Chapter 3
Ellie
Casey Kelly fit the physical description for an ex-cop, a limp, a barrel chest, a grayed crew cut that showed slightly more sunburnt skin each season, and a penchant for creative cussing.
He also hated anything regimented, buttoned down, or serene. That’s why the straight from work crowd loved him. Once I shoved my way through the sticky main door, the wall of music, laughter, TVs, and heavily-slurred drunken blather slammed into me.
I took a moment to soak it in.
This familiar ground was why I came home. Not to sit in my too-small condo ruminating on how long it had been since I’d been kissed senseless. Two weeks wasn’t that long. Yet, it felt like an eternity.
“El!” A regular dubbed “Tall Bob” spotted me and waved me to the empty stool next to him. Casey looked up and grinned.
“Kat said you’d made it back. How was the honeymoon?”
Crap. All the goodness I’d soaked in slid away leaving me like an empty bucket with too many holes.
I plastered on a grin I didn’t feel and lied my ass off.
“It took me at least a day to remember how to walk again.” Utter and complete fabrication woven, I graced the roar of laughter with a queenly smile and a wave.
Then plunked my ass next to Tall Bob and ordered a cherry bomb.
Casey’s laughter skipped a beat. He didn’t have to glance at the clock. He knew what time it was because he’d practically lived at a bar for the last twenty years.
I was beginning to see the appeal.
He set the tumbler down and dropped the shot glass inside. “Careful now,” he warned.
I ignored his words and slammed the fruity combo of energy drink and cherry vodka.
He set a glass of seltzer down next to the empty glasses almost before I’d finished. His eyes lingered on my left hand.
Tall Bob, not big on details, peppered me with questions about Italy. Did you get to the Trevi Fountain? Did you see the Vatican? Where is the best pizza?
I could barely answer before he had four more questions lined up. Because of my sister’s little side trip, which included getting married, all the plans she’d helped me arrange were blown out of the water.
“I got to see Carnival in Venice.” Where I “dropped” my phone in the water.
It truly had been knocked out of my hand when…
damn that bastard… elbowed me to show me a landmark or some shit.
It had been so smooth I’d thought it was an accident.
But around he-who-must-not-be-named, nothing was an accident.
I’d never felt safer in my life.
A shiver worked up my spine and stabbed me between the shoulder blades. I shook it off, attributing it to the chilly March wind I fought all seven blocks of my sloppy trudge to get a drink. Or five drinks, if you didn’t count the seltzers Casey pushed at me between shots.
Everyone wanted a chance to welcome me home with a hug and a shot. I was swaying by eight o’clock.
“That’s all for her tonight.” Casey handed off the bar to Rosco, who unfortunately took one look at me and agreed with his old boss.
When I bought the place, I took everyone with me.
The first year sucked because I discovered not everyone enjoyed working here as much as I did.
Rosco, Casey, and Kat stuck. And for that, they all were given raises and responsibilities.
Then I found new employees who were young enough to deal with the bullshit, work hard, and build the dream.
“Walk with me, El.” Casey pulled me to the back booth, and I sobered, knowing he was going to ask the hard questions.
I poured myself into the wooden bench opposite him. “What’s up?”
He opened his mouth and tasted his words before speaking. “You ain’t wearing your ring.”
“Long-ass story.” My chest heaved, barely carrying the weight that dragged it right back down again.
“Yeah? I heard a rumor from an old friend.”
I braced myself for something awful. Casey’s old friends were all cops. If they weren’t, they were still friends. “What’s the scuttle?”
His eyebrow barely twitched. “Heard the FBI is sniffing around again.”
No. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to deal with that again. “We own the bar fair and square. You’re good.”
“I ain’t talking about the bar. I’m talking about you.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye had me checking the source. A man snagged my attention. I must be hallucinating because he moved just like… damn it. Whoever he was, he disappeared into the back hall where the bathrooms were. It couldn’t be that asshole. I left him in Sardinia.
The jukebox shifted to a sad song.
Since Casey only allowed Irish music on his nights, it had fife and pipes. The haunting whistles and screeches felt like heartbreak in a cold rain. My soul sang along as I tried to keep the warm wash of sorrow-soaked booze from taking over.
“I’m good, Casey. I haven’t done anything wrong, illegal, or immoral since…yesterday.” I laughed at my joke.
He didn’t. He shifted in his seat. “Apparently, you picked the wrong man.”
No shit.
“I pick a lot of wrong men. It’s a gift.”
His gaze didn’t leave my ring finger. “Is that why you’re here alone?”
“Casey. Don’t.”
He sighed and scratched at his scrub brush straight scalp. “I worry about you.”
“When haven’t you?” I’d known him forever. All the neighborhood kids did.
He sipped his coffee, waiting me out. My sarcasm wasn’t going to win points tonight. “Are you sure he’s in your past?”
Most definitely. “It was a temporary blip. I’m good now.”
His eyes lifted. “Yet you’re drunk.”
“It’s still technically my vacation.”
He leaned back to scan the bar. A habit that carried over from his days on the force. “Have someone follow you home, or take a rideshare tonight. Do not walk there alone. Understand?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“I mean it. There are people asking questions. And you coming in here and lying about your honeymoon and marital status isn’t going to fly. Those folks scrutinize any inconsistency.”
I knew that. But the file the FBI had on me must mention at least twice that I was a pathological liar who couldn’t provide a straight story if you held me at knife point.
