The mob princess and the street kid with the deadbeat and absent parents.
Same neighborhood, different planet.
And her being back doesn’t change a goddamn thing.
Except we’re acting like we’re right back there, right back to sneaking around and pretending it’s just the two of us against the world like we did back then. What I’m doing right now is exactly what I was doing back then.
And exactly what I swore to Jack that I wouldn’t do.
Ever.
Aela’s dad knowing about us back then was bad.
It’ll be fatal this time with Mick.
My phone buzzes on the patio table in front of me, and I glance down to see my older brother calling.
“What’s up?”
“Need you to meet me. Sullivan and Beach Street in ten minutes if you can. I’ve got a job.”
“No problem, I’ll be there.”
I know better than to ask questions over the phone. Actually, I know better than to ask questions about Connor’s job at all, really.
It takes a very specific person to do the shit my brother does, what with “fixing” things. Hell, he’s been fixing things since our parents took off.
But for the Saints, basically he touches messes no one wants to go fucking near.
I’m already close to Sullivan Street, so I grab two coffees on the way before I get there. Connor shows up exactly on time.
Of course.
He’s got Eddie Walsh with him — one of Mick’s guys. That’s another new thing since Jack died, there are now “Mick’s guys.” I don’t just look at a guy like Eddie and say, “Oh, that’s one of the Dark Saints.” It’s subtle, but there’s a difference now between the general organization and Mick’s inner circle.
It bugs me.
Con nods as he walks up, shaking his head when I offer him the spare coffee I grabbed. I give it to Eddie instead, who bitches about it not having cream in it.
“So what’s up?”
I glance at the bulky, heavy garbage bag Eddie walked up carrying.
Conner jerks his head. “This way.”
We head back down Sullivan, duck behind the row of shops, and head down the access alley behind Adams Street. We stop in front of an unmarked blue door across the alley from the back-door of a take-out Chinese spot. The cook taking a smoke break nods quickly at Connor and snuffs out his smoke before darting back inside.
Smart man.
“In here. Oh, here, you’ll want these.”
Connor hands me a pair of heavy rubber gloves, and my face falls.
“Fuck. That sort of job, huh?”
He grins. “Buck up, buttercup.”
“I hate when you fucking call me that.”
I’m not squeamish by any stretch of the imagination. But Connor took me on a clean-up job about five years ago that was some straight up medieval shit. I’m talking blood up the walls, bodies in pieces, horror-movie type shit.
Needless to say, I lost my lunch about five seconds after walking into the room, and Connor’s been giving me shit about having a “weak stomach” ever since.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been told it’s pretty standard.”
“You haven’t been in yet?”
Con shakes his head but Eddie shrugs. “I have. Pretty straight and easy job. Mick took out some Russians.”
I frown. “Jesus Christ, why?”
Connor looks grim. “Retaliation, I guess.”
“You guess?”
He shoots me a look as Eddie moves past us to open the door.
“You know how Mick is,” he mutters under his breath to me.
And I do.
This isn’t Jack’s neighborhood anymore, and Mick’s not exactly big on open communication.
“This is going to go nuclear if he keeps this shit up,” I hiss at Connor as Eddie steps inside.
“No shit.” He nods at the pair of gloves in my hand. “I’d put those on.”
We step inside and head down a dim, narrow flight of stairs. At the bottom, Connor flicks the lights on.
Fuck.
There are four of them. Three around the card table, one laying halfway off the couch against the wall.
Connor whistles. He looks almost impressed.
“Shit, this was clean.”
“I’ll be outside,” Eddie gruffs out. “You can start.”
Connor gives him a look. “Oh, can I? Thanks.”
Eddie frowns. “Just do what you do, fix-it man.” He drops the garbage bag on the floor and plods back up the stairs.
I glance at my brother. “Clean?” I raise a brow at the four dead guys slumped over in pools of their own blood around the room.
“Clean hits.”
Connor steps around the card table, pointing at each of the guys one-by-one. “Look, no guns drawn. No one standing up.” He shrugs, nodding. “They knew the guy who did this.”
I raise a brow at my brother. Jesus, he’s too good at this. Or he’s just seen too many murder scenes.
“Yeah, he was in the room. No one came crashing in to take these guys out.”
“I didn’t know Mick had anyone that close to the inside of the Russians.”
“He doesn’t.”
Connor’s eyes sweep the room before he narrows in on a spot. “Right here. The guy was standing right here.” He moves to the imaginary spot on the floor and points his finger like a gun at each of the bodies at the table.
“Clockwise, bam-bam-bam, then the dude on the couch who was starting to get up.” He shakes his head. “I’m almost impressed.”
“You’re a dark guy, Con.”
“I know.”
I stretch my arms across my chest. “Well, so where are we moving them?”
“We’re not.”
He steps over to the garbage bag and tears it open, revealing two red plastic gas canisters.
