by V Vee
“Congresswoman, thank you for meeting with us,” I said, clasping her hand in mine in greeting.
“It’s my pleasure,” she smiled at looked at me, shaking her head. I lowered my eyebrows in a confused frown and looked at Michele, Harper, and Olivia in question. They all shrugged, and I returned my gaze back to the Congresswoman.
She waved her hand at me. “Don’t worry about it. You just look an awful lot like your grandmother,” she said. “So how can I help you?”
“Well, it seems that we have a bit of a problem…” I said and told the Congresswoman all about the bodies and letters being left on my doorstep. I watched her face for any sort of reaction, but she wasn’t a politician for no reason. The woman had to have the best poker face of anyone I’d ever met in my life. When I finished telling her everything up until the morning before when I’d received the fifth letter, she simply nodded.
“So I take it you want me to see if I can find this Charlene person?” she asked.
I nodded. “If you can. We’ve put some of our best out there and no one seems to know who she is, where she came from, or where she’s currently hiding out,” I admitted, hating the feeling of incompetence that overtook me.
Congresswoman Williams pursed her lips before she sighed and gave me a firm nod. “I’ll see what I can find out,” she said, then gave me a small smile. “You have a long reach, my dear, but you’re still basically a baby to this business. My reach is much longer.”
Without another word she turned and walked away.
“Bitch,” Olivia breathed.
“Entitled ass,” Harper said.
“Look, let’s call a spade a spade, she was a cunt,” Michele replied with a shrug, before she turned to head to the motorcycle that Manus had recently purchased for her.
“Where are you going?” I asked her.
Michele glanced back at me over her shoulder. “It’s my job to help you. To help protect you and our family. So I’m going to do what I do best.”
“What? Smoke weed, drink hard liquor, and get knocked up by big Irish dudes?” Olivia mocked, laughing when Michele flicked her off.
“No, bitch,” Michele said with a smile, to take the sting out of her words. “I’m going to follow that ho and see what I can find out. Something about her just didn’t sit right with me. I’ll see y’all back at the estate before lockdown.”
I grimaced and rolled my eyes at Michele’s words. I wished I could refute them, tell her that we weren’t prisoners who were being released out into the yard, then herded back inside before lights out. But I would be lying. When Andrew had read the letter we’d received the day before, he’d enforced an even stricter schedule, and laying down more rules. More than one person, both in my crew and from his clan had come to me to complain but what did they expect me to say?
Someone was coming after my family. I’d lock every last one of those bitches up in their rooms my damn self if I thought it would keep them safe.
“Yeah. See you back on the grounds,” I said with a chuckle. I turned and nodded at Ludwig, who simply opened the back door of the town car.
“Hey Kyra?” Harper called out to me, I glanced at her and waited for her to ask.
“Can Galil and I stay longer…? I mean, I’m not saying I miss having him all up in my space or anything, but with Galvin gone on assignment…”
“Your suite of rooms is already ready and waiting for you,” I interjected with a smile when I saw the relief that flooded her eyes. With a final nod, I climbed into the back of the car and settled in for an uneventful trip home.
I shouldn’t have gotten comfortable.
We were halfway down the road when the bus in front of us exploded. Ludwig swerved to avoid the falling debris. I could hear screams of pain as body parts and dismembered figures went everywhere. Cars crashed into each other, people on the street went running. There was chaos everywhere. When the car came to a stop I jumped out and went running towards the still burning bus.
“Kyra!” Ludwig yelled after me, trying to get me to come back to the car. I pushed him away.
“I have to help! Those are our people, Lud!” I screamed at him.
“Andrew…”
“Fuck Andrew, Ludwig! We have to help,” I pleaded.
He hesitated for a while before he nodded and set about helping me. There was nothing we could do about the burning bus, which was still rolling down the street until it collided with a telephone pole, but the people who had been thrown from the blast, those in the cars, and those on the street who had been hit or were crushed under the falling debris, we could.
I set about trying to help an elderly black woman from her Jaguar XS™ whose head was bleeding from the crash.
“Dear Lord Almighty! Who would blow up a bus?” She asked, her voice trembling with fear and pain.
“I don’t know ma’am,” I responded.
“Is it a terrorist attack?” She continued as I helped her to sit on the sidewalk.
“I don’t know,” I said again.
On and on it went, Ludwig, Harper, Olivia, both of whom were following us in their own vehicles, and I went about assisting those we could. At one point I looked up and saw a man with white blond hair running towards the burning bus, holding a few fire extinguishers in his hands. He started spraying the bus and he was soon joined by men and women of various ethnicities and ages, all of them running from their homes and businesses that lined the street. I tapped Olivia on the shoulder and pointed towards the crowd who were trying to put out the burning transportation vehicle. She nodded and I rushed over, picking up one of the fire extinguishers from the ground.
I pulled the pin on the side and pointed the nozzle at the flames.
