Chapter 31 Bruno
brUNO
“Another?” The blonde behind the bar taps her long, red fingernails against my glass and smirks. “On the house.”
“Well, how can I say no to that?” A free drink?
Yes please. At this rate, I’ll take the whole bottle if I can.
Yet no matter how much I drink, I can’t shake the prickling feeling at the back of my neck as the men stalking me all the way from the lighthouse linger deeper in the bar.
My father acts like he trusts me and yet he has these assholes tail me like I’m some rat.
I am a rat but he doesn’t need to know that.
Drinking at Hazel’s would be too obvious so I’ve come into the city and chosen a rowdy sports bar to drown my feelings in.
Saoirse remains imprisoned, Cian is surviving but in bad need of a real doctor, and God knows how many people have vanished across the ocean while I fuck around trying to find a moment to breathe.
Is it really meant to be like this? Is the world truly this dark and fucked up? I almost miss prison. I can’t believe it was easier than this.
My phone lights up with a shipment notification as the bartender pours me another drink, and my heart sinks. All I want is to get Saoirse out of there and return her to her family, and to see Mary happy and safe. After that, I don’t care what happens to me.
Especially since I’m now ninety percent sure my father is somehow involved with how I ended up shot, twice.
Saoirse insists she only shot me once and I believe her.
It would be a weird thing to lie about. The second shot had to be their way of making it like Saoirse shot with the intent to kill.
That way, in the eyes of all the other families, the Irish are in the wrong and Domenico has free range to avenge the attempted murder of his son.
It’s exactly the kind of play he would twist.
And I fell for it. I believed him because the wounds were evidence enough.
There’s not enough time left in the world to truly make it up to Saoirse.
I drain my glass and groan hoarsely as the alcohol burns a path of fire down my gullet, but as I’m trying to set the glass down, someone drunk bumps into my back.
The glass slips from my fingers and falls over, rolling across the bar.
“Hey!” I snap, spinning on my stool. “Watch what the fuck you’re doing!”
“I ain’t doing shit!” A gust of beer breath washes over me from the man who bumped into me. He slaps his hand over my shoulder and shoves me as if trying to make me turn back around. “Was an accident. Relax, brochacho.”
“Don’t fucking touch me. Now I gotta get a new glass.”
“Relaaaax.” He leans against me and grins. “It’s just a glass, man. Get another one, it’s what they’re there for. Hell, I’ll even pay for it, huh? Since it’s such a big deal.”
Annoyance rises like the swell of the tide and before I can even process my anger, my fist collides with the asshole's face. He stumbles backward with a cry, knocking into a waitress who loses her entire tray of drinks over the head of a burly bald man.
He yells in fury and stands abruptly, causing his elbow to catch on the waitress’ chin which earns yells of protective anger from other patrons. A brawl breaks out within seconds and I lose myself in the drunken mess of it all.
The man I punched tries to hit me back but he’s slower than me, likely due to more alcohol in his system.
I punch him again and again, then get him on the ground and punch his face a third time.
Glasses smash, chairs clatter, and tables splinter under the weight of bodies slamming back and forth.
The fight is over almost as quickly as it started when the commotion brings in a patrol from outside and the man beneath me is saved from my fury by two cops who wrestle me to the ground and snap cold cuffs around my wrists.
The only decent thing about a bar brawl is that no one is willing to admit fault so I’m thrown into a police cell and ordered to sleep it off until morning.
It’s the first time I’ve been truly alone since finding that woman in the container and the silence is almost smothering.
But sleep comes quickly. I spend a few hours completely passed out in my cell until I’m woken by the morning shift checking that I’m still alive.
My headache is nothing compared to the anxious ache in my gut as my plan unfolds and I’m finally granted the opportunity to speak to the one person I did all of this for.
When I’m dragged to an interrogation room to give my own side of the story about who started the brawl and put a man in hospital, I have only a handful of words to give the officer.
“I’ll only speak to Detective Sarah Gogs.”
It takes them an hour to find her but I have never been so relieved to see a cop as the moment she walks into my interrogation room with a folder in hand.
“Bruno?” Her brow knits together as she sits slowly on the other side of the table. “They told me some guy named Craig was in here.”
“I gave a fake name when they brought me in.”
She glances up from the file and looks over the edge of her glasses at me. “Why? Something like this is easy to turn a blind eye to. Rocky will pay reparations to the victim and his family… in fact we would have cleared this up last night if you’d given the right name.”
“No,” I say hurriedly, leaning forward and lowering my voice. “I had to do it this way so I could talk to you.”
Her brow deepens. “And you couldn’t just call me because…?”
“Listen, I don’t have a lot of time okay and neither does Saoirse.”
Sarah’s eyes widen in an instant. “Saoirse? What the hell are you talking about, Bruno?”
