echo’s loud inside my head for vengeance will be had I will rise strong and I will reign a pain upon you and your Familia that not even god could withstand.

  Something is happening in my chest. There is a pain, a tightness.

  It’s hard to breathe as I watch them. They don’t stop. My brother is on the floor choking on his own blood as one man stands over him and shoots him in the head. The noise is so loud its echo is inside my ears as my mother’s nails dig into the flesh of my arm popping the skin.

  With that one sudden bang he’s dead.

  He’s dead. They killed him, right here, in front of us and they don’t even know that we have witnessed this attack on our family.

  They have no idea that the monarch to the Walsh name is here behind the walls watching as they take out her family. The only living son and now heir has seen them. Watched and witnessed the attack burning their eyes into my mind.

  Last words echo inside my head causing my anger to ripple over my spine. A fierce need to protect my father washes over me. He can’t die this way. He’s my father, my mother’s husband. I reach for the handle with no plan in mind, just a blind rage to hurt them like they are hurting us.

  Mother’s sharp grip stops me in my tracks. I turn in the small space, my eyes searching hers, my chest caving with pain. My breaths are fast and splitting with a newfound pain.

  I stare up at her with questions in my eyes. Shaking my head, knowing I need to do this. They need to die for this attack.

  Doesn’t she want me to save my father?

  To save us?

  She looks broken, so shattered as she stares down at me with wetness coating her cheeks. Long, silver tears roll down from her sad eyes to her cheeks to her neck, finally landing on the pearls father just gave her for being the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

  She slowly shakes her head, her hands on my shoulders holding me there mouthing a silent no.

  My heart shatters in my chest when I turn back around and watch the rest of the scene unfold. I try so hard not to cry.

  To be a man and witness it then take it with me. My big brother was right… I will reign pain upon them.

  I have a photographic memory and I will hunt them all.

  The men in black that now have my brothers blood coating their faces and clothes laugh as they grab my father, holding him up by his hair as his hands fly to their grip and he kicks and bucks within their hold.

  To no avail though. They grab his arms, pinning them out as they lay him down on his desk. Just then a new guy walks in. Dressed in a midnight blue suit with a gold tie and black snakeskin shoes, he motions for them to lift my father up to his feet holding his arms out as he walks over towards my father.

  “Samuel, we meet again. This time it’s me taking over.” His hand finds my father’s face, pulling his cheeks together until my father’s mouth makes an O shape.

  My father spits in the man’s face. You can see the pure anger from both him and my father as it bounces around them. The man in blue wipes the Saliva from his face as his evil eyes and his haunting laugh echo around the room. Pulling a knife from the inside of his suit jacket he walks around the back of my father. My father’s eyes meet mine and my mother’s. She has one hand on my shoulder, the other over her mouth.

  Father mouths, ‘Forever with the sun, moon and stars I will be in love with you.’ He nods at me. I know what he means, he has been training me in secret with my big brother for years. With that the man in blue slices the blade along his neck.

  So fast.

  Quick.

  No time to think.

  Just like that.

  Blood.

  Oh my god the blood, so much of it.

  The sound of pain.

  Gurgling.

  A slight cough.

  Bubbling of blood.

  Then nothing.

  My father’s powerful blue eyes, now lifeless, are on mother and I inside the closet. I know he can’t see us. He can’t see anyone. His eyes are glazed over, but he’s not at peace. The realization has a silent sob cracking through my chest. I have never felt such pain before in all my life. Mom tries to pull me into her chest to bury my sobs, mixing them with hers as we shake together. Her for a family lost, mine from the pure and utter anger from what I just had to watch. My father and brother killed in front of me and I vowed to the heavens that their deaths wouldn’t go unnoticed. That they will be avenged.

  Chapter One

  Haunted always Ghosts evoking nightmares.

  ~ Micha Ragen

  I jolt awake with a start and fling upright in bed. Looking around the black of my room my eyes struggling to adjust as my hand reaches for my gun.

