The Untouchables

by J. J. McAvoy

  “The right response is thank you, sweetheart and you look amazing as well.” He pouted, trying to fix his bowtie.

  Rising, I grabbed a hold of the tie myself. “With the exception of your hair, you look amazing. Now where the fuck are we going?”

  “You have no idea how to do this either, do you?” He smirked, looking down at my failing attempt to tie his bowtie.

  “Not even a little bit.” I laughed, letting go. “But isn’t that what good wives do? Fix their husbands’ ties?”

  “Is it? I think the fact that you can’t tie a bowtie is charming.” He kissed my forehead before looking into the mirror.

  Crossing my arms, I simply stared at him for a moment. “You’re laying it on thick, husband. And you haven’t told me where we’re going yet.”

  He sighed. “We’re going on a date.”

  “Liam, I’ve told you—”

  “You don’t date. I know, but I date. And since marriage is about compromise, I’m going to ignore you.”

  “I’m sorry, asshole, but how is this a compromise?” I was not going to be steamrolled by him only hours after his mother’s little stunt. Having a baby shower with women I didn’t know and didn’t like; I was still a bit ticked about it.

  Rolling his eyes, he pulled out two tickets from his jacket and handed them to me.

  “Bianca e Falliero.” My eyes caressed each word slowly, like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, before I glanced up at him.

  How did he know?

  I loved this opera. It was the very first one I had ever seen with my father.

  I wasn’t sure what else to say, except, “You don’t like opera.”

  “No.” He leaned against my dresser. “That’s why it’s a compromise. Tonight, I just want you to enjoy yourself, not as a boss, but as yourself.”

  “They’re one and the same, but thank you,” I whispered. He really didn’t understand how much this meant to me. I had to fight the urge to cry. What in the hell was wrong me?

  “Shit. Ugh, these damn hormones!” I groaned, trying my best to stop my makeup from running.

  Placing his hand on my waist, Liam pulled me closer to him, and all I could smell was warm honey and cinnamon. He didn’t say anything, he simply held onto me as I held onto him. This wasn’t the first time in months I’d cried over the smallest things in front of him. Crying wasn’t something I liked to do. It was foreign to me and I preferred it that way. He didn’t tell me it was okay, and he didn’t bring attention to it. He just held me until I was calm enough, and then he never brought it up again. I was grateful for it. It made me feel more in control of myself, in control of my surroundings. It made me feel safe. He made me feel safe when I had never realized I needed to.

  “Liam?” I whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “We have to go or we’ll be late.”

  Laughing, he let go of me, but before I pulled away from him, I ran my hands through his hair a few times. I wasn’t expecting him to moan, and lean into my hands, but he did. It was like petting a lion.

  “Don’t ever comb your hair. I love it as it is,” I whispered to him, pulling slightly and causing him to lick the corner of his lips as he stared at me; his eyes were glazing over with fire and lust. “I love you as is.”

  His chest expanded quickly before relaxing. It was like he was releasing a deep breath he never knew he was holding. Cupping my cheek, he brushed his thumb over my lips, which most likely smeared my lipstick but I didn’t care. I could see the amount of control he was exerting. I could also see his cock throbbing against his black slacks, fighting against his zipper, wanting nothing more than to be freed of its fabric prison and embedded deep within me. His thumb graced my lips before going to my cheek.

  “We should go,” he repeated in a whisper. “We’re going to be late.” He pushed himself off of my dresser and stared at his fingers on my skin. He seemed memorized by the trail he was making from my face to the valley of my breasts.

  “That only depends on how fast we are,” I whispered back, grabbing hold of his hand and kissing his palm before turning around.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Mel.” He moaned, lifting my hair with one hand and cupping my breast with the other. Kissing down my neck, he squeezed my breasts, palming them almost reverently.

  “Hmmmm…” was the only sound I could form once his hand left my chest, moved to my thighs, and slowly lifted up my dress.

  “God, I love you,” he whispered, biting my ear.

