Chapter 24
ROWAN
I leave the house to make the call. My dad isn’t home, but in true paranoid fashion I worry that every room except the shitter is under surveillance, now that our rivalry with Calloway has boiled over. I choose the patio of Cathedral Station—what must be the only gay sports bar in existence—as my office for the day. Might as well enjoy a cocktail while destroying everything I know and hate… And love. I do still have love for my dad, and that’s what’s making doing the right thing so damn hard. I’m angry at myself for loving him. He’s tried everything he possibly could to force me to stop loving him. He’s worse than a plague of locusts. But love dies slowly and then all at once. I guess I’m waiting for the “all at once” part to come.
I speak to some low-level ATF intern for no more than thirty seconds. The recipe I concoct has two simple ingredients: I say “Callum Monaghan,” add “Patrick Calloway” to the pot, give it a stir, and am transferred to the special agent in charge of the Boston field office. As expected, I am fucking grilled longer than a brisket. I’m asked for the who, what, where, when, why, and how, but I’m not willing to divulge more than is necessary: There’s an arsenal and some bad guys at this location on this time and day, go get ’em.
I lose patience and cut off Agent Whoever-the-Hell. “Christ, man, are you a cop or a journalist?”
“I need to verify that this information is real.”
“Show up tomorrow night to the address I gave you and you will. Shit is going to pop off, I guarantee it. But make sure not to bust your nut too quick or they’ll scatter like bedbugs when the lights go on.”
I hear him suppress a snigger. “It would be helpful if I had your name, at least.”
My name. It holds such power. I can get anything I want with my name, move mountains, strike fear into the hearts of big, strong badass men. I wonder if it can summon the full force and fury of the United States government, or if it can save me from them. “I’m… someone close to the Monaghan family.”
He either puts me on mute or is rendered speechless. The silence goes on and on. I consider hanging up until he says, “Miss, thank you for the call. Rest assured you’ll be treated as an informant and, as such, granted protections under the law.”
He’s alluding to immunity from prosecution and the witness security program. Have to catch me first. I’m not going anywhere, jail or into hiding, unless I want to. “Just be there.”
The trap is set. Time to prime the prey. I toss back the rest of my espresso martini and think about ordering another—not because I want one; it’s just an excuse to procrastinate. “Fuck it.” I slap some money on the table, not bothering to ask for the check.
Jules makes my pitch to my father more believable via pictures of Calloway’s holdings. That’s what sells him on the idea of ripping him off, more than my words. Upon first glance of them, he goes so bug-eyed I think they might burst right out of their sockets. He’s covetous yet still dubious. “Why are you telling me this, and how did you get these?”
“I’m telling you for three reasons: First, things between you and me have never been good, and I want that to change. I was hoping a father–daughter heist might be the thing that does that, you know, since I’m too old to take fishing or play catch with.”
He snorts. “What else?”
“Second, Calloway isn’t like you. He’s controlling, doesn’t let his wife or daughter have money or lives of their own. They can’t take a shit without their bodyguards. You’ve been responsible for that all these years, but it’s gotten worse since your fucked up assassination attempt on a day of mourning, you psycho.” I don’t pull my punches because I will forever be seething over it. He averts his gaze from mine. “Anyway, that’s also how I got ahold of the pics—Jules gave them to me. She wants out from under Calloway’s thumb and figured if we can hit him hard enough, he’ll go out of business, then she and her mom will be free of him. I can’t be with her, but I haven’t stopped loving her and I want to help her if I can. Third, if the Monaghans have that arsenal, we control where it goes. I have no idea who Calloway’s selling that shit to, but if I can keep innocent people from being slaughtered like fucking livestock, then I’m going to. Maybe we can do something good for once and sell it to Ukraine. You already ship cars there; you have contacts.”
“You’re a real bleeding heart, kid.”
“Caring about people isn’t a weakness. And what do you give a shit, as long as you’re making money? You’ll make more money from one night’s work than you do in a year. And you’ll royally screw Calloway without having to murk him. It’s a win-win.”
He rubs his chin in contemplation. “It is. But tomorrow night is too soon, and we have a small window. We couldn’t move that much product in a couple of hours.”
