I needed her away from the poison that was our father.
My mind was so slow that it felt like it was sludging through mud, but time wasn’t as kind. If anything, it flew, so damn fast that, within seconds, he wasn’t ten feet away from me but three. The wheelchair hurtling toward me, making me feel like a pin at a bowling alley that he was trying to ram down.
I stepped out of the way, huddling into the nook, but his hand reached for mine, his fingers digging into my wrist as he jerked me down.
“Why the fuck were you conferring with the Irish? Did they ask you to spy on me?”
Saliva spattered from his mouth, splashing me with his acid. I struggled, trying to get him to let go of me, knowing his grip would leave bruises in the morning, but the more I struggled to free myself from his iron grip, the tighter his hold became.
And then he reached for my other hand.
The one holding the pyramid.
His eyes glinted with malice as he snarled, “And what do you think you’re going to do with that?”
He’d hurt me worse over the years than a too-hard grip to my wrist.
He’d slapped me, hit me with a belt. He’d choked me a few times, especially those initial occurrences where I’d refused to marry the man he’d picked for me and just before I’d run away to the territory of the biggest baddies I could think of, far away from his reach, deep in a land that offered more protection in its public park than most Russians had in the comfort of their own homes with the doors fully locked.
I knew what it was like to be terrorized.
Saw the same shadows in my younger sister’s eyes, and knew Inessa was just as polluted with our father’s toxicity, and I knew it was my fault.
I’d never protected them.
I’d left them.
I’d let my younger sister protect the baby of the family. I’d run away, I’d abandoned them. I knew what I’d left behind, too. That was why I never pushed Inessa. Why I understood her lack of interest in me, and why her call today had come as such a surprise.
I’d let them down.
I’d relinquished them to this monster’s care.
And when I thought about how Mama had done the same, something inside me snapped.
Just as he was snarling, “Hand me your belt, Maxim,” something clicked inside my mind.
He was going to hit me with it.
Like I was a naughty little girl.
He was going to beat me—again.
Just like he’d beat my sisters—again and again.
The only one of us who was safe was Inessa.
But I had to change that.
I had to.
I felt that click in my mind as though it were a visceral entity. As though I’d switched on a light. My movements weren’t wooden, if anything, I drifted through the next steps like it was a dance.
I jerked my arm high, out of his grasp as I darted backward. Not far, just enough to evade his grip, to pull my wrist free as he struggled with me to gain a hold of the crystal pyramid, but this time, I was stronger.
I had to be.
Mine was a fury born of desperation.
Because, once this was done, I had a safe haven to retreat to.
Brennan O’Donnelly would protect me from the Bratva, from the repercussions of what I was about to do. But more than that, he’d protect Victoria too.
So it made my next step easy.
I brought the ornament down.
Hard.
Let glass collide with bone.
Allowed blood to spurt.
Let his rage-filled roar wash over me.
Allowed Svetlana’s stunned shriek to pierce my ears.
And I did it again.
And again.
And again.
Until my palms weren’t the only part of me that were bloody. Until the enemy inside my gates was gone.
Until the threat to me and my sisters was silenced.
Forever.
Eleven
Brennan
As we drove away from the stables, Bagpipes muttered, “You can’t trust Russians.”
I snorted. “Dipshit, you think I didn’t know that?”
“I’m your buddy. Your crew. I got your back—she don’t. She’s got your dick in a twist—”
My scowl darkened. “You can’t seriously think this is my dick doing the talking.” I mean, it was definitely chatting up a fucking storm now I’d seen her in person, but Christ, I wasn’t that fucking dumb.
“I don’t fucking know, man. I just know you’re gonna wed some Bratva bitch without your da’s permission. That means you’ve lost the fucking plot or something.”
I shrugged. “Da owes me some slack. Been taking up the reigns for Aidan for a while now, plus I’ve been keeping the boys in line.”
“Senior owes no one shit. You know how he works.”
Pursing my lips, I muttered, “I do.”
“And you’re still okay with going ahead with this anyway.” He shook his head. “You suicidal or something, man?”
“Nah, just got some old debts to pay off.”
“Since when do the O’Donnellys owe anyone? Usually the other way around, ain’t it?”
My crew and I were tighter than my brothers with theirs, but even though I’d come up with them, even though we’d come up together, that didn’t mean they knew all my secrets.
One of the main reasons behind my break up with Mariska was that Da had discovered I was screwing a Bratva woman, and had beaten the shit out of me for it. That would be the first time he’d broken my wrist but it hadn’t been the last, one of his usual punishments for not toeing the line when I was younger.
The family had kept our affair on the downlow. No one without an O’Donnelly last name knew I’d fucked around with a Pakhan’s wife. At the time, Forrest, Tink, and Bagpipes had jeered at me for boning an older woman, but I’d lied to them, told them it was the mom of a kid we’d gone to high school with. Now, my lies were coming home to roost where my friends were concerned.
Nose crinkling at the thought, I stretched my legs as I rumbled, “What the fuck’s Forrest’s problem anyway? He’s been nagging at me today like we’ve been married for thirty goddamn years.”
