by Zahra Girard
It’s a bitter pill to swallow. It’s even making my beer taste like shit. Full on tragedy, that is.
“Fuck, Eoghan, I’ve been a dumbass lately,” I mutter.
The old man nods. “Yeah, you have.”
“I’m sorry. For all of it.”
Taking my empty glass from me, he refills it.
I swear to God, the man’s a psychic.
“I know. Drink that, then go home.”
I look at him, questioningly, and he shakes his head. “Don’t worry about Lochlan. I’ll talk to him. He’ll understand. When this is over, I’ll call you. Just try and stay out of trouble until then, ok?”
The way he says it he knows that’s not going to happen. We both know it’s not going to happen. But he’s probably expecting me to just get drunk and raise a little hell.
Which is probably what I’ll do.
Evelyn’s out of my reach. I need to accept that, no matter how much I don’t want to.
“I’ll try. But you know me, I can’t promise I’ll stay out of trouble.”
I laugh. He frowns.
“Don’t fuck things up too much, Connor,” he says, putting his gun away.
I finish my pint and shake his hand and leave.
I’ve reached a decision. A responsible decision. I’m going to sit back at home, get piss-ass drunk, and wait for my family to murder the back-stabbing woman that I thought I loved.
Pretty simple, really.
Hopefully, I don’t fuck it up.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Evelyn
I wind up in Allston. In some run-down roachhouse that’s supposed to be a Motel 6, but, if I’m reading the sign right, might be trying to rebrand itself as “Ote 6”.
Allston’s a Russian neighborhood and this little block I’m staying in is practically St. Petersburg 2.0. I’ve never seen so many gold chains, track suits, and sunglasses in my life.
They even wear sunglasses at night. It’s like that good-bad 80’s song, but with way more Adidas and everything smells like drakkar noir.
I pick this place because I figure the location might give the Irish mob a bit of pause. I know they don’t get along with the Russians.
That, and I don’t want to pay with a credit card, because who the hell knows what kind of connections the MacCailins have and if they’d be able to trace me by that. Considering I’m nearly broke, it doesn’t leave me with any options. Either I stay at this “Ote 6” or I hide out at a place called “Mama Vladena’s Rest Inn” that looks like it could be a stand-in for the Bates Motel.
No thanks, I’ll take the roaches at the Ote 6.
I spend the whole night awake, alone in my room, without even opening the door except the one time I order out pizza.
The roaches and I share a large pepperoni.
I keep expecting the other shoe to drop. Something’s got to happen. You don’t just send out a news story like I did and expect the world to stay quiet. I’ve got the TV on a cable news station, I obsessively refresh several different local news websites, and I have my phone by my side at all times in case Greg calls.
But nothing happens.
The night passes like I did not just try to piss of the Irish mob.
I even get a “where are you?” text from Karen. She’s ok.
I tell her I’m fine and just left to sort things out on my own. A little, believable lie.
The sun comes up and I stare out my window at an empty parking lot, sipping a cup of coffee that tastes like it was filtered through moldy socks.
Then, it happens.
A black SUV pulls into the lot, parking just below my second-story room.
All four doors open, four men get out. I see tattoos, gold watches, dark eyes, and grim faces.
This is not good.
The owner leaves his spot at the front desk and trundles out to greet them.
I duck down, hiding, peering out the window.
They talk for a second, and I swear the owner points right in my direction.
“No, no, just go away. Just get back in your car and go away. Please,” I beg, silently.
Five sets of eyes turn and look right at me.
The four men nod and one of them hands over a wad of cash.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I have to get out of here.
It seems strange that the MacCailins would send Russians to do their dirty work. Everything I’ve heard about them tells me they’d be the type to take this personal. Looks like I was wrong about them, too. Just like I was wrong about Connor.
I watch them start to take black, body-sized duffel bags out of their van and I know they’re here to kill me.
My heart feels like it’s going to explode from pumping so hard. I grab my bag and I stand at the door.
It’s the only way out. And it will take me right past them. But running is the only thing I can do.
I take a deep breath and throw the door open and sprint like my life depends on it.
And get a face full of nylon windbreaker.
“Watch it, bitch,” a thick-accented voice growls.
I go stumbling backwards. My ass hits the pavement.
Looking up, I see speakers, a keyboard, microphones.
Huh?
The owner’s there, too. He’s carrying a big old amplifier in his pudgy hands.
He waddles forward, sets down the amp and reaches to help me up.
“Something wrong?” he says. “I hope you don’t mind, my nephew and his friends here are going to be in the room next to yours for today. They are practicing here for a few hours this afternoon. They’re on their way to a gig in New York City. The Big Apple. Cool, no?”
“Yeah, cool, congratulations” I say to the man that I think is the owner’s nephew.
Collecting myself and feeling profoundly embarrassed at running just because I saw some people who might be gangsters, I grab my things and go back to my room.
So much for liking the dangerous things in life.
