Chapter Sixteen
Declan
“How long has it been since you’ve been fucked, Reenie?”
I heard her gasp, and watched as her eyes widened and then narrowed when she glared at me. I knew she was pissed now. I wanted her pissed. When I turned around and saw her wipe away her tears, I got angry.
I didn’t want to see her cry for him. He didn’t deserve her tears. Not after what he did.
“Go to hell!” she shouted. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
“No.”
Stomping over, she opened her front door like she expected me to leave. That wasn’t happening. Not after what she just told me.
Not after what he did. He was an asshole.
I walked over, wrenching the door from her hand and slamming it closed.
“I’m not leaving. Duane was an asshole. He knew what he was doing. He never thought about anyone but himself. He put you in danger, sending you here.”
“What are you talking about? He was your best friend.”
“He knew. He knew I was here, Reenie. He knew King was here. He sent you here, to me.” I slammed my hand against my chest.
I needed her to understand what was happening.
“He knew he was putting you in danger sending you here. Hell, what he was investigating put you and your daughter in danger.”
Her brows furrowed as she tried to comprehend what I was telling her. He hadn’t told her anything. He didn’t tell her what he suspected. He sent her here blind. He didn’t tell her what would happen if anyone found out what he was digging up.
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.
“After we moved, Duane and I stayed in touch. My mom let me write to him, as long as I didn’t tell him where we were. Every time I wrote a letter, we took a day trip somewhere to mail it. We drove to Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana. Once we even took a weekend trip to Texas. All so that Sal wouldn’t know where we were. When I got older, paid my own bills, we talked on the phone. Every week. I didn’t come home because Duane told me you were dating.”
“What?”
“He told me you started dating when you were sixteen. Then he called one day and said you were getting married.”
“He lied. We never dated. Not until my father told me we were getting married,” she whispered.
Looking up at me, she asked, “Why would he lie?”
“Because he knew I liked you. He knew you were the first girl I ever noticed. He knew before we left that I wanted you. Every time I wrote him a letter, I asked about you. What you were doing, if you were seeing anyone. I asked him to watch over you until I could come back. I wanted to come back to you. I met girls in Arkansas, but they paled in comparison to you. By the time I was old enough to think about dating, he told me you two had fallen in love. Told me it was my fault for asking him to watch over you. That I pushed you two together.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Duane and I were friends, but we weren’t that close. After you moved away, I only saw him at school. Until my father told me that his father had suggested we marry. That we would be a good match.”
She looked up at me, and her eyes flashed with anger.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. You want to see the fucking letters? I still have them in a box. Tucked away with every other memory of you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because Duane was a selfish bastard. Your dad was a captain. He wanted to be made. He knew if he married you, he could work his way up to captain.”
“He never did.”
“What?”
“He never made captain. He was only a soldier. He always butted heads with Tyran. Tyran kept him from being promoted.”
“What the fuck does Tyran have to do with it?”
Reenie titled her head, confused. “He’s Sal’s right hand.”
“Tyran Fitzpatrick is Sal’s right hand?” I ran my hand through my hair. This was fucking great. “He’s a fucking psychopath.”
“Well, birds of a feather...”
I turned away from Declan. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. Why would Duane lie to me all these years? He never said a word about talking to Declan.
“Do you have any idea what Duane was looking into?”
I told him to stay out of it. I told him to leave things be, but he couldn’t fucking do it. He did exactly what benefitted Duane Murphy. Fuck anyone else and the life they tried to build.
“Not really. He only said it was about his sister, Darcy. Do you remember her?”
“Yea, I remember,” I mumbled.
“Well, he was looking for her. He never told me any details, just set everything up in case something happened and told me to move here.”
Letting out a heavy breath, I lifted my hand up and laid it on her cheek. “You were supposed to be mine.”
“I didn’t know,” she said, her eyes dropping to my mouth.
“Yes you did.”
“Yes, I did,” she whispered.
Sliding my hand from her cheek to the back of her neck, I pulled her forward and pressed my lips to hers.
I was fifty years old and felt like I was finally getting my first kiss.
A kiss that was decades too late, but worth it all the same. With my thumb under her chin, I tipped her head back, deepening the kiss. Licking at her lips, I coaxed her mouth open and slid my tongue between her teeth.
Walking her backwards, I pushed her against the closed door and pressed my body against hers. Her hands grabbed at my waist, her nails digging into my sides.
“How long, Reenie?” I murmured against her lips.
“What?”