The heat was intense, the smoke choking me, but I persisted. Not stopping until there was no more fire. Only then did I take control and sent people to get blankets, water, painkillers—if they had them—and bandages. I headed towards the steps to see if anyone had survived, when a large hand grabbed my wrist. Thinking it was Ludwig trying to “protect” me again, I turned with every intention of giving him a firm dressing down, only to stop when I found myself looking up into the silver-grey eyes of the white blond-haired man.
“Ma’am, I don’t know you, but I don’t think your husband would appreciate you getting on that bus,” he told me.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not helpless.”
He shook his head. “No ma’am, I don’t think you are. Just saw you do some fine work, but you have to think about that baby there,” he gestured with a nod of his head.
I hesitated, looking over at the bus, my heart breaking at the sound of whimpers, the screams of pain, and the gurgling, deep rasps of death coming from the smoking vehicle. I had to do something.
“I appreciate it, Mr.…”
“Just call me Sig, ma’am.”
I lifted my eyebrows in surprise and stepped close. “The Viking?”
He frowned and looked at me closely. “How do you know that name?”
I gestured to myself. “B.O.B.”
His eyes widened in shock. “The new Mrs. McCarthy, formerly Miss Barham?”
“One and the same.”
With a nod he released my arm and stepped back. “You can go ahead; I know you can handle things.”
I gave him a grim smile and continued on to the bus. I may be pregnant. I may be Andrew’s wife, the wife of The Irishman, but I was still the Boss of Baltimore, I was still me. Those were my people and I would help them until there was nothing left to do.
Then I would find out who was behind this bombing and make them pay.
Chapter Fifteen
Andrew- The Irishman
Kyra was still feeling the effects of her act of heroism the week before. My blood had run cold when Ludwig called to tell me about the bomb in the bus. Galvin had been a part of the team who had been put on the “act of terrorism” as the mayor described it. And when they had done a thorough examination of the crime scene, he’d been the one to fi
nd the black box, placed beneath the seat of the young man, wearing a burned jacket, with a bomb strapped to his chest.
The box contained two things. A picture of Kyra meeting with Congresswoman Williams from that day, as well as a letter.
Dear Little Sister,
The Congresswoman can’t help you.
Sincerely,
Your Big Sister Charlene
We’d known then that not only was Charlene following Kyra, stalking her, but that the Congresswoman had been taken.
Kyra had sobbed, wept, and cried until she passed out, only to wake and do it all over again, looking at me with deep grief in her eyes as her body trembled.
“All of those people, Drew. Dead because of me. Babies. Children. Wives. Husbands. Sons. Daughters. Mothers. Fathers. All because of some… what… sibling rivalry? This bitch needs to be caught and put down… hard.”
I’d nodded, taking her hand in mine and kissing the back of it. “We’re already on it, baby. This crazy ass bitch is going to regret the day that your father met her mother. You can fucking count on that shit.”
I felt the senseless loss of life in my gut as well, but more than that, I felt an absurd amount of rage rolling within my body, just beneath the surface of my skin, making the flesh move, bubble, burn and melt from my bones because Kyra’s fucking crazy ass sister had gotten too close, once again to killing my woman.
This shit has gotten beyond personal.
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. It had gotten considerably longer because Kyra loved running her fingers through it whenever I had my mouth on her pussy. It now hung to the middle of my back, and while I saw the looks the guys gave me, I didn’t care about their opinion, the only person I was concerned with was my baby, Kyra.
The frantic knocking on the door of my office before it was thrown open, had me jumping up from my seat, grabbing my gun, aiming it at the person in the doorway and squeezing the trigger, before jerking the gun towards the wall at the last minute. Michele stood there, her hands on her hips, glaring at me.
“Really, Andrew? You were going to shoot my ass?” She asked angrily.
I put my hands on my hips as well, in an effort to mimic her own stance and narrowed my eyes. “Really, Michele? You’re just going to barge into my office like I’m not going to shoot you if you come in without permission?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes, waving me towards her. “Come. There’s another body. And this time it’s bad.”
I followed her from the room, heading to the front foyer. I saw everyone who was currently staying in the “Big House” or on the estate grounds, standing somberly around the box. Dread filled me, especially when I found Kyra sitting on her knees in front of it, shaking her head, arms wrapped around herself. When she saw me she pointed.
“She went too far. That motherfucking sick ass bitch who in some fucked up way shares my DNA went too goddamn far this time.”
I looked down and gasped.
Lying in the box, looking as if she’d simply gone to sleep and not woken back up, was Congresswoman Williams. I would have simply thought that was what occurred if she hadn’t been delivered to us.
“Turn her over,” I ordered, swallowing as my men stepped forward to do just that. I scanned her body, not finding what I was looking for until the last minute.
Right there, at the base of her skull was a bullet wound. I had my guys turn her back over and not seeing an exit wound realized that she had received a hollow point bullet to the back of her head.
Kyra was right, her sister had gone too far. She was on some next level shit.
“Let’s get the Congresswoman out of here and back to her home, put in her bed,” I ordered. I grabbed my wife’s hand and led her away from the box, but before we could take a few steps my phone rang. Everyone stopped because the number was the private one that only a few people had.
And all of them were in the room.
