by AM Cosgrove
John stood there a moment before walking across the room to his brother, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Get your fucking hands off me, John. Stop the bullshit now, and I may be able to save some ounce of respect for you after this is all over,” Jack said, shoving his brother’s arm away and taking a half-dozen steps back.
“Whatever, Jack. Seriously, can we just cut the whiney shit out now? Because honestly, I don’t have time to hold your hand and deal with your fucking fragile ego at the moment.” No one said a word. No one moved. Both men’s eyes locked, jaws tight, fists clenched at their sides.
“Alright, if the two of you have had enough of this pissing match, can we please get down to whatever it is that we have to do, so I can leave? I don’t have time to sit around here and watch the two of you have a cock measuring contest to see who is the bigger man of the group. Unlike you both, I have legitimate businesses to run,” William finally spoke up.
Both men moved forward a step. Mirabelle knew that it was now going to be a test of who would hold out the longest.
William stood up and stepped between the two men. They both stepped backward again, but their eyes remained locked.
“I said, that is fucking enough from the both of you or I am leaving, and you two can have your pissing match on your own time.
Finally, the two men retreated to their respective sides of the room.
Mirabelle took a deep breath. She hadn’t realized that she had been holding it through the interaction. She knew both men’s tempers and had no wish for them to get into a dust-up.
“Alright, since Will here is demanding our attention be returned to the issue at hand, I suggest we get to it before he decides to go back to his businesses, which, for whatever reason, can’t possibly remain standing while he attends a family meeting.”
“Shut up, John. You and I don’t need to start with this shit, too. I think we have had enough raised blood pressure for one day,” Will said, returning to his seat and picking up his glass again before taking a sip.
Jack laughed, “So, my little brother grew some ballocks while I was away, too? It’s interesting to see how things have changed in the time I was away.”
Mirabelle smirked as she watched, glad that the tension was finally leaving the room and they would soon get down to business.
“So, tell me what happened to the blokes that caused me to spend those years locked away.”
“Nothing.” John shrugged. “I’m not sure what you expected me to do when every damned copper in town is watching us with a magnifying glass.”
“Well, you could have made it look like an accident. Fuck, you don’t have a creative bone in your body, do you, Brother?”
“Right, that would have been just the fucking ticket. My brother goes to the slammer for five plus years and the person who testified against him gets offed in a bizarre freak accident. Right… because that wouldn’t even be remotely suspicious at all.”
“Well, you know, stranger coincidences have been known to happen, and all that.”
“Right.” John threw up his hands and leaned back in his chair. “You really are a fucking idiot, you know that?”
“At least I stand up for my family when things happen.”
The tension was instantly back, thicker than before.
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t been too busy trying to put your cock in everything with two legs, you might not have ended up in that situation to start with.”
“How the fuck was I to know she was the fuck’s cousin? Do you think I have time to study everyone’s family fucking trees? God fucking help me if you do.”
“How about you just stop thinking with your willie, and we might not be put in these situations again.”
Silence. No one spoke or moved, each one looking back and forth between the other. Mirabelle had never wished for anything to be over as much as she wanted this day to be. She just wanted to take Jack and head home. Tired from the drive and the last hour’s events, she was emotionally exhausted. She was more than used to the Rann Brothers and their anger. After all, she had been around them for many years, but she always felt nervous when they weren’t getting along, like it was somehow going to start a war inside the family, and someone was going to get hurt.
For all their family history, the Rann Brothers were fair and at times even kind human beings, unless you crossed them—that was an entirely different story.
While she didn’t agree with John’s decision to leave the whole situation with Jack go unanswered, she did have the mind to understand why he would do what he did.
“So, that’s it then? We are doing nothing! The fuck gets to walk away, with no recourse for anything?”
“Unfortunately, yes, Jack; that is exactly what we have to do. At the end of the day, we have to do what we must, to preserve the family. If we were to go to war with the Adams family, we won’t survive it. For now, we have to just bide our time. Perhaps one day, a situation may present itself and we will then see to it that justice is served. Patience is all I am asking for.”
Jack sat there a moment. “Come on, Mirabelle, we’re going.” He stood up and grabbed her arm, leading her towards the doorway.
“Jack, come on. Surely you can see the prudence in the decision we have to make,” John said, following them.
“Fuck your fucking patience, and fuck you,” Jack said, shoving her out the door ahead of him.
The drive home was a long one in silence. Jack didn’t even put the radio on as they made their way through the streets of London to the east side where their flat was. Mirabelle was afraid to say anything that might set Jack off. She knew better. Sometimes the best thing to do was stay silent and if he needed to speak, he would start the conversation and she would just listen.
“I don’t fucking think John realizes by not retaliating in any way, he is sending a clear message to the Adams family that they can do as they want and there will be no repercussions from us whatsoever. That isn’t going to leave a good impression of our family with the others.”