  Reaching behind me, I pulled at his pants. “Liam, I need you right now.”

  “With pleasure.” He gasped, pushing my hands away and quickly undoing his pants.

  Bracing myself on the edge of my vanity, he wasted no time grabbing my hips, and rubbing himself against my ass before he buried himself within me with one swift thrust.

  “Ahh!” I moaned, my mouth dropping open. The mirror in front of us added to my excitement, making me gush as I watched him dominate me. He also watched, with a wicked grin on his lips as he thrust deeper and deeper, one hand on my hip and the other in my hair. I could feel him throbbing inside me, filling me. It was fucking beautiful and I wanted more. Leaning down, he kissed my back, sucking hard on my skin.

  “Fuck,” he moaned, releasing my hair and hips, as he grabbed onto the dresser as well. He fucked me so hard that everything, even that damn bear, fell onto the ground.

  “Liam…” I moaned, “I’m Ahh…fuck”

  “Come with me, love,” he whispered. “Ride it with me.” He picked up speed. I couldn’t even see straight, let alone speak coherently.

  “Fuck, Liam!” Through squinted eyes, I watched as he came, his eyes rolled back into his head, his lips parted slightly to release a pleasurable sigh before his muscles relaxed.

  “Great sex while pregnant, check.” I gasped, totally fucked and happy.

  “If this is just the pre-opera sex, I can’t wait for the post.” He grinned, as he slowly pulled out of me.

  LIAM

  God, she knew how to make a man crazy. My plan was simple: get her to the opera house, accept my award for husband of the year, spend the night in each other’s arms and try to ignore the shit that had gone down at her baby shower. But the moment she said ‘I love you’, I couldn’t control myself. I wanted her, and by God I was going to have her any way I could. Our sex life had been placed on the back burner for the last few weeks, but in one moment, one thrust, it came back with a vengeance and I wondered why we’d slowed down to begin with.

  It took her an hour to hide the fact that we had just fucked like wild dogs before we could finally leave for the opera. Those who were lucky enough to get tickets would have to wait until we got there. After all, I was funding this production. The entire car ride over, her hands were squarely tucked into mine, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze and I knew it was because she was processing. She was always processing, sometimes overthinking. She was used to being emotionless, cold as ice and yet, her walls were breaking. I could see it. And if I could tell, so could she. She was trying to find a balance between who she had been forced to be, and who she really was. She was forced to be, by all attributes, a ruthless sadist.

  But the woman who sat beside me, leaning against the rail like a young girl in a candy store and watching the opera singers below belt out their souls was my real wife. Under her ice, under the screwing, fighting, and bullets, was a woman who held so many different passions. She looked completely amazed by the singers on stage; she smiled effortlessly. Even in the darkness of the booth, I could tell she was completely carefree.

  She watched them, and I watched her.

  “Love.”

  “Shh,” she hissed at me, not even bothering to look up. “Contarino is offering his daughter, Bianca, in marriage to Capellio, who is from a rival family in hopes to end years of feuding between their houses.”

  “It sounds like us.”

  That caught her attention. She glanced up at me, her delicate little brown eyebrow raise
d.

  “Not exactly. Listen to her.” She took my hand, leaning against the red chaise lounge in which we both sat up.

  Breathing in deeply, I listened to the sorrow in her voice as she wept at her fate. It seemed as though she was begging the audience for help. However, my Italian was not fluent enough to understand a word she was saying.

  “Why’s she so sad?” I whispered.

  “She’s in love with Falliero, a military hero. Her song is called Della Rosa Il Bel Vermiglio,” she replied.

  I wasn’t sure why she loved this so much. Part of me wondered if she had once loved someone else and was unhappy that she had to marry me.

  “Liam, my hand.”

  I hadn’t realized I was squeezing. “Shit, I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

  “You think I like this because I can relate to it?” She shook her head. It was odd how she could read my mind.

  “No,” I lied.

  Thank God we had a private booth.

  Or else we would actually have to see all the dirty looks I know were directed at us.