When Callum Monaghan says no, he means no. He didn’t say no. There’s room for persuasion. I’ve been watching and learning from Jules, studying her playbook. I’m far from a master manipulator, but taking a small shot at his toxic masculinity might do it.
“So, we fit what we can on a box truck and burn the rest. There’re two guards at the door, no cameras, no alarms. You’re telling me if we bring in Jeremy, Ryan, and Matthew, the five of us can’t handle two guards? Two guards for grenades and Kalashnikovs. C’mon, it’s a cake walk. Unless you’re afraid or something.”
He leans across his desk, intensity radiating throughout his entire being. I got his back up. He has to prove he’s got balls. “You calling me a coward?”
“I’m asking if you’ve finally met a risk you’re scared to take. That doesn’t make you a coward, it makes you a normal person.” If there’s anything my father loathes more than being perceived as yellow-bellied, it’s being seen as normal. His self-adulation won’t allow his crown to be askew.
“Let’s put that motherfucker out of business.”
Got ya. In roughly thirty-six hours, my life begins anew, sans my father and Calloway. “I’ll round up the minions?”
“Do it.”
I don’t call Jules to let her know it’s on. Rather, I wait across the street from her house with my back pressed against an ancient oak tree—using its plush summer leaves and the night as cover—until I see the lights in all the rooms go out one after the other. I’ve never been inside, but I know her bedroom is on the second floor at the back overlooking the garden. She’s told me how much she loves having breakfast on her little stone balcony, watching the kaleidoscope of butterflies that her mom’s coneflowers, aster, and zinnia attract.
I approach the black steel fence surrounding the property with an abundance of caution until I’m sure the flood lights mounted on the house aren’t automated. Then I lift the latch on the gate and tiptoe the rest of the way down the drive, into the yard.
The soft glow of a bedside lamp lets me know she’s still awake. I should find some pebbles to throw at the panes of her French doors, but I’m not in the headspace to be sensible. I’m feeling reckless in my bones. I could die tomorrow night; I’ve got one last big, romantic gesture in me before I go.
The lattice leading up to her balcony is metal, covered with ivy. “Fuck, I hope it’s not the poison variety,” I whisper to myself before starting my ascent. I’m not a fan of heights. Never have been. I wouldn’t be climbing a goddamn garden trellis for anyone but her.
Hopping over the balustrade to safety feels like the greatest triumph of my life. I fist-bump the air like an idiot, then tap on the doors. They swing open with more ferocity than I expect. Her eyes go wide. She murmurs, “Are you insa?—”
I cut her off with a kiss. A desperate one. She deepens it, frees my hair from its ponytail and slides her fingers into it. Gentle. Everything about it and her. I don’t know how she knows that at this moment I’m so incredibly, terrifyingly fragile inside, but she does.
She doesn’t stop kissing me until she’s guided me to her bed, and even then, only to disrobe me. She does this gently, too.
Once I’m naked, she sits me at the edge of the mattress and drops to her knees, not bothering to lose a single piece of her own clothing. “Don’t take your eyes off mine,” she says.
I nod.
She spreads my legs, kisses the entire length of my inner thighs. And then her tongue is dancing on my slit, relishing the taste of me.
The look in her eyes is so full of love—mellow yet determined—as she takes my clit into her mouth. I move to palm her crown, but she catches my hand, instead lacing our fingers together and pinning our hands to the bed. She starts with light, quick flicks, crescendos the pressure and speed.
Soon, I’m on fire. I’m dying to moan but know I can’t. It takes everything I have to keep quiet. I squeeze her hand as my body starts to shake. She slips two fingers inside me, massaging my G-spot.
My orgasm is intense. Roaring. But I’m silent. I collapse onto the mattress and close my eyes as I ride out the waves of chemicals flooding my system.
She doesn’t give me much time to recover, just long enough to slip out of her airy nightdress and panties. She pulls me upright and climbs into my lap, wrapping her legs around my torso and her arms around my neck. I feel her wetness on my pelvis. She kisses me again, glides her tongue into my mouth. I slide three fingers into her, deep as they can go.
