Chapter 8 – Liam
Birds chirped in the tree above. The sun laughed as it cast shimmering rays on the prettily cut shrubs. The bushes rustled as the hot summer wind made them dance. The world was jolly for it being only eight in the fucking morning.
My fingers itched to throw a stick of dynamite into the lot and watch the explosion turn it into a smoldering, gaping hole.
The pounding in my head wouldn’t appreciate the noise, but it would be a fucking glorious sight to behold.
Shoving my hands in the pockets of my dress slacks, I stalked through the sliding doors of the clinic.
The receptionist popped her head up, cheerful smile bright on her face—for a split second.
The moment my features registered in her brain, the grin tensed. I saw the minute motion. Watched her struggle to remain professional.
“Good morning, sir. How can I help you today?” the bubble brains greeted me.
Bleeding hells. What saint did I piss off last night to make this woman’s voice so high pitched?
“Doc Ryan paged me,” I muttered.
My tongue was thick in my mouth. Jaysus, I needed a drink.
That might be why I was in this state to begin with, but I’d found the best cure for a hangover was to start over again. Besides, it wasn’t alcoholism if it was a draught. A creamy, dark mug of ale was basically breakfast.
But the reason I drank so much last night….
Fuck.
Nightmarish images of tight, tanned thighs spreading for another man slammed into me, and I gripped the front desk with enough force to crack the stone.
“Oh, right! His nurse was just up here.” The woman turned. “There she is!”
I was going to shoot something—preferably the faceless fecker who tortured my throbbing brain.
Wincing against the too bright fluorescent lights, I began to walk around the desk toward the medical area. The nurse jogged over, smooth dark skin very pretty against her hot pink scrubs.
“No, you don’t, Mr. Liam,” she chucked her tongue. “You have to wait for me.”
“He’s expecting me,” I countered, reaching for the door. The security panel on the wall stayed red.
Cara planted her hands on her hips. “Mhmm, and just how are you going to get back to him, pray tell?”
I ground my teeth. “Don’t make me beg.”
Cara snorted. “Look at you.” She reached up, but I jerked away.
“Fuck off.”
Looking around, the nurse lowered her voice. “If my husband hears you talking to me like that, he’ll slip something undetectable in your next vaccine—which, surprise! You’re overdue for.”
With a sigh, I relented. But only a fraction. “I don’t plan to live long enough to die of the chicken pox.”
“My job, since your dear mama held my hand and pushed your screaming ass into the world has been to keep you healthy. To look at you—” She tried to reach for me again, but I was too tall. “You’re drunk.”
I wasn’t going to tell her that it was either the whiskey or stay up all night after having a full blown panic attack. PTSD was a bitch, and it reared its ugly head at the worst times. The medical community might have tips and tricks to deal with the mental wound, but so did I.
“Was. Was drunk.”
“Liam.”
“Cara.” I arched my good brow. The left one. “Your husband’s waitin’ for me.”
She pursed her lips. “Let’s go, boy. But don’t think this is over.”
With a vicious swipe, Cara unlocked the door with her keycard. It was bright and beige back here. There were no shadows to hide me. I was visible. In the open. Vulnerable. I scowled at a little man with a shiny bald spot in teal scrubs. He scampered into a room.
Cara nudged my spine and strode past me.
She shot me a warning look, opened an exam room, and ushered me inside.
Unlike the yawning tunnel of stale lights outside, this room was more natural.
The window looked over the courtyard, the drapes tied back because the patient was sitting in his gown on the table.
I drew back with a start. “Da?”
My ma shot from the double seat near the window, clasped her hands in front of her, and looked between us. She had a sixth sense for trouble—which was what came from raising a pack of neighborhood kids like they were her own.
“You didn’t tell him, Padraig?” she accused her husband.
Da sighed. “I meant to.”
Of the three of us, his accent was thickest. He was born deep in the Irish country, immigrated to Boston at age sixteen, and met my ma a week later.
He took her last name and made history. They had me the next year.
Meanwhile, Da claimed his title as the boss of the McDonagh Clan, which Ma’s uncle and grandfather once ruled.
The McDonaghs had been in Boston since the days the city was first settled.
Da might not have been born into the legacy, but he carried it with pride.
“What’s this?” I demanded, planting my feet wide and crossing my arms over my chest.
