by S. E. Lund
"You had no choice. Spencer—"
I held up my hand. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. I think I need to sleep."
She nodded and stood up to get her bag. "I'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll have a late breakfast."
I waved at her when she left and then lay back down, closing my eyes against the spinning of the room.
"Oh, God."
Then my cell rang. I grabbed it out of my bag and saw that it was Graham.
"Graham," I said, my emotions once more overwhelming me.
"I know," he said, his voice sounding tired. "I saw the news. Then Spencer called to crow about getting Hunter's uncle. Can you believe that bastard?"
"Yes," I said and rubbed my eyes. "I feel so bad."
"I do, too. I wish…"
"Me too," I said. I knew what Graham wished. Like me, he wished we'd gone against Spencer and remained friends with Hunter. "I wish I'd never listened to Spencer. I wish some mobster would shoot him."
"Don't say that, Celia," Graham admonished, but of course I was drunk and sad and wouldn’t listen to reason. "You don't want him murdered by the mob."
"I do," I said. "He's a bastard. He was happy that Sean was killed. He said he wished the whole family would be shot. He's a monster." I bit my cheek to keep from sobbing out loud.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "You sound bad."
"I'm drunk, okay?" I said and then knocked myself on the head. I didn’t need a lecture on drinking from Graham. "Amy and I went out for a few drinks to drown my sorrows."
"You should watch how much you drink, Celia. Remember what happened to Dad."
Of course, he would remind me that alcoholism was what killed our father. An alcoholic got into a car despite being drunk and drove down the wrong side of the freeway, killing my father and disabling my mother.
"Don't remind me."
"I feel like I have to."
"Even you get drunk now and then," I said defensively. "I deserve to now and then, too, and this is as good a reason as any."
"Just take it easy. Pretty soon, you'll get control over your inheritance and can tell Spencer to fuck off. We'll invest it and make even more off it and you'll be set up for when you graduate. Spencer will never have any power over us again."
I nodded. When I turned twenty-four, Spencer would no longer be the executor of my father's will. I'd be free from him. No more manipulation. I could write him out of my life. If only my mother hadn't married him and given him power of attorney when she had gotten so sick…
"I have to go to sleep," I said finally and we said our goodbyes.
I lay in the darkened room and thought about everything. All my regrets, starting with my father's death, Spencer's domination, my treatment of Hunter, and now, Sean's death and how hurt and filled with grief Hunter must be.
Despite all the alcohol, sleep was a long time coming.
Chapter 3: Hunter
One Year Earlier
The funeral was held on the following Thursday, and was well-attended by the local Irish Catholic community. During Mass, I noted a few faces in the pews I hadn't seen before—beady-eyed pale men with high Slavic cheekbones.
Russians.
Thugs from the Romanov family. I hated them.
I'd have to deal with them sooner or later. John was advising me on what protection money we had to pay and how money was laundered through illegal betting on the fights. It was small potatoes, compared to the Romanov family, whose tentacles spread all through the eastern US, in the docks, in fights, in drugs and prostitution.
It was enough to get a RICO charge against my uncle, but I suspected that was done as some kind of favor to Spencer, the new DA, rather than because my uncle was such a big prize.
This whole mess was what I had wanted to escape when I’d joined the Marines. Now here I was, being advised on how to get along in this corrupt world I'd always hated.
The night before, we'd held a real Irish wake for Sean at my uncle's club, although we didn’t prop Sean's body in his coffin in the corner, which my father said had been common back in Ireland. Instead, we created a small shrine with a big picture of Sean, taken when he was still boxing. It was a photo of him standing in the ring after winning a bout, the referee holding his hand high, his face beatific. How he had loved boxing and MMA.
We toasted Sean, talked about the past, and shared our memories of him as a boy, then as a fighter, and finally as a man.
I had always looked up to Sean. He was my big brother who had shown me the ropes both in and out of the boxing ring. He had such a good disposition, and despite his traumatic brain injury he had been cheerful, always laughing and putting his arm around my shoulder.
Now, I was the big brother. I was the oldest Saint of my generation. John was younger than me, Conor younger still. My female cousins weren't involved in the business in any way, so I knew it was all down to me. In the coming weeks, my father would be looking to me to help him adjust to not having either Donny or Sean to help with the business. In the first few distraught hours after the shooting and Sean's death, I’d thought I might escape being drawn back into the business, but I'd been wrong. Finally, I acknowledged that my father needed me. I had to sacrifice what I wanted for him and for Conor.
I had to man up.
After the Mass, we took Sean's coffin to the local Catholic cemetery for burial. The priest led a small service at the graveside, and our closest family and friends stood around under the shade of an old oak tree, and we said our goodbyes to Sean.
There wasn't a dry eye in the place when my cousin John's youngest daughter Colleen played an Irish song on her fiddle, Down by the Sally Gardens. Based on a poem written by William Butler Yeats, it was Sean's favorite piece, and one he used to request when the family got together and listened to Irish music.
Then they lowered his casket into the freshly-dug grave and we took turns with the spade, shoveling dirt onto it.
