That you could watch Netflix while checking out the grandness of the city skyline, be it night or day, was definitely a luxury.
It was all very simple in design, block colors, no patterns, but everything was rich—rubies and emeralds instead of standard reds and green. It made up for the plainness of everything, and created a warmth that was pleasant considering the season.
Deciding to explore the rest of the place, I took off empty-handed. Finding four bedrooms on this level, two of them containing nothing more than minimum furniture, a third with gym equipment, it was the fourth, and what it contained, that had me backing away.
Most Bratva leaders were like Brennan. Housing basic medical equipment for any soldier who needed it. I.e. who’d been shot on the streets and couldn’t go to a hospital.
Not wanting to see that, and hoping it wasn’t going to happen often—having men traipsing in and out of my home who were bleeding everywhere—the only other room I evaded was the one I’d slept in last night. Obeying Brennan might annoy another woman, but I was used to being given strictures I had to comply with. It didn’t bother me, and if it kept him from getting mad at me, why wouldn’t I do as he asked?
A no brainer in my opinion.
Not only that, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have security feeds in here. The last thing I needed was him being able to watch me sneak around the place.
What did come as a surprise were two doors at the end of the corridor.
One led to a massive terrace with a hot tub, some sleek loungers, a grill, and a view that was enough to give me vertigo. The railings were glass, and over six feet high, but every screw and bolt could work its way loose over time. I didn’t go anywhere near the edge, even though I loved the seating area which made me feel like I was on top of the world, while safe in my little bubble.
There was a dining area and a kind of ultra-sized hammock that was more of a swinging, king-sized bed than anything else. I knew, come summer, I’d be glued to it, and if I could get some of those outdoor patio heaters and a couple of heavy duty blankets, I’d be spending a lot of time out here now.
At home, even in the yard, I’d felt unsafe. A theory that was proven to be a fact when my father had his kneecaps shot out by a sniper. I had a feeling the glass around the perimeter was bulletproof, so without a doubt, I knew I was protected up here.
After I explored the terrace, I found my way back to that other door which revealed a set of stairs that led to another level below. I came across two more living rooms, one with a massive screen and which was evidently a home theater, and another that was for the ‘boys.’ It had a full-sized snooker table—not pool, it was too big, too wide—a poker table surrounded by comfortable leather armchairs, and various other games that made me realize Brennan had to be a big kid. Why else would he have old school arcade games like Pac-Man in here if he wasn’t?
There were two more guest bedrooms, and a final door that was locked. I’d bet my left boob that was his office, but I wasn’t offended. My father had always locked his office door too, and Brennan had no reason to trust me.
Not yet.
I’d work on that.
If Inessa could fall for Eoghan, and vice versa, there was no reason deeper feelings couldn’t flourish between Brennan and me. I still had no desire for him to love me, but trust was more important than love. At least, it was to me.
I’d loved Nyx. What did that get me? Nothing. I’d felt like a stranger in the home I’d made in the compound, to the point where turning to my dick of a father felt like my only option.
No, I wanted nothing to do with love.
Trust was what I was aiming for.
Retreating to the upper floor, appreciating how much space there was here, and knowing that I could take over one of the bedrooms and make it into something for myself, some personal space that could be a crafting room if I wanted it to be, I felt a little brighter when I returned to the living area and started to sort through my things.
I had a mixture of designer clothes that Father had bought for me, stuff that was from my childhood, and then the gear I’d brought back from West Orange. Most of that was Target stuff to be honest, nothing as fancy as the Gucci dresses, the LV purses, and Prada shoes he’d used to decorate his sacrificial lamb.
I’d have tossed them out if I didn’t need them. I didn’t have any money of my own, not unless Father had left a will for us, which I doubted. Most of his ill-gotten gains would probably sink into one of the Brotherhood’s fronts. God only knew who he’d deigned to assign Victoria’s guardianship to—a matter I’d have to ask Brennan to look into. Like he didn’t have enough on his plate.
My lack of funds, however, meant I’d be beholden to Brennan for cash, so wasting good clothes wasn’t sensible. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though, did it?
He’d told me not to go into the bedroom, but would he be okay with my storing my things in his closet?
And what of my toiletries? Would he be annoyed if I put them in his bathroom?
It was when I found my self-harm kit that I knew I’d take over another bedroom tonight without asking. If Brennan saw it, he’d throw it out, and even though its contents were destructive... I couldn’t bear to part with it.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Brennan couldn’t remove every knife in the house, could he? It wasn’t like tossing this out would do much, but I had a lot of memories in the box that was decorated with stickers. Glittery ones, Vans ones, some Roxy Girl ones... my teenage years were in them, as well as the doodles I’d drawn on there.
What I didn’t find in the bags was probably the one thing I needed the most: Mama’s journals.
Had Maxim mistaken them for regular books? I supposed it was easily done. None of my fiction or crafting books were here, either. He’d obviously emptied my drawers and wardrobe, but not cleared my bookshelves.
I tried not to get upset about the diaries but it definitely dampened my mood.