  “This was one the first plays my father took me to,” she said. “I hated it up until he told me this was my, Aviela’s, and his story. He told me he was Falliero, the lengths he had to go through to stop my mother from marrying the wrong man. Ever since then, every time I went to see it, I imaged them on stage acting out their lives.”

  “Do you want to leave?”

  She didn’t answer; her brown eyes widened as she stared down at the singers on stage.

  “Mel? Love, what is it?”

  She shook her head and pointed to the red curtain on the side of the stage. She shifted forward in her seat to get a better look. I followed her gaze, watching the small Italian actress dance around the two men pursuing her, but no one was there. Looking over to Mel, she sat back, her eyes void and completely glazed over.

  “Mel…”

  “I thought I saw her—Aviela—standing in the corner. She was in white and then she was gone. It happened so quickly.”

  Again I looked, and again I saw nothing. Luckily for us, the lights slowly brightened as we reached intermission and the curtain fell.

  “You’re leaving.” I rose, pulling out my phone. She was here. I would find her, but I couldn’t do that with Melody so close to danger.

  She rolled her pretty brown eyes at me. “Liam, I’m not even sure I saw her.”

  “When have you ever doubted your senses? If you saw her, she’s here. I trust you.”

  “Or it could be baby brain. I swear some of my senses have been totally…”

  Her phone vibrated loudly in her in purse, cutting off the rest of her sentence. We both looked at each other before she pulled it out and of course the caller’s ID was blocked. I reached for it but she simply pushed my hand away, answering herself.

  “Mother dearest, was that you hiding behind the curtain?”

  “You’ve made my job so much harder, Mel bear,” Aviela’s fake sweetened voice travelled through the phone. “You are not going to be safe anywhere.”

  “You would know, seeing as you’re the one apparently stalking my every move.” Mel replied.

  “Enough of these games Aviela,” I hissed into the phone. “Show me your face so I can bash it in.” I wanted to do more than make her unidentifiable, but unfortunately, she was still my wife’s mother.

  “Correte lungo piccolo bastardino irlandese. Le donne stanno parlando.” And with that, she was gone.

  Run along, little Irish mutt. The women are speaking.

  The fact that I knew what she said proved my Italian knowledge was increasing, and so was my temper.

  Mel’s jaw tightened as the lights dimmed and the voices that carried through the opera house drifted off into gentle whispers and then disappeared altogether. Scanning the seats below the stage, I searched for her phantom of a mother who came with no other purpose than to make our lives hell.

  “Damn her for ruining this too,” Mel whispered, rising from her seat and grabbing her coat. I held open the mahogany door to find both Antonio and Monte, dressed like they were part of the secret service, waiting on us.

  “Ma’am, sir, is everything alright?” they asked, already reaching into their coats.

  “Get the car, we’re leaving. Be on guard, Aviela is somewhere nearby,” Mel commanded before I could even get a word out. Even pregnant, she still demanded respect and radiated authority.

  Drawing their weapons, we walked as quickly as Mel’s belly would allow through the draped corridors and down the grand blood red carpeted staircase that overlooked the front entrance. Monte walked two paces behind us, Antonio to the right of Mel and I right in front of her. The moment we exited the theatre, the wind blew past us as we stepped into the thunderously loud and frigidly cold Chicago night. Fedel pulled up so fast the tires skidded on the pavement.

  Before he could even open the door, one single shot tore through the wind beside me and a spray of warm blood splattered across my face.

  In that moment, my heart stopped. I turned and caught a glimpse of her bright brown eyes, widened in absolute shock as she went down. Blood drops seemed to hang in the air, time slowed, and for what felt like hours. I couldn’t hear a thing, couldn’t even remember how to breathe. All around her was just so much blood, like red wine spilling over a white rug, staining it forever.

  It’s not hers. It’s not hers! My brain screamed, forcing me to move again to see past the blood. Blinking for what felt like forever, Monte and Fedel both shielded Mel as she sat up on her knees, blood soaking her dress and her hands. The bullet had missed her. She had stumbled because of the weight of Antonio’s body as it came down.

