In this day and age, people didn’t feel like spending half their lives in a Supermax, taking dumps with a terrorist for a cellmate next door, and staring up at white walls with no natural light for decades on end. Neither did they want to die the second they made it through the ranks and earned a patch on the streets.
The Irish were the only ones who gave a fuck, and for all my father was a head case, that was one thing you could say about him—he cared for his people.
We had retirement slush funds for senior Pointers who were more useful sunning themselves in Florida than dragging shit down in the Big Apple, and the widows of soldiers who’d died on the job were well taken care of, and an integral part of the life.
I knew for a fact that we were the only family who had a safe place to lockdown our women when things really turned bad, and that said a lot about us. About who we were and what mattered to us the most.
But for all that, some soldiers were better than others, and in my instance, I had a knack for sniffing out trouble. That was why I’d gotten in touch with Maxim Lyanov a long time ago.
Something Eoghan had said, months back, when he’d gone to visit his father-in-law after the dumbfuck had been knee-capped had stuck with me. About how Maxim, though he was only young by comparison to Vasov’s other guards, appeared to be higher up the ladder than Eoghan might have thought reasonable for a guy that age.
Guards had to be trusted, they had the responsibility of taking the bullet for their leaders, and that meant crafting a kind of loyalty that took years to build. The skills required to be a good guard were important too, but it was the trust that was the hardest thing to cultivate.
And it seemed that theory was right, too.
Maxim had sold out his Pakhan to me.
I wasn’t happy about the cost, but I’d deal with it later. All transactions had a price and I understood why Maxim had demanded his payment in the form of Victoria Vasov.
The thought had me tightening my hands around the steering wheel.
It was a problem, but before that happened, the bastard might die. Whether or not that was at the end of my gun was another matter entirely. To keep my promise, I’d kill him, I’d just prefer not to have to.
At nine o’clock, the traffic down to Brighton Beach was just as busy as usual. With the rest of my crew back in The Hole, for the first time in a long while, I was alone and I took a moment to listen to the music that most of those fuckers would have mocked me for.
As Damien Rice belted out his favorite faded fantasies, I was stuck in the grind of gears and wheels as the cops did what they did best—traffic duty. Pulling out all the stops to get the roads churning in the aftermath of a car crash that was definitely going to make me late.
Checking my messages as we were at a standstill, I saw I had one from her.
Camille: Is everything okay? Are you on your way?
Me: First time I could message. There’s been a crash. Are you safe?
I wasn’t sure what had been the trigger, wasn’t sure why tonight was the night when she’d shattered, especially when she was going to be free from her father’s clutches tomorrow, but I saw no point in pouting over spilled milk.
She didn’t need that shit from me.
She’d just killed her fucking sire—no bitch I knew would be okay with that. Even the ones who hated their folks didn’t want their blood on their hands, and I couldn’t blame them. My da hadn’t exactly been a saint, and there were some days when he drove me to want to stab him in the neck to get him to shut up, but I never went through with it.
I knew exactly what he was. Knew his failings, and his weaknesses, and that I didn’t kill him was a testament to the fact that I didn’t want him dead.
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but on the days when he pissed me off, on the days where, at forty years of fucking age, I had to pull shady moves to keep my bride’s identity from him—those were the moments when I could throttle him.
Vasov, on the other hand, was a different kind of monster.
Da celebrated family. At least, in his own way he did.
Vasov wasn’t like that.
That had been clear to me every time Inessa was around us all. She looked like she was waiting for a time bomb to detonate, and when Da had his explosive bursts of temper, even now, after months of Eoghan’s protection, she would always flinch like she expected him to hit her. That meant Camille would be the same way, which wasn’t exactly something to look forward to. Maybe her time with the Sinners would have toughened her up some.
Ironically enough, she was the one who took a long time to reply to my message, which filled me with concern. I peered around, my foot tapping against the foot rest as I tried to figure out how long it was going to take for the pigs to get a move on, when finally she replied:
Camille: I had to drive somewhere else. I recognized a group of boyeviks heading into a restaurant nearby.
So, at least she had a fucking brain.
That was something.
Me: Good thinking.
I was about to ask her to send a live location, but she did that without me having to request it.
While she hadn’t reinvented the goddamn wheel, in my world, some women had been raised to ask when they could go for a shit, so that she had some initiative gave me hope for the future.
Me: Thanks.
Another glance around the street provided me with the sight of a bunch of red lights flashing off up ahead as traffic finally began to shift.
Me: On my way now. Hopefully I won’t be long. If there’s a problem, and you need to move again, send me another live location.
Camille: Will do.
Short and sweet.
Just how I liked it.
Once traffic was underway, it didn’t slow down again, so finally, I made it down the Beltway and toward the live location where she was hiding out—she hadn’t sent me another, so I was glad to know she considered herself safe enough.
As safe as any woman could be in that fucking neighborhood.
Parked up on the border between Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay, I found the same SUV she’d driven this morning behind a small bakery that was closed now and a bar and sushi restaurant, both of which were teeming with patrons.
