Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Shane
What the hell is going through that woman’s mind? I could see the cogs turning, but I couldn’t hear what she was thinking. She’s got a poker face better than anyone I know who isn’t in a syndicate. But I knew each time she devised a lie. Her tell was she had no tell. I know her frustration toward me helped mask the pain, so I encouraged it. But she was artfully hiding a ton of shite.
I shouldn’t care beyond the fact she’s Meredith’s daughter, and Meredith is a close family friend. I shouldn’t care that I could murder whoever hurt Carys, and no one would know. It would mean that person can never go after her again. I didn’t lie when I said whoever beat her took it personally and will be back to finish the job. I don’t believe it was some ex. Maybe, but I don’t believe it. Something about our push and pull made me wonder if she’s into kinky shite like I am. If she is, and her partner got pissed for whatever reason, she would have already been in a vulnerable position.
I have a million more questions like how’d you get away? How’d you get onto my site? Is the piece of shite alive? Where is he?
My parents and aunts and uncles drilled it into my cousins, my brothers, and me you never ever turn a blind eye to someone who can’t defend themselves. We do enough evil without contributing more by ignoring those we can protect. It doesn’t matter if they’re not “our people”—mob affiliated.
They’re also extremely strict about not swearing in front of women and children. We can get away with shite now that we’re all in our thirties, but fuck? Fuck no.
Feck .
That’s what we’re allowed to say in front of women, nothing in front of kids, and only to each other. If we swear at each other and say fuck, they’ll find a bar of Irish Spring and scrub our mouths clean.
My mind’s wandering as I sit in the car outside the safe house. I got in after Meredith locked the door—I listened for it—and I’ve stayed through all the shifts. It’s nearly five, and I’m wide awake. I’m not searching the streets, trying to see as many blocks down the road as I can. I did that for the first hour. But I’m attentive, even if my thoughts drift.
Why is she such a good liar? Does Meredith know she was lying and said nothing in front of me? Doesn’t Meredith know Carys lied through her teeth?
I’m supposed to be at Dillan’s house to work out with the others, but I texted Sean to say I wouldn’t make it. They all know what happened. We had a six-way call after the concert. I don’t even regret missing it since I helped Meredith. Carys is a burr up my arse, but I’m still glad I was there.
What the hell is Meredith’s daughter doing with some shitbag who beat her? What the hell was Meredith’s daughter doing anywhere near the site? How the hell is the woman I found Meredith’s daughter? The odds aren’t ones I’d take to Vegas.
“Tommy, look.” I point toward the front door.
Is she fucking sneaking out?
“Is Meredith behind her?” Tommy leans over the steering wheel to get a better look.
“No. She just shut the door.” What is she doing? “Stay here.”
I ease the door open and slip out. She spots me immediately. I didn’t think she was looking in my direction. At least her situational awareness is sharp.
“I don’t want to argue with you, Shane.”
“Good. Go back inside.”
She looks at me for a moment before smiling as best she can, considering her left eye swelled shut, and her left cheek has a bruise the exact size of a fist. “Have a good day. It was nice meeting you.”
The hell?
“Does your mother know you’re going out?” When did I turn eighty?
“Yes. She knows I need to go back to my hotel and grab my stuff before I catch an early train.”
“Does Jesse know where you’re staying?” I will never forget that name.
“No.”
“Are you going to be anywhere near his place?”
“Thank you for worrying about me, even if was just for my mom’s sake. I gotta hurry, or I’ll miss the train.”
“I’ll drive you.” Let’s see how she gets out of this. I don’t believe there’s a hotel room. At least, not one she already has reserved. The more I thought about it last night, the less I believe she believed she could enter a hotel the way she looks now. She might have seemed stubbornly na?ve, but she wasn’t. She was stubbornly manipulative.
She glances at her watch. “Okay.”
She knows she surprised me. We cross the street, and I open the town car’s back door. After I walk around to the other side and get in, I lower the privacy glass. Tommy twists to look at Carys and me. He has no reaction to seeing her face up close. At least no outward reaction. He’s one of our most stoic men, but in another life, I think he would have been an empath. Irony’s a bitch.
