by A. Zavarelli
It sickens me, how weak those thoughts are.
Did the butcher not teach me anything? Did Alexander and his friends not teach me anything?
This can’t go on forever. This perpetual state of purgatory. There’s only so long I can toy with them before they figure it out.
More than anything, I just want them gone. But something is holding me back. I know once I cross that line, there’s no return.
And I also know that I can’t do it alone.
That’s where my plan gets a little sketchy. There’s a key player I need on my team, and it means I will need to drag him to hell with me.
Rory Brodrick. AKA the Saint.
He’s a fighter. A hustler. And a mobster.
He kidnapped me. And then tried to comfort me in a moment of weakness. He saw my panic when he held me against the wall. And somehow, he got it into his head that he was going to save me.
I hated him for his sweet lies.
But I hated him even more for fucking up Teddy’s confession.
He doesn’t know that I’ve been keeping score of his transgressions. That he lights the fuse to my rage every time I see his face.
Acting like he wants to date me. Acting like he gives a fuck about me. He’s worse than all the rest of them lumped together, because he’s almost convincing.
He has no idea who he’s messing with.
He thinks he still has a say in how we play this game.
But Rory’s going to find out, I’m the one who invented the rules.
4
RORY
“WHAT A CUNT OF A DAY.”
I wipe the blood from my piece and stuff it back into the holster.
“Aye,” Ronan agrees from beside me. “It is.”
There’s a whole load of dead bodies in front of us. Another low-level gang tried to hit one of our warehouses.
They never learn.
And it never gets any easier, wiping the blood from my hands.
I don’t think it does for any of us.
Except for Ronan, probably. The lad is fucked in the head, but he’s as decent a bloke as they come.
Conor walks up and chucks a stray shoe onto the heap before turning to wait for his instructions.
The lad’s come a long way.
He doesn’t even throw a sickie anymore at the smell of blood. He even did a few of these blokes in tonight, all on his own.
I’m proud of him, but I’ll never tell him so.
He went from having nothing to live for to becoming one of my closest brothers.
“How’s blondie?” I ask.
He looks away and shrugs.
“Don’t know.”
“Bullshite, ye don’t know.” I poke at him. “My sofa has been awful lonely this past week. Crow’s too, he says. So ye must be laying your head somewhere at night.”
“Yeah, okay,” Conor levels with me. “We had a thing. But then Crow went and hired her on as a dancer.”
Conor’s jaw is set, and the lad is pissed. But I can only laugh.
“Classic fucking Crow.”
Reaper nods in agreement.
“Sounds like he’s trying to give ye a wee push in the right direction.”
“Just pull a Fitzy,” I tell him. “Haul her off the stage and drag her down to the basement to show her who’s boss.”
“Don’t talk about my wife that way,” Ronan warns me.
I hold up my hands in surrender, but even Conor’s laughing now. We were all taking bets on how long it’d be before Fitzy finally broke. Now Crow’s scheming again with Conor, it seems.
He likes to say that his men do their best work when they’ve got a warm bed at home, but I think he’s just a romantic at heart.
My phone beeps, and it’s a text from Crow himself. His ears must’ve been itching.
“Gotta jet, lads,” I tell them. “Crow needs me back at Slainte. Ye got this sorted, or ye need me to send some help?”
“We’ve got it sorted,” Reaper answers me.
“Alright, lads. Catchya.”
“It won’t happen again,” the bloke tells me. “Please.”
“Ye’re right about that,” I agree. “But I still have to break your arm.”
“I have a wife and kids at home,” he pleads.
“Then you’ll be just as useless to them as ye are now.”
Fecking prick.
“I’ve got some money,” he says. “Whatever you want. Here, take my Rolex.”
“I don’t want your bloody Rolex,” I tell him. “I want you to respect the rules of this establishment, which ye clearly didn’t. And now ye need to quit your bitching and moaning and take it like a man.”
I reach for his arm and he tries to scramble away.
“Would ye rather lose some fingers, then?” I ask.
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Ye stuck your hand in her knickers. She’s got no reason to lie about that.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize it wasn’t that kind of club. She’s a stripper… so I just thought…”
“Ye just thought she’d take a free ride on your dick because you told her to, aye?”
“It’s not like that.”
“This is how it’s like,” I tell him. “Ye came into our establishment. And ye touched one of our women without her permission. And that stripper? She’s also a mother. A damn good one at that. She works her arse off to put food on the table, believe it or not. It’s not for the love of cock.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
The bloke just doesn’t get it, but they never do.
If there’s one thing I won’t abide by, it’s this kind of shite. My mammy raised me to be respectful of women. Even though my father was anything but. I didn’t stand for it then, and I’m not going to stand for it now.
“Look, ye have two choices,” I lay it out for him. “Fingers or arm. The arm will heal, eventually. But ye can’t grow fingers back.”
He doesn’t answer me, and I’ve grown tired of him already. So I grab hold of his arm and yank this time. It snaps in two, with a fair amount of squealing on his part.