Mirabelle nodded, but she still didn’t dare speak. Listening to whatever Jack had to say was one of the things that he expected of her. He didn’t need her opinions or thoughts. She had made that mistake once, early on, when she first came to live with him. It hadn’t ended well for her, and she shuddered at the thought of that night.
“It will only serve to make us look like fools. Like we are some weak mess that cannot stand up for our own.”
They walked into their flat and he flipped on the lights as he passed through each room. Everything was neat and tidy. She had done her best to keep the flat, just as he had left it when he was sentenced. The only thing that had truly changed was the fresh flowers in vases scattered throughout the rooms, creating bright flashes of color that she enjoyed against the stark white of the rest of the flat. It was the one thing that she wanted that Jack allowed. In fact, even while he was away, he had made sure that fresh flowers were delivered on Sunday mornings, so she could change them after the housekeeper had left.
She followed him into the master bedroom and helped him undress down to his prison-issued boxers. He pulled her close as he sat down on the end of the massive king-sized bed that dominated the middle of the room.
“You know, this is the one thing that I missed the whole time I was locked up.”
“Oh?” she whispered, sliding closer to him as she settled on his lap.
“The scent of a woman,” he said, his breath tickling her neck as he moved closer.
A shiver ran up her spine. It had been five years.
“Miss me, did you?” he whispered in her ear, his tongue flicking the lobe, sending an electric bolt straight through her body.
“Yes,” she moaned as his mouth moved down her neck while he slowly slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders.
“Stand up and let m
e look at you.”
As she stood up, her dress slipped from her body, pooling into a satin circle around her feet.
“You are a sight to behold, now aren’t you?” he whispered as he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her close.
His mouth moved slowly up her belly, gliding between her bare breasts and up to her neck once again as he rose to his feet. His lips smashed into hers. She could feel the desperation in his touch—his hunger, as he quickly turned and flung her onto the bed before tearing her panties from her body.
His hands and mouth were a flurry, sucking and biting gently all over her body like he was going to devour her whole.
His hands dipped between her legs spreading them. His fingers came out slick and he drew wet lines back up her body as he dragged them slowly upwards.
“You did miss me,” he said as he entered her.
The only answer she could manage was a loud moan as the world exploded into tiny shards of fire and ice.
CHAPTER THREE
Jack
A crash from the hallway woke Jack from the first real sleep he’d had in almost five years. He laid there a split second longer than he should have, trying to clear the cobwebs from his head. The door to the bedroom flew open, and guns started going off.
The bullets went wide and shattered chunks off the headboard as they continued on and on.
Jack shoved Mirabelle out of bed as he rolled the other way, trying to reach for the revolver he kept in his bedside table. She screamed as she hit the floor on the far side of the bed.
The pillows on the bed exploded with the next round of gunfire. The room being pitch dark made it hard for Jack to see where exactly the gunshots came from; the sudden light all but blinding him in that moment.
He fired off a couple of return shots and heard a man’s voice scream out in pain. “Got you, you dirty fuck. Shooting a man while he’s in fucking bed with a woman. Who the fuck raised you to be such a fucking wanker?” Jack rose halfway to his feet and fired another two shots in the direction the scream had come from moments before.
There was a thump as the other man hit the floor and moaned in pain. Jack didn’t know if he was dead or just badly injured. He wasn’t about to stand there and ask questions, either. He knew there had been at least two guns firing when the door had burst open, and at the very least, there was one other gunman left in the flat.
Seconds later, he heard what sounded like another few rounds of gunfire down the hall in what normally was Mirabelle’s room. Who the fuck were these arseholes? People that were bent on putting a bullet, not only in him, but Mirabelle as well.
He slinked down the black hallway, trying to make out the shadows in the dark. This was the one time he wasn’t sure the blackout curtains were optimal. There was absolutely no light at all coming in from any source. Jack heard a sound, like someone taking a step outside Mirabelle’s door, a split second before the gun went off and a bullet whizzed by his head. With his back against the wall, he fired back before crouching down.
He heard the gunman groan as the plaster wall behind him exploded. Through and through? Or a flesh wound? Jack didn’t move and barely breathed. Sure enough, a few seconds later the gun went off again. The shot went high and wider this time, shattering the vase on the table at the end of the hallway.
However, it did give Jack a moment to take a bead on where the gunman was standing. He aimed and fired where he placed the other man’s head to be. Bang! A few seconds later, the other man hit the floor, unmoving.
Jack breathed for a moment before rising to his feet slowly. His ears were intent on catching any little sound that might mean he still wasn’t out of the woods.
He heard a stirring from his room. Was it Mirabelle? He didn’t move, hoping that if it was her moving around, she would stay low to the ground and out of the line of fire until he made sure that there was no one else still in the flat with them.