She tells him the name of a place in Washington Heights. That’s not what I expected. It’s not a dangerous area, but it’s not where I’d expect her to stay unless it was to be as far away from something as she could get. I don’t think it was about being near a guy because I don’t believe Jesse exists. It’ll be a drive from the Bronx to the top of Manhattan, so I expect uncomfortable silence. I don’t have to worry because she’s asleep within three minutes of Tommy pulling away from the curb.
It’s not cold in the car, but she shivers. I slip my suit jacket off and spread it over her. I watch her sleep. The only time I do that is when I’m monitoring someone at that abandoned train station. She was bound to have noticed when we approached the safe house. I saw her brow furrow. I watch people in the depths of that train station to know when they’re rested enough to go another round with me, and which implement to choose to beat them or torture them with.
She doesn’t stir despite some rough potholes Tommy can’t avoid. She’s out. It’s obviously what her body needs, and it’s keeping me from peppering her with questions. I don’t enjoy having so many unanswered ones rattling around in my head. Nothing good comes from me not knowing everything that’s happening in any and all situations. I suppose some would say it gives me anxiety. What it gives me is an increased likelihood of dying. I’d prefer not to. My mom would kill me.
Me
I want Carys’s entire life story.
I wait for my brother’s response. Our older brother, Finn, is a forensic accountant and has some of the best hacking skills you could imagine. But my little brother—by three minutes—has a master’s degree in national security and can find anything under the sun. It may take him five minutes, but if it exists, he’ll find it.
Sean
I started last night when you told us what happened. We all knew Meredith had a family. But she’s tightlipped about everything. Carys has active social media but it looks typical. She lives in Pittsburgh so there are pics from there. Most of it is here. I checked her bank accounts and police record. No unusual activity at the bank and nothing since she was sixteen and got a speeding ticket. Lead foot. Fifty in a twenty five.
Me
I remember something about that. Grandda was pissed because he thought Meredith wanted a favor. Mom was the one who asked. Once Grandda found that out the ticket was gone in ten minutes.
Sean
I remember now God I haven’t thought about that since it happened.
Me
Neither have I it just came to me. What else? Employment history?
Sean
She works for a clothing manufacturer in their HR dept
I glance at Carys. HR? I could definitely see her firing people. Nothing about the prickly porcupine I’ve met makes me think she’d welcome someone with open arms to a new job.
Sean
Come by after you drop her off and we’ll have breakfast. I’ll dig deeper into who she is.
Me
Sounds good. We’re pulling up to the hotel now.
I slip my phone back into my pocket before I gently nudge Carys awake. Her eyes flutter open as best they can, and if it weren’t for her battered face, a groggy, sexy kind of look would normally get my cock to twitch. But hers does nothing except make me want to wince. She’s a beautiful woman, even with the condition she’s in.
That’s not what makes me so angry looking at her. I’d feel this kind of rage regardless of how attractive a woman is. It’s the idea anything could diminish that spunk I saw yesterday. Considering how much pain she was in and still must be in, I can only imagine what she’s like on her best days. She’d match wits with me and likely spin me in circles.
“Carys, we’re here. We’re at your hotel. Do you need me to carry you in?”
I cock an eyebrow, purposely arrogant. She scowls at me, and even though my face doesn’t show it, I’m smiling. It reassures me she can still manage. I follow her into the hotel. I’m hardly impressed by it, but it’s not bad enough to make me worry. She bypasses the front desk and goes straight to the elevator.
I don’t look to the side, but my peripheral vision tells me the front desk clerk isn’t paying enough attention to care what we’re doing, which means he didn’t notice the condition she’s in. It’s a blessing in disguise. Normally, it would piss me off to walk into a hotel with someone who needs protection and realize even the staff doesn’t care what happens here.
I follow her onto the elevator, and we ride up to the seventh floor. When she lets us into the room, I scan my surroundings. She unpacked, but there’s something about the room that feels off. It doesn’t feel lived in. I’m certain her story would be that she arrived, put her stuff away, and went straight to see Jesse. But even though I see the empty suitcase, which means she tucked her clothes away somewhere, it doesn’t feel as though she spent any time here at all, like a maid unpacked for her and left the room looking untouched. Except this isn’t the kind of hotel where they have that kind of maid service.