It was hard to move past the loss of them when those were the only things that you had of your mother which reflected her as a woman, as a person.
All of the other ‘stuff,’ I dumped back into the black bags so I could heft them downstairs. Toiletries, a box with my crafts in, yarn, my jewelry box, they went in there. I laid a pile of dresses over my other arm and carried them to the lower level.
Deciding I’d take the guest room at the head of the hall, the opposite end of Brennan’s office so he wouldn’t think I was spying on him, I started to unpack my stuff. It took about four more trips before I brought everything down, and when I looked around, I made a list of what I’d like Bagpipes to help me do in the morning.
Moving the bed and nightstands into storage was top of the agenda, and I’d make do with working at the dinner table until I built up the courage to ask Brennan for a desk and other pieces of furniture that would make this room mine.
For now, with its plain white walls, and rose pink carpet—proof that Brennan had hired a decorator, because I couldn’t imagine him choosing pink anything—it would do. I could deal with a Barbie carpet for the moment.
Maxim wasn’t exactly a considerate man so, knowing that Brennan was the only reason I had any of my possessions back, I used the burner cell Baggy had given me, one that had two numbers programmed into the contacts—his and Brennan’s—to send my husband a text message.
Me: My things are here. Thank you for arranging that.
Brennan: As much as I like your ass, it’s not practical to keep you naked all the time.
He liked my ass?
God, I was too pathetic to live when that simple statement made my heart skip a beat.
I knew I had image issues, but this pretty much confirmed it.
Me: Well, thanks.
Brennan: You’re welcome. Is everything there?
Me: No books, but everything else, yes.
He was quiet a few minutes, so I started to make my way to the upper level.
Then: Brenn
an: What about your ma’s journals? You were going to tell me what she said about me.
I bit my lip. Me: Just that she loved you.
When he didn’t reply again, and I was treated to radio silence, I understood that he didn’t want Mama’s love. Considering how she’d adored him, that hurt me, but it also filled me with relief, which just made me feel guilty. It meant I wasn’t diving into my mother’s place, and afforded me the chance to be me and not be compared to her all the time.
Because I had no idea when he’d be back, and I had no desire to text him and ask him, I retreated to the kitchen, made myself another sandwich from fixins in the fridge, then when I saw it was going on twelve, I went for a shower, undressed, tugged on one of his shirts from his closet, and got into bed.
As I stared up at the ceiling, at the end of one long and very bizarre day, covered in his shirt when I’d prefer to be covered in him, the desire to touch myself was strong.
An act of rebellion? My way of snubbing him like he was snubbing me on our wedding night?
I wasn’t sure.
I’d purposely not brought any panties or sleepwear up from downstairs before my shower, so I was naked apart from the silk of his shirt.
Perhaps it was because I was in his bed, in his bedroom, but it made me hyper aware in a way I’d never been before.
Four hours ago, he’d teased me in the shower.
Four hours ago, he’d given me a list of orders he expected me to obey...
The desire to be a brat to spite him was at the forefront of my mind, but it was overtaken by a simple thought.
Downstairs, I’d thought about how I wanted him to trust me.
That had to begin somewhere, didn’t it?
Masturbating when he expressly asked me not to, even if he’d never really know the truth, wasn’t the way to start things as I meant to go on.
So even though I was pretty sure I was more aware of my clit than I was of the chill in the air outside the covers, I rolled onto my side, curved into a fetal ball, and told myself to get some sleep.
Twenty-Three
Brennan
With a yawn, I strode into the back office at the warehouse in The Hole, and stared at the three guys who were strung up on hooks.
It was too early for this shit, but I couldn’t fault my crew. They’d found the fuckers, and I had to make them regret the day they were born. I just wished they’d found them a couple hours later, when I’d had a chance to get some more sleep.
I’d gotten in late last night and had found my place as quiet as a graveyard. So quiet, in fact, that I wasn’t even sure if I was alone or not.
I was used to the silence—liked it, in fact. But I’d expected there to be a TV on, or some signs of life now that I was sharing my space.
When I’d found her in my bedroom, my wife, by Christ, I’d been satisfied. When I’d climbed into bed, her clean scent perfuming the covers, and my shirt the only thing between us, I’d been hard pressed not to drag her into me, to wake her up and to start something. The only reason I didn’t was because Bagpipes and Forrest had kept me in the loop.
With the living room empty, I knew she’d unpacked all her things, and I also knew that she’d done as I asked—gone to the doctor’s office, had something to eat, and had a manicure at the nail salon. Pleased she’d obeyed, relief settled inside me. Letting her sleep was a kindness that both of us would reap, and when I’d awoken to the buzzing of my cellphone, taking note of the fact she was still asleep, I knew I’d been right to let her rest.
After showering, shaving, and dressing, she’d remained sleeping, and I knew when someone was playing pretend. The dark shadows under her eyes said it all, as did her thin frame, and that general air she had around her—like she was too exhausted to live.
My brain couldn’t seem to process that she was a stranger who was now married to me, whereas my body found it too easy to accept that she was mine.
All mine.
