CHAPTER FIVE
Griffin – February
I t took a few weeks to confirm everything Ares told us, including digging deep into my mother’s family history. Something we never had to do.
With common names like Sullivan, I needed assurances that Troi Keller’s Mary Ellen Sullivan was indeed my mother’s first cousin. Tragedy, wars, and drunken Irish stupidity left them both without siblings.
It burns me with curiosity why we never met Mary Ellen. Kai dropped off several of her photo albums. With one tucked under my arm, I approach my mother after giving her an hour to decompress from the visit with my da in the assisted living facility.
She goes every day. Fuck, I’ll have to put a guard on her. After all, she’s the true heir. Without a wife and a queen of my own, my mother is it.
“Ma?” I call to her from the long hallway that leads to our kitchen. The place my mother always said was her space.
Steeping a teabag, her skin flushed from the cold, she says, “Aye.”
“Can I talk to you?” I ask from under the archway.
She lifts hopeful eyes to me. “Are you here to tell me you’ve met someone finally?”
Her words send shockwaves through me. She’s never asked me about my love life.
“No, Ma.” After all, I’ve not met Ava yet.
Ma folds her arms. “What are you bleedin’ waiting for? Ewan’s married. Siobhan and her billionaire husband are expecting a wee-one soon.”
And I’m the git for not preparing for her inquiry. God help me the day I tell her I have to get married. To the enemy.
“Does the name Troi Keller mean anything to you?” I ask to get this conversation back on track.
The way the cup of tea stops in front of her lips and her eyes peer into mine, I have my answer. “Aye. What did he do?”
I go breathless. All this time my mother knew her cousin was a matriarch of a powerful mob family across the river and she never thought to fucking mention it. All the years we were in the investigation business, we never crossed paths with anything that led us to discover we’re related to the legendary Manhattan Sullivans.
“Troi is dead.”
Ma sucks in a breath. “Oh.”
Oh?
“Did you know he was married to your cousin Mary Ellen?”
She clears her throat, and I have to hold on to something, thinking I’ll hear a doozy of a story. “My da and his brother, Mary Ellen’s father, had a falling out when we were in primary school.”
I can’t believe it hasn’t hit her. Unless she doesn’t know about Devlin’s death. Why would she? It sounds like she’s gone all these years as if the Kellers don’t exist at all. That’s the only part of this fucked-up, topsy-turvy mess, I’m truly curious about.
I take the photo album out from under my arm as well as the three-by-five photos Shane dug up and show them to her. “This is you and Mary Ellen, right?”
“Bullocks, where did you get these?”
“Shane found them in the family records. A lawyer who works for Troi confirmed that is Mary Ellen. Did you know she died a few years ago?”
Her jaw drops. “No.”
“Her son Devlin is dead, too. And Troi doesn’t have any other living heirs.”
“What?” Her eyes gape open and she pushes away from the breakfast island. “No. No, no.”
Yeah, she gets it.
I hold her by the shoulders. “Ma, we met with Troi’s lawyer a month ago, and we’ve been confirming everything.”
“Your da doesn’t want you boys to have anything to do with that... That bloodbath going on in Manhattan.” She holds her throat.
And mine goes tight as fuck. “You know about the war with the Greeks?”
Who we’ll be related to, but I’m saving that bombshell for when she’s drinking whiskey, not tea.
“Your da met with Troi five years ago. He was trying to get you all to work for him.” Ma sits down.
More earth-shattering news.
I stagger back and want to strangle my mother for not giving us a heads-up, for letting me get blindsided by a Greek psycho.
“You don’t say,” I mutter calmly instead.
Shaking her head, Ma adds, “Your father swore an oath to Fergus O’Rourke and told Troi he wouldn’t change loyalties.”
“How did Troi take that?” I know a bitter Irishman wouldn’t take loyalty to non-family over blood lying down.
It hits me.
My sister Norah was engaged to Kieran O’Rourke. We were supposed to be family.
Christ, that engagement saved our lives. We could have been dragged into the war. Only, we’re dragged into it now and I’m the fucking general.
I sigh. “Ma, it’s going to be all right. But I need to get you some protection for your visits to Da. And protection for Da, too.”
“Troi was powerful,” Ma says, a hint of fear smoldering in her voice.
She knows real fear. Da was always truthful with Ma about his business dealings with the O’Rourkes.
Voice hard, I say, “Troi is at war with the Greeks. There’s a temporary truce and a few deals on the table to keep it that way.”
I can’t utter how I have to marry the Greek princess, wherever the hell she is. It’ll be too much of a blow right now.