I concentrate on working the tiny bundle of nerves inside her, palming her ass with my free hand as she grinds her clit against the base of my thumb. She’s quieter than she’s ever been, but I feel her pulsating around my fingers—my cue to go faster. She bites her bottom lip and digs her nails into my shoulders as she comes.
By the time she’s finished, I’m soaked in her. Soaked. All the times we’ve had sex and she’s never…
“You’re a squirter!” I whisper.
Then she’s silent-laughing into my neck so hard that we’re both trembling. “Sometimes. You should take me in a bed more often.”
“If I survive tomorrow night, I plan to.”
“I should get you a towel.”
“Absolutely-the-fuck-not. We can air-dry, it’s fine.”
She kisses me again, then scuttles off me and lies down. “I know you can’t stay, but will you hold me for a while?”
“Like you have to ask.” I situate myself beside her. We’re sticky with sweat and other fluids, but none of it matters. All I care about is that she’s in my arms, now and again pressing her lips to my neck.
I climb down the trellis at the earliest hint of sunrise. She watches me and I can feel the worry in her gaze. My feet touch the grass and I see her exhale her anxiety.
I love you, she mouths to me.
I love you, too. More than words can say.
It’s the longest day of my life. I stew in dread until darkness falls at 8:05 p.m. The minions arrive to pick us up shortly after, in an unregistered 12-foot box truck someone did a slapdash job of painting black. As my father and I are heading out the door I prepare myself to compromise my newfound principle.
“I need a gun.”
I don’t plan to fire it—the optics of the thing are frightening enough.
“What happened to yours?”
“The one I killed a man with? Yeah, that’s at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Smart girl, getting rid of it.”
I didn’t do it because it was proof of a crime, douche. “Whatever. Give me your spare.” He’s predictable. He pulls up his pant leg and yanks his Beretta Nano from its ankle holster. Small but deadly. “Thanks.”
We approach the pier with our headlights off, rolling the truck over the hoary boards at a snail’s pace. The lighting here is garbage. We’re well-hidden in the maws of the night. “It’s there, at the end.” I point at Calloway’s building through the windscreen. My dad parks a hundred yards from the warehouse entrance, and we stake it out in complete silence.
“You were right. I only see two guards. Nice job, kid.” My dad gives me a literal pat on the back. I fight my instinct to squirm at the contact.
“Jeremy and I will take care of the guards. Once they’re down, move in.”
I turn to give Jeremy directions. “We go up there cool and non-threatening, not with guns blazing. I’ll take the one with the beard. You’ve got the other guy. Don’t fuck this up and don’t kill him if you don’t have to.”
“Okay.”
“Go on three—one. Two. Three.” We hop out, making certain to close the doors softly behind us.
Jeremy is a lumbering idiot, not light-footed in the slightest, but he’s keeping pace and that’s all I can ask of him. As soon as the guards see us, they’re on high alert. I use what little femininity I possess to my advantage and give them a wave. “Sorry, is this private property?” I call out to my designated mark. He recognizes that I’m a woman, and even in the faint glow of streetlamps I see his relief. Sometimes sexism does have its advantages: I’m a girl, not a threat. That’s the dumbest thing a man can think. We’re smaller in stature, but nature has made us cunning in ways men cannot comprehend.
To Jeremy I murmur, “Go.”
I have my gun concealed in my palm. I walk straight up to Whiskers and hold it up to his forehead. I am firm and fearless—as far as he can tell. He is shaking, terrified. Perfect. That’s the state I need him to be in. I look over to find Jeremy struggling a bit, but he’s bigger than the guard. He takes him into a chokehold and uses brute strength to strangle him into submission.
“Listen carefully,” I mutter close to my guy’s ear, “I know you have a gun. Hand it over.” He complies without protest, and I tuck it into the back pocket of my black jeans. “You’re gonna call your employer and very quietly let him know what’s going on here. Do it now.”
He fishes his phone out of his pocket but is barely able to hold it steady. Patrick is on speed dial. There’s one ring, then Calloway’s voice. “What?”
The guard says in a near whisper, “The warehouse is being robbed.”
“How many guys?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m coming.” Click.