After I finished my turn, I stood back and watched while John did his. My eye was caught by a woman about thirty feet away from our small group of family and close friends. She stood a few rows down in the shade beneath another tree. She had her hair up, and she wore a black dress and a pair of large sunglasses. I almost didn't recognize her. I thought she was just visiting some other grave, but there was something familiar about her. I glanced at her again and realized who it was.
Celia.
My heart squeezed to see her. I glanced around, wondering if Graham had come with her as well, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
I was surprised to see her at the cemetery. I didn't think she'd care enough to show up and offer condolences. She'd never spoken to me again after that one night we spent together. She'd passed me over for Greg, who she must have thought had better prospects.
I frowned and glanced away, not wanting her to know I saw her.
I had nothing to say to her, nor did I want to hear her voice or listen to any condolences she might express about Sean's death.
When the ceremony was over, we left the graveside and made our way back to the limos that lined the narrow road through the cemetery. I slipped into the black limo behind the hearse and tried not to look around and see where Celia was, but failed, unable to resist checking to see if she was still there. I noted that she remained where she’d stood during the ceremony, and did not approach my family or friends to say anything. As we drove off, I saw her go to the grave and throw a single yellow rose onto the mound of earth.
That got me in the chest. I wished things had turned out differently for us.
Back then, I had the serious hots for Celia but had fought my lust for her. I’d thought she hated Spencer and would side with me and my family, but I was wrong. There was a reason I stayed single, not getting too deeply involved with any women. I knew how fickle they could be, telling you they loved you in one breath and then ending up with your best friend in the next.
I didn't need it.
Don't fall in love.
Don't get you
r hopes up too high.
Don't trust what people say. Watch what they do instead. Actions speak louder than words.
Celia proved that to me, and Graham proved that to me. I'd learned my lesson.
I made a trip back to Quantico when the paperwork came through for a hardship discharge. I was sad to be leaving before I’d be able to take a new group of hopeful officers through their paces, selecting the best of the best to join the Corps as Marine officers. I filled out the legal documents, presented statements from my father's doctors about his condition and prognosis, and had the paperwork about my brother's death sent to my CO.
One week and an hour of signing papers later, I was out.
I came back to Boston, back to my family's business. I was determined to find out who had ratted Donny out and get revenge. But to do that, I had to get really dirty.
In the meantime, I familiarized myself with my father's business while he recovered from Sean's death.
"It's not fair for a father to bury his son," he said to me one day while we sat in the office going over business receipts. "That's the worst thing a parent can imagine."
"I know, Dad," I said and leaned over to give him a squeeze, my arm around his shoulder. "It's hard to lose a big brother, too. I always looked up to Sean. You know that."
"I'm so glad you're out of the Marines," he said, his eyes wet. "I've been so afraid that you'd be killed over there in that mess. Every day while you were in a combat zone, I was afraid for you. Every phone call that came in, every time I saw a black sedan drive by the front of the building, I was afraid it was someone coming to tell me you were dead."
"I was lucky," I said, nodding. "I lost some men over there. My special operations unit was tight. We only went on operations that were planned down to the second. I was probably safer then than I will be now."
"None of us could have imagined Sean would do that," my father said, shaking his head and mopping his eyes with a handkerchief from his pocket. "I never would have thought he'd do something so rash."
I inhaled deeply, just as shocked and horrified that Sean had shown such bad judgement.
"Thank God you came back," he said emotionally. I stood up and put my arms around his shoulders while he tried to regain control over himself. "I'm so sorry, Hunter," he said between sobs. "I'm so sorry…"
"It's okay," I said softly. "I understand. I feel the same way."
It was going to take a while to get over what happened. With Donny in prison awaiting trial, and Sean dead and buried, it was just my dad and me running things, with the help of John, who managed the gym.
Conor would return to Vegas in another week or so, where he was training with one of the best amateur boxing organizations in the country. My father didn't want to see him go so soon, but Conor promised to come back at a moment's notice if anything changed, or if my father or I needed him to help with the business.
We wouldn't call on him for help. He had to make this go at the Olympics now, while he was in top form. The more he delayed, the harder it would be. I liked having him around, because he was a sweet kid and had a cheery disposition, even in the worst of times. But he had to try for the Olympics. I would never want to deny him that.
I agreed to run a security detail for my uncle's nightclubs, providing twenty-four-hour protection for their various locations. John relied on my expertise in that area, for Donny had been the one to run the clubs. So, not only would I be taking over the gym and franchises, I'd be taking over Donny's clubs. He had three, all in Boston. I hadn't seen the books, or any of the details of the businesses, but I knew that once I did, I'd learn a lot more about my uncle's ties to the mob.
I leaned back in my chair and shook my head at my situation. For most of my life, I had done everything in my power to avoid my family's criminal ties. Now here I was, back in the middle of everything.
I hated it, but I had decided to work toward one goal.
Bring down the Romanov family, especially Sergei Romanov—the bastard who had his tentacles wrapped around my family, and who was ultimately responsible for my brother's death.