  Their eyes are bright in my mind’s eye as their voices haunt me.

  There’s nothing here though. No men in black. No man in blue. Just ghosts inside my head.

  Perspiration clings to my skin, and I wipe it away with my hand. Pushing back the wet sheet, I step from the bed.

  My eyes fall toward the digital clock on the nightstand, grinding my teeth.

  Fuck sake, it’s only 3:30am. The last time I looked at the clock it was 1:30am. I haven’t even slept long.

  It’s something that for years now has evaded me. To sleep requires the ability to relax and let go, and that’s never been something that has come easily. I walk toward the window that overlooks the city of Chicago. The city is vibrant with energy. Bright lights, taxis, random street walkers, you fucking name it, they are there. Out and about at this god-awful hour.

  Picking up the packet of cigarettes off the end table, I light one. Breathing in deep, the smoke burns down into my lungs. A welcome feeling saying I am alive, and I am here. I try to see the world around me…the people selling drugs under the streetlamp at the entrance of the park, but all I really see is my past. The killing of my family that has led me here to this city, on a mission to take from them what they took from me.

  Blood for blood. Sins for sins. Replacing their echoed screams with the ones I seek to remove.

  Flicking open the gold zippo lighter over and over, the smell of gas reaches my nose and brings a welcome memory to the forefront of my tormented mind. My brother. My hero. My blood.

  This one thing that belonged to him brings me a stable sense of anchoring.

  To him, to his memory, to his life.

  I roll my thumb over the ring that belonged to my father, our family crest on the top. A sense of belonging comes from wearing it; a sense of him and pride. I feel him and it comforts me.

  Watching a gruesome murder when you’re a kid changes you. It leaves you dark, tainted and unhinged. It completely fucks with your adolescent mind, turning you into a machine of brutal force and hate.

  My mother tried to shield me from that life after the death of our family, she couldn’t though. I had already begun training.

  I already knew what this life we lived was. It was a life filled with crime and uncertainty. She moved us from one crime family into another.

  Hers.

  I was already seeking out the crime underground and I was already walking in my father and brother’s footsteps.

  Watching them get taken from me, ripped from my grip and stolen from my mother in such a violent way cemented my place within the criminal underbelly.

  This life.

  It was in my fucking blood.

  It was always going to be my destiny.

  As much as I remember my mother stating that I was too special for that life. That I was gifted, too gifted for it to be wasted on violence and crime, I wasn’t.

  My father and my brother were part of the Irish mob. The Boston, Massachusetts syndicate. My father rose fast gaining power and members so fast like cotton candy at a nighttime fair. He became the one man all men wanted to be.

&
nbsp; Members of the other Irish mobs in our area and around us didn’t take kindly to the uprising of my father’s syndicate. The power and respect him and my brother alike commanded and were given had even big Italian bosses seeking my father out to tame wild groups where power and money had gone to their heads.

  My father had warned me, trained me along with my brother for the day where they would attack, he copied books, dairy’s, ledgers and gave them all to me placing his whole operation in my hands. All the secrets. All the information I would ever need to rise higher than they ever thought.

  He kept me hidden always knowing the day was coming and they would want to take me if they knew what I knew. We had planned for their attack, but that day nothing went as planned. Our entire home turned into a bloody massacre, one where I had to watch my father and my brother brutally taken from us. After those men in black (whose faces I burned into my memory, each and every tiny feature, mark and scar) left, my mom made us wait it out for what felt like days, but it was only really hours.

  She walked into her and my father’s room taking bags, that were already packed, from underneath the floorboards inside their massive walk in wardrobe. One was filled with money. I watched as she checked it, my eyes wide and my heart beating fast.

  She gathered all the things that were placed and packed all over our home. Taking a few photos from my father’s briefcase I then went to my room, took a few items and then into my brother’s room taking a couple of things to remind me of him for the journey I was about to take without him.

  In the car I watched as she drove us from Boston, Massachusetts - my home - to Chicago where the Ragen family were. Her family, her father.