“Just hush, listen!” I don’t mean to snap but the last thing I need is someone interrupting before I can get the important information to her.
“I know where Saoirse and Cian are, okay? In fact it’s mostly my fault they’re even in this situation but you have to listen to me. You cannot trust my father.”
“Domenico?” Her eyes narrow briefly. “Why?”
“You have to promise me that you won’t go to him, okay? If he gets even the slightest hint that I’m here, talking to you, or that you know anything then my sister died.”
“Mary?” Sarah’s mouth falls open and her eyes dart back and forth as if she’s trying to decipher something I can’t see. “Enough riddles, tell me what the hell you’re on about.”
“My father is one-third of an underground human trafficking organization that rose up six months after the Russian Godmother stamped out the market. He’s been working with the Triads this entire time because after Noah, he has no faith in Matteo and his ancient, lazy way of dealing with things.
And he doesn’t trust Rocky because Rocky married you and you’re a cop.
He sees you and Rocky as completely liabilities.
Mary has been sent away by my father since August and he’s been keeping her hidden from me, threatening her life if I don’t do what he asks. ”
“It’s nearly October,” Sarah murmurs. “What does he have you do?”
“I pick up containers and deliver them to the docks.”
“What’s in them?”
“Guess.”
Sarah nods slowly. “How does Saoirse fit into this?”
“You know she was investigating this, right? Well… when I first told my father that, I thought it was because someone was trying to frame him and take advantage of the weak position the family was in. I thought I was doing the right thing but he flipped it immediately and made it look like Saoirse was trying to frame anyone Italian. But she wasn’t.
She was tracking missing guns and drugs, we found trafficked women but they were taken from the hospital and I now know that Domenico had something to do with it.
He tried to sell Saoirse and he’s nearly killed Cian.
They’re imprisoned and I’m doing everything I can to keep them alive but I’m running out of time.
The whole reason I started that fight was because I knew I’d get arrested and it was the only way I’d be able to talk to you without a tail or interference. ”
It pours out of me in a rush, including every detail that might not even be important but I’m in for the whole hog now. And it’s a relief to finally spill it all to someone.
Sarah remains silent, watching me as I speak and by the time I’ve finished, her face is almost gray.
“My God,” she murmurs. “I…” She shakes her head.
“I thought something was off after the wedding. Rocky and Cormac have a solid friendship and it was strange to me that Rocky could turn so quickly. I know he wanted our wedding to be perfect and it was. But Domenico is like a father to Rocky and his opinion holds a lot of weight but still… I know Saoirse. I know Cormac.”
“They aren’t your enemy,” I insist. “Please, believe me.”
“I do.”
My heart stalls. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“So you can tell Rocky? You can put a stop to this?”
“It’s not that simple. Rocky at least listened to my suspicions when we were on our honeymoon but he’s otherwise… engaged right now.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
Her gaze sharpens. “It means exactly that. Do you really think I’ll just tell you everything? I believe you, Bruno but I still have to verify a few things.”
“There isn’t time! The second my father suspects something is wrong, there’s no telling what he will do to the twins.”
“I understand tha—”
“No, you don’t!” I yell, slamming my hands on the table.
“You have no idea what it’s like to feel like you did the right thing only for your father to turn around and be this sadistic cunt!
To watch the woman you love suffer because you made the worst mistake, to know that you’ve caused her pain and that you can’t do anything about it because one wrong move and your sister dies!
I’m so fucking trapped right now Sarah and I need your help, I need you to listen to me and help me! ”
Sarah is completely unfazed by my yelling but her expression softens briefly.
“Rocky… is in Italy. He went to discuss some things with his father in regard to him taking over the family and also as a test to see what Domenico would do in his absence. Had we known that Domenico had the Irish twins then we wouldn’t have done that but…
” She shakes her head. “This is a mess.”
“I know.”
“I…” She falls silent momentarily.
I slump back down and tears sting at my eyes, even as I press my fingers to them. “I feel like anything I do will result in the people I care about dying and I can’t… I can’t breathe. Mary, Saoirse. Even Cian. What the fuck am I supposed to do? How do I save them all?”
Sarah’s gaze drops and her lips press into a fine line. “I don’t have an answer for you but I promise you, I will inform Rocky.”
“If he’s in Italy, what the fuck do I do in the meantime?”
“Keep playing along.” Sarah stands and adjusts her glasses. “If Domenico has been lying to all of us since Noah attacked the Irish, then he’s more dangerous than anyone anticipated. Be careful, Bruno. Keep Saoirse and Cian alive. I will talk to Rocky and I will do what I can to find Mary.”
“What if it’s not enough?” My heart feels like it’s about to tear out of my chest and pressure rises beneath my lungs. “What if I’m too late?”
“It has to be enough,” Sarah replies. “You have to be enough. You’re the only thing standing between them and death, so be enough. I’ll be in touch.”