I give her space as she collects the few items she has in the drawers, but I keep an eye on her. She has very few things, as though it truly was just for a weekend stay. I turn away when she goes for her underwear drawer, but I notice she has three matching sets, so that makes me wonder what she’s wearing now.
That slight sense I got that she’s into kink roars back to life. If only she were someone else, and if only this were a different place. But she’s in no condition to be thinking about getting tied up and spanked. And worse than that, or maybe it’s better than that—I don’t fucking know—she’s Meredith’s daughter. I’m not taking advantage of this situation because I don’t want Meredith to skin me alive. Considering she’s a surgeon, she’s just as well equipped to do that as I am.
Once Carys is entirely packed, she comes to stand in front of me with her bag. I reach to take it from her, but she pulls her arm away.
“Shane, you’ve been really helpful, and I appreciate your kindness, but I’m good from here. The subway is just a couple blocks over. It’ll take me to the train station. I’ll get on board, and I’ll go home, and I’ll put all of this behind me.”
“Neither you nor I believe that, Carys. Not that you’re going to the train station on your own, or that you’re going to put this behind you. Let me help just a bit longer.”
I reach out for the bag again, and she shakes her head. Her chin sets in that mulish expression, and that spunkiness again reassures me. And if it weren’t the result of her trying to protect herself and guard herself, I’d find it sexy as fuck. But I don’t right now. I find it frustrating instead.
“Carys, I won’t argue with you. I won’t go around in circles. Just give me your bag and let me help you. I don’t get why you’re so opposed to it. We may not know each other, but it’s obvious I know your mom. It’s obvious she trusts me. It’s obvious she wants me to help, or at least is letting me help. So, I’m not some stranger danger. Let me get you to the train station, make sure you have everything you need, and then I’ll leave you alone. You never have to see me again. You never have to hear from me again. Let me do that much if for no other reason than you’re Meredith’s daughter. She’s been good to my family for nearly as long as I can remember.”
She stares at me uncertainly. That just gave her a million questions she’d love to ask about who her mom is to my family and how she became involved. It’s obvious now she serves as the Irish mob’s emergency physician. We stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, but I’m certain it’s only a few seconds until she relents. She reaches out and lets me take the bag from her.
We leave the room and the hotel in silence. More silence as we walk to the town car. More silence as we ride to the train station, bypassing the subway. The subway really was only a few blocks away, and we could’ve walked. But she looks in no condition to do much more than stand up and breathe, so I decided to bring her straight here. I take her inside, and I watch her scan her phone, so she does have a ticket. She’s going somewhere.
I watch the screen pop up, and it’s a train west to Pittsburgh, so at least that much is true, even if other stuff still doesn’t add up. I have her bag, and I walk her to the platform where the train is already waiting. I watch her board. I step back and head toward the end of the platform, but I don’t leave until the train is out of sight. I watch it the entire time to make sure she doesn’t slip off. But she’s gone now, and there’s nothing else I can do. At least for now, nothing directly with her. I head back to the car and let Tommy know to take me to Sean’s.
On the way, I look up her social media and scroll it a little more, but I’m finding nothing I didn’t already see last night when I trolled her. No. Troll implies I’m going to use this information against her and bully her. That’s not the goal. The goal is to be informed. Maybe I will wind up bullying her about something else—oh, like taking better care of her health—but I won’t use her social media against her.
I text my brother as I pull into the driveway to let him know I’m here. Before most of my generation started getting married, we had an open-door policy at all our homes. We came and went as we pleased, and we never worried about walking in on something intimate because none of us brought women home. Our places are our sanctuary, our reprieves from the outside world, and that includes the women we fuck. But now that Dillan and Finn and Sean and Seamus are all married, we no longer have that policy.
Only Cormac and I are the last bachelors standing, so I make sure my brother knows I’m here. I make sure I don’t walk in on anything I shouldn’t see. Lord knows I’ve come close even with a warning when I’ve arrived. It’s that way at all the married couple’s homes—my parents included.
“Sean?”
“Yeah, we’re in the kitchen.”
That means his wife, Nikki, is with him. That’s not a bad thing. I really like both of my sisters-in-law, but it means we’ll have to wait to discuss business.
