Chapter 22
Arya
I’m now splitting my time between my parents’ place and Michael’s houseboat. I actually spend as little time home as I possibly can, and I barely talk to anyone while I’m there.
It hurts, but I have a feeling that whatever they will have to say will hurt worse than us avoiding each other.
I’m officially a pariah now. I’ve tried as hard as I could to make a place for myself in this family outside of goddamned gender roles, and instead, I’ve ended up on the outs with everyone.
It isn’t fucking fair, but that’s life sometimes, I guess.
I still feel like crying by the time I clean up my room, grab a couple of outfits, and pack another box to shove into the back of my walk-in closet.
Have any of them even noticed that I’m on the verge of moving out? Do any of them even care?
Fuck. I need to stop doing this to myself.
I leave without speaking to anyone, feeling like fifteen and plotting to run away again. Back then, one of Dad’s men would always catch me and haul me back home—four times between the ages of twelve and seventeen. This time, I know nobody’s going to go after me.
That’s both freeing and painful. As I drive away, though, the pain fades, and all I think about is the relief of not being there.
But then I remember why, and it hurts all over again.
“Maybe I need a damn therapist,” I say to myself as I pull onto the road. I’ve always held off because how the hell do you talk about the problems of being a mobster’s daughter without your therapist calling the cops?
But maybe if I’m careful, I can talk about their failures as parents and my feelings without bringing up hacking jobs, mob families, and the million dirty secrets that separate people like me from others like a therapist from a normal family.
Maybe it’s time.
Or, maybe it won’t help, and I’ll be stuck carrying this crap for years. No way of knowing. That burden’s in my present and future, whether I like it or not.
The only question now is whether I let it rule my thoughts or go somewhere I know it will get pushed out by something a lot more pleasant quickly enough.
The parking lots are full when I get to the docks, and I swear as I circle them for a while. Finally, someone pulls out, and I take their place.
It rains on me the whole three-block walk to Michael’s houseboat. I do my best to watch my footing and not let the downpour dampen my mood further, but I’m nearly soaked by the time I step off the pier, and he opens the houseboat door for me.
“Jesus, that was crazy,” I sigh as I walk in. Then, I see two filled suitcases of his, smell whiskey on him, and stop short, turning to stare at him in surprise.
He shuts the door behind me and locks it before he says anything. Then, he quietly says, “I found our perp, and I got kicked out of my house for it.”
His expression looks so desolate that I know his day has been a lot worse than mine. “Shit,” I say unhappily. “It’s your sister, isn’t it?”
He nods silently. “Don’t say ‘I told you so,’ please.”
“I’m not that much of an asshole.” I hug him instead. “What can I do?”
“Come sit with me, have some iced tea. I’m off booze for right now.” He leads me around the suitcases to the couch. I sit down with him and nestle against him, and he slings an arm around me to pull me closer against his side.
We stay there for a while. He sometimes goes in for a kiss: slow, sweet, and lingering. But then, he just goes back to sitting there.
By the end of that, he seems better, and I feel a little better, too. “It’s definitely my sister,” he says finally. “With the guy you were looking into as an accomplice. She has the money, and she’s even hiding it from him.”
He sounds almost despairing in spots. I brush my fingertips over his shoulder, and he sighs.
“My father won’t accept the truth without hard evidence or a witness, and since I can’t pin my sister to anything directly, we have to go with the witness. But my dad’s men let the sonovabitch go.”
“So, we have to find him. We’ve already made some progress...”
That’s when he pulls out a wallet. It has a naked woman with giant tits branded into the leather on one side and “NO LUBE NO WARNING” branded into the other. “This should help.”
I stare. “Wait a second. You lifted his fucking wallet?”
That’s when he grins, and I start to be a lot less worried.
But I’m still pissed, especially when I begin getting more details out of Michael while I go through the wallet. Brian Cleary. Late thirties, had a card for his own computer business. And from what Michael is saying, an incel. The kind of shit that flies out of this Brian guy’s mouth just screams it.
“So, here’s my big theory on what happened, using the facts we know,” I say finally.
