48. Cora
Cora
When it’s time for me to return to work, I do. When it’s time for me to brush my teeth, when it’s time for me to eat, sleep, wake up, shower, I do. Connor makes sure of it.
Jennifer and Lucy know right away that something’s wrong.
I’m a zombie, my eyes hollow and my voice empty.
I go with the lie that the O’Sullivans concocted for the public—there was an explosion at the high-rise, caused by a gas leak.
I was there when it happened, and I’ve been so shaken up by it that I moved back here.
“Is your husband okay?” Lucy asks. It’s just the three of us in our clinic’s break room, downing our coffees before the morning’s patients arrive. I take a large gulp of the too-hot bitterness. I need to feel the pain in my esophagus, anything to distract me from the pain of thinking about Brady.
“He’s fine,” I say. “He wanted us to stay at the high-rise, but I wanted to move back here.” I take a deep breath, and continue telling the truth. “So we had a bit of a fight, and now I’m here.”
“Marriage isn’t something to force,” Jennifer says, quoting me. I’d expected her to be smug about the failure of my hasty marriage, but she sounds morose, sympathetic as she wraps me in a big hug.
Lucy throws her arms around both of us, and I sag with relief to be surrounded by my friends. Real friends, now that they know who I really am.
When Connor stops by the clinic to bring me lunch, both Lucy and Jen perk up.
I’m reminded that Lucy called him hot when she saw the photo of him being released from Cook County.
Apart from the new scar through his left eyebrow, he’s back to looking like his normal self.
And yet, I don’t think it’s his appearance that’s causing the real stir.
It’s who he is. Connor Muloney, only son of Cormac Muloney, head of the Boston Muloney crime family, as Lucy had read aloud from the article.
“We left that life behind,” I tell her when she finally brings it up after Connor leaves. “He and I both did. I’m not even a Muloney anymore.”
But I am a Muloney. All it took was the unleashing of my violence for me to realize that. I’m mafia at heart, and being raised as a Muloney shaped me into who I am today, vengeful and power-hungry and oh so deadly.
Stab. And slash.
Returning to my civilian life as an ophthalmologist carries no such thrills for me. Buried beneath the mountain of my catch-up paperwork and admin tasks, I’m reminded how boring it can be, this career I worked so hard for.
I’m good at it, but I’m also good at the criminal life. Gathering intel, driving a getaway car, intimidating a drug dealer—I thrived as an asset. I enjoyed it.
Now, even seeing patients feels unfulfilling. I can’t afford to indulge regret about leaving that life behind, no matter how much the emptiness hurts. But diagnosing glaucoma is nothing compared to the rush of stitching up a stab wound.
Brady’s warm skin beneath my fingers. His erratic pulse beneath my palm. His hard co—
The number of times per hour I have to stop myself from thinking about him is pathetic. It doesn’t help when his world literally collides with mine.
Late one morning, Brioni breezes into the clinic. Before I can say anything, the gorgeous blonde slams me into a hug.
“I’ve missed you,” she says, surprising me. “I’ve missed your energy at the pub.”
“Um. Okay.” I’m not sure how else to respond.
When I introduce her to Jennifer and Lucy, Brioni greets both of them with hugs as well.
Unseen by Brioni, Lucy raises her eyebrows at me in a silent question.
All I can do is shrug. Brioni’s friendly, that’s all.
If she weren’t so damn genuine, I’d suspect that her visit was some ploy by the O’Sullivans.
But she is genuine, and her kindness is a weapon.
She pierces me through when she suggests the four of us go out for drinks later.
It’s strange, my worlds colliding. And of course Brioni gets along well with Jen and Lucy when we meet up with her.
I still ache with the reminder of Brady that Brioni inevitably is.
She’s like a sister to him, after all. Irrationally, I find myself missing the O’Sullivan family dynamics, even Finn’s teasing.
I’d finally felt like I belonged to a clan.
Despite initially hating them and all they stood for, they were my people.
Brioni doesn’t mention any of the O’Sullivans. I get the sense that she’s following my lead, and so we talk about everything but the people I so inexplicably miss.
For the most part I just sit and listen, too drained to contribute to the conversation.
The other three discuss secondhand stores and the White Sox and bodice rippers, and round out the night with plans to go thrifting in Chinatown followed by cocktails at a tiki bar.
They’re making sure I get out of the house.