When Doc Ryan had called me, I thought it had to do with my crispy situation. A McDonagh from his mother’s side, he was our go-to for patching up the lads whenever the shite turned ugly.
Which was frequent.
Cara fussed about, tapping on the computer and monitors. “Shouldn’t be long now, and—Oh! Hi, mo stór.”
The doctor bustled into the room, shutting the door quietly. He looked around, bushy orange brows drawing together over his pale forehead.
“Hello, Liam. Thank you for coming,” he said in his clipped, no-nonsense voice that he used in medical situations.
Shite…. It was bad.
“I have your test results, boss.” Doc nodded to Da. “Breeda, sit down.”
My mother went to the exam table and leaned against it. “Go ahead, Sean. Do you want to talk about Padraig first or—” Ma cleared her throat but didn’t look at me.
I bit my tongue. In the presence of my elders, I knew better than to make demands. It seemed there was more than one source of fishiness here.
“Padraig first,” Doc clipped out.
“Shoot it straight, Sean O’Ryan, or I’ll shoot you.” Da drew himself up straight.
“It’s pleomorphic liposarcoma.” Those fancy words didn’t sound good.
“A fast and aggressive soft tissue tumor. We rushed the biopsy, and it’s spread to your lymph nodes.
We won’t know until we do the MRI if it has attacked the organs yet, so I can’t recommend treatment.
In fact, that’s where my extent of the medical realm leaves you. You’ll have to go to specialties.”
“No, we want you,” Ma insisted.
Da took her hand, patted it, and then murmured softly in the voice he only used for her. “He’s family medicine, Breeda.”
And trauma medicine.
But this wasn’t either of those.
I was still trying to wrap my thick, fuzzy brain around what he’d said. Da didn’t look sick. His color was good. Skin sun kissed and freckled. Foxy red hair dusted with silver threads. Eyes sharp and clear like the Malin Sea.
He wasn’t sick.
Not him, the boss of our organization.
Suddenly, the world began to tilt. I prided myself on holding my liquor with the best of them. And while a hangover was the typical price of a heavy night’s drink, it didn’t make me sick.
But the urge to puke seized me now.
“Liam?” Cara was there, standing in front of me. I hadn’t seen her move. “You’re looking green around the gills, boy.”
“I’m fine,” I ground out.
“Better sit,” she suggested.
I flexed my jaw.
Meanwhile, the others were talking a mile a minute. I couldn’t follow their conversation. It was about which Cancer Center was the best choice. Or so I thought. The ringing in my ears wouldn’t quit.
Padraig McDonagh wasn’t sick. He was supposed to live forever. Be the thorn in my side, the reason I couldn’t do things my way with the organization.
Mary, Jaysus, and Joseph…if something happens.
I tapped down on that thought. I was the sword, the dark knight. I didn’t have designs to rule. Not till Da was ninety and ready to finally retire. By then, I would have found a bullet.
“Well, we don’t want to go there if the cartel runs that system. We’ll have to find a neutral hospital group,” Da grumbled.
“We’ll find one,” Doc assured him. “I’ll make some calls. Maybe St. Catharine’s? I know they are run by the Italians….”
Everyone looked at me.
“Wrong family,” I muttered. “That’s Grimaldi turf.”
“We’ll find one,” Doc repeated.
He wasn’t a man to waste words, so the fact that he didn’t have a clear action plan sent another wave of nausea through me.
“Breeda, he’s turning green,” Cara observed.
My mother’s jade green eyes turned to me. “Oh, sit down, lad. We can’t have you fallin’ now.”
I locked my knees and tipped my chin up. “I’m grand.”
It was a lie, and everyone knew it. But if Da could be the unshakable force, then I could put on just as stern a front. I was his blood after all.
“And we can’t have your cousins finding out about this,” Ma added, snapping my focus.
My voice was gravel. “Why?”
Ma pursed her lips. “They’re a hungry lot. They scent blood, they’ll try to take the crown from you, laddy.”
They could try.
Johny already hated me for killing his brother.
That was an active threat I was monitoring.
Kevin? The idiot accountant with a stupid patch of fuzz on his lip?
He couldn’t hurt me if he tried. And he wouldn’t.
There wasn’t good reason. The rest of the cousins were equally incapable.
I was the strongest McDonagh. Just like Da.
But I was raised better than to argue with my mother. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ma nodded.
“I’ll call Angelo now?” Doc asked my parents. “We can deal with the other matter?”