“Fuck, man. Really?” My face sours.
“You wanna help?”
“Fine.”
I grab one of the heavy cans and turn, when the weight of the thing takes me a step faster than I was intending, and I crash right into one of the dead guys at the table.
“Jesus, Liam,” Connor growls as the poor guy goes toppling to the floor.
“Shit, sorry.”
“Get him up.”
I raise a sharp brow at my brother. “What?”
“We gotta get him up. They need to be exactly where they were or the forensics team’ll start sniffing too close.”
“How the fuck do you know this shit?”
“You really want to know?”
“Not really.”
“Good, then grab his arms.”
I swallow the bile in my throat as I grab the dead Russian by the elbows and start to haul him back into the chair, when I stop.
“Connor.”
“What?” He’s already turned away, dousing the couch and the far wall with the gasoline.
“Did you see this guy’s tattoos?”
“Huh?”
“His tattoos.” My eyes lock onto the ink on the guy’s neck under his collar.
“What about them?”
“They’re not Russian.”
Connor freezes before slowly turning. “What?”
“These aren’t Russian mafia tats.”
“The fuck do you know about Russian mafia tattoos?”
“Enough to know that this is Albanian lettering.”
Connor’s eyes dart up. “What did you say?”
“These guys are Albanian, man. The fuck is Mick shooting Albanians for? We’re in a truce. Hell, if this is one of their card games, he’s even getting a cut of this.” I scowl. “The truce Jack set up is golden, man. Why the hell is Mick trying to start shit with them again?”
Connor’s face is grimmer than it usually is. “Not with them.”
The door to the staircase opens behind us as Eddie comes back down.
“We good to go here?”
I frown. “Eddie, these guys—”
>
“We’re good.” Connor cuts me off, throwing me a sideways glance before smiling thinly at Eddie. “Just about ready to burn some bodies into crisps if you want to help.”
Eddie makes a face. “I’ll get the car ready.”
I whirl at my brother as soon as he’s gone. “What the fuck was that?”
Connor shoots me a look. “That was keeping my mouth shut. If Mick’s killing Albanians and telling us they’re Russians, something’s up. And when something’s up? With Mick?”
My brother’s face darkens as he empties the last of the gasoline across the card table, the oil mixing with blood and floating the cards across the felt.
He glances at me as the match flares in his hand.
“When something’s up with Mick, you keep your mouth fucking shut. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter 13
Liam
Oddly enough, it’s Aela that finally breaks the silence between us, later that night.
“So, are we going to keep doing this?”
I look up from the kitchen island to see her standing in the doorway. “Which this are you talking about. You ignoring me?”
Her brow arches icily.
I like testing her like this.
“I’m not ignoring you, I just…” she trails off.
I look at her expectantly.
“We can be friendly, right?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
No.
“How was work today?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
She smiles, visibly relaxing as she steps into the kitchen. “Feel like a drink to celebrate us being friends again?”
Friends.
She nods at the whiskey on the counter next to me.
This is a very bad idea…
“Yeah, why not?”
She pulls up a stool and sits while I get her a glass. I pour for us both as I take my seat again.
“Slàinte,” she clinks her glass to mine.
“Slàinte. To the happy soon-to-be-newly—”
“Please shut up.”
I grin. “Gladly.”
Aela shakes her head and downs her drink before reaching to pour another.
Let me tell you something about drinking whiskey with an Irish girl from Southie.
Be prepared: bring a second liver.
One drink turns into three before I even know what the fuck I’m doing, and suddenly, the room’s getting warmer, and it’s getting harder to stop myself from staring at her.
Or from grinning at just how damn easy it is to go right back to what we always had.
The easy banter.
The jokes.
The memories of life here before it all changed. It’s that easy, and slipping into the familiar with her has me talking looser than I should.
“So, what’s with these new tats I’ve never seen before?”
“What about them?” she grins.
“Well, you had one the last time I checked — that fucking shamrock on your shoulder.”
“Hey, I like my shamrock, thank you very much.”
“Don’t get me wrong, the shamrock is great. But…”
“But what.”
“But I saw a lot more the other day.”
She blushes. “So, I’ve got new tattoos. So do you.”
I grin. “Yeah but I had a bunch before. Guess I never pegged you for an ink girl.”
She arches a brow mischievously at me as the corners of her mouth turn up. “Well I guess there’s all sorts of things you don’t know about me.”
There’s something sultry in her voice — something aided by whiskey I’m sure, but it’s gets me hard in a second. There’s something tantalizing about that tone, like she’s daring me to find out what those things are.
“Oh really?”
“Oh, really.”
She smirks, still blushing as she unzips her hoodie, pushes it off, and pulls up the sleeve of her t-shirt. My eyes skim over the swirl of delicate red roses climbing the thinly-lined Celtic cross on her shoulder.
The tattoo is gorgeous, not to mention amazing work. And it’s perfect for her — feminine, yet bold.