When he didn’t hear anything else, he moved slowly down the hallway to where the lights were, so he could survey what had happened. As he walked along, gun out in front of him, he stepped on broken glass and felt it bite into the soles of his feet. The pain was nothing compared to the adrenaline running through his veins. The men had caught him off guard, a mistake he wouldn’t make again.
He walked past the door to his room and was about to switch on the lights when a deep voice from right beside him spoke, “Too bad you can’t count, Jacky boy.”
Jack went to raise his gun but didn’t have enough time before something hit him in the back of the head, his world plunging into darkness.
His head hurt, and the light was too bright when he opened his eyes. For those first brief moments, all he knew was that he was sitting up, and he was hurt. He couldn’t remember anything else but the pain.
He moved, and every bone in his body screamed along with the pounding in his head. He was immobile, strapped down to whatever he was sitting in. Jack cracked open his eyes as much as they would allow him to through the swelling. Someone had dusted him up good and left him tied to a chair.
Mind swirling through the pain, he tried to remember what had happened before he blacked out.
He remembered the gunmen waking him from a dead sleep, and taking down three of them, but then there had been a fourth that jumped him from behind.
He groaned and pushed at the ropes that held him tight to the chair.
“Mirabelle!” He called out, as his brain suddenly remembered that she had been in bed with him when the shit storm had started.
He heard nothing. The silence in the flat was deafening.
Where was she? Did they take her? Was she hurt?
Pushing against the biting pain, he struggled with the ropes. They didn’t move.
“MIRABELLE!” he screamed louder, still struggling with the ropes, hoping to stretch them even in the slightest bit to allow for some sort of movement.
Silence.
He sat there a moment, breathing heavily from the energy he had been exerting. As he gasped for breath, he felt the ropes move a tiny bit. Less than an inch, but it was movement.
He started again pushing in every direction hoping to find some give somewhere, the ropes biting into his skin as blood started dripping down his arms.
The more he struggled, the wetter the ropes became with his blood, which eased their movements and helped slide them around.
“I may be able to get out of this if I don’t fucking die of blood loss,” he mumbled through gritted teeth as he renewed his efforts to loosen the ropes.
Jack pushed to his left a little too far, and the chair toppled over with a loud crash.
He screamed out in pain as his head bounced off the floor. He laid there breathing heavily for a moment, trying to stop the throbbing in his head. He couldn’t think what the next move should be, let alone make it.
“Jack??” The soft voice was barely a whisper as it came from the bedroom.
“Mirabelle!!” Jack called, his mind snapping to focus.
Silence. She was alive, probably hurt, but alive.
He pushed against the ropes, and without any extra effort, they gave way. The chair’s back had broken in the fall, and he was able to free his arms within seconds.
Jack made it halfway to his feet before toppling over. His legs couldn’t hold his weight after having been trapped in the same position for God knows how many hours.
He crawled along the floor, trying to move as fast as his aching body would allow him. He was almost to the doorway to the master bedroom when he heard Mirabelle mumble something he couldn’t quite make out.
“I’m coming, Mirabelle, just hold on. I’m coming,” he said, his voice shaking from the exertion of crawling as far as he had already. He could hear his heart hammering in his chest as the blood rushed to his head, pounding in his ears like the thundering feet of an elephant herd. As he made
his way across the room, his hand landed in a pool of wet stickiness. The coppery smell told him instantly it was blood. But there was no body he could feel. Mirabelle. He continued to move forward and felt something brush the top of his head as he moved by the foot of the bed. Reaching up, he found Mirabelle’s foot.
She moaned at his touch. She was still alive. Thank god for that.
Jack pulled himself up onto the bed beside Mirabelle and turned on the lamp on his night table. “I’m here. I’m here,” he said, pulling her into his arms and cradling her.
She moaned and cried out in pain as he did.
He could see her naked body was slick and crusty with dried blood. There was blood oozing from many open wounds, and her eyes were black and almost swollen shut.
“I’m here,” he repeated, holding her while trying to reach for the phone on the bedside table, only to find the lines had been cut. He was going to have to leave her and somehow find his phone.
He gently placed her face up on the pillow. She cried out and tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes.
“It’s going to be alright, Mirry,” he whispered as he brushed her blood-soaked hair out of her eyes. “I am going to be right back I need to get us some help.”
He slid to the edge of the bed, his legs finally holding his weight. He carefully moved back down the hallway, using the walls to keep his balance. There was blood everywhere he looked. Whatever had once been white was now splashed with red like a mosaic painting created out of chaos.
Neither of the two gunmen’s bodies he had dropped were still there, just pools of blood and drag marks leading away from the room. He fumbled in his jacket and pulled out his phone. Ten missed calls from his brother.
His brother picked up on the first ring. “Jack, what the hell? Where have you been? I’ve been trying—”
“Someone just tried to kill me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