A memory flashed through my mind. One of many I’d like to forget. Maybe it was mentioning Carnival earlier, or the way my rabid brain couldn’t let go of one douchebag assassin, but that moment was frozen at the forefront of my thoughts.
I caught myself gazing into space. Something Casey Kelly did often.
It was called “a thousand-yard stare.” What it really was could be summed up as PTSD trauma processing.
Sergeant Kelly earned his during a shootout gone horribly wrong.
It stripped him of his rigid moral code and replaced it with blood, dishonor, and nightmares best solved through liquid therapy.
Mine was more insidious. I’d lived with little cuts to my psyche ever since my Grandfather was dubbed, “The Outfit’s Accountant.” His life work reduced to headlines and sensationalized stories.
While he embraced the Family—capital F—he kept his family out of it. But the FBI decided that his weak spot was an avenue to harass, exploit, and torture. They were given legal means to terrorize a simple suburban family for over fourteen years.
Then Jaja died.
And the trouble got worse because all the money he’d scraped together to provide for us when he was gone was tainted with sin.
The nightmares never stopped. They just got worse. I should have at least tried to fight them off. Instead, I embraced them…made fun of them… crafted an entire persona that couldn’t be wounded.
I was too sober for this shit. “I need another drink.”
“Like hell ya do.” Casey motioned to Molly so he could order a second coffee, plain, and one for me.
“I’m going to be up all night.” The caffeine wouldn’t be fully to blame, but it certainly wouldn’t help.
“Better than a having a hangover. Are you taking my opener tomorrow?”
I nodded. I’d be here whether I was working or not. Might as well give everyone a break and do something.
Molly set my mug down, doctored exactly as I liked it, except for the Baileys. I knew it was missing as soon as I raised it to sniff.
“Then, cheers.” He lifted his cup to match mine.
No sooner than I finished sipping, a shadow moved from the hallway back toward the bar.
And my heart stuttered before picking up the pace to flight and fight levels.
Ringo-fucking-Devlin was in my bar. I tracked him the entire distance from the back hallway to his seat in the prime spot where the curve of the bar hit the north wall.
There were two stools tucked into the corner where the bar flap interrupted the short leg of the “J.” I liked to sit there because you could watch everything that happened in the main bar as well as check out anyone taking the stairs to the overflow lounge in the basement.
That bar was only a third the size of the main floor’s. Most nights the door to it was locked. That didn’t stop curious folks from tugging the brass handle. And, if I wanted to escape there tonight to ignore Casey’s no-drinking decree, I’d have to walk right past my nemesis to get there.
I’d rather gnaw my arm off.
Casey finished saying something I’d completely missed. He stared at me, waiting for a quip or a snarky reply.
He got silence instead.
“You’re off your game.”
“You drop a bombshell like gooberment hounds sniffing around my booty hole, and I’m supposed to just ignore it?”
He frowned. Apparently, the conversation had moved past that point, and I’d handed him proof of my distraction.
His gaze followed the trail I’d inadvertently exposed. “Who is he?”
Oh, sweet Jesus. Once a cop, always a… “No one.”
Casey laughed once. “You don’t fool me. I know what that is. It’s kryptonite. At least for you.”
“I ain’t Superman. I have no weaknesses.”
He laughed long and hard at that one. Once he got it out of his system, he cleared his throat. “You know, I hated Johnny Pornstach.”
If everyone could stop reminding me of my faults, it would be really nice of them. “What was it, the caterpillar on his upper lip or the weasel-like set of his shoulders?”
“He was all wrong for you.”
I groaned. “And who’s right for me?”
Casey’s grin fell. “Not him.” He glanced to the front of the room. “And probably not the guy who caught your eye. That’s trouble.”
“How can you tell?” This was insightful. Because when I first met “He-who-shall-not-be-named” I had picked up on the swagger, the careless hair, the grin that hid secrets, but Ringo had done nothing more than any other normal man would have done when bumping into a pretty woman.
“He’s a wolf.” Casey leaned in and lowered his volume. “Without looking, he sees everything. You don’t do that unless someone somewhere has taught you how.”
I kept my eyes on Casey.
“Are you saying the newcomer is dangerous?”
His icy blue eyes met mine. He gave me a little shake of the head. “Dangerous doesn’t describe it. I know that thrills little girls like you, but steer clear of that one.”
I feigned offense. “Little girls like me? Come on! I’ve got at least two handfuls right here.” I grabbed my breasts and lifted them with a squish.
His face wrinkled into a sardonic grin. “He’s the kind you think can protect you, but they only draw you into the darkness.”
If he only knew how true his words were.
I leaned in with a flirty pout on my lips. “Sounds like you. Why do you think I love you?”
He laughed. “If only I were thirty years younger.”
“Spank me and call me baby-girl.”
Luckily, the song had switched to something raucous and mindless. Because I was in a mood. Casey picked up my lies, and we joked until he deemed his bedtime nigh.
As he took his leave, he tapped the table to get my attention. “Hey. Watch your back.”
It wasn’t delivered with his usual cadence. This warning held weight. Behind the words was insistence and sincerity.
I nodded, finally sobering past the false clarity booze goggles provided. “I will.”
His words haunted me an hour later as I scanned the streets while the rideshare driver chatted.
Ringo had disappeared, and I suspected I was being followed.
Maybe the wolf was hunting?
But I wasn’t a helpless little girl. I had teeth, too.