8. Nyx
Chapter 8
Nyx
When Liam Brennan opens his apartment door and sees me, a smile springs onto the ginger’s freckled face. But as soon as he realizes I’m not alone, that smile fades into confusion, then panic. His pale blue eyes can’t seem to decide where they want to land, me or my husband.
Why Brennan looks so surprised is anyone’s guess. He should be used to seeing me on his doorstep. It’s not the first time I’ve come barging into his apartment like this. In all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve often needed a place to crash when I couldn’t go home drunk, high, or still bleeding after one of Donny’s not-so-quick-and-easy jobs.
“What are you—?” He barely gets out three words before I shove past him into the apartment.
“We need to talk.” I hike my thumb over my shoulder, pointing at Savage. “And since Pablo Escobar over here insists I stay off grid, it’ll have to be in person.”
Liam throws my husband a startled look, backing up when Savage ambles into his house. “Should get your gate fixed.”
It only took one focused blow with his knife jammed in just the right spot, and we walked right in. Didn’t even wake the homeless guy cozied up under his tattered tent nearby.
Liam has barely shut the door before I bark out, “Where’s Donny?”
His face shuts down. He walks past me with those long legs of his, moving effortlessly around the cluster of furniture between him and the open-plan kitchen a few feet away.
“Beer?”
“No, Liam, I don’t want a fucking beer. I want to speak to Donny.”
My husband is staring around like he’s landed on an alien planet. Liam’s apartment might be too small for all the stuff he has in here, but at least it’s clean. There’s a computer game paused on the flat screen television, something violent if the massive weapon in the player’s hands is anything to go by.
“Where is he?”
“Nyx, look—” Liam cuts off, throwing his hands up as I charge into the kitchen to stab a finger into his chest.
“Don’t you Nyx look me. I know you found him. He’s got to know where my sisters are. How are we still standing here like it’s a normal fucking day?”
Liam watches me with such chilling calm, my body goes cold.
He’s hiding something from me.
I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. I kind of do both, letting out a strangled sob-chuckle that sounds so fucking weird I clap a hand over my mouth.
“What the fuck is going on?” I mumble behind my hand. When he stays still, it becomes a yell. “What the fuck is going on, Liam?”
He turns and gets three beers out of the fridge, handing me one.
“Take it. You’re gonna need it.” He takes a long swallow from his, gently shouldering me aside so he can go back into the living room.
Savage takes the bottle my friend offers him and wanders down the hall to check out the rest of the apartment.
“Sit.” The battered recliner Liam collapses onto groans under his weight, but holds him.
He gives me a slow scan, his blue eyes narrowing when he’s done.
“The fuck are you wearing?” His Irish lilt is stronger today. “Fuck” becomes “fook”.
Uneasiness coils in my stomach as I slowly walk over and perch on the edge of the sofa where Liam pointed. I smooth my hands down the long, flowing white dress I’m wearing. Liam’s gaze follows, fixes briefly on my ring, then slides down the passage where Savage disappeared.
My friend lets out a harsh bark of a laugh, a deep groove between his ginger brows as he glares at me.
“Jesus, you fooking married ‘im?” he whispers fiercely, incredulity wiping out all the creases on his face.
“If you had objections, you missed your chance.” Savage appears out of nowhere like a fucking jump scare. “You’ll have to forever hold your peace.”
Liam keeps his chin down, eyes tracking Savage as my husband takes a seat next to me.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “We’re just friends, Papi. You’ve got nothing to be worried about.”
But they’re still staring at each other like strange dogs.
I’ve seen my friend pensive before. Him and his dad haven’t always seen eye to eye. He’s arrived at the boxing club with a shiner and a busted lip…more than once.
This feels different.
He’s not sulking after having it out with his dad. He’s too grim for that, like he’s facing murder charges.
I don’t know if Savage saw my concerned expression from the corner of his eye, but he slides a hand over my thigh and squeezes. Hard. I stare straight ahead, refusing to look at him. I don’t need his fucking pity right now. He wouldn’t even be here if he hadn’t bullied me into agreeing he could come.
