Obviously, that doctor had never taken a human life before.
Another had prescribed anti-depressants and a slew of other medication to calm my constant anxiety. But I didn’t like being drugged. Didn’t like feeling checked out. Especially the one pill that had made me feel like a goddamn zombie most hours of the day. Maybe some guys who came back from their tours liked that, needed that. Maybe feeling numb was preferable to whatever darker feelings they were battling. And to that, I say go with whatever the hell works for you.
It was the third therapist who had taught me various exercises to practice when the anxiety or unease crept in. This particular breathing technique had been the most effective in alleviating that pounding in my skull.
Inhale. One, two, three, four…
Exhale. Four, three, two, one.
And repeat.
It didn’t help matters that because I had been watching the new bartender at O’Malley’s for the last few weeks—as everyone in my family annoyingly liked to frequently point out—I knew the bubbly redhead was quite possibly my polar opposite. She was smiley and spunky. Though she never had a cross or unkind word to say to anyone, she liked to give her boss lip and tease rowdy patrons. She was boisterous and fun-loving, always seeming to play games and joking with her customers.
She was the life of the damn party.
While I, on the other hand, couldn’t manage to eek out a smile at my own damn party.
Yeah, I didn’t have a flying chance in hell with this woman. But something was compelling me to finally talk to her anyway. Being officially dead on a cold hospital bed for two whole minutes tended to put things into perspective.
Like…what the fuck had I been doing with my life?
I hadn’t been on those prescription meds for years, but you wouldn’t have known it from the zombie-like state I’d been walking around in for years. Too fucking long.
And this willowy redhead could be the answer to bringing me back to life.
“Aw, come on, honey,” a man crooned at her when I approached the bar. He leaned over it, getting in her space and sticking out his bottom lip like a putz. “I promise to only drink in your bar from now on if you give me your number.”
“You would really deprive all the female bartenders of Brooklyn the pleasure of your flattery?” she asked in her foreign brogue. “Surely, you’re not that cruel. Gobshites like you should be shared with the world.”
Oh, yeah. And she was Irish.
I never realized how ridiculously sexy Irish accents could be until she started strutting her fine ass up and down this bar, purring that husky voice in every male sap’s ears. Every night she worked there was a line of them at the bar, drooling all over the place, just waiting to hear that voice.
Wait.
Wasn’t gobshite an insult in Ireland?
I leaned my elbows against the scratched wooden surface, watching the interlude with both amusement and fascination.
Her drunken customer was clearly oblivious to the slang. He just laughed and slapped down some bills. “You make a good point, honey. I guess I’ll get back to spreading the wealth.”
Saluting him, she swiped up the bills. “You do that. Good luck to women everywhere.”
Her eyebrows went skyward as she glanced down at the money. When her gaze lifted, it immediately connected with mine. “If he knew what ‘gobshite’ actually meant, he probably wouldn’t have tipped so well.” Then she winked at me.
With that one gesture, I was completely hooked.
She’d just reeled me in, whether she meant to or not.
God help her.
Attention now focused in my direction, her blue-green eyes swept over me in a quick assessment. For once, I didn’t mind someone’s gaze running all over me. With this woman, I fucking welcomed it. Because when she looked at me, my skin didn’t itch, my chest didn’t burn, and I didn’t feel paranoid that I was about to get knifed from behind.
Then those eyes—no fucking way—darkened with interest.
She actually liked what she saw? The surly, unsmiling, bearded bastard who was covered nearly head to toe with tattoos and a permanent frown?
Maybe she’s the highest functioning blind person on the planet.
“How ya getting on, love?” she asked me, propping both hands on the bar in front of me. “Get you more of the black stuff?”
My lips parted. And I frowned. “Pardon?”
Grin forming, she nodded down at my empty beer glass. “More Guinness?”
Feeling like a complete idiot, I scooted the glass toward her. “Yeah, sure.”
I almost winced at the rusty quality of my voice. Jesus, it sounded like I hadn’t spoken to another human being in years.
She grabbed a clean beer mug from under the bar and pulled the lever on the Guinness tap. As she started sliding it over to me, she suddenly stopped. “Wait, didn’t I see you blowing out the candles on a cake a few minutes ago?”
Ducking my head, I waved her off. Please, no more of that. “Yeah, it’s just a fun way my brothers and I like to pass the time.”
She narrowed her eyes, unconvinced. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”
“Nope.”
She pointed her finger at me. “Ah-ha, it so is. This calls for shots.”
I felt a look of horror take over my face. I’d dive over this bar and tackle her if she so much as reached for the damn bell above the shelves of liquor bottles to get the entire bar’s attention.
Frankly, tackling this woman didn’t sound half bad. Getting her beneath me actually sounded fucking fantastic. With her svelte frame, milk white skin, lustrous long red hair, and fresh face that reminded me of some kind of fantasy earth goddess, she’d look glorious writhing underneath my body. Soft curves, perky tits that clearly didn’t require a bra to be held up in her green uniform halter top, and flaring hips that were made for cradling a man’s hips.
“No, no,” I blurted out. “I’m good with the Guinness, really.”
She shook her head and spun around toward the liquor bottles. “Sorry, love. Bartender code. Birthday shots are obligatory. They cover that on day one of orientation.”
Two thoughts fought for dominance in my brain in that precise moment.
One, my dick was already obsessed with the way love rolled off her tongue. At least, when she was addressing me in that term. She said it to any other man, they could fuck right off.
Two, she had hands-down the hottest tattoo I’d ever seen on a woman. It stretched across her left shoulder blade, that was completely exposed in her halter top, and wrapped around her upper arm. I squinted to get a better look at the details because the ink was top notch. At first glance, it looked like a bunch of artistic flowers. But looking closer, I saw the Celtic cross and other Celtic symbols woven into the stems and petals of the flowers. I was so transfixed by the design, I wasn’t prepared when she spun back around.
