Chapter 13 #2
“Report back if there’s any trouble,” Trace finishes the call.
“You got it, boss,” the voice on the other end responds.
Shea gives me a hug that settles my pulse and my brain. It’s still hard to believe that all of the O’Rourkes are back in New York together. I kiss my sister goodbye, and Trace walks her to the door.
When he returns to the kitchen, not a muscle moves on his face when he says, “You’re the man killing dealers with fentanyl, aren’t you?”
My body goes cold. “What are you talking about?”
My denial dies in my throat when Trace shows me photos on his phone of me in an alley from a few weeks ago.
“Where did you get that?” I grab the phone. “I looked for cameras.”
“Drone,” he says with a grin. “My cousin Shane and your brother Balor have them flying all over the five boroughs. When I recognized you, Rhys and I hacked into the ME and cross-matched the kills to the pick-up locations for more footage.”
Thrown, I clear my throat. “It’s… Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. Especially if you get caught.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“You already did.” He steps away, shaking his head. “Who are you working for?”
“No one.”
“Who is supplying the drugs?”
“I’m not telling you that.” I take a breath.
My best friend stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Are you getting even with dealers because someone hooked you?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take responsibility for my actions. I could have said no. I didn’t.” I brush a hand down my face. “I’m focusing on taking out the dealers who evade the system, the ones the law can’t keep off the streets.”
“Judge, jury, and executioner,” he grouses, maybe wishing he had the power.
“They’re guilty,” I argue. “Selling drugs and ruining lives. Killing people who overdose. I don’t move until I witness the sale, then I take them out. It’s not like I’m showing up at someone’s apartment with a syringe hoping I get the right guy.”
“I see.” Trace lets that one judgy word settle. “Since you’re open to street work, I can use you for one of these fentanyl kills.”
My eyebrow raises. Irony dripping, I scoff, “Oh, I can kill for the empire.”
“Quinlan Empire will protect you,” he says proudly. “There’s a ghost from Ava’s past we’re tracking. But he’s not a dealer.”
“Just this one?” Up until now I’ve been on a transactional quest. Dealers only.
“Kill, yeah. And maybe treat some of my guys who can’t go to a hospital?”
I sit up, alarmed. “You want a private clinic, too?”
He blinks. “If you’re open to getting calls in the middle of the night.”
I didn’t want to be a part of this world. Now Darragh is married to a Bratva underboss, my sister is married to a Mob enforcer, and I might be working for them, too.
There’s no escaping who you really are, I guess. What runs and burns in the blood. Part of my healing was learning to let my true destiny guide me.
“Can I bring in a med student or two to observe?” I ask, thinking some of those Hamilton students can use a dose of emergency medicine reality. “It would be a great experience for them. A good way to find out who in the medical field you can trust once they graduate.”
“That’s risky,” Trace says. “I was hoping that would be you.”
“I’m one man,” I say, and shake my head like I’m forecasting my own demise.
“But if you think you can find the right students, trustworthy ones, I’m good with it. I’ll run it by Griffin.”
Griffin Quinlan is now the new head of the Irish Mob in Lower Manhattan. He and his brothers, Connor and Shane, escorted me to Ireland for my incarceration at the request of Lachlan. But those Quinlan brats flew back there when Trace and my sister were in trouble.
For that, they’ll always have my loyalty.
“When do you plan to start looking for a wife?” Trace changes the subject.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head.
“Do you want help finding one? We have loyal guards with sisters.”
For some reason, my mind strays to how one day, J.P. will be Pakhan. Shit, he’ll probably have to marry some Russian royal if that ever happens.
Hmm, if he can do it, I guess I can, too.
“I… I’ll think about it.”
Trace squeezes my shoulder again and lowers his voice. “Cormac, you deserve to love someone. And be loved. And your son deserves to know the man you are now. The man you worked to become. Someone he can look up to.”
I turn my head. “Who the fuck would ever choose me?”
“A professor at the most prestigious medical college in the country, plus one who’s rich and handsome? You’ll find someone in a week.”
Scarlett’s face flashes in my mind again. In a short amount of time, she made me want her, made me forget that I wasn’t unworthy.
Trace stares at me, like he knows I’m thinking of someone specific. I shut that down, or he’ll have a damn drone following me around.
Silence stretches between us, heavy and strained. His hand finally falls from my shoulder.
“Just think about what you want more,” Trace adds gently. “Your pride or your son.”
A full-time job at a school like Hamilton will make me look stable to Darragh and Ana.
And that’s more important than anything else.