The more time I spend with my three friends, the duller my pain of missing Brady becomes.
What makes it stab me again, sharper each time, is catching sight of the guard that he’s assigned to me. My husband still cares about my safety. Each guard is discreet when I’m out and about, but whenever I’m in the apartment, I can see them at their post directly through the back window.
One evening after a takeout dinner with Connor, I recognize Pete when I peer out to check, his dark windbreaker blending him into the shadows. My decision takes less than a second. I grab our extra container of egg rolls, the ones that were supposed to be leftovers, and I pull on my shoes.
“Stay here,” I tell Connor. He mutes the TV, suddenly concerned.
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to our guard. I know this one, he’s cool.”
“No, he’s not cool.” Connor leaps off the couch. Like me, he hasn’t enjoyed the fact that we’ve been under surveillance, but we’ve both recognized that having a guard is a useful thing, given Seven’s penchant for retaliation. “I’m coming with you.”
My brother stomps his feet into his sneakers, crushing down the back heels. I sigh, because I bought him those shoes, and with my relatively meager income from the clinic. Just like I bought him the new jacket he needed, the shampoo he uses, the food we eat.
Over the past weeks, our relationship has gained a new balance, since Connor’s taken responsibility for the housework, which apparently includes making sure that I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
We’re taking care of each other now.
So I don’t protest about my brother coming with me to talk to Pete, but I remind him to keep his mouth shut.
As soon as we step outside, I regret not putting on a jacket. It’s fully fall now, with the leaves beginning to turn and the nights coming earlier. I suck it up and cross my arms tight against the cold.
When we approach Pete in the darkened alleyway, he doesn’t make any attempt to avoid us. He even returns my hello, although it’s a little stiff.
“Are you allowed to talk to me?” I ask.
“Only if you approach me first.” He glances at Connor over my shoulder, who probably isn’t included in the list of people he can talk to. I decide to pretend my brother isn’t here.
“What are you allowed to tell me?”
When Pete doesn’t answer, I hand him the paperboard container of egg rolls. Skeptically, he opens it, and the fried smell wafts out.
“Blatant bribery,” he says, but he keeps the box. “What do you want to know?”
“Is Brady safe?” I ask. Behind me, Connor makes a small noise of disgust.
“Safe as he can be,” Pete says, and I let out a slow exhale.
“Everyone else?” I ask. But Pete doesn’t answer, so I try again. “Orla and Kieran?”
“Safe.”
“Gloria?” I ask.
Pete flinches at his daughter’s name. He knows as well as I do that his work puts Gloria in danger too, even if it’s not as grave as it is for the O’Sullivan family members.
“With her mother,” he says. “Out of the city.”
I want to ask more, but I’m clearly making Pete uncomfortable by pushing the limits of what he’s allowed to discuss. My brother’s presence isn’t helping, so I bid Pete goodnight.
Connor huffs and grumbles wordlessly behind me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks as soon as we’re back in the apartment. He kicks off his busted shoes to plop back down on the couch.
“They’re just egg rolls,” I say. “I’ll buy you more. Or you could get a job and buy some yourself.”
“I’m not qualified for anything legal.” It’s what he says every time I bring up his unemployment. “And I’m not talking about the frickin’ egg rolls.”
“Then why are you so upset? I told you Pete was cool, and he was.”
“Yeah, and the first thing you asked him about was Brady.” Connor folds his arms as he glares up at me.
I’m so taken aback that I turn away, stalling by opening the fridge. I take my time as I grab two bottles of beer, pop off the caps, and bring one to Connor. Another act of blatant bribery.
I flop down on the couch beside him, lacking the pain tolerance for this conversation. Every time I think about Brady, my heart squeezes like it’s being crushed in a vice rigged with spikes.
“He’s my husband,” I say, my throat thick on the word. “His well-being directly affects our arranged marriage. If I become a widow, I need to know about it.”
Connor snorts at me, sipping from his beer.
“I signed an agreement,” I say stubbornly. “I’m going to abide by it until it’s no longer valid.”
But it’s never been valid, thanks to my name change. It’s my final remaining card against the O’Sullivans, and I’ve been biding my time before playing it.
“You care about him,” Connor accuses.
“I care about—”
“You asked if he was safe, not if he was alive or dead.”
I take an angry gulp of beer, upset that I’d given myself away. Apparently, thinking about Brady makes me sloppy, and I can’t have that.