Ma flips through the photo album. “I wonder if she had a happy life, Mary Ellen.”
“I don’t know.” I brush Ma’s cool and soft but hollowed-out cheek. “Did you have a happy life, Ma?”
“Aye,” she says softly.
The sadness in her eyes guts me. She doesn’t walk around sullen anymore because of my sister Norah’s death. And there’s no way to avoid her name because Ma is named Norah, too.
I’ve seen her smile bravely every day, especially when my nieces Sadie and Maggie are here. And she cried happy tears finding out Siobhan’s expecting. No one tells Ma to call her Sabine, the name she prefers. But we’ve all come around to it.
On the day-to-day, Ma’s happy. But looking back at her life, she has to factor in the greatest loss a parent can know.
We suffered that loss, too.
I finish with Ma, and she retreats to the den to watch her afternoon programs.
Ewan, Connor, and Shane show up at the house an hour later with our cousins Trace and Rhys Quinlan from Waterford, Ireland where we were all born. We meet in the kitchen over Ma’s leftover stew.
“Ma confirmed Mary Ellen was her cousin,” I say after taking a bite. “And that Troi reached out to Da five years ago.”
Shane lifts curious eyes from his bowl. “Never knew that.”
“He wanted us to work for him,” Ewan says, grabbing for bread, keeping up that dad-bod of his.
I shoot him a glare and put down my bowl. “And you never thought to tell us?”
“Do you know how many people wanted us?” he argues. “Even after you lost that military security contract with the Navy. The one I practically opened a vein to land.”
I bristle at the reminder of how that contract got revoked because of me. Because I hit that asshole Rand Miller with my gun. He complained after that training assignment, and I was immediately escorted off the Coronado base.
Then the whole place got shut down. According to the candidates who flooded the downtown area, something happened. Whispers that someone got hurt. Badly. I was only surprised no one got seriously hurt sooner, the crazy shit the Navy put those candidates through.
Then Hadleigh walked into that bar. I went wild on her in my motel room. Fucked her like a savage for hours. She was one tough bitch. And gave as good as she got, always begging for more.
I just didn’t expect her to tie me up! Christ, that minx is still the best sex I ever had. But I put her out of my mind, frustrated that I’ll never see her again. And if I do, it won’t matter. I’ll be married to someone else soon. I would never cheat on a wife. Whether I love her or not.
“Are you thinking about telling Ares you don’t want to run Troi’s mob?” Shane asks me, knocking me from my thoughts.
His question confuses me. I can’t tell if that’s a hopeful tone or a disappointed one. It’s one thing to inherit money and property. It’s another to take over a crime syndicate.
Smiling, I say, “Actually, no. The idea is growing on me.” I push the bowl away and wipe my hands.
“Looks that way,” Ewan says, sounding jealous, but I know he’s not.
“We have to tell the O’Rourkes,” I say, feeling grim about it.
No one likes change...
“I’ll tell Kieran,” Ewan offers proudly. “He’s my best friend.”
I watch him leave the room, and my throat goes tight knowing any second the O’Rourkes, who we’ve worked for decades to protect, investigate, and kill for, will know we’re leaving them.
“Will Kieran see us as a threat?” Connor asks quietly.
We’re all silent for a moment.
“We never heard a peep from anyone in Astoria having a beef with Keller,” I say to break that. “Those brats never left Manhattan.”
“Kieran will appreciate an indirect alignment with a house that big,” Shane says, with a strategic angle for everything.
“I’m keeping Powers on as counsel,” I say, waiting for an objection.
“I raked him over the coals,” Shane reports. “He’s clean.”
“Good work.” I throw out my next idea. “When we find Ava, I’m considering an offer to let her out of the marriage after one year.”
“One year?” Shane snaps his head up, the strong objection setting me back.
“Are you going fuck her brains out for a year then drop her back off at the Zervas family mansion, used, with your cum dripping down her thighs?” Connor quips, echoing the warning in his own brutal way. “Nice way to light up the war again.”
“I’m not going to fuck her. It’s a marriage to create a truce. Once the truce is in place, there’s no need for the marriage.”
“That’s not the spirit of the deal.” Shane folds his arms. “The idea is that we’re family. The minute you divorce her—”
“A year of peace will create an environment of trust,” I cut him off. “It will lower the temperature, and when everyone starts making money from that land deal, they’ll think twice about slitting throats for fun.”
“I don’t know.” Connor lets out a ragged breath, tension rippling through his frame. “Maybe we should find her first and plan your wedding before thinking about your divorce.”