Which made it even more annoying that I had to wake up and head on out before I could do anything about that.
I wanted to ask her if she touched herself before she fell asleep.
Wanted to know if she’d been tempted.
If that dry little pussy of hers had been hungry for her fingers or my dick.
Those thoughts did exactly what I needed them to do—switched my brain into ‘on’ mode, because I wanted to get back to my apartment as soon as possible so I could fuck my wife.
If that made me a little more aggressive, then that would ramp things up nicely.
The back office was loaded up with old hooks we’d found in an abattoir in Tribeca that we’d bought to flip. Now, in its place, was a trendy apartment complex where each unit sold for over four million dollars a piece, making my perennially displeased father a very rich man. Especially as that was just one of the buildings on his portfolio.
Swinging from those hooks were three shivering whelps. They’d been stripped down to their boxers because Da might be willing to cut off another dude’s dick, but I wasn’t that cruel, and one of the men had doused them in water. It was cold back here anyway, but I knew they’d also turned on the AC because I felt the chill in the air too.
Grateful for my woolen overcoat, I took the three bastards in.
One was the brains, and probably the in, one was the heavy, and one was the driver. At least, that was how things tended to work in my experience.
The driver and heavy were of no importance to me, but the brains—he’d be the one who’d have come up with the job, and he’d be the one with the contacts. I needed the fence they were using to sell their stolen goods so I could go and torture his purchases out of them.
The heavy was easy to pick out. Chrissakes, the bastard’s neck was thicker than my thigh. But for all his biceps were as thick as tree branches, it hadn’t stopped my guys from being able to incapacitate the bastard. Which meant I had to pick between the two scrawny cunts, one of whom was already sniveling for his ma.
Picking up the cattle prod, I set it to stun, prompting their attention to shift to me as I moved deeper into the room.
“I have better things to be doing today than shocking you motherfuckers. Tell me who’s fencing your haul and I’ll only beat the shit out of you.”
The guy who wasn’t sniveling growled, “Like you’re going to let us walk out of here alive. Why the fuck should we tell you anything?”
I smiled at him. “Ever thought about how you were going to die? Would you like it to be quick? A knife to the throat? Or a cattle prod shoved up your ass until you fry from the inside out?”
He gulped. “That’s impossible.”
“You do anything long enough and it’ll work out just fine. You might want to be a human fry but trust me, I have no desire for this place to stink of bacon. You can choose how you want to die. Cleanly.” I turned on the cattle prod, and the electric snapped into the air, making the three of them jump like I’d already hit them with its charge. “Or gnarly.”
The heavy raised his head to stare at me. “I don’t know shit, man. I was just paid to make sure we didn’t get roughed up during a gig.”
“Shut up,” the ballsy guy threatened. “Keep your fucking mouth closed. They ain’t got shit on us.”
“Ain’t got shit on you?” I laughed. “You think my guys are in the habit of waking me up at four in the fucking morning for shits and giggles? You think I’d be here if I didn’t know for certain you were the fuckers who took down three jewelry stores under our protection?”
“Some fucking protection,” he snarled.
By way of reply, I raised the cattle prod, pressed it to his armpit and hit it.
When the fucker screamed, juddering in place like he was on the electric chair, I switched it off again. Direct contact to the chest would only trigger a cardiac arrest, and I didn’t want him dead.
Not yet anyway.
The shock had the bastard slumping, his body turning lax as he not only pissed himself, but hung like a dead
weight from the hook. Only by the faintest movements on his chest did I know he was alive, and so did the others.
I turned to look at them. “That was on a low setting.”
The heavy gulped. “I-I don’t know anything, man. I swear.”
“What about you?” I asked softly, snapping the button on and off again, just long enough for the sizzle to whip along the air waves.
“I-I don’t know who the fence is, but I know his number is on Justin’s burner.”
I twisted around and found Tink leaning against the back wall, watching me work. “You find a burner on Justin?”
He nodded. “Password protected.”
The scrawny sniveler whispered, “The pin’s his birthday.”
I rolled my eyes—maybe the guy wasn’t as smart as I thought. Although he’d managed to breach three Thomson 0235 alarms so he wasn’t completely a fry short of a Happy Meal.
“You know what that is?” I asked, and when the heavy fed me the digits, I heard Tink moving around behind me, and knew he was getting the burner out of the pile of clothes for me.
“Here.” He passed me the phone, I input the code, and when it worked, I scrolled through the contacts.
Finding thirty names, none of them suspicious or titled, ‘The Fence,’ because that’d be too fucking easy, I shoved the phone back at Tink, grunting, “Recognize anyone on there?”
“I’ll check it out.”
I nodded as he backed off, leaving me with the three Stooges.
Sometimes, getting information out of people was easy. Then, others, you had to set them up with a transsexual hooker and catch them in flagrante delicto. One thing I could say about my job—it was varied and rarely dull.
“You’re lucky you’re dealing with me today,” I told the two conscious guys. “If it was my da, he’d be getting off on causing you pain. As it stands, I’m a man of my word. Don’t fuck me around, and you won’t suffer before you die.”
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 24