Some girls look trashy with ink. Sorry, but it’s true. Hell, some guys look shitty with it too. But to me at least, women are already just works of art as is. Soft lines, easy curves — sensuality perfected.
Sometimes ink ruins that, but not with her.
Not by damn mile.
“It’s for my mom.”
I smile. “I figured.”
“Roses were her favorite.”
“I know.”
Her eyes flash at mine before dropping to her drink.
“What else you got?”
She blushes. “You first. You’ve got a ton more since…”
She trails off, but I shrug, yanking the arm of my own t-shirt up my forearm to flash the sleeve she never saw before.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, still working on it, but it’s almost there.”
She leans closer, her hand half-outstretched when she stops, glancing up at me. “Can I?”
I nod, and she hesitates one second more before her fingers graze my arm.
I can feel the heat flare inside of me at her touch, the way the electric buzz jolts between us as she traces the lines on my arm.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
I frown, my jaw tightening slightly when she withdraws her hand.
“So what else you got, Reilly?”
Her cheeks flush again, her eyes looking up at me before she seems to swallow it back. She stands suddenly, but my quizzical look freezes when my eyes drop to her waist as she hooks her thumb into the elastic of her yoga pants. She peels them down over one of her hips, and I resist the urge to growl out loud as she pushes down the elastic of her pink lace thong panties, her creamy skin revealed to me.
God damn. I missed the sight of that hip — that little groove delving down across her thigh, diving down to where her legs meet.
I resist the urge to reach out right here and yank them the rest of the way down.
“There’s this one.”
The tattoo is a swath of delicate, intricate tiny stars across her hip, connected with small, elegant dotted lines.
“It’s—”
“Andromeda,” I finish, glancing up to see her biting her lip and blushing.
I’d know this constellation in the dark, with my eyes closed, and blindfolded.
We were sixteen when I took Aela to the Planetarium at the Museum of Science. Well, no, not took — conned. I told her it was for a school project I was struggling with, which was at least half true because I never really took to school much.
We sat in the dark, me just breathing in the nearness of her as some bodiless voice mumbled about the Big Dipper, and Ursa Minor and Major. I held her hand at Cassiopeia. I turned to look at her at Orion.
At Andromeda, I kissed her for the first time, and I can honestly say I haven’t been the same since.
And she went and got the damn thing tattooed on her skin.
I can feel the heat pulsing inside of me, my chest feeling tighter — the need for her threatening to break free of every cage I’ve locked it in over the years.
Slowly, I move my hand forward.
I don’t ask permission.
This is a terrible idea.
She trembles as my fingers trace the stars of Andromeda on her hip, and I love the way she shivers — the way her breath catches.
She steps away suddenly, pulling them back up and sitting quickly, her face bright red.
We sit there in silence for another minute before I clear my throat.
“Another drink?”
“Yes,” she says quickly, laughing and shaking her head. She reaches for the bottle herself this time, pouring us a refill before she clinks her glass to mine.
Damn, this is comfortable.
This is us right back to what was. I’ve spent years squash
ing down the roaring unfairness of it — years spent telling myself duty is duty, and orders are orders, and that what I did, I did for the good of the family, and for the good of the Saints.
Except six years later, I still hate that I did.
Six years later, I still wish I’d had those six years with her.
“Where’d you go all those years, Aela-girl?”
I say it quietly, my voice leaden.
She bristles, her smile dropping for a moment. “You know where I was. Boarding school, college in California. Places.”
“You stayed away.”
“I think we both know there was nothing for me here,” she says, looking at her glass. “With Sheila gone? With everything that… well, with what happened back then.”
I toy with the glass of whiskey in my fingers. “I always wanted you to come back, and I always hoped you never would.” I look up and hold her eyes with mine until she looks away.
“You made it pretty clear you wanted me to leave.”
“Want isn’t the word.”
“Oh?” she bristles. “What then?”
“I knew if you stayed…” I shake my head. I’m not going to tell her about the promise to her father. Not now. Not like this. And besides that, it’s not for me to tell her that her father told me to make sure she stayed the fuck away from this place.
“What?”
I sigh. “If you stayed, you’d be everything you never wanted to be. You’d stay here and marry some fuckin’ Southie mobster dickhead and just stay here, rotting away.”
“As opposed to my current scenario, where I stay here and marry some fuckin’ Southie mobster dickhead?”
She smiles thinly, but I grit my teeth. “Yeah, basically.”
Aela shakes her head. “It’s unavoidable.”
There’s silence again before she looks up at me, a smile teasing her lips. “Just for the record, are you the ‘some fuckin’ Southie dickhead’ in your what-if scenario?”
I grin. “You calling me a shithead?”
“Oh, don’t worry, you’re my favorite shithead. First choice for sure.”
“Thanks, Reilly.”
“Pleasure.”
Begging for Bad Boys Page 77