He nods. “Let’s hear it,” he says without a hint of contentiousness in his tone. The argument that almost tore us apart has been settled.
I don’t feel smug about that. I’m not happy that he has been proven wrong and that it turns out his sister is not only a brat but a family Judas. I’m not enjoying being right, not when I see the tired and baffled sadness lurking in Michael’s eyes.
It hurts to see it, but since he kept his wits during one of the hardest moments of his life, we now know a lot more about his sister’s accomplice.
“Your sister has no common sense and is an airhead, but people like that can still be very cunning. She paid attention to the details of you planning to take money from me and my family, and she decided to hire a black hat to do the same to you. She hires this asshole Brian Cleary, who probably talks his way out of a lot of good jobs with that mouth of his and is thus financially desperate.”
He’s starting to smirk again. “Go on.”
“So, he steals my work from you just like you stole it from me, and then he leaves it for your sister to use, probably using a plug-and-play system on a thumb drive or similar so she can’t fuck it up. She steals the money. She pays him half of what she owes him and tells him to come back in a week for the rest.”
He nods, looking a touch grimmer. I am sure it hurt his pride to be stolen from, but he has to know I still don’t have much sympathy for his situation. He didn’t break my relationship with my family—it was already falling apart—but he did steal from me and humiliate me, and so far, I haven’t seen any kind of compensation.
But that’s a bill to settle once his sister has seen her comeuppance, and we have the original five million back. Right now, I’m focused on that.
“So, my family freaks out, your family freaks out, your sister gets your extended family gossiping to throw up a smoke screen around her activities and sap your energy. And meanwhile, she still hasn’t paid Brian Cleary his other quarter million.”
He sighs. “And that brings us to tonight when he went off like a fireworks display in my sister’s bedroom and nearly strangled her. Because she decided to hire an unstable creep.”
“Lowest bidder?” I suggest as a motive.
He eyes me and then lets out a soft scoff. “Yeah, probably. But she miscalculated, big surprise. I don’t know what would have happened if they had been alone somewhere—”
“Hey,” I break in gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t. That’s not what happened. He screwed up, he’s on the run, and he’ll screw up again. We’ll find him and get him to give testimony in front of your father and the Don.”
“You’re suggesting we kidnap him? Personally? And scare him into talking? None of our fathers’ men, no backup, just... us?” He’s staring at me now, incredulously. Looking a little worried, even. “When did we stop being computer nerds and turn into enforcers?”
“When this guy helped blow both our lives up,” I reply. “I’m sorry if that makes me look a little bloodthirsty, but I’m really having trouble caring right now because my life is blown up.”
My voice is shaky, and I don’t like that one damn bit, but I can’t stop it. Pride wounded, I look away from him... but he gently takes my chin and steers my gaze back to his.
“I’m sorry. I had a hand in that, and... whatever else happens, I’ll put in the time and work to help you get back on your feet without your family if that’s what you decide.”
I stare at him. I want to hug him, want to cry... and want to walk the hell out because I still can’t help but wonder if the offer he’s making is some kind of bait. Where’s the hook hiding? What does he expect in return?
Or has my family just messed me up in some really interesting ways?
Take the chance.
I swallow hard. “Thank you. If... I do end up breaking away on my own... I’ll need that kind of backup.”
He rubs my shoulder gently, soothingly. “I understand. Some of it you should just expect, though. If we’re staying lovers after all of this, you should be able to rely on me. But... I’m planning to go beyond that. I...”
Don’t say it.
We both go quiet. I guess it’s hit him, too, that it really hasn’t been that long. We’ve been together barely a week in crazy circumstances that have messed with both of us. It’s not time for I love you’s. It’s just not time yet.
But it sure as hell feels like time.
He breaks the silence after a few moments and says, “So... are we really tracking Brian Cleary down and kidnapping him?”
“Yeah. Not what I had on my weekend to-do list originally, but I guess I need to adapt quick. We need to grab that guy before he leaves town.”
“How do we know he hasn’t already?”
We look at each other and immediately go to his laptop. It’s time to do some sleuthing. Now that we have a name and some solid leads, Brian Cleary’s not going to be able to hide from us for long.