I wouldn't be surprised if she forgot to phone me when she was in the ER, because I wasn't a priority, but I was pleased to see she'd messaged.
Inessa: At the ER.
Seeing she’d sent that ten minutes ago, I quickly tapped out: Me: Everything okay?
Inessa: Eoghan's raising hell. They keep wanting me to talk to a nurse first. He’s insisting on a doctor. A FEMALE doctor, too. *sighs*
My lips twisted.
Me: As predicted.
Inessa: Yeah. You were right. Not just about that... He was mad I didn't tell him sooner.
Me: Of course he was. He loves you. He wants what's best for you.
Inessa: :/ I guess I'm not used to being a priority.
Eyes stinging, I replied: Me: None of us are, malyshka. I'm glad you've found someone who treats you right. <3
Inessa: Thank you, Cammie xx GTG. Doctor's here at last. Eoghan's already started giving her the side eye and she's only just poked her head around the curtain.
Me: LOL. xoxo
Inessa: TTYL xoxo
I tried not to take too much comfort in those 'xoxo's but I did. If I could rebuild my relationship with Inessa, then at least one part of my life would be on track.
With a happy sigh, and now knowing that she was being treated and in her husband's care, I prepped Terry for our ride.
The second we were outside, my butt perched on his hind, my shoulders straightening and my hips turning both loose and relaxed while my core remained engaged as I started to sway with him, I took my first real breath. A deep inhalation and a deep exhalation.
The oxygen flooded my system as I looked around the beautiful Fall day.
The trees had already started to turn, the leaves were a bright red—the ones that remained on the canopies anyway. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and I...
God, why did I just want to cry?
Being alone, being amid nature, not having anyone watching me, the ability to be free, even if it was for a handful of moments... it felt both torturous and delightful.
The land belonged to the stables, one of the few remaining in the area with so much free space to roam. Terry knew all the trails like the old pro he was, so I let him guide me, knowing I’d be safe with him, but not having to focus drew my mind to my circumstances.
“I should never have come back to the city.”
I whispered the words to myself as I let my head fall back, the white clouds so blinding that my eyes stung behind my shades—at least, that was what I told myself.
Yeah, I’d blame the sky.
Right.
I’d given Victoria my telephone number only recently, because I’d been missing my sisters something fierce. It was horrible to admit that being Nyx’s goddamn sex toy had been enough to keep me going, to stop me from feeling lonely.
“Too pathetic to live,” I muttered under my breath, forcing myself not to tug on the reins—my agitation at my own stupidity wasn’t something poor Terry should have to handle.
My stupidity was repaid by Victoria’s call a few weeks after I’d given her the number, when she’d told me Father had been knee-capped. She’d expected me to come home, and like a fool, I had. That was what family did, wasn’t it?
We came home in times of trouble.
We didn’t expect that a parent would sell us off while they were still in casts from surgery.
Mouth tightening at the thought, I finally focused on my surroundings and noticed we’d gone so deep into the trail that Terry had started to wander back toward the stables.
My back was starting to ache, which told me I needed to visit more. Thanks to years away from the saddle, I wasn’t able to ride as long as I’d like, and sometimes, it wasn’t easy sneaking out of the house. I was a grown ass woman, capable of going wherever the hell I wanted, but the truth was, if someone spotted me in the hall, I was obliged to talk with them.
And that, sometimes, was more than I could muster.
In high school, thanks to my heritage, I’d earned that most boring of titles—Ice Princess. Maybe I was that. Frigid, too. Or maybe I was just anxious. So eager to escape the necessities of human convention that I preferred to stay in my room. To live inside my four walls where I didn’t have to break bread with killers, where I didn’t have to wander past a room where my mother had died in a pool of her own blood and Italian cum.
The pain that thought triggered was like when Father slapped me across the face, and my gasp was so sharp that Terry paused, hovering slightly, waiting for further instruction. When I didn’t give him any, he carried on his path, and I just let him.
I didn’t stir him out of the gentle walk and into a canter.
I just allowed him to lead me back to the stables, where the ripe scent of horses and the pungent stench of hay welcomed me like a warm embrace.
My thoughts were too dark for this crisp, bright day, but they were weighing on me like clouds that were heavy with rain. Plaguing me and giving me no escape in the one source of joy in my life—my horses.
As I tended to Terry, giving him some more carrots in gratitude for his having taken good care of me, brushing him down and giving him extra hay, I switched focus.
Too often, I found myself stuck in the past.
But this was my present.
And I had to make sure that my future was brighter.
That meant exchanging one killer for another—not that great a bargain, but at least this one was nearer my age than the grave and, according to Mama, was a decent human being despite his career choices.
It was time I made my move. Father and Abramovicz weren't going anywhere... Not like I'd hoped.
I just prayed I wasn't too late.
Now Svetlana wanted rid of me, only God knew how quickly Father would act.
With a soft kiss to his nose, I departed, leaving Terry behind for another day. I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn’t realize just how quiet the stables had grown, though, so when I twisted around, and I saw him, I staggered back in surprise.