“All sorted. Thanks for stopping by.”
When I walk into the office, Crow’s there with his wife and baby daughter. I steal Keeva off Mack’s hip to give her some cuddles.
“Get your own kid,” Mack tells me.
“Nah, I like this one. Think I’ll just keep her for a wee bit.”
“How’d it go?” Crow asks.
“All sorted,” I tell him.
Even though Mack’s trustworthy, and she’s married to the boss, we still don’t discuss details in front of her. The less the wives know, the better. For their own protection.
I take a seat on the sofa and bounce Keeva in my arms while she tries to grab at my nose. Both Mack and Crow are watching us, the way that most parents do, with silly smiles on their faces.
“Are ye up for the task of babysitting next week?” Crow asks. “Mack’s been after me to take her out on a date.”
“Anytime,” I tell them.
I’m the brother’s go to babysitter, believe it or not. I don’t mind it. They know their kids are safer with me than they’d ever be anywhere else.
A shadow falls over the doorway, and it’s not unusual, since Crow’s office always has someone poking their head in. But when I look up, what I don’t expect to see is Scarlett. I rub at the back of my neck and study her carefully. Something must be wrong.
She doesn’t come here often, if ever.
Her eyes move straight to me and the baby in my lap before she swallows like her mouth is full of glass.
“Of all the gin joints in all the world,” she says.
Crow invites her in, but she declines.
“You got a minute, Mack?”
“Sure.”
They step out into the hall, and Crow gives me an odd look. He’s probably wondering the same thing I am.
When Mack comes in a few minutes later, she scoops Keev
a up from my arms.
“She’s making a fast getaway through the back,” she tells me. “You better go if you want to talk to her.”
I don’t want to be so bleeding obvious about it, but they’re both just staring at me like they already know what I’m going to do anyway.
So, I go after her.
Right through the back and into the dressing rooms, which I know she thinks is forbidden territory.
“There’s a cock in the henhouse,” I tell the ladies as I walk through. “Better cover up what ye don’t want seen.”
“Not like you haven’t seen it before,” Selena says as she parades butt naked through the room.
I don’t even spare her a second glance because I’ve only got one arse in mind. And I see her glancing back over her shoulder at me as she finds the door on the opposite side of the room.
She’s in heels, as always, and Christ she’s fast for such a wee little thing, but I catch her just outside in the parking lot before she can get away.
“Where ye off to so fast, Satan?”
She smiles up at me, and her eyes are all flint. Beyond that, there seems to be an additional wall of armor that wasn’t there the last time we spoke, and I can’t figure out why.
“Hey, Ace,” she says coyly.
“If you keep looking at me that way, baby doll, I’m liable to catch frostbite.”
Another smile.
“Don’t you know the devil plays with fire, not ice?”
“What are ye doing here?” I ask her again.
“Just came to see Mack.”
It feels like a lie, but almost everything the woman says is a lie.
“Well ye’re here now, so come and have a drink with me.”
“Not really my thing,” she says.
“Then what is your thing?”
“You looked cute.” She looks away. “With the baby. You’re good with them. Should have a few of your own someday.”
“I intend to,” I tell her. “How do ye feel about three?”
She’s horrified by the idea, and I laugh. It’s not often I can rattle this chick, but babies are the thing. She’s terrified of them, and I can’t figure out why.
Her unsteadiness doesn’t last long. Scarlett never lets any man have the upper hand. She uses the best weapons at her disposal to throw me off balance by inching closer, running one of her hands over my bicep and down to toy with my fingers.
“I’ve always wanted to do it in a dark alley,” she whispers, and her voice is all honey.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” My own voice is too rough. “I’d need to take you back to my place first. Because once I got my hands on you, I wouldn’t want to stop.”
“Nobody’s telling you to.”
She smiles, but it’s all fucking lies.
I wish that it was genuine want in her eyes, but the only thing there is destruction. And I won’t be another one of her games.
“Scarlett?” I whisper in her ear as I reach down and cop a feel of her generous ass.
“Yes?” she murmurs.
“It’s time for you to go home now.”
5
SCARLETT
ONE. Two. Three. Four. I declare a blood war.
I need to scrub my eyes with bleach.
Everything is blending together now. One giant sea of color and blurry faces. Voices and pieces of conversation. The Nasdaq. Relentlessly chic restaurants and is the raw food craze really over? Nanny problems and wife problems and shoe sales and yoga classes and…
Jesus, there was a reason I left this behind.
I don’t get it.
Duke was supposed to be here, amongst all these faces, talking shop with a big fat cigar in his mouth. But I don’t see him, and he’s over an hour late now, and I’m the one with a big fat headache listening to this bullshit day in and day out.
I want to leave. To go home and do like the normal folk do. Crawl into my jammies and read a good book and watch something that’s trending on Twitter and then send out one of my own unique thoughts on the same thing everyone else is already talking about.