“Says you ain’t thinking properly, ain’t taking all the risks into consideration, and I can see where he’s coming from too. Your head’s been stuck in the clouds for a few days now.”
I scowled at him, but it missed the target because his focus was on the gnarly traffic that snagged us in its clutches as we headed toward Linden Blvd.
This was technically not our territory, but we’d had a place here for decades. It was rumored that Da had been burying people around this neighborhood for the past forty years, but Aidan Sr. wasn’t exactly the type of guy you could have a Q&A session with. If I’d asked, he’d have told me that the eighties were a completely different time.
Which didn’t answer my question. Nor did it delete my worries about the corpses that might pop up at any fucking moment.
The Hole was a part of the city that wasn’t really on anyone’s radar. It wasn’t hooked up to mains water, and because it was below sea level, it often flooded. On top of that, it wasn’t just the graveyard for our enemies, but also dumped cars. Those vehicles came in useful for us. On top of jacking a bunch and shipping them out to NJ for the Satan’s Sinners’ MC to strip down for parts so they could stuff ‘em full of product, we supplemented those with the abandoned junk cars we found in the neighborhood.
It was a community fucking service, not that we got any thanks for it.
The area was a shithole. More water than tarmac, fewer homes, and bad cell service. There were small housing estates that neighbored it, but that was what made it a great place for us to lay low.
No one was interested in The Hole.
Why would they be?
I’d made it my base when I’d come of age, taking over this small slice of hell because it was away from my da. We had a better relationship now than we had w
hen I was a snot-nosed kid, but I thought most of us did to be honest. I didn’t think he’d ever view us as equals. We’d always be his blue-eyed boys —even if we didn’t all have blue fucking eyes—but as we grew older, as we reigned over our own parts of the firm, well, his respect had to be earned and we’d done that with every drop of blood we’d shed for the Five Points. All of us had bled for the family. Some of us more than others.
Not just like with Aidan, who’d nearly been crippled in a drive-by shooting, but with Finn who’d almost lost his wife in that same attack.
The sacrifices we made to be a Pointer were many. As I grew to know Seamus, Declan’s teenaged son, I had to admit he was one of the reasons I wanted to settle down. Why I was ready to wife someone who knew the score, and who wanted the same things as me—a family.
“You’ve been weird ever since Shay turned up,” Bagpipes muttered, disarming me with how his mind was running on the same track as mine. “He’s a cool kid, man, but fuck, it’s turning your head.”
I scowled at him. “The hell is that supposed to mean? You accusing me of being a pervert or something?”
Bagpipes’ eyes rounded at that, and he gaped at me, long enough for a car to honk their horn at us and for him to swerve off the other side of the road and back onto our lane. “No way am I accusing you of being a pedo, man. Fuck. I just meant, it’s making you have some kind of biological clock malfunction or something.”
“Since when do you even know what a biological clock is?” I grumbled. “And it ain’t got nothing to do with my age.”
“No? Well, at least you admit something funky is going on.”
I gritted my teeth, not liking being questioned, but Forrest, Tinker, and Bagpipes were my friends. Brothers of choice, if not of blood. They had my back, and with the situations I got them into, they deserved to know the full truth. Even if that truth wasn’t all that flavorful.
Reaching up, I rubbed my chin, feeling the beginnings of a beard start to creep in. With Camille’s lips looking like a peach that was still on the tree, I’d never be able to kiss her with stubble. Not without wanting to taint that creamy skin.
The prospect of my cock between her lips, against that molten hot cunt of hers, between her tits, had me reaching down to adjust myself as discreetly as possible.
I’d gotten more than I’d bargained for with that kiss back at the stables. That was for goddamn sure.
Knowing I needed to shift focus before I started waxing fucking poetical about her taste, I muttered, “You’ve met Shay. What do you think of him? Aside from him being a cool kid.”
Bagpipes hesitated, and that hesitation was exactly what I’d banked on. “I mean,” he started, before he cleared his throat. “He’s, you know, cool.”
My lips twisted. “He ain’t Points’ material though, is he?”
Bagpipes winced. “Didn’t want to say nuthin’.”
“Why? I didn’t slice your hand off for insinuating I was a kid fucker. Why would I stab you in the leg for saying exactly how it is where my nephew is concerned?”
Because we pulled up at a red light, Bagpipes shot me a glare. “You make me feel so comforted.”
“Well, that’s my job in life, ain’t it? Not to give you nightmares?” I told him drolly. “But I think we all know getting him involved with the shady side of shit is a fuckfest just waiting to go down. I also don’t think Declan really wants that for him, and I think he’ll either go to loggerheads with Da, or the issue won’t be an issue if Da dies. He’s an old bastard. Can’t live forever.”
Bagpipes scowled as we set off again, the lights changing which heralded a bucket load of horns as we didn’t move fast enough—aka, at the speed of fucking sound.
New Yorkers—Jesus.
Not for the first time, my thoughts drifted back to Ireland.
I’d been there once. One fucking time. But it was like my brain constantly rewired itself and plunked me back there.
To a world where everything was green. Where the rain came down in torrents and made everything sparkle. Where it was a pleasure to tuck yourself away in front of a fire when the weather outside was abysmal. Where life, on the whole, felt so much simpler.