What if it’s a trap, Angel? I can’t protect you if you don’t let me, Angel.
Like I’m some fucking wimp that needs his protection. The only reason I agreed to marry him was because it was supposed to keep my sisters safe. Fat lot of good that did them.
Liam’s jaw tics. “I shouldn’t be talking to you. If Dad finds out…”
“Just tell me where the fuck Donny is,” I snap.
“Did you ever wonder why I was at The Foundry that night?”
“The Foundry?” Savage asks.
“It’s a club,” I murmur, half to myself.
A club where—if it hadn’t been for Liam—I’d have been statutory-raped by a guy named Sully.
I pre-gamed with a pint of the cheapest whisky the corner-shop sold that night, so I was already tipsy when I arrived. And pretty much hammered by the time I began dancing, unabashedly trying to charm some coke off a guy on the dance floor. I felt eyes on me and looked up to see a VIP watching me from the balcony.
I knew there was a chance he was with the mob, because back then the Irish mafia didn’t make a secret out of which clubs they owned. But I was too young, too drunk, and too traumatized by Mom’s death to give a fuck.
Mr. VIP liked what he saw. A few songs in, he crooked a finger at me.
And I went upstairs like a meek little mutt.
He had thick, dark hair. Gorgeous brown eyes.
He was tall.
Powerful…not just physically.
The other VIPs kept their eyes on him. Nervous, jealous, reverential. I felt like a queen when he bent over and kissed the back of my hand.
Sully introduced himself and handed me a glass of champagne. Told me he liked the way I danced. He was much older than me, but that stopped mattering when he cut me two fat lines of coke.
Then he started grabbing my hips, my ass, my breasts. The micro-mini I wore didn’t offer any protection. I can still feel his hands on me, can still see the cruel slant of a mouth as handsome as the rest of him.
I was so fucking high, I laughed at everything, even the way he painfully kneaded my flesh. Even his suggestion that I turn around so he could fuck me from behind and show everyone what a good little slut I was.
If Liam hadn’t arrived out of nowhere and knocked Sully into a parallel universe with a single uppercut, bad shit would have happened to me that night.
I come back to the present with a suppressed shiver. “I assumed you were there to get drunk and get laid, like m—” I clear my throat. “Like everyone else.”
Liam huffs through his nose, mouth quirking like he’s thought of something funny, but when he looks at me his eyes are dead. “I was following you.”
“You were stalking her?” Savage growls.
“No!” He licks his lips and looks away as he takes another sip of beer. “I mean, yes, but only because my dad told me to.”
“Wh—? Patrick told you to stalk me?”
“I was keeping an eye on you and your sisters after your mum passed.”
“You’d been stalking me…for years ?” My voice is an octave or seven higher than usual.
Liam stares at the front door, and I hope to God that’s not because he’s expecting another visitor because I can’t handle more fuckery right now.
“He was worried about you and the girls. Didn’t like that you were out there all by yourselves. No money. No one to look after you.”
“The fuck did he care? He didn’t even know us.” My voice keeps climbing. Soon, only dogs will be able to hear me.
“For how long did your father have a relationship with Mrs. Gray?” Savage asks.
It’s so out of left field that I laugh, truly laugh, but when I glance back at my husband he’s not smiling. My lips pull tight. I swing back to face Liam, every atom in my being expecting him to laugh off my husband’s ridiculous notion.
He sighs. “I don’t know. A few years? I wasn’t exactly keeping track.”
“Liar,” I huff out. “She loved my dad. She would never…”
Liam’s auburn brows rise. “I know what I saw.”
I slump back on the sofa, my spine collapsing along with my reality. Suddenly I’m questioning every. Fucking. Thing.
“That’s why you helped me? Why you got us a place to stay? Because our parents were fucking?”
“Does it matter? You were safe, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, real safe.” I snatch my beer off the coffee table to get some moisture back in my mouth. “In fact, I just got off the phone with Phoebe and Athena. They couldn’t stop telling me how safe they are.”