Thankfully, there was a lull in traffic, which, after what I’d just driven through, meant luck was on my side, and I pulled up next to it, giving her just enough space to open her door, lock it, then to climb into the passenger seat.
As she moved, I kept an eye on the bar and sushi restaurant, monitored the roads and the vicinity to make sure no one registered what was happening. For all that time, I didn’t look at her once.
I wouldn’t say I was nervous, because the butterflies of fear that existed in everyone’s stomach had long since burned to ashes in mine, but when she was safely ensconced beside me, I’d admit to being relieved.
She’d had a close call.
Eying her purse, seeing it had some bulk to it, I asked, “What’s in there?”
“T-The dress. It’s bloodstained.”
Jesus. “Okay. I’ll deal with that later. Well done for bringing it with you.”
She gulped. “I didn’t want to leave it there to be used against me.”
Smart thinking.
Christ, could she get hotter?
“Drop your cellphone out the window,” I instructed her, pleased when she immediately obeyed. As I drove away from a phone that was probably hooked up with tracking devices, I took note of how few cars there were on the road. That put me more on edge than anything else.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
“No one knows yet.”
Her words were a whisper that wrapped around me like silk, making my dick hard and my body tense. I didn’t like my reactiveness to her—her voice, her scent, her looks—but my cock apparently didn’t agree.
Just the sweet perfume of her shampoo filled the small cabin of the Maybach, and the fact that I hadn’t even glanced at her once pissed me of
f because her beauty should have me responding like this, not her goddamn smell.
That kiss had amped things up to a degree that put me on edge, but I couldn’t find it in me to regret it.
Tension bracketed my neck, making my shoulders hunch up as I tightened my hands on the wheel.
“No one knows as far as you’re aware. Maxim might have told one of his men by now.”
“I doubt it. I think he’s setting someone up.” She cleared her throat. “I heard him on the phone. He didn’t know I was listening.”
So, she was sneaky.
It would be wise for me to remember that.
Of course, we all grew to be sneaky in this world. Listening in to information that people didn’t want us to have was free, and it could keep our asses safe and sound. I didn’t blame her, even as I registered that she had skills if a motherfucker like that boyevik cunt didn’t hear her spying on him.
“Best to be safe,” was all I said, and I didn’t relax until we hit South Slope, allied territory, and made our way onto the Hamilton Avenue bridge.
Her tension was just as high, and her silence was just as loaded.
I knew we were both waiting for the shit to hit the fan, and though ordinarily I’d have done my level best for her to feel safe, in this instance, she wouldn’t be that until we shared a last name.
When the Brooklyn Bridge was in the distance, Two Bridges, the Lower East Side, and Rose Hill all memories, I took a deeper breath because I was on home turf.
No one would touch her here.
They wouldn’t fucking dare.
My reach was far, but when she was unclaimed, its power was dulled. Just not in my territory.
Everyone in this motherfucking city knew the O’Donnellys were rabid where family was concerned. They’d learned that hard lesson when the Aryans had kidnapped Ma.
Da had slaughtered so many of the fuckers that parts of the Bronx were still stained red. That was one of the bloodiest gang wars in the city’s history. People had started to forget, but now Da knew we had rats, he was in exterminator mode.
God help NYC.
Da was about to make sure they knew just how deadly we were when our family was crossed.
Maybe she knew she was safer too, because her voice cracked as she asked, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”
Was she nervous? Scared of me?
Was that the best way to handle this? To keep her on her toes?
It might well be, but truthfully, that would be fucking boring and would require a level of patience that I didn’t possess.
I didn’t require affection or tenderness from her, but I wanted her to be willing. I didn’t want her to flinch when I walked in a room, and after we’d fucked, I didn’t want her to be so scared that she couldn’t sleep if I was beside her.
I was okay with a relationship that might be described as ‘unusual,’ but her fear wasn’t something I wanted to cultivate.
So, even though I was pissed at having my evening plans disrupted, even though I didn’t appreciate the SOS Lyanov had sent out on her behalf, I merely asked, “Do you want to tell me?”
I could literally feel her stress levels rise at my question, which had me rolling my eyes. There I was, trying to calm her the fuck down, and there she was, tensing the fuck up.
Talk about not being able to win.
“I—” She paused. “Victoria would never have been safe if he lived. He’d have done to her what he wanted to do to me. I had to protect her.”
As we hit a stop light, I turned to her and murmured, “You did good.”
She licked her lips; lips I wanted to bite. “I—It feels like a nightmare.”
Softly, I murmured, “Camille, if sharing helps, then share. But if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. Not tonight. At some point, I’ll expect answers. Tonight, it’s different. You saw some things I’d have spared you from if I could, but what’s done is done. I’m not about to interrogate you when it’s not necessary.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m glad that cunt’s dead. I’m glad he’s no longer a threat to you or your sister. In my opinion,” I repeated, “you did good.”
“He’s... was an ally,” she whispered, her confusion clear, which clued me into the fact that she thought I’d be mad at her. Hence, I guessed, the hesitation and the nerves.