Whatever I'd expected, it wasn't that I'd see Brennan O'Donnelly leaning against the door to my stables.
Had I magicked him into being with my thoughts?
If only wishful thinking really worked that damn way.
It took me a second to regain my composure, before I tipped my chin up as I watched his gaze dart over me, around me, taking in the situation, my location, and while it wasn’t the best timing, not with my hair probably a mess from the helmet I’d worn, and my jodhpurs scuffed from the few tasks I’d completed around Terry’s stall, I’d take it.
Snagging an invitation to Inessa’s place was one thing, trying to ensure her brother-in-law was there as well, another. And while I had no idea why he was here, that wasn't going to stop me from taking advantage of this good fortune.
As I straightened my shoulders, I was fully aware that my future was on the line with this conversation.
But I’d walked naked amid a bar full of men.
I’d sucked Nyx off in front of his brothers.
I’d lived with bikers with more blood on their hands than motor oil, and I’d survived not only a poverty-stricken life, but one with the biggest cats of them all—clubwhores.
After that, this was a piece of cake.
One Irishman wasn’t enough to scare me. Nor would he turn my head. Where this situation was concerned, I was like Terry. One destination in mind. Except, my trail wouldn’t end at the stables...
“I have a favor I’d like to call in.”
Seven
Brennan
Her coolness, her calm, her resolve, all of it keyed me into the impossible—she knew about us.
About Mariska and me.
Of the many directions I could have anticipated this conversation taking, this wasn’t one of them.
“How?”
It was the only question I was really interested in.
The favor? Less so. Favors were dull, a common commodity in my world.
No, wh
at I found fascinating was her.
She reached up and tugged on a chain around her neck. As she let the silvery metal slide between her fingers, I saw the tiny star. Platinum. Tipped with emeralds.
My lips tightened at the sight of the stupid gift I’d given to someone I’d thought I’d loved at the time. I’d been too young to recognize it for what it was—a crush a guy had on a beautiful older woman. One who wasn’t a whore. One who knew how to suck a cock, and who was mature enough to take her own pleasure.
She'd been my Mrs. Robinson.
I’d been infatuated.
I knew that now.
The gift was a sign of my recklessness, however, and I didn’t appreciate seeing the proof of that in the flesh.
“She told you?”
“No.” Camille shook her head. “She wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing something like that with me.”
“Then, I repeat, how?” If it sounded like it came out between gritted teeth, then so be it. I wasn’t about to dig myself a deeper grave. I wanted to know exactly what she’d learned, and how, before I committed to anything.
It was just uncanny that she was talking of favors when the burden of Mariska’s promise had been weighing heavily on me.
Coincidence.
Nothing more.
“I found this necklace first. And it triggered a few memories.”
Her smile made an appearance, and it was uncanny how much she took after Mariska, while also being a thousand times more beautiful. It was like the difference between a candle and a thousand-watt flashlight.
One illuminated, the other laid everything bare.
And the most impressive thing of all was that she wore little to no make-up. Her skin gleamed with honest sweat, she didn’t use any of that shit women wore nowadays—the stuff that crafted illusions about their bone structure.
There was no magic here.
She had a chin as sharp as an ice pick. A deep point that added to the fragility of her cheeks, making the arches seem impossibly high. They were slightly gaunt, like she hadn’t been eating well. She had long blonde lashes that weren’t tinted with mascara, and the greenest fucking eyes I’d ever come across. And I was Irish. Green eyes were our stock in trade.
Her brow was slanted, the temples delicate with golden hair wisping around in a chaotic mess that came from the helmet she’d been wearing, and it arched into a widow’s peak that seemed to add to how many angles she had.
Her nose was streamlined, a delicate blade that bisected the two perfect halves, before it gave way to the delicious rosebud mouth that merely confirmed she was a china doll in the flesh.
Everything about her was delicate.
Feminine.
From the long, slender arch of her throat, to the collarbones that I could fit my thumb in. She had a tiny waist, slim hips, but her tits? In the modest camisole she wore, I knew they were fake. They had to be. No way could such a slim woman have that kind of rack.
More than that, beneath the straps of the magenta cami, there was no sign of a bra, but her tits, as well as the rest of her, were terminally perky.
She was, quite frankly, a walking porn star with the face of a princess.
Jesus.
How was this the first time I cast eyes on her?
“What kind of memories?” I rasped, trying to keep my focus on the matter at hand and not the semi triggered by the mental image of those tits of hers bobbing around my cock.
“I remembered her wearing it and touching it with a smile.” Her eyes were stormy, more gray than green, as her gaze turned distant with thoughts of her turbulent past. “Knew that who’d gifted her it made her happy. She wasn’t happy with Father. He can’t make himself that, never mind anyone else.
“Then there’s the fact that he’d never have given her anything like this. It’s platinum, and the emeralds are real, but it’s too discreet for him. He always wants to show off his power, his position. That’s why half her jewels need to stay in a vault... This one stood out among her things because it didn’t belong.