Jesus, maybe Bagpipes was right. Maybe I was starting to get weird.
Maybe I did have a biological clock ticking away.
Forty fucking years on this planet and I didn’t have that much to show for it.
Sure, I rode a Maybach, my place was in Carnegie Hill, and I had enough material possessions to make a Sheikh jealous... but while that might have been enough at one point in my life, it just wasn’t anymore.
I was tired. Of the bullshit, of the life. And things weren’t going to get any better. Not when we had a bunch of Illuminati fuckers sniffing around our assholes, just wondering if they could shove a ten-inch dildo up our asses without us noticing.
Aidan was a liability, Declan’s heart had never been in it, Eoghan and Conor were ripe for action, but they weren’t soldiers like Aidan and Declan were. That meant this entire shit show fell to me. Finn had lost his edge when he’d married Aoife, preferring to ride a desk and get rich by evading taxes, and while that was all grand, it meant that I was the one who had to deal with the mean fucking streets.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, pinching off the pressure at the same time. I wasn’t about to let it get to me, not when there was too much at stake. Ma had had a hard life without things ending like this, and I refused for the family to live in fear of a shadowy organization that pulled strings better than a server pulled pints of lager in a bar.
“Where’s your head at, man?” Bagpipes asked softly. “Why are you going through with this shit?”
“Because I can. Because seeing Shay, knowing that he has a future that has nothing to do with the Five Points apart from familial ties gives me hope that if I have a kid, they don’t have to follow in my fucking footsteps.”
I wasn’t surprised when he fell silent. Wasn’t surprised when I saw he’d blanched a little. What I’d just said was tantamount to mutiny in my family.
We both knew it.
Just like we knew he wouldn’t say jack. Not even to Forrest or Tink.
Clearing my throat, I muttered, “Don’t worry about it, Baggy. Everything will turn out all right.”
“It always does,” he agreed.
Neither of us mentioned how many poor fuckers would die before the shit turned out right in the end, though.
In fact, neither of us said all that much as we made it down trash-filled streets, roads lined with dumped cars that we’d be sending over to West Orange to facilitate our trafficking product up to the Canadian border.
As always, at least three streets were bogged down with water because not only were we about thirty feet under sea level, this area wasn’t hooked up to drains.
Nobody gave a fuck about The Hole, and that was why I’d made it my home away from home.
Dirty water splashed in cascading waves wherever we drove, and when Baggy pulled up outside our warehouse, I sighed and, thinking back to what I’d heard Forrest grumbling about on the phone, muttered, “She’s in there, I assume?”
“Demanded to speak with you.”
“Probably prefers talking to me rather than Declan.”
“Yeah,” Baggy agreed. “Let’s face it, Dec don’t give a shit about the business, but once she screwed his son over, she became a walking target.”
I hummed under my breath. “She still is one. Nobody touches a fucking O’Donnelly and lives without regretting it.”
His nose crinkled. “Bitch lost a couple of fingers and a thumb, Brennan. Probably has to pick her nose with a back-scratcher—I think she regrets it.”
“She will before we’re done with her.”
“Wonder how she explained her injuries to her superiors.”
Uncaring, I shrugged. “Probably told them she accidentally sliced them off when she was cooking.”
Bagpipes snorted. “Don’t fucking cook much, do ya?”
“Nah, too worried about cutting off a finger.”
As he grinned back at me, I slammed the door shut after I got out, hearing the driver’s door bang closed a few seconds later.
The yard was as muddy as every other part of this dump, and the outer walls of the place looked like they were about to seize under all the asbestos, but once I walked up the three stairs to the low porch, and headed inside, it showed a different side to things.
The front half was for business.
Where people came to talk to me, to curry favors, to petition our help. We were a little like a feudal system for our clients who paid us protection money. Da was proud of our service. Unlike the other fuckers who took businesspeople’s money and didn’t give a shit if they were hit up or if they were raided by the cops, Da provided a different kind of protection.
We cost twice more than the Russians and the Italians, were a little cheaper than those Triad cocksuckers, but we were worth it.
Unfortunately for me, I was the one who mostly dealt with angry bakers who’d lost their permits, and flustered jewelry store owners who’d been dealing with a spate of robberies.
Fun.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I saw the fourth man in my crew, Tinker, hovering by the stairs, waiting on me to show up.
It felt like all three of my guys had been dithering around as I hauled my ass across the city, but they didn’t say anything.
We were best buds, shot the shit like we were brothers, but they knew when I was boss.
“Caroline Dunbar wants to see you, but so does Anthony Isaac.”
“Jesus Christ,” I ground out. “You can’t be serious?”
Tink shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you? The bastard’s whining about a shipment of some kind of fucking snake that’s gone missing. He wants your help with Customs.”
“Pass him on to Da. He’s the one with friends there.”
Tinker’s eyes widened a little before he smirked. “He’ll love you for that. Shouldn’t you get him on your good side if you’re about to—”
I raised a hand to stop him from finishing that sentence, then glowered at him. “Shut the fuck up, Tink. Christ, we’ve got enemies in our midst.”
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 11