I snorted. “Allies aren’t friends. They sure as fuck aren’t family, either. In the Irish world, it’s family that matters most. If anything sticks with you today, you should remember that one thing in particular.”
Her gulp was audible, and over Midtown traffic, that was saying something. “He was family though.”
I huffed under my breath. “That’s a joke if ever I heard one. The bastard had your ma killed, Camille. He ain’t no family of yours.”
She was quiet a second, before she whispered, “Family first. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“Well, in my world, that’s exactly how it is. Just because your fucker of a father had different priorities doesn’t mean we work the same way. You’re about to become an O’Donnelly. That means something.” I shrugged. “Anyway, your father was useful in the past, but he was turning into a liability.”
“How?” she whispered, her voice soft. So soft, so goddamn silken again that I had no alternative but to turn to face her.
Jesus.
She was even more stunning than earlier on.
So fucking gorgeous that I knew keeping my hands off her tonight was going to be nearly impossible.
This woman was mine.
Tomorrow, it’d be official, but even as she sat here, both of us knowing exactly what she was, it was difficult accepting that I had to be a gentleman tonight.
Chivalry, in my opinion, wasn’t dead, and the first night she slept under my roof, I didn’t want her to have any negative associations with it. That home was going to be her haven, so I didn’t want to spoil it for her, and fucking her when she probably still had tiny specks of blood under her nails after killing her father was a surefire way to achieve that.
I gritted my teeth against the need flourishing inside me, a need that made me want shit I had no business in wanting with my wife. That mouth was going to kiss my children, those hands were going to hold my babies, and that body was going to give life to my heirs... but all I could think of when I looked at her were things that made me want to wreck her.
She was dressed to impress, so fucking sleek with it that she could have been attending a gala. Only in the lights from the streets did I see that, in her eyes, she was devastated.
Tonight had affected her in a way that only someone who’d murdered another person could ever understand. But on the surface, she looked like elegance personified. Her make-up was delicate, understated, apart from the bright slash of red on her lips, and her eyes were smoky as she stared at me, her hair tousled in waves that were neat but made me think of how it’d be once it was rumpled on my pillow.
The dress was a rich red, short, exposing all her calves and her knees, nothing that risqué but everything about it was tactile, down to the short cashmere jacket she wore to offset the chill in the air as well.
I wanted my hands on her.
I wanted her to be mussed.
That hair a rat’s nest, the slash of red on her lips to be marred and smudged from my kisses. I wanted panda eyes from her gagging on my dick, and I wanted those bounteous tits out, destroying the neckline of the dress forever as they provided a shelf for those mounds of heaven that I just wanted to fucking drown in.
Any other time, any other moment, I’d have had my hand up her skirt, my fingers in her pussy, making her ready for when we arrived home... and I actually disliked where my mind was taking me because I didn’t want any of that shit with her.
She was supposed to be the kind of wife like Ma.
I didn’t know if Da had a mistress, but I imagined he did. I didn’t begrudge him for it either. A man had needs, after all. Knowing Da, he’d be as much of a si
ck fuck in bed as he was out of it, and I didn’t want to think of my poor mother having to deal with his ass in the bedroom too.
My fingers tightened around the wheel as the urge to muss my fiancée up hit me, and the only way I could control it, the only way I could stop myself from doing something I shouldn’t, was to answer her.
She’d asked how Vasov’s usefulness had died a death, so I’d tell her. “You know what a Summit is?”
“When the four families get together.”
I nodded. “Exactly. There was a meeting... it didn’t end well.”
“What happened?”
“This is one of the only times I’ll ever discuss business with you,” I warned gruffly. “You need to understand that now.”
“I do,” she said softly. “I understand, and I don’t want to know anything that doesn’t appertain to my father.”
Well, that was a fancy word...
She wasn’t as much of a doll as I thought.
In all honesty, I wasn’t sure why I was surprised. Inessa had a voice, a brain in her head. Why shouldn’t her elder sister?
I guessed it was Mariska’s fault. She hadn’t been the brightest spark in the fire, but I hadn’t been interested in the stuff between her ears but the slit between her legs.
Grunting at her compliance, I murmured, “You know the Russians and Italians are at war?”
“I do.”
“We joined in; we’re at war with the Italians too, and so are some of our allies. The Don of the Famiglia died—” I didn’t tell her that was at Eoghan’s hands.
“There’s a space at the top?” she guessed. “Just like there will be with the Russians now.”
“Exactly. A power vacuum. Well, there’s a larger vacuum now because something went down at the Summit, something that shouldn’t technically have happened.” I tried to hide my satisfaction, but I wasn’t a miracle worker. I knew it leaked into my words because she shot me a look as I said, “Someone infiltrated the meeting and killed the potential leaders.”
“Christ,” she rasped, her eyes widening.
“Yeah. Anyway, in the subsequent discussions—”
She held up a hand. “Wait! This went on at the beginning of the meeting?”
“Yeah.” At least, that was what Da had told me this afternoon.
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 14