“Good. I’m sorry for this next part.” I hit him so hard in the back of the skull with the butt of my gun that he passes out cold. He hits the pavement face first.
My dad drives the truck up to the front of the building. Matt and Ryan jump out and each grab the handles of the huge, tracked doors. They slide open with a metallic groan. Inside, a goldmine of devastation. My father claps his hands together, rubs them triumphantly. “Alright, let’s see what we got. Matty, get on that forklift over there. Rowan, there are cans of gas in the back of the truck. Get this place ready to burn.”
I retrieve the gas, walk up and down the aisles, pouring the contents of the red plastic canisters on the floors as I go. From the start that was my Plan B: If the cops flake, this place is getting torched. Maybe I’ll lock Calloway and my dad inside and watch the fucking joint go up in smoke.
When I’m finished, I shoot a text to Jules. She and Maria have to rile up Patrick and Teague, give ’em some real ra-ra cheerleader shit to hype up their manhood.
I stand by the doors, leaning against the wall with my arms folded. Watching and waiting. The underlings manage to load three pallets of grenades and one pallet of AK-47s into the truck before I hear the rumble of speeding tires on the planks of the pier. That’s my cue to find cover. I sneak to the rear of the warehouse, duck behind a towering pallet.
Outside, car doors slam. One, two, three. “I fucking knew it would be you, Monaghan!” Calloway shouts.
And then there are no more words, only the earsplitting crack-crack-crack of handguns as they release bullets.
Then, sirens. Blue and red flashing lights cutting through the darkness of the warm summer night, reflecting off the inner walls of the warehouse. The pistols fall silent, replaced by a deep voice through a megaphone. I glance around my pallet in time to catch Calloway’s men and my dad’s men placing their weapons on the ground. I don’t see Calloway, but my father is lying motionless just beyond the wide-open warehouse doors, his blood oozing out of him and pooling around his head. It was a headshot. It had to be.
I knew I’d feel something when this day came, although I didn’t expect that the world would suddenly be moving in slow motion. I slink closer to my father’s body, careful to stay out of sight and well-hidden by crates. It feels like miles of hard, sluggish trudging through a swamp of grief. I’m aware of ATF agents cuffing Matt and Ryan and Jeremy, and Teague, the two guards, and a few other guys I don’t know, but all I can focus on is Callum Monaghan, dead on the weather-battered, splintering pine boards. I’m close enough to see that his eyes are cold, lifeless orbs forever focused on the sky. I hope the stars imprinted on his cones and rods as he faded away. That would’ve been a comfort he didn’t deserve; I wish for it, nonetheless.
I have tears for him. Another thing I hadn’t expected, but they splash down my cheeks—droplets at first and then a steady stream. I wipe them away with my fingertips. “You stupid, selfish, insatiable man,” I whisper aloud, in case his soul is still lingering. The only thing that could’ve allayed his greed was his demise.
Incoherent screaming demands my attention. Teague, arms cuffed behind his back, rears against the agent escorting him to an ATF vehicle. I see what he sees—Patrick Calloway bent backward over a rusted guardrail, his top half peppered with bullet holes. I have tears for him, too. How tragic and poetic, two kings killed by one another—destined to be each other’s downfall. These violent delights have violent ends. They always do.
I have to go look into Jules’s eyes and tell her that her father is dead. She shouldn’t learn of it any other way. Agents will be coming in to start cataloging soon. I don’t want to be here when that happens.
I make my way to the blue-gray door at the rear of the warehouse, away from the commotion and the cops, the gore and the corpses. I think I’m clear until, “Stop right there!”
Of course, I don’t stop. I don’t even bother to turn around. I run. I hear footsteps chasing after me, commands being yelled, the hissing static of two-way radios. Outside in the narrow alley, I’m converged on from all sides. Ahead of me is the end of the pier. This is it.
There is no escape.
There’s one.
It’s suicide.
Or freedom.
Freedom, either way—just two different kinds.
I climb the guardrail, take a breath, and hurtle feet-first off the pier. On my way down I pray. I close my eyes as I splash into the Charles River. The water is warm, and mercifully neither rocky nor shallow. I kick my way up to the surface, float on my back, and let the current carry me downstream into Boston proper.