I’m such an idiot for thinking I could even handle it that kind of lifestyle. Like I could just dip my toe in, get acclimated, like it was no big deal.
What a mess I’ve made.
I get back in my room, bolt the door, draw the shades, and start pacing.
It’s weird as hell that I haven’t heard back from Greg yet. The story of the century drops in his lap — with the evidence to back it up — and he goes mute? Could he really be that jealous? Could he really hate me that much? Maybe he’s trying to take credit for all the work I’ve done.
I don’t get it.
My phone rings and I fish it out of my purse.
It’s Karen. She must be checking in. Nurse’s instincts or whatever.
“Hey, Karen, what’s up?” I try to sound like I’m fine — like I’m not shaken up because I keep thinking I’m going to die.
“Evie? What the fuck is going on?”
I’ve never heard her like this.
She’s rattled.
Karen does not get rattled. Karen takes bullets out of gruesome wounds. Karen fixes up addicts with necrotic infections. I’ve heard the stories. She even showed me some pictures, once.
Mark’s shouting in the background.
There’s the sound of a violent struggle. Crashing and breaking and then the unmistakable muted thud of something hard and heavy cracking into flesh and bone.
Karen’s voice, crying, pleading, rises loud over the background noise.
There’s another thud.
She goes silent.
My insides twist themselves into this painful, visceral knot. This is all because of me.
My best friend is being beaten because of me.
A warm, almost-cheerful voice takes over the line. Under different circumstances, he’d almost sound friendly. Right now, he scares the shit out of me.
“Lass, you’re in a lot of trouble. You’ve been poking your nose into places where it doesn’t belong. Now, I have spent a whole night and most of this fucking morning lo
oking for you. Hell, my dad and my older brothers are probably still tearing up your apartment. So, why don’t you be a doll and just come on over to your friend Karen’s house?”
“Don’t hurt them,” I practically shout into the phone.
“It’s a little late for that,” he says.
“Please, I’ll take the story back. I’ll tell everyone it was a mistake — that I lied and just made it up. Please.”
I sink to my knees, clutching my phone to my face so hard my cheek starts to go numb.
I wish I could take it all back.
I wanted to make a difference. To have my work actually matter for once. But not like this.
Not like this.
“That’s not how this works. You’re smarter than that.”
“Please,” I beg. It’s the only word I have left to me. I have no options. I know that. Everything inside me burns with guilt and fear.
Some smart, independent woman I am. I’m an idiot who put her best friend in the path of murderers.
This is all my fault.
I fell for a hitman and, surprise surprise, he hurt me. Somehow, I thought it’d be a good idea to try and get back at him. Is it any wonder that this is happening? That my friends are going to die?
I have only myself to blame.
“I’m going to be nice, since I like the way you have your hair styled in your press picture. Well, that and I have this nagging suspicion you might be important to my brother, Connor,” he says.
“— wait, what?” I blurt out.
“You have one hour to get here. Take any longer, and I’ll kill your best friend’s fiance. He’s a big guy, I bet it will take him a while to bleed out.”
“Evelyn, do what he says. Please,” Karen shouts in the background, her voice cutting off in a muffled cry and another thud.
“After that, I’ll kill Karen. She won’t take as long, so you better hurry.”
There’s a click. The call goes dead.
I stare at my phone. Everything — my whole life — is crumbling around me. I thought speaking up might help change things, that I could do some good and make a difference by putting that story out there. I thought that I could take pride in the work that I do, for once.
I thought I could make Connor feel some pain, some justice, for all the pain he’s caused me.
Instead, I’m going to die.
Chapter Thirty
Connor
I can drink a lot.
I come from a long line of worthless alcoholics and fuckups.
And I’m the pinnacle.
Every pathetic fuckup in my family tree, from root to stem, put their DNA together to make me — the biggest fuckup in my family’s history.
My accomplishments are staggering.
Potentially ruin a crime family? Check.
Fall in love with a beautiful woman only to have her stab me in the back and betray everything I believe in? Check.
Somehow, deep inside, still feel love for this woman? Check.
Land myself in prison or dead? That’ll be the next check, probably.
If somehow I live through this and, god forbid, have a kid, they’ll have a lot to live up to.
What kind of name do you give a kid to set them on their true path as a monumental idiot? Cletus?
I just hope I’m dead before they hit their true potential.
My whole night drags on in an alcoholic haze.
It’s better this way. I don’t want to think clearly. I don’t want to think about my failure. I don’t want to think about Evelyn.
I don’t want to think about the fact that, despite everything, I still care about her.
This whole love thing is a crock of shit.
Fuck em, leave em, and then call em up again when you need another taste. That’s how it should be.
Instead, I’m drinking myself senseless because of her.
I should be glad my family is taking care of her. I should be glad they didn’t just put a bullet in my brain and throw my body in the bay.
Instead, I’d rather they had. At least I wouldn’t feel like I do right now.
Because, even in the deepest depths of my blind drunkeness, I can still envision her.
