Chapter 8
Cormac
August
Istand in front of the now-familiar ornate front door with brass hinges and a lion’s head knocker, whose mouth holds a brass ring. Before I even knock, it opens, and a man of about six-seven with a huge head and a square jaw greets me in his low, deep Russian accent. “Dr. O’Rourke.”
“How you doing, Sergei?” I greet the Astoria Bratva enforcer who reports to the underboss.
The underboss, who happens to be my ex, Ana O’Rourke. Formerly Anastasia Koslov, the Russian princess of Pakhan Alexei Koslov.
Hooking up with Ana in Las Vegas over three years ago made sense. We were both from mafia families, so we understood each other. We didn’t need to keep our pasts a secret.
She was running from a marriage arrangement with the pakhan from Boston. We had fun for a couple of months, but we started doing drugs that turned us into people no one would have recognized today.
I should have learned my lesson about vulnerable women who drop into my lap, looking for a way out.
A flash of Scarlett a few weeks ago cuts through my skull. She went from wet and broken on the street, like a discarded Christmas puppy, to naked soft skin under my hands. Her aching moans hours later are sounds I’m still pinching myself about.
I shove the thoughts down deep, where all the things I can never have again live.
Sergei lets me in, and I have free rein in this house. He doesn’t follow me or even announce me.
Darragh and Ana’s sprawling Tudor has mahogany trim everywhere. The place is very old-world. More gothic Bratva from Ana’s Russian side than Darragh’s scrappy Irish Mob roots. My roots.
We might be mafia, who would ordinarily keep things low-key, but this, this is Astoria. My brothers are in charge here. And they live in peace with the Bratva and a small Cosa Nostra presence.
I head straight for the magazine-worthy kitchen to find my brother Darragh dressed to the nines in a dark blue three-piece suit, white shirt with some kind of sheen, and a gold tie.
On his six, talking a mile a minute, wearing a gray plaid Catholic school uniform and a frown, is his daughter from his first marriage, my adorable niece, Sophie.
“Uncle Cormac!” she says, her face lighting up as she bolts toward me.
Being around her makes me forget I hate myself.
For my drug addiction. For what I did to Ana. Lately, it’s for not getting Scarlett’s phone number. It’s been weeks, but I can’t get her out of my mind. She’s been under my skin since I walked out of that hotel room.
“Hey, munchkin.” I pick her up.
“You’re all dressed up!” Sophie presses her face into my chest. “You look handsome, Uncle Cormac.”
The charcoal pinstripe suit was a good pick.
“Thank you, Sophalicisous.” I twirl her around. “Your daddy is taking me to work with him.”
It’s ‘Take your loser brother to work’ day.
But I don’t say that.
Do-gooder Darragh, the perfect dad, got me an interview at the medical school where he’s been a part-time professor. But he and Ana want to have more kids. That means his life will get more complicated. So he gave them notice. He told the dean he’s offering him the next best thing.
Me. His identical twin.
I don’t know about the next best thing. But I’m the same thing, technically. We have the same DNA. By bones and blood, Darragh and I are the same.
Outside, we’re very different.
“Did these tattoos on your neck hurt?” Soph pokes my throat.
Darragh shoots me a warning glance, like he’s not hiding ink under his clothes.
Getting inked is addictive and should have been my first sign that I had a problem.
“They hurt like a mother—” I bite my lip. “Yeah, they hurt. And a stupid decision.”
“We don’t use the word stupid.” Ana breezes into the kitchen wearing black slacks, a white lace corset under a black jacket with rolled-up plaid sleeves.
She orders people’s deaths but doesn’t allow trigger words like stupid. Damn, she looks like a million bucks, and more importantly, she looks happy. That’s really all I care about.
Even if they don’t hate me anymore, I still hate myself for what I did to her. To both of them, her and Darragh.
Actually, I don’t know if Darragh ever hated me. Can you ever hate your other half?
I glance around. “Where’s J.P.?”
Darragh’s mug of tea stops right before his mouth, his eyes studying me. “Upstairs.”
“He had a fever last night,” Ana says, buttering toast, not looking at me.
Or even looking concerned that I asked.
“We were up late with him,” Darragh adds, stifling a yawn.
“I’m letting him sleep in.” Ana hands the toast to Darragh while Sophie pours herself a bowl of cereal.
“Can I go see him?” I ask.
Ana and Darragh look at me and then each other. The obvious answer sits on their tongue: Of course, he’s your son.
But they don’t say it out loud. Even though Sophie knows I’m J.P.’s biological father. She found out last year. But things were crazy that day. We were hiding in a safe room while hitmen circled Darragh’s home in Seattle, waiting to kill us.
“Girdie will be here any minute,” Ana says about their nanny.
“We need to leave in about five minutes, Cor,” Darragh adds.
“Got it.” I shake my head and murmur, “Chill out, Mom and Dad.”
Sophie snickers, and it’s like I’m the troublesome older foster kid in this family.
I climb the stairs and make a right, knowing exactly where his room is. I push open the door, and the smell of baby powder makes me smile. Fresh. Clean. Pure.
Unlike me, whose soul is forever stained.
In his crib, J.P. puckers his lips coated with a trickle of drool. Tears well up behind my eyes, seeing hardened, pale green crusts around his nose. Poor little guy has a cold. And I can’t make it better.
I cover my mouth and shove my other hand in my pocket just to give my limbs something to do. When all I want to do is haul him into my arms, inhale his smell, and kiss his sweet, innocent little head. As if that will erase what I did.
As if loving him harder could earn me more than moments like this.
“Cor,” Darragh whispers from the doorway. “You okay?”
“I’m okay, Dar.” I bite my lip and nod.
Facing him, the look of sympathy in his eyes guts me. He signals for me to step out of the room. I get it. He wants our nine-month-old son to sleep.
Once I’m in the hall, he closes the bedroom door.
“It’s okay,” Darragh whispers.
“What’s okay?” I ask.
“What you’re feeling.”
“What am I feeling, Dar?”
He cocks his head. “Confusion? Regret?”
“I’m not confused.” I was in denial about Ana’s pregnancy when I was an addicted asshole. “But I have plenty of regret, Dar. And I’m working through it. But I don’t regret J.P. I could never regret him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Darragh says and checks his austere Rolex watch.
My G.Q. brother is a model of perfection, while I feel like a fraud.
But for some reason, he and Ana love me. They’ve forgiven me and welcomed me into their lives. And they want J.P. to know I’m his father.
One day. They say when he’s old enough to understand, they’ll tell him the truth.
But will they tell him the whole truth?
Jeez, this is all too much for seven-thirty in the morning.
“We should get going.” Darragh turns, and I follow.
At the bottom of the stairs, I catch Ana in front of the entryway door kissing Sophie goodbye. A car idles in the courtyard with her nanny waiting inside to take her to school. My niece hugs Ana like a little girl hugs her mommy. Ana isn’t Sophie’s mom. But you’d never know it.
Yeah, this family has been through hell.
At least it isn’t all my fault.
Just most of it.