“I’m not really an Irish car bomb kind of guy,” I said warily.
Her face contorted in disgust, like I’d insulted her. “Feck that. You Americans and your weird shots that you assume Irish people drink all the time. I wouldn’t ruin your birthday like that.” She placed two shot glasses down on the bar and picked up one. “Nothing beats straight Irish whisky. Belly up, American.”
The corner of my mouth actually twitched in what was certainly another rusty gesture. Smiling was not something I did on the norm. The reaction was partly because of her sharp wit and partly because she hadn’t involved anyone else in this “bartender code” ritual.
The shots were just for us.
My gaze remaining on hers, I clinked our glasses together. “Cheers, Irish.”
I was rewarded with a smile.
Best birthday gift ever.
“Sláinte.”
Our hands moved simultaneously as we knocked back the shots. Neither of us even blinked as the smooth whiskey slid down our throats. I didn’t want to take my eyes off of her, yet I still noticed the way her throat muscles bob
bed when she swallowed. Christ, I wanted to get my tongue on that throat and lick it from collarbone to jaw.
Now. Now, I was so boned up that I wouldn’t be standing up for a while.
“I’m Ashling, by the way.” I swear her husky voice had dropped a few degrees. “But you can call me Ash.”
Fuck, I loved her name.
It would be slipping from my lips when I came in my hand to the image of her face later tonight.
“Rome.”
“Nice to meet—” Just then, someone from the other end of the bar started calling out their order to her. Her head whipping around, she raised her hand at them in acknowledgment.
Turning back to me, she said, “Happy birthday, Rome.”
That long, sensuous look she left me with before walking off nearly knocked me off my barstool. It held me hostage. I couldn’t stop staring as she served her other customers, leaning slightly over the bar to hear them over the noise of the crowd.
I made my decision.
As soon as I could get her attention back on me, I was going to ask if she wanted to grab a drink with me after her shift. That was simple enough, right? I mean, we’d already had one drink together. Taking her somewhere for more, by ourselves, that was no big deal.
Inhale. One, two, three, four…
Exhale. Four, three, two, one.
And repe—
“You’re not going to fucking believe this.”
My head jerked around at the furiously hissed words to find Detective Bryce Connelly standing beside me, scowling up at the news reel on the TV over the bar.
“What happened?” I demanded, my senses going on high alert.
I followed his gaze, but only saw a reporter talking about some education bill Congress was voting on.
“Dominic Gabbiano was just murdered in prison.”
The nephew of the Sicilian Boss was dead?
My spine straightened. “Another inmate?”
“That’s not all,” Connelly said gravely. “There was also an attempt on Santi Gabbiano’s life. He’s in the prison infirmary with multiple stab wounds. And…” He blew out a weary breath, hanging his head.
“What, man?”
“Someone broke into Carmen LaMacchia’s home.”
“The lead prosecutor?”
And the woman Connelly had a major thing for?
“Is she okay?”
He answered with a curt nod. “We’re hearing whispers that Raphael Esposito ordered the hits. And if he ordered the hits, chances are he’s the one threatening Carmen.”
Fuck me.
Raphael was taking things up a notch. It was one thing to order hits on prisoners, and definitely ballsy to order them on members of the Sicilian mafia. It was a whole other matter to take out a contract on a state prosecutor.
No one took that shit lightly.
“He has to be stopped, Rome.”
I had never seen such untapped wrath emanate from Connelly’s eyes.
“We have to end Raphael Esposito.”
I agreed.
The Boss of the New York mafia needed to be killed, once and for fucking all.
Rome’s book, Iron and Ink (Brooklyn Brothers #5), is coming soon!
Visit my website at www.melaniemunton.com to get your all Brooklyn Brothers swag today!
Also by Melanie Munton
Southern Hearts Club:
The Divorce Attorney
The Six Month Lease
The Mix-Up
Brooklyn Brothers:
Lace & Lies
Scars & Sins
Booze & Bullets
Sultry Nights:
Salsa (Sultry Nights 1)
Tango (Sultry Nights 2)
Rumba (Sultry Nights 3)
Samba (Sultry Nights 4)
Mambo (Sultry Nights 5)
Standalone romance:
King of the Court
The Unforgettable Kind
Slow Seductions series:
Casual Affair (Slow Seductions #1)
Sweet Attraction (Slow Seductions #2)
Cruz Brothers series:
Playing for Kinley (Cruz Brothers #1)
The Art of Sage (Cruz Brothers #2)
Always Mickie (Cruz Brothers #3)
Timid Souls novellas:
Stubborn Hearts
Unexpected Love
Possession and Politics Trilogy:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
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Melanie grew up in a small town in the Midwest. After marrying her husband, she decided she wanted to try coastal life because why not? A few months later, they moved to North Carolina where she discovered her passion for writing, and they never looked back. They are now enjoying life with their beautiful daughter in Savannah, GA and loving every minute with their little Georgia peach.
Melanie’s other passion is traveling and seeing the world. With anthropology degrees under their belts, she and her husband have made it their goal in life to see as many archaeological sites around the world as possible.
She has a horrible food addiction to pasta and candy (not together…ew). And she gets sad when her wine rack is empty.
At the end of the day, she is a true romantic at heart. She loves writing the cheesy and corny of romantic comedies, and the sassy and sexy of suspense. She aims to make her readers swoon, laugh out loud, maybe sweat a little, and above all, fall in love.
Glitter and Greed (Brooklyn Brothers #4) Page 34