Her lips. Her smile. Her curves.
I can even fucking smell her.
And, if I pause and listen in the deafening silence of my apartment, I hear her voice.
It’s torture.
It’s what I deserve.
Somehow, I sober up a bit after dawn. Not by choice.
I’ve run out of liquor and don’t feel like going out to buy more. No one would sell to me anyways. Not even the shady guy who runs the bodega down the street. I smell like I’ve been living inside a bottle of Jameson. My sweat on it’s own is probably 50 proof.
I get up from my spot on the couch and head to a mirror. I take a cold, hard look at myself.
I have to get my shit together.
I’m better than this.
Choking down some coffee and toast, I realize I need something to occupy my mind or I’ll go crazy.
I sit on my couch, flip on the TV, and try and find something not news-related. I don’t want to be watching when the story breaks about my family killing the woman I love.
I know it’s inevitable. I just don’t want to see it.
A knock at the door saves me just as I’m about to settle in to some reality show about a seven hundred pound man on a quest to become the heaviest man in the world. Looks like I’m not the only one who likes to self-destruct.
It’s Lora. She’s got a letter in her hand and motherly-concern on her face.
“Jesus Christ, Connor, what the fuck are you doing to yourself?”
I look down at myself.
Yeah, I don’t look that great.
I try and put on a smile. Right now, I just want her to go away. Because she’s definitely the type to try and probe and prod and figure out why I’m looking and feeling like shit.
Which means I’ll have to talk about Evelyn.
No, not happening.
“This look is called ‘Monday Morning’. What’s up?”
She crinkles her nose. “Seriously? You smell, too. Bad.”
I shrug. I don’t smell it, but then again, considering I look like something a homeless person would scrape out from between their toes, I probably do have an odor.
“You’ve never seen me on a Monday morning before, have you, Lora?”
She rolls her eyes and I get the feeling she’d slap me, except she probably doesn’t want to touch me.
Instead, she hands over the letter she’s holding.
“This came for you today. Got mixed in with my mail.”
I take it from her, but I don’t give the letter much thought. It’s probably another kill order — one that got put in before this huge mess with Evelyn and her Boston Times story started.
“Thanks, Lora,” I say, managing to force some genuine-sounding gratitude out, which isn’t easy. I’ve got a monster of a hangover coming on.
She puts her hand on my shoulder and looks up into me. I can see watery tears brimming at the edges of her eyes as she stares into my own. She opens her mouth to speak and, for a second, her breath catches in her throat.
“Connor. You smell like shit. Seriously. It hurts to breathe the air around you. You need to take a shower.”
“Yes, mom.”
She punches me lightly.
“Don’t ‘yes mom’ me. Have a little self-respect. Take a shower, clean yourself up. Honestly, what’s got into you? You’re better than this.”
I know exactly what ‘got into’ me and why I’m like this. Evelyn.
She got into me. She found my heart when I thought I was heartless. She set it beating. Then she ripped it out.
And I still want her.
But we sure as hell aren’t going to talk about her.
I start to close the door, but she jams her foot in.
“Connor, I’m serious,” she says.
“Ok, f
ine,” I say.
She nods. “That’s better. Now, I’m having a little dinner thing next week. Friday. You free?”
“Yeah, sure. Sounds nice.”
If I’m alive then.
Nodding, she takes her foot out of the door, pats my arm again, and heads back down the hallway.
Still dwelling on just what a mess I’m in — and just what a mess I am — I sit down on the couch and throw the letter on the coffee table.
Eoghan still hasn’t called.
I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. On one hand, it means Evelyn hasn’t been caught. So the odds of her story leaking out, and the danger it poses gets greater with every passing hour.
On the other hand, it means Evelyn’s still alive. Out there, somewhere. And she’s smart. She’ll understand the danger she’s in. She’ll run.
Even now, after everything, thinking about her afraid and alone makes my body tense up for a fight. I don’t know where the fuck she is, but I’m ready to put it all on the line to defend her.
God damn, Connor, fucking get ahold of yourself. You’re not an idiot — you know the right move is to stay put. Let Lochlan and the rest of the MacCailins take care of this.
It’s then I take a look at the letter on my coffee.
It’s addressed to me.
I do not get mail at this address.
Except, now I do.
It’s from my parents.
Just seeing the names in the return address – Domnall and Ciara Halloran – is like having a pair of ghosts materialize right in front of me.
I never thought they’d write me back. That no matter what I said, it’d be like talking to a fucking brick wall, with just as much chance at moving them.
Takes me ages to even open it.
I’m almost not able to read the damn thing.
They hated it when I started running with the MacCailins. They said they’d rather go homeless than deal with them. When I got deeper in the family, they disowned me.
Even so, I kept helping out as I could.
I kept tabs on them, and when they moved out to that home in Worcester, I kept helping them, sometimes without them knowing. It’s a wonder what a little bribery will get you.
Despite everything that went down, they’re family. Even now.