“Hey Nikki, how are you this morning?”
I lean forward and give her a kiss on the cheek as she lifts her chin to me. My brothers certainly didn’t have a simple time dating the women they fell in love with, but the couples in my family don’t marry unless it’s to their soulmate, and no one is better suited to my twin than Nicolina.
She grew up with mobs all around her life, connected to the syndicates in Boston and Quebec, but now she leads a much quieter life in New York. Isn’t that ironic? I serve myself some of the quiche sitting on the counter. Then I take a seat at the breakfast table.
We chat as though we’re the most normal family. We talk about the concert I missed and about how excited everyone in the family is to hear Finn and Ally are expecting their first child. Our family can definitely use some good news these days.
Nikki takes a cue once we’re all done eating and leaves the kitchen while Sean and I do the dishes and clean up.
I get straight to the point. “Have you figured out anything else about her?”
I want to know; I don’t want to wait. He grins at me because between the two of us, he’s the patient one. He’s also known as the most stubborn. I don’t know about all that. He’s an I-can-wait-you-out-until-forever and I’m a better-hang-on-and-keep-up-because-I’m-ready-to-go kind of guy. But I would say we equal each other in stubbornness. We walk alike, talk alike, sound alike.
We’re fucking Patty Duke from that old TV show my mom showed us when we were kids, except if I remember right, Patty Duke and her mirror image were cousins. Sean is my baby brother by just a few minutes. God bless our mother because we went to our due date, and we were both almost eight pounds each. There’s nothing little about either of us and never has been.
“Hello. Earth to Shane. You want to know so much, and yet you’re not even listening. You don’t pay attention. As usual.”
I flick water at Sean, but I stop letting my mind wander as we dry our hands and head over to Sean’s computer.
“Let me see what I can find, but it may take me a while. I’m going to have to dig a lot deeper than I already have. I found pretty much the same thing you could when you looked through her social media. But like I said before, I got into her bank accounts and her police record, and the other stuff Finn could have done for you.”
“That’s why I came to you for the stuff Finn can’t do. I’ve got my work to deal with, so I’ll leave you alone. You do you, I’ll do me, but by the end of this I want a dossier on her as thick as the CIA would hand over.”
Sean rolls his eyes, but I open my laptop which I’d left here last night before we all went to the concert. We planned to meet at Dillan’s to work out, then I was going to come over here, anyway. I look at invoices from the construction site where I found Carys last night.
I look at the schematics for the mini mall that’s going to go on that site, and I look at the Gantt chart to see we’re almost a week ahead of schedule on construction in New York. That’s about a holy miracle. I never expect things this good to last.
It’s been kind of quiet the last couple of months. The Diazes, the Mancinellis, and the Kutsenkos have done nothing to piss us off, and we’ve been too busy with our own happy blissful moments and marriages to do too much more. Well, it’s all relative.
Things took a nasty turn for Seamus’s wife, Tiernan, but that was really more about her own family down in Trenton. Another syndicate was involved, but we didn’t know until the very end.
“Hey, take a look at this.”
Sean turns his computer toward me with the portable tri-screen monitors attached to it. I glance at the computer’s clock and see we’ve been working in silence for forty-five minutes. Damn, that went fast.
It looks like a social media profile, so I shrug to my brother.
“Isn’t this what I’ve already seen?”
“No. I got into posts she deleted. You said she dated this guy a few months back, and there were photos of him. Well, I did a reverse search to see if I could find anything up with these photos. Look at him. Same time and date stamp on the picture with Carys is on this one with a joyous family.” He clicks on something else. “And look at this. Another one with him with a woman who looks nothing like Carys, but probably is supposed to be his mother.”
I frown. “What the hell? What does this mean?”
“It looks like she doctored the photos. She spliced him out of these and put herself next to him.”
“Who is he? I can’t tell.” I lean in to see better.
“I’m going to keep digging, but it almost looks like these photos are the kind that come in a frame you get in a store or online, like the model photo or whatever.”
I watch Sean click around some more and between his main screen and the one on the left. He pulls up photos of Carys and this guy that have the exact matching background and pose as the ones that seem to be stock images.
Holy fuck.