“Nobody would give her something this pricey outside of the family, and I was too young to gift her anything like that, so I knew it had to be a lover.
“The value as well as the memory of her smiling when she touched it led me on a hunt in the attics. I wish I’d read her diaries after she died, but it was too painful to even contemplate looking at them back then. That was why I hid them up there.” A soft, sorrowful laugh escaped her. “She wrote in French, just like she taught us, and that was where I learned about her meelyi.”
My jaw tensed as I recalled that endearment, something I hadn’t heard in a long time. Something I hadn’t wanted to hear either.
Mariska was, in my mind, locked away under the label ‘big, fat mistake.’
Worse than that time I’d tried ecstasy and had almost died.
If she’d been clinging on to that necklace, it only confirmed how right I’d been to break things off when I had. If she could spend years pining for something that had amounted to an affair, I didn’t need Camille to ram home how miserable her mother’s marriage had been.
“She named me?” I whispered, rage making my voice quiet.
Her eyes were sad. “She did. In the last few passages. I recognized your name, not just because of Eoghan, but because you’re in the papers a lot.”
Guessed that explained how she’d recognized me when we’d never met before. A sharp hiss still gusted from my lips at Mariska’s idiocy. “That was a stupid thing to do.” No wonder she’d gotten her ass killed.
Tension filtered into her frame. “Everything about your affair was stupid. Dangerous. Still, it made her happy even if it killed her.”
Mouth tight, I rasped, “You don’t know that.”
“Oh, I know it helped,” she argued softly. “Those last few passages revealed she was aware Father knew she’d cheated on him at one point.” Her brow puckered. “She should never have had Victoria. It put her life at risk. I didn’t know until I read her journals, but she couldn’t have any more children, which meant her usefulness to Father had dried up. He’d still wanted an heir, and she couldn’t give it to him.
“That was why she urged you into that promise... because she knew he’d kill her when he found out—which he did. Years later, but she was right. And here’s me, standing in front of you, hoping that you’re the man of honor she painted you as.”
If she’d have used any other fucking word but that one, honor, I’d have walked away. Promise or not, leverage was something I wielded, not something that was used against me.
Had Mariska been suicidal? Naming me in her goddamn diary? Did Vasov know one of the O’Donnellys had been boning his missus? What the fuck was our alliance about if he did?
This changed everything.
A few, fucking stupid diary entries tilted this already precarious situation on its head.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, before reaching down to massage the back of my neck.
Honor.
It was the one thing I tried to live by.
Big fat mistakes weren’t the only things that littered my past. I’d taken a lot of missteps along the way, and the older I got, the more I survived, the deeper the desire had been to adhere to a set of standards that were of my own making.
One of those?
To face the past, to live up to it, and with any problems my youthful idiocy triggered, I had to deal with them head on. While, back then, I’d made that promise about Inessa and Camille as Victoria hadn't even fucking existed, honor demanded I protect her too.
Goddammit.
Gripping the back of my neck, I rasped, “What’s the favor?”
For the first time, she wasn’t confident. If anything, she was hesitant as she asked, “Why are you here?”
I frowned, pinning her in place with my stare. “Why the fuck does it matter?”
“It matters because when an Irishman approaches Italian territory to speak with a daughter of the Bratva, it doesn’t
bode well.” Her chin tipped up again, another spark appearing in those stormy eyes, making the irises look like lightning sparked inside them. Fuck, she was pretty. “Before I tell you what I need, I want to make sure you weren’t sent here to kill me.”
I snorted. “That’s a bit below my pay grade.”
Her hands tightened into fists at her side. “I’m relieved to hear I’m so unimportant.”
I shrugged. “If I were you, and considering the current situation, I’d be glad about that too.” Before she could ask me again why I was here, why today was the goddamn day I’d decided to bring this shit to a head—and look what I got for trying to be as fucking honorable as her Ma had described—I rasped, “What’s the favor, Camille?”
Nerves had her licking her lips. Those plump lips that parted just so, that made me think about pressing my thumb to the soft cushion of the bottom one, that made me think about watching her swallow me whole.
These weren’t things I should be thinking of. Not with the daughter of an ex. Not with a daughter of the Bratva. And sure as fuck not with someone who thought I owed them.
God, I hated owing anything to anyone.
That was not how the O’Donnellys worked.
Owing her mother was bad enough, but marriage had seemed like the simplest way to protect Mariska’s eldest from the wolves I knew were nipping at her heels.
I had no idea what she’d want from me, and could only imagine it would start a shitstorm—
“I want you to marry me.”
For a second, I couldn’t believe my ears.
Her favor and my reason for being here... it was improbable they were so aligned. Yet, the improbable had happened.
Here was me thinking she might ask me to kill her father for her, or Abramovicz, that cunt Sovietnik who was sniffing around her pussy like he was a tomcat in heat, but she just wanted me to marry her.
I saw the tension in her muscles, like she was just waiting to leap into the fray, to fight me on this. More than that, I saw the one thing she was trying to hide—desperation.
And like that, the balance tilted, slanting in my favor again.
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 6