I was just biding my time until I had what I needed to take them down.
If I had my way, I'd set Sergei Romanov's empire on fire so I could watch it burn, just the way my grandfather had burned to death on a lonely road outside of Boston two dozen years ago when I was only six, just as I'd watched my brother get shot and die because of my family's inability to get out of Romanov's clutches.
They had tried, but the Romanovs’ power was just too great, and both my father and uncle had failed.
I wouldn't.
Chapter 4: Hunter
Present Day
The pretty nurse with tired blue eyes looked at me with skepticism when I arrived after visiting hours. I was determined to see Graham, so I turned on my charm, and leaned over the counter.
"I'm looking for Graham Parker's room."
"Are you immediate family?" she asked, her eyes moving over me questioningly.
I made a face of confusion. "What's immediate? I'm a cousin. I've been out of town and only just got back in." It was a lie but there was really no reason why I shouldn’t be able to see him.
She shook her head and gave me an impatient look. "Visiting hours are over," she said, pointing to the sign on the wall. "Only immediate family can come in after hours."
"If I promise to just pop in for a minute? Pretty please?" I said, laying on the sad puppy eyes. I even held my hands up in mock prayer. "Sixty seconds? I came all this way from the airport, and my taxi already left…"
She rolled her eyes and smiled reluctantly. "Okay, but only a minute. He's sleeping right now."
"I won't wake him. How is he?"
"He's stable, but his condition is still guarded."
"Okay," I said, nodding in understanding. "I'll just pop in quickly, just to see how he's doing."
She pointed down the hallway to Graham's room and I smiled.
"Thanks so much. I really appreciate this."
She smiled back and I felt her eyes on me as I walked down the hall to Graham's room. Being able to lay on the charm was a skill that I never let go to waste.
As I passed the rooms on my left and right, I realized how easy it would be for someone to get inside and hurt Graham. When Celia had texted me the last time, indicating Graham was in Mass General and it was a matter of life and death, I gave in and called the hospital to see what had happened.
A doctor had answered my questions when I’d said I was Graham's business partner and needed to know how long he'd be out of commission, giving him a story about a meeting regarding financing a new venture. The doc was reluctant to talk, but did acknowledge that Hunter had been beaten up pretty badly. I called over to Graham's office and spoke to Mark, who told me that the police had been by to question Graham and he'd insisted he was mugged in a back alley, but Mark let it slip he thought it was because Graham owed money to a loan shark.
That was my domain, so I called in a few markers and found out through the grapevine that Graham had been beaten up by one of the lower-level sharks in the Romanov universe.
Small-time hoods, but they were Russian and were always trying to make a name for themselves by how nasty they could be. I'd found that out only too well since I took over Donny's side of the business. It filtered down to me that Graham had failed to pay back the interest on a loan on time and they'd roughed him up to give him an incentive to pay up.
Given the lax security on the ward, I knew that if I didn’t pay Graham's debt, he could easily be killed.
I'd seen a lot in my time in Iraq and Afghanistan, but when I saw Graham, even I was shocked. His face was bruised, his eyes swollen tight, his lip cut and stitched, his head wrapped in bandages. His leg and arm were in casts and he looked deathly pale.
Despite everything, I couldn’t hate him.
I clenched my fists, wanting to pummel whoever did this to him.
It was clear he'd been beaten almost to death. I stood be
side his bed for a few moments and watched him sleep. I didn't plan on waking him up. I truly didn’t want him to know I'd been there, but I’d had to check on him myself after getting Celia's texts. She'd been increasingly distraught and so I thought I had better check it out myself.
Satisfied that he was alive, I left the room and smiled at the nurse on my way out of the ward.
I didn’t text Celia.
I didn't want to deal with her.
Seeing her at the funeral almost a year earlier had sent me into a funk that lasted a week, where I’d spent my nights in an alcohol-induced haze, regretting everything, resenting that I had to give up my life and return to Boston. I didn’t plan on repeating that mistake.
The next day, I spent time on the phone trying to get more info on what had happened to Graham. I called Pete Barnes, a cop in Boston PD who was friends with Donny and asked about the case.
"What can you tell me? How are the cops doing on finding the suspects?"
Barnes took in a breath. "Let me get the file."
I heard him flip through some papers on his desk. "We have a vehicle make and model, as well as a partial license plate given by the business partner. We know they're Russians, but nothing more."
"Who found him?"
"According to the police report, his partner found him in the back alley. Apparently, he'd met with some shady looking men in his office. There was shouting, from what our witnesses tell us. Then he went outside and got into a van with one of the men who had a Russian accent. He was gone for an hour. The partner found him in the back alley, unconscious and badly beaten badly, less than an hour later. Major Crimes interviewed Graham briefly yesterday, but he couldn't tell them anything specific about his assailants. Get this. Whoever did it carved '7 Days' on his chest."
"Holy shit." An image of Graham's bloody chest popped into my mind's eye. "Russian-sounding shady guys, you say?" I asked, wanting to know how close they were to finding the suspects. "I may know a few of those type of shady guys."