  Fedel yelled, glancing back as the sirens descended upon us. “The police are on the way, sir. We need to go.”

  “We aren’t leaving him on the fucking street!” Mel hissed, staring into the hole that was now between Antonio’s eyes.

  “Mel, it’s not—”

  “I said NO! And that was a motherfucking order,” she snapped. “We aren’t running, we aren’t leaving him, and we are going to make that bitch pay!”

  I kneeled beside her, not caring that the rapidly cooling wetness underneath me was blood. It seemed to be flowing out of him like a never-ending river. Neither of us spoke. I was grateful it wasn’t her. When I watched her fall, when I thought she’d been hit, it was the worst moment in my sorry excuse of a life.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered, and she glared at me as if I had asked her the dumbest question ever to leave a man’s lips. I looked at her stomach. Her stomach spattered with stains of blood. It wasn’t hers, but she had still fallen.

  “He’s fine. Monte caught me before I went down,” was all she said before she tore her gaze from mine and back to the man I barely knew but owed everything to.

  “The cops are here,” Monte said, holstering his weapon and finally facing us. In his eyes a storm was brewing harsher than anything even Mother Nature could produce.

  “What do you want us to do?” he asked, finally looking at me.

  I glanced over my shoulder as four cars with stunning red and blue lights pulled up. The occupants didn’t even wait for their vehicles to come to a complete halt before jumping out. I knew these were just the tip of the iceberg, the first of many public servants who I could only imagine were chomping at the bit to get some sort of recognition or in with the Callahans. Whether to try to use it for personal gain or thinking this would be their shot at law enforcement glory, only God knew.

  “Give the police a statement,” I said. “Then go drink on my dime. We grieve for our loss, and then we find this bitch and burn her alive.”

  It was all I said before the yelling began as they came to save us.

  “Sir, Ma’am, come with us! We’re clearing the area! Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention?”

  All I wanted was a date, not the fucking flood gates of hell to open.

  THIRTY

  “What strange creatures brothers are
!”

  —Jane Austen

  NEAL

  “Another,” I hissed, throwing back my shot. The bartender simply raised his eyebrow at me, shaking his head, yet he continued to pour.

  What was he going to tell me? To go home—scratch that—to go back to my hotel room? With as much as I was tipping him, he’d better keep his opinions to himself.

  “Well lookie here, if it isn’t the Neal Callahan. Maybe this is my lucky night.”

  Fuck man. I sighed before turning to look at Archer White, the lead presidential reporter for fucking TIME magazine, a.k.a. a fucking pain in my ass.

  “What do you want, Archer?” I sneered.

  “One Pepsi.”

  “Pepsi? You pussy.” I laughed.

  He pulled out his cellphone, ready to start recording. “Can I quote you on that?”

  “What the fuck is your problem? I’m not running for motherfucking office! Who gives a shit about what I say?”

  “The people of the United States are losing democracy. Your father-in-law is running without any real opponent. He’s basically won and that’s without answering any real questions: women’s rights, gay rights, global warming, war, economic relations, education…”

  “I get it! Now go ask Senator Colemen, ‘cuz I still don’t understand why you’re pestering me.”

  “You’re his son-in-law, you’ve been on his campaign trail for months. You bought your wife a brand new diamond necklace the same day you went to a soup kitchen. You’re a fucking prince, and your whole family feeds on greed. Have you ever worked a day in your life? All this money you people just suck down your fat throats—”

  Snatching his neck, I pulled him up onto his feet. “Now that we’re both standing, say that to my face you fucking—”

  “NEAL!” Mina, my least favorite political strategist and leash holder, grabbed my arm, doing her best to pull me back. “Neal, we need to go now. No more drinks.”

  I let him go, but the asshole couldn’t seem to shut his dirty fucking month!

  “Do you have an addiction, Mr. Callahan?” he asked, rubbing his neck as he held his phone up.