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t want the police and the Feds all over your house in the next ten minutes, I suggest you bring my sister to Carroll Park in fifteen minutes,” a disjointed, disguised, electronic voice said through the phone line.
I growled. “You must be out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to just hand my wife over to you, Charlene.”
Everyone in the room gasped, and Kyra grabbed my forearm. I put the phone on speaker and nodded at my brother Shannon who immediately set about trying to get the equipment we would need in order to trace the call.
“You don’t really have a choice, do you? I have people in the Feds, An. Drew,” she said, with a small chuckle as she said my name the same way my woman did when she was annoyed with me. “They’ve been waiting with bated breath for the chance to get out to your estate. I’m sure they’ll find plenty to lock you all up for the rest of your natural born, fucking lives. And those babies… those poor babies are going to grow up in the system. And well, just ask your dear little sister what happens when a baby is taken in by a family that isn’t the one they were born into.”
All of us turned to look at Nia who had collapsed onto the couch in a heap, her eyes wide and filled with tears. A feeling of unease grew within me and when I turned to look at my brothers, I saw the same look on their faces. What the fuck had happened to our baby sister?
“No,” I said firmly.
“Oh don’t worry An. Drew,” Charlene said, some way her robotic voice becoming darker and much more evil. “It’s not time for Kyra to die. Not now. He wants to keep her alive for a few more days. Maybe we’ll even do you a favor and cut that baby out of her so you can have it to remember her by.”
Ice filled my veins at what Charlene and her partner had planned for my wife, but just as I opened my mouth to tell her to kiss my Irish ass, Kyra spoke.
“I’ll be there. I’m leaving now.”
“Good. See you soon, Little Sister.” And the line went dead.
“No,” I denied Kyra, shaking my head.
“I’m not really asking you, Drew,” she replied, turning to walk away from me, only to come up short when everyone moved as one to block her from leaving.
I tugged her back in my arms and placed a kiss to the back of her head.
“We’ll find another mother fucking way, baby. But not like this. You mean too much to too many people. We’ll send someone else. Someone who looks like you…” I stopped as I remembered…
“Who? Who the fuck are we going to send, Andrew? She killed Jenafer just to make sure we couldn’t send in someone who looked like me. She killed everyone who might have helped us prevent this situation.” She pointed at Nia and shook her head before spinning around to stare at me. “She knows too much. She knows everything and she’s always been five steps ahead of us. This shit ends here and now. I’m sick of playing defense. I want to be on the offense. So I’m going. I love you, our family, and our kids too much to lose you, either through incarceration or death. So let me go be the mother fucking boss that I’ve always been.”
She turned away from me and faced everyone else. “Now get out of my motherfucking way… right. Now.”
And like the Red Sea parting for the Jews in Genesis, everyone stepped out of her way. I went to go after her, only to have Ronan and Manus step in front of me to prevent me from doing so.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” I yelled, my chest feeling tight, my heart pounding. What the hell was happening? Was I dying? “Kyra!”
She didn’t stop, nor did she turn around, simply kept walking, until she opened the door and stepped out, closing it softly behind her.
“Kyra!” I was frantic now, fighting against everyone who was trying to hold me back. Didn’t they understand? My woman was going to die. She was going out there to put herself at risk. She was pregnant. Carrying my child. She was my heart. My love. My life. My goddamn world and they wanted me to do nothing.
“Get your ass back here, Kyra!” I barked at the closed door. I turned and punched Ronan in the face, and though he
stumbled the motherfucker didn’t go down. When I went to hit Manus, he was anticipating it, and blocked me from doing so. So I punched him in the gut, causing him to double over.
I charged forward only to have my brothers all step in my way.
“I will shoot every last one of you assholes if you don’t get the hell out of my way,” I told them.
“Then shoot us, pussy,” Brodie taunted.
I reached for my guns and pointed one at him, and the other at Shannon. “Think I won’t? She means more to me than any of you.”
Kynan shrugged and dressed in his uniform that signified his time in the United States Marines, he leaned against the wall. “We already knew that asshole, but the thing is, we care about her more than we do you as well, which is why we’re trying to honor her wishes.”
I turned one of the guns on him, unsurprised when he already had his out and in my direction.
“I swear to god, if y’all don’t move your motherfucking asses,” I growled as I tried to shove my way forward. When I found myself up against an impenetrable wall, I did what any sane and rational man would do…
I squeezed the trigger.
Dermot and Galvin both cried out in pain and hit the ground, bullets in both of their knees. When everyone ran over to them, to check and make sure they were okay, I took off out of the door, raced to my car and jumped inside, taking off for Carroll Park.
No one and nothing. No one and nothing. No one and nothing.
The words repeated on a loop back and forth in my mind over and over. Words I’d thought and spoken not too long ago about nothing and no one coming between my wife and me.
I had never lied to her before and I wasn’t planning to start now.
Chapter Sixteen
Kyra- K-Love
I walked into Carroll Park with my stomach in knots. I was afraid. Really and truly scared. It was a strange sensation. Something I’d been experiencing a lot of since becoming a wife, a mother, and finding out that I had a sister who apparently wanted to kill me.
