Chapter 21 Declan #2
It’s brutal, but Cal doesn’t change expression. “We’ll talk?”
“Did they change teams?” I ask no one in particular. “Are Cinco and Roja interchangeable? Or did one move up and across?” Right now, though, I don’t even know if it matters.
Sirens pierce the tense silence.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Milo says, eyeing me. “You saved me. I won’t forget it. We’ll talk, Callahan. Next week at the fundraiser?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but before he leaves, I stop him. “Did you come for information?”
“Someone stole some heroin from me. We traced it here. Gregor might have had information on Mario.” He spits again at the dead cartel man at his feet, and the sirens are louder now. “Too fucking bad.”
We need to get out of here immediately, if not sooner.
As we leave, I glance at Cal. A million questions flood my mind from territories to mam, but I settle on the easiest one. “What fundraiser?”
“That’s the thing I wanted to talk to you about. Lucie Joy’s mother’s on the board of that ballet company. Looks like we’re going back to our roots.”
“Mam?”
My brother sighs. “Mam’s family once had enemies.
The Marcello family was one of them. But we’re not those people, and things have been fine between us.
Except there’s now some real estate that falls on territory lines.
I’ve been waiting to find the right way to approach it with Marcello.
I don’t want to look overly aggressive. And I definitely don’t want him as an enemy, or to see us as weak. And now…”
“It’s been approached.”
“We’re Murphys. Mam gave all her family shit up decades back. Any sins still gathering dust aren’t ours or hers. This real estate… We’ll see. It’s not big. But that’s why I wanted to talk to him. Okay?”
“The thing is, Cal,” I say, “I don’t mind a little mystery, it gets the old blood pumping, but I do mind when it doesn’t make sense.”
“You mean the stuff about mam and her family?”
“Not the mam thing. I just wanted to ask why you gave those drugs to Marcello?”
He swears under his breath. “I told you, I was never going to sell them. And that got you off whatever hook you put yourself on.”
I nod. “Okay. Now, about Marlowe,” I say.
“What?”
I look at my phone. “Seamus here says there was another package left. This time some old costume of Molly—Marlowe’s. Delivered. By a messenger. So, while we’re trying to track it, I’m not sure what it means. Another stalker? The one I killed having the foresight to reach out beyond the grave?”
He sighs, cigarette hanging between his lips as he makes a turn. He removes it and blows smoke out through the open window.
“Or maybe you really don’t think I can do this bodyguard thing?” I ask.
“You’re a good bodyguard, Dec,” he says softly. “I’m just pointing out it’s all dangerous.”
“I’m not looking to get out of my role in the family.”
“I fucking know that,” he mutters. “Maybe this stalker guy had a helper, but stalkers don’t usually work that way.”
“Always a first time.”
“Christ, Dec.” He laughs. “You like her, just admit it.”
“She’s the one who had me arrested.”
My brother, bless him, doesn’t dare say a word on that.
“What do you make of our trip to Maspeth?” I ask.
“It wasn’t a total bust.”
“Because we weren’t shot?”
“No, eejit, because we know if Milo doesn’t have Heston and the cartel doesn’t, then he probably disappeared himself.”
“Maybe Milo stirred up a hornet’s nest with wanting his stolen cartel drugs back,” I say, “you know, if he stole them from the cartel.”
“I won’t deny Milo might have a beef with the cartel, but I’m not sure he stole the heroin.
Marcello is big in the mafia world. But it does make me think.
Who put the hit on your girl? If someone put that hit out to stop us from looking into Heston, and then killed Gregor, what the fuck did Heston do? ”
Her mam springs to mind, but I reject the idea. It’s her mam. She wants her daughter protected.
I hesitate. But she doesn’t give a damn about us.
“I don’t think he wants to be found.” I say. “Do you?”
“His kid’s the apple of his eye; would he leave her like that? The mother knows something, but probably only enough to know her husband’s alive. So it comes back to the same thing. What the fuck did he do?”
“Oh Lord,” Lucie says as she hands Tally to Harriet.
Raff’s running around, squealing and laughing as I assume he is chasing Lola upstairs if the low growling meows are anything to go by.
Clawzilla sits on the arm of the sofa looking smug as the dogs play with some toys. Bruiser sits on the floor below Clawzy.
Lucie looks me up and down and then hugs and kisses Cal. “Upstairs. Now.”
I watch them leave. “Hey, Clawzy…hey, Bruiser. How’s Pepper? He’s quiet. Maybe we should—”
“Pepper’s eating, and what the fuck is this business about me being the face of the ballet and their PR star?” Molly snaps. “Mom called and there’s some…”
I turn as she trails off, going pale as she takes in my appearance.
She shoves me. Then one fist smashes into my chest. The other follows, and soon she’s pummeling me. “What the fuck? Oh, God, what the actual fuck? You’re covered in blood.”
Molly goes to grab something from my hair and pulls her hand back, recoiling like I just bitch slapped her. Then she hits me again. “Is that…brain?” she shrieks.
Fuck.
I grab her fists as she tries to hit me again and pull her into me. “Come on.”
“What the fuck?”
Her voice is in high-pitched panic mode, and it makes the animals scatter. I grab her face, drawing her close before smashing my mouth against hers. My tongue invades her mouth, and for a few minutes, we kiss long and wild. Then I let her go.
“Upstairs, now.”
She turns and marches up and I strip off my jacket, noting my hands are indeed spattered with blood. My face, too, I imagine.
I drag her to the shower, already hard, and I turn on the water. I push her under the spray, rip her skirt up, and push her panties to one side.
“You could have died,” she gasps.
“I could have, and I’d have died without taking you one more time.” I take her against the tile, our bodies in a carnal frenzy, the way we fuck when death gets too close.
“I wish I was there, you fucking me while someone shot at us,” she moans.
I laugh. “You’re a twisted, filthy lass, Molly, and I fucking love it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’d fuck you with people watching. Anywhere, anytime, just don’t scare me again.”
The orgasm tears through me, and I fill her with everything I have.
It’s perfect. Us. Just like this.
But like all good things, it has to come to an end.
Or else there will be a lot more at risk than just a sham marriage to my kinky, danger-seeking exhibitionist.