“Liam arranged that motel for you?” Savage takes a sip of beer, his eyes on Liam but the question aimed at me.
I dismiss his question with an irritated wave of my hand. This is between me and the man I once thought was my best friend.
Liam’s jaw hardens. When his eyes snap to mine, they’re frigid. “They would have been just fine if you hadn’t?—“
“Me?” I grate out, my hands curling into fists on my lap. “You’re going to blame this on me ?”
His eyes narrow. “You could have worked at a fucking diner, Nyx. Could have become a receptionist, or a dog walker, or a goddamn babysitter.”
His face is starting to redden, his jaw ticking with rage. Watching him unravel like this is terrifying. More so, because we both know every word is true.
“But you were too fucking volatile for shit like that, weren’t you? Even boxing was too tame for you.”
I point a finger at him. “That bitch had it coming after what she said to?—”
“You put her in the hospital.”
Savage’s hand slides away from my thigh. His face has lost all expression, his body taut, as if he’s readying himself to stand up.
And what? Leave?
I shove his leg. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the fucking kitchen, Papi.”
Savage says nothing, does nothing. It’s like he’s switched off.
“You had a choice, Nyx,” Liam says. “You chose violence.”
“It was my last job. Ever. That money was our golden ticket to a new life.” My voice is going hoarse, like I’ve been shouting all day. “I did it for them. Everything I’ve ever done, was for them.”
“A new life?” Savage murmurs, tilting his head to look at me from the corner of his black eyes. “What made you think you could escape the mob, Angel?”
My eyes are dangerously close to falling out of their sockets. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The Brennan’s are Irish. Maybe my dad was too, I don’t know. We were really young when he died, and although I knew Mom pined for him all the time, she hardly ever spoke about him. Around here, you’re pretty much defaulted into the mob unless you put up a fight. I assumed Dad had put up a fight, that’s why we weren’t in the mob. Patrick and Liam? They were the fucking Brennans. Fighting was in their blood.
How the fuck could I have been so naive?
Just because I never saw suitcases of money being passed around at the boxing club, or men in dark suits having intense conversations with the Brennan’s in the diner down the road, I assumed their noses were clean?
Liam rolls his eyes at me like he’s listening to my thoughts.
“Come on, Nyx. Did you honestly think Donny just had a lot of enemies or something?”
“Lack of curiosity is one of my specialties,” I mutter.
“Who was he reporting to?” Savage asks.
“Someone high up.” Liam looks as cagey as he sounds, head low, half the beer bottle’s label torn to shreds on the carpet at his feet.
“Don’t be coy,” Savage warns quietly. “Is it O’Brien?”
I want to ask my husband how the hell he seems to know more about the Brennans than I do, but I’m too busy watching his exchange with Liam like I’m in the crowd at Wimbledon. I guess, being in a cartel, you’d kinda have to know what the mob was up to in the same town.
Liam gives a single, grudging nod.
“Fuck.” Muscles cord over Savage’s jaw as he looks away, a disgusted twist to his mouth.
“Who the fuck is O’Brien?” I say through clenched teeth.
“Sullivan O’Brien.” Liam’s mouth curves up in a mirthless smile that sends an icy wave through my body. “If I hadn’t punched him, he’d have fucked you in front of everyone.”
Bile rushes up my throat, but I swallow it down as ruthlessly as I fight the sudden surge of panic that follows. Savage whips his head to look at me again, but I stare ahead with all my willpower, mentally begging Liam to shut the fuck up. I don’t know why I want to keep this fragment of my past hidden from Savage. Because I’m ashamed? I was an idiotic, reckless kid, I didn’t fucking know better.
“Thank God I’d been watching.” Liam shakes his head. “What were you, nineteen? Eighteen? Who the fuck knows what he’d have done? Sullivan’s a sick fuck, Nyx.”