What the fuck is going on? Why did she manufacture a boyfriend and go so far as to put together fake photos? I don’t know what to make of this. I feel like I’m constantly saying that to myself ever since I met this woman, and that wasn’t even twenty-four hours ago. This makes me even more suspicious.
“What do you think? I’m tempted to call David and see if he can dig around near whatever neighborhood she supposedly lives in out in Pittsburgh.”
“What? You don’t believe she actually lives out there? You think she got on a train to go almost four hundred miles for nothing?”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe she stayed on that train. The more I see, the more I think she can’t help but lie. Who knows? Maybe she’s leading some double life.
“What do you think? She’s like some bigamist or something, and she’s got two families tucked away?”
“I don’t think she has any families if she’s using stock images of this guy to pose as a boyfriend she supposedly broke up with.” If she was leading a double life, she wouldn’t have any pics up either family could find.
“I don’t blame you for being curious, but what do you think Meredith will say when she finds out you’ve been digging into her daughter’s life?”
“Well, I guess that means Meredith just won’t find out. But part of me thinks I might be doing her a favor if something’s going on with Carys, and her daughter is in this much danger.”
My brother smirks at me. “You really think that’s how Meredith will take it? You really think she’s going to just say thank you if you arrive with that CIA-level dossier with information her daughter’s been keeping from her? I highly doubt that’s the reaction Meredith will have.
“She is British. She’ll smile on the outside while she fumes on the inside.”
Sean smirks. “And you better believe that and remember it the next time she needs to give you stitches.”
We both groan. Meredith was far gentler with her daughter last night than she’s ever been with any of us. It’s not like she’s got ham hocks for hands, but she hardly has much sympathy for us and usually looks at us as though we got what we deserved.
I pick up my phone from where I left it on the table and pull up a contact, then tap it. It rings twice.
“Hey, boss.”
“Hey, David. How’s it going?”
“It’s going fine. Weather’s hotter than the devil’s balls in August, but other than that, it’s good.”
I chuckle. It’s certainly one way to put it. We’re having a heat wave, too.
“Hey, I need you to do me a favor. You have time to look somebody up for me?”
“Always. Shane, just let me know who and what you want me to do to them.”
“I don’t want you to do anything to this person. I just want you to check out where they live and see if they really do. I don’t want you poking around. I don’t want you going inside. I don’t even want you staking out the place more than to tell me whether it’s actually lived in.”
“I can do that. Who is he?”
I pause for a moment, but I dive right in. “It’s Carys Pritchard.”
“Pritchard. Isn’t that—is she related to Meredith?”
I hear surprise, and it doesn’t shock me. I’ve got to tread carefully on this one because David knows Meredith. He grew up with Uncle Donovan.
“They’re related, but something came up, and I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Is there somebody I should pick up and bring to you? You going to come out here for them?”
“No, nothing like that. I just want to make sure she lives in a decent place, and she’s safe wherever that is.”
“All right, I can do that. You want me to look in some windows, though? See if it’s got furniture in there, what kind of furniture it is, that sort of thing?”
“If you can, without getting caught.”
He chuckles. “Have I ever gotten caught?”
“Don’t tempt fate, David. There’s always a first time for everything.”
“True, true. I’m not looking to get put away, but I can do the job. I can go after nightfall and see what there is to see. Maybe she’ll do me a favor and leave some curtains or blinds open.”
“That’s fine. But we don’t want anyone thinking you’re skulking around in the dark, looking in a single woman’s windows. You really will get hauled in, and we’re too far away to get you out anytime soon.”
“I got you, boss. Don’t worry. You called me because you know I know what I’m doing.”
“Keep me posted on what you find.”
I hang up and shoot him a text with Carys’s address Sean found while he worked. The lease looks all on the up and up. There’s nothing about it to make me suspicious, but I just don’t know. It makes no sense to me why this matters so much. I keep telling myself it’s because she’s Meredith’s daughter.
I know that has to be part of it, but it really has something to do with that feisty spirit I saw. The idea anything could extinguish that—that anyone might make her a target—makes a rage boil in me I can’t explain. It just feels so wrong.
And in a world where most people would describe everything I do as wrong, that’s saying something.
I can’t do anything until David gets in touch with me, but I’m certainly not through with Carys Pritchard.