They nodded.
My gut twisted. “Who’s that?”
Doc cleared his throat. “Plastics. Doctor Angelo Fuentes is here doing work for some other patients, but he’s based out of Phoenix.”
My response snapped through the room. “No.”
Cara planted her hands on her hips. “Watch that tone.”
“Liam, lad, it’s just a consult. Doc called in a favor, and—”
I cut my mother off. “I said, no.”
“Don’t be takin’ that tone with my wife, lad,” Da thundered. “Apologize. Now.”
Not one of these souls—these people who had been ever-present figures in my life—realized the bomb they’d just dropped.
Or maybe they did. This was their plan to trick me into seeing a surgeon about cleaning up the mess the bomb in one of our pubs created.
They thought they’d distract me with the news of my father’s illness.
Maybe he’s not even sick.
Still, that thought wasn’t comforting. My shoulders shifted with a terrible weight.
“Ma, I’m sorry,” I said, packing as much sincerity as I could muster into the words. “I mean no disrespect, but I’m not going under the knife.”
My mother wrung her hands, squeezing and tugging on those tiny, delicate bones with enough force to rip them off. “If you just talked to the surgeon.”
“Not happening.” I brushed my gloved hand over the half mask. “This is me now.”
Cara harrumphed through her nose. “That thing has to itch.”
“Like the devil.” I gave her a vicious grin.
The nurse just shook her head.
“Let me see how it’s healing, at least,” Doc insisted.
“Have at it.” I tugged the strings that held the damn thing in place. The pressure of the binding eased off my forehead, and then the plastic loosened. Fell away.
Ma turned to fuss over her husband, but not fast enough to hide her wince.
Yeah, the right side of my face was an ugly mess.
“You sure you won’t see him?” Sean Ryan was a good man.
It would be a shame to wrap the stethoscope around his neck and choke the life out of him.
“Positive.”
“Padraig,” Ma protested.
“The lad’s stubborn,” Da grumbled. “Gets it from yer side.”
Ma smacked his shoulder. “Yours is worse!”
Da pulled her neck down, pressed a hard kiss on her lips, and she melted.
He’s faking it. There was no way he was sick.
Their love was sickeningly sweet at the best of times, but there was no way they were this moon-eyed in the face of the worst news possible.
“Draw the curtains, Cara, my dear, so I can get this fecking gown off,” Da grumped as the doctor gently pressed and prodded my face.
“It’s healed better than I expected,” Doc announced. “You’ve been putting the salve on it?”
No. “It burns.”
Cara snorted. “It’s supposed to keep it from itching, so you don’t scratch it and tear off the scars.”
Behind the curtain, my mother giggled. A fresh wave of sickness washed through me.
“I’m done.” I tugged out of Doc’s reach and yawned to stretch the too-tight skin before clapping the plastic back over the mess.
“You need to be careful in this heat that the moisture under that mask doesn’t create a fungal infection.” Doc slid his hands in his pocket.
“And use the damn cream,” Cara added.
“Ma! I’ll be seeing you,” I called, going for the door.
“Liam, hold up, lad,” Da clipped.
I pursed my lips but stopped.
“I’m gonna need you to make peace with yer cousins.
” Da emerged from behind the curtain fully dressed, three-piece suit immaculate.
He always said that a man was judged by his clothes.
He didn’t want to come across as a pauper, so he spent good money to dress like a king.
It worked. Now he ruled a thriving portion of this city undisputed.
I wore a suit too. But I was nothing like him.
“You told me to make an example,” I said flatly. “James insulted my bride. I made an example.”
“Yes, but we need to keep the lads in line. They’re grumblin’ about this business with the Italians.” Da eyed me. “Fix it.”
Burn the Morelli Family to the ground? I could do that.
Da snapped his fingers and pointed one at me. “Not that.”
“What?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Whatever it is you’re thinkin’. Don’t.” Da’s command was law.
Huffing, I relented. “I’ll keep them in line.”
“Good, lad.”
I escaped as the old friends said their long-winded goodbyes. They would be in there another ten minutes, chatting about the weather, the sports, and the price of gas, saying “So long” every few minutes. I didn’t have time for that shite.
I had a grumbling pack of soldiers to whip into shape, a feeble alliance to uphold, and a bride….
A fucking beautiful bride, who I didn’t trust one bit.