“Don’t recall you mentioning you knew the clan chief of the Irish mob,” my husband grates out through his teeth, the comment aimed at me. “Especially the part where you fucked him.”
“Almost!” I stab a righteous finger at Savage. “ Almost fucked him. And I had no idea who he was.”
Liam’s eyes darken. “A lot’s changed since then, Nyx. Sullivan’s not a small fry anymore. He reports directly to the boss now. We’re nowhere near the same level as him.”
“Duh, since I’m not in the mob,” I tell him, and quite politely in the fucking circumstances.
“Jesus, Nyx.” Savage huffs out another laugh, squeezing the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head. “You were born into the fucking mob.”
“You really think your dad ‘went off to war’ when you were a kid?” Liam drops the air quotes he’d been making and shakes his head. “Yeah, sure, I guess it was a war. A war between the mob and the cartels. Only a few made it out alive. Your dad wasn’t one of them.”
“Jesus Christ,” Savage mutters as he swipes his hands over his face.
Liam glances at my husband, and feels compelled to carry on speaking. Maybe my friend wishes me dead after all the shit I’ve caused between him and Patrick, who knows? Or maybe, after all these years, it feels cathartic as hell to finally spill the Brennan’s secrets.
“Our fathers were good friends,” he tells Savage. “But her mom wanted nothing to do with the mob. She kept Nyx and the girls out of it as much as she could. At least, that’s what Dad always said.”
“Our dads were friends?” I’ve fallen several chapters behind in this book club, and if someone doesn’t give me the cliff notes, there’s no way I’m taking part in the Q&A.
“Sure, I guess.” Liam shrugs at me. “He came over to the boxing club every now and then. Your mom once or twice too. But I never even knew about you or your sisters until my dad told me to keep tabs on you.”
My brain feels fuzzy. I’m exhausted, and it shows in my sagging body as I try to keep my head propped up with my hands, elbows on my knees.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
He toys with his beer, and then finishes it off before answering. “Dad swore me to secrecy. But since he’s probably dead, I guess all bets are off.”
There’s a beat of awful, chilling silence before Savage says, “Why would you think that?”
“Because he told me he found Donny, that he was going to speak to him. And that was over twenty four hours ago.” Liam looks away, blinking rapidly as he downs a quarter of his beer. “His phone’s been off since last night. I went around his place this morning, but he’s not there.” His voice lowers, barely audible. “He’d have called by now. He’d have called, or come over, or…”
I’ve never seen such raw emotion on my friend’s face. I want to go up to him, hug him maybe, but I don’t dare move. I can literally feel waves of anger strobing off Savage like heat from the tarmac on a summer’s day.
So I pepper him with questions instead. “How’d he find him? Did Donny contact him? Did he tell you where Donny was? If he was going to see him? Did he say anything at all?”
“You think I’d still fucking be here if I knew the answers to any of those questions?” he says roughly, earning a low, angry sound from Savage’s tattooed throat. “No one tells me shit. I just do what they say.”
He watches me from the corner of his eyes as he takes another swig of beer.
My brain works overtime as I struggle to shove a square peg in a triangular hole. I keep shaking my head, rattling loose more thoughts that don’t fit anywhere.
Finally something clicks into place.
“O’Brien took my sisters…didn’t he?”
Liam shrugs. “Maybe.”
Savage lays his hand over mine. It’s so warm, so rough, so big. He squeezes me, but he’s looking at Liam. “Tell us where he is.”
Liam frowns, and then starts to laugh. “You’re joking, right?”
Savage unfolds from the sofa, a tower of iron determination. “Where is he?”
“Even if I knew where he was, which I don’t—because no one does—O’Brien is fucking untouchable. It’ll take a small army to reach him.”
Savage tsks. “Pity. I don’t have an army to spare right now.” He grasps the back of my neck as I peer up at him. “I guess the entire Domingo cartel will just have to do instead.”
His fingers grip tighter, a hard touch that promises two things.
Retribution for Sullivan taking my sisters.
And punishment for me hiding my past from him.