Because, pop culture.
There’s a woman next to me at the bar and she’s carrying on a revolting diatribe that reeks of self-importance to what I can only presume is her date.
She speaks six languages, she tells him.
And she’s traveled the world, and it’s just such a romantic notion and she wants everyone to know it as she regales him with the many countries that ‘feel like home’.
And it is obvious that she is indeed swept up in the fantasy of her own thoughts and words. And the love affair she has fallen prey to… is with herself.
I can’t stomach another moment of it.
But when I move to make my dash towards freedom, I’m struck by the presence of the man across the bar. In shadow, concealed in the dim, romantic light that people shell out small fortunes for.
His eyes are on me and there’s something about him that is familiar, even in the darkness. A shiver moves down my spine and I rub my arms, certain it’s the cold and not something else.
My instincts are telling me to go.
Only I can’t. Because I’m self-destructive. The mouse who craves the cheese in the trap and something doesn’t seem right but it moves for it, anyway.
It’s all so well-rehearsed, the way he steps out of the shadows and into the light. He’s been preparing for this grand entrance for a while now. It’s good. It’s perfect. And it’s terrifying, exactly the way he intended it to be.
My hands are clammy and my spine is steel and I’m trembling.
It’s happening.
The air in my lungs is gone and I can’t breathe and he isn’t even anywhere near me yet. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It’s been too long. I’ve had years to stitch the broken parts of myself back together and now the thread feels weak and worn and tangled even as it wraps around my heart and squeezes.
There he stands. The nightmare within a nightmare. Polished and clean and all grown up. He’s different, but the same when he smiles. He likes my eyes on him and he always did love to be the center of attention.
Storm was right. Cop or not, Alexander has been looking for me.
All this time I’ve been hunting him. Plotting and planning and scheming behind the curtains, only to find out that I’m the one who is a fucking puppet. Surprise was supposed to be on my side. It was mine, and I made it mine, and none of this makes any fucking sense.
What else could he possibly want with me after all these years?
It isn’t atonement.
It isn’t regret that I see in those eyes either. The eyes that roam the curves of my body like he still owns that right.
You’d never guess that his family lost everything. He still dresses the part. Expensive trousers and a polo shirt he’ll probably only wear once. Loafers and a silver watch. He’s a walking, breathing cliché and his desperation stinks.
And that’s the thing. The trigger that slaps some sense back into me and reminds me who is in control here.
Now there’s only one question on my mind.
To play or not to play.
I toss a shy smile in his direction and shrug, as if to say I’ve been caught, and what now? He takes the bait and gestures his drink in my direction.
Want one?
There’s a moment’s hesitation before I concede and move in his direction. He wears the same cologne, and it makes me sick when I smell it, but I take a seat at the bar and hold my breath. Up close, his face is more angular than I remember and his eyes darker. But beneath the surface, he’s still the same boy I used to know. Refined. Smart and observant and razor-edged. Everything my mother always praised about him is on display right now. His best traits. The perfect match for me, she’d said.
My hands are in my lap and I need to let go of my rage and get a grip and not think of anything but making him my bitch. I will handle him incrementally. In five second intervals. And this time, I will win.
These ar
e my streets. My territory. And my game.
He might be a cop, but he doesn’t know how things work here. He never could. He hasn’t immersed himself in this world the way that I have. He hasn’t lived it the way that I have.
I observe him cautiously and run through the list of questions in my mind.
Is he the one who hurt Kylie?
And what does he want with me?
These things are important. I need to know them to win.
He gestures to the bar, and there are already two fresh drinks there. One for him, one for me.
“I’ve played that game once before,” I tell him. “Didn’t work out so well for me last time.”
“That was foolish of me,” he says. “I could order you another one.”
“Or you could get to the point.”
“I’m Royce.” The words roll off his tongue like honey. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
I laugh.
He glares, and I laugh some more. People are staring and he’s embarrassed, but I’m not the debutant anymore and he needs to know it.
“So, that’s how you’re going to play it, huh? We’re just a couple of strangers, meeting in a bar for the first time.”
“That’s the way it usually goes.”
His face is devoid of humor or sarcasm and I have no idea what his angle is here, but I won’t let it rattle me.
I’m tempted to make up something as ridiculous as Royce, but I don’t. I give him my street name, which I have no doubt he already knows.
“Scarlett.”
“Like Scarlett Johansson,” he remarks. “You look like her.”
“Cute.”
He used to say that all the time. Bragging to his friends about his hot celebrity look-alike girlfriend. And then they’d ask if he was banging me yet and I’d let him lie about it because he wanted to save face.
His phone rings, and it annoys me that he considers anything else worthy of his attention at this moment. As if he hasn’t been hunting me. As if I’m going to sit here and wait for him the way that I used to.
“Scarlett.” He taps the bar with his hand as if he’s speaking to a dog. “You have my apologies, I need to take this. I’ll only be a moment.”