“How long has it been since you’ve been fucked?” I asked again, my lips leaving a trail across her jaw, making my way to her throat.
“Too long,” she moaned.
Grabbing her ass, I lifted her. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I held her there, against the door, devouring her mouth, afraid she would disappear if I stopped.
She wound her arms around my neck, twisting her hands in my hair, holding me to her. I pressed my hard dick against her. God, I wanted to sink my dick into her pussy.
There had been countless women over the years. Hell, I had a daughter. Having Reenie in my arms, my dick had never been this hard.
My lips moved over her jaw and down her throat. Reaching her shoulder I bit down, hard, as I thrust my cock against her cunt.
She cried out, her arms and legs tensed around me, and I almost came in my jeans like a fucking teenager. Sure, it had been a while, but this was Reenie. The girl who should have been mine. The girl I planned to go back for. The girl who should have been my daughter’s mother.
“Where’s your room?”
Suddenly, like a bucket of cold water had been thrown over her head, Reenie stopped. Wiggling her legs until I put her down, she placed a hand on my chest.
“We can’t do this.”
“Why the fuck not?”
She stared at me with her mouth open.
Shaking her head, she shoved at my chest until I stepped back.
“We don’t even know each other, Declan.”
“I know you were supposed to be mine. I know that your selfish bastard of a husband lied to keep me from coming home. I know that he sent you here for me to protect you. The one goddamn thing he did right was making sure you ended up with me.”
She closed her eyes and breathed.
“That’s not enough. We were kids when you moved away. We’ve lived different lives. You’re a cop, for Christ’s sake.”
“What the fuck does me being a cop have to do with anything?”
Shaking her head again, she tried to walk away.
“Reenie, what’s going on?”
I followed her through the house to the kitchen. She stopped and looked around like she was looking for something. Maybe she was looking for the fucking kitchen, ’cause it sure as hell wasn’t in this room.
“I can’t be with a cop.”
I looked at her, dumbfounded.
“Are you kidding? You take issue with me being a cop? Reenie, I know—”
“Stop saying that,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’ve always called you Reenie.” I stepped up to her, placing my hands on her upper arms. Leaning down, I tried to get her to look at me.
“We were kids. We’re different now. Everything is different now. I’m a Mob widow. I can’t be with a cop.”
“You are a widow. That’s all. It doesn’t need a clarifier. You bought your way out. You’re done. You moved away.” She was shaking her head at me again.
“To a town where the boss’ brothers live. Don’t you get it? I am never getting away from the Mob. My daughter still lives in Boston. She will get married someday, have children, and I will be right back in Boston. Right back in the middle of the fucking Mob.”
Moving my hands, I held her head still. I didn’t want her telling me no again.
“Then get your daughter to move here.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s not that fucking complicated,” I argued.
She stared into my eyes, and I saw the sadness. I saw the turmoil that lived there. She was right. We were different people now. We had lived different lives. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t combine those lives now.
“You should go.”
“Reenie, no.”
“Declan, I’m sorry. I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Maybe if you had stayed. Or maybe if you had come back, things could have been different. But they weren’t.”
“They can be different now.”
“They can’t.”
I straightened up and dropped my hands.
“I’m sorry, Declan. What we had was a schoolyard crush. We’re adults now. Hell, we both have adult children.”
“So that means life is over? I’m fifty fucking years old, not a hundred, Reenie.”
“Please, just go.” She turned away from me, but I couldn’t move. Not yet. I had to try. Wrapping my arms around her, I buried my face in her neck.
“We can have this, Reenie. We can still live the life we were supposed to have.”
“If we were meant to have that life, we would have.”
“Maybe we were meant to have it a little later.”
“Declan, please... just go,” she implored, pulling away from me again.
“Fine,” I huffed, letting go of the only woman I ever really wanted. “This isn’t over, though. King wants to meet Sal. Which means he’ll be coming here. When he does, I plan to make it clear to him that you belong to me.”
She spun around, the shock of my words evident on her face.
“You can’t do that. No one tells Sal no.”
“You did.”
I turned and walked to the front door. Opening it, I turned back to her once more. “I’m not afraid of my brother.”
“Well, you should be. You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He killed his father.”
I looked her in the eye. She didn’t know just how much my brother and I were alike. She was right. We didn’t know each other anymore. Maybe she wouldn’t like what she saw when she knew the man I was now. Then again, maybe she needed to see that darker side of me.
“And I killed my daughter’s mother. I will do whatever I have to, to keep my family safe.”