“Admit it,” he persists. “You still care about him.”
“How can I possibly care about a man who wanted to murder my brother?”
“He thought I was a traitor.” Connor picks at the label of his beer. “You know how important loyalty is in our world.”
“You’re defending him now?” My voice goes high-pitched.
“I’m saying I understand why he did what he did. And I was going to pass his stupid fucking test anyway, so he wasn’t actually going to kill me.”
I scrub my hands over my face. The fact that Connor’s justifying my husband’s sick actions makes each spike in my heart dig deeper.
“Run me through it again,” I say.
Connor groans. He leans back, propping his feet on the coffee table as he recounts the conversation he had with Brady and his brothers in their golf suite.
We’ve been over it countless times. It explains why Brady became so furious during our stakeout that night at the church, but it doesn’t explain how the false intel got leaked.
I stand up so I can pace the cramped living room.
“I bet it was Finn,” Connor says sourly. And as much as I’d like to believe him, I can’t.
“He’s an ass, but he’d never betray his family like that. He didn’t snitch.”
“I’m not saying he snitched. Hear me out.” My brother takes a dramatic sip of beer as I turn to face him. “Those weren’t Seven’s SUVs you saw that night. They were sent there by Finn to frame me. He was in on feeding me the false intel, and he wanted to make me look guilty.”
I give my brother a long look. I almost want to laugh, but his expression is so earnest.
“Finn is not nearly smart enough to come up with something like that,” I say. “And even if he did, he wouldn’t have fooled Brady.” My husband’s the smartest of the bunch.
Connor frowns, put out that I shut down his idea so quickly.
“It’s an interesting theory,” I say with a sigh.
I don’t tell my brother that it’s too outlandish. The correct answer is usually the simplest, which means that Connor probably relayed the information by accident somehow.
I go back to pacing. Connor doesn’t talk to anyone except me, our parents, and occasionally our sister.
I obviously don’t like that he’s still in contact with our parents, but he only speaks to them once a week.
He’s even offered to let me check his phone, but I trust him.
He’s been taking our father’s calls less and less frequently, partly because of my influence, and partly because our father keeps pestering him about upholding the sacraments.
I freeze. My blood goes cold as I turn to my brother on the couch. When he sees the horror on my face, he sits upright, and his feet drop from the coffee table to the floor.
“Connor,” I say slowly, trying to keep my voice calm. “Did you go to confession that day?”
His eyes go wide, their two-toned blue so much like my own. Then he puts his face in his hands and groans. I try to maintain my steady reasoning, to go easy on my little brother who’s already wracked with guilt. It’s difficult.
“Why on earth would you talk to a priest about a drop?” I ask, and Connor pulls his hands from his face to gesture wildly.
“I don’t know, it came up! I literally had nothing else to talk about, I’d just been sitting around the apartment all day every day. Going out to that golf place was the most interesting thing I’d done in weeks, so that’s what I talked about.”
“It’s confession, Connor. Not therapy.” But even as I say it, I can predict his response.
“It’s habit from Mom.”
Our father would never allow his children to do something as weak as go to therapy. But our mom, for all her faults, recognized we needed it from having a man like Cormac Muloney as our father.
Confession was the closest thing she could give us.
“So the priest must’ve told Seven,” Connor says, dejected.
“Or the confessional is bugged.” If I were Seven, I’d have every confessional in the city bugged. “Fuck.” I need to move, so I start pacing again. “Goddamnit, fuck.”
“I mean, it’s not good.” My brother frowns like he doesn’t understand my reaction.
“Any confessional in Chicago could be bugged by Seven,” I explain. “Which means the O’Sullivans have a vulnerability they don’t know about. They’re in danger.” Brady’s in danger.
Connor purses his lips at me, shaking his head.
“Don’t you dare say it,” I warn, but he says it anyway.
“You’re still in love with him.”
I collapse onto the couch beside my brother. He’s right.
“So,” he says. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Wait for it to pass.” Wait for these spikes lodged in my heart to shrink, to become painless needles as I continue through the motions of my unfulfilling life.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Connor says.
“Then what do you propose?” I snap.
“Give him a test. Your version of handing him a gun loaded with blanks and sending him into a firefight. He’s always setting little tests, so see how he likes it for a change.”
With my head leaned back on the couch, I let it fall to the side to look at my brother, making sure he sees all of my skepticism. He shrugs.
“It’s worth a shot.”