20. Lucie
TWENTY
lucie
I still plan to get free of this life, of being surrounded by criminals and being forced to live in a pretty cage.
Today, though… today is a good day.
Most dogs scare me.
But Arnold is sweet, and even though he shivers and shakes and presses into me at the vet’s office, he only snarls once, listening when Declan tells him, “No, Arnie, no.”
Smart dog.
Anger coils deep inside of me at the thought of someone dumping him off on the street, the thought that someone might have hurt him.
Maybe it was the same people.
But this little unchipped dog’s managed to stay ahead in the game—a puppy, actually—and he needs somewhere to call home, somewhere safe.
I’m on the same page as Callahan.
I want it to be with us.
And my stupid heart surges at how gentle and sweet he was with Arnold.
How much work, I suspect, he’s put in winning him over.
The sliver of glass is out of Arnold’s paw now.
It’s cleaned and wrapped, and the nasty scrape on his side has been cleaned and bandaged, too .
He got dewormed and took all his shots like a champ.
Now he’s got a flea bath to look forward to, as well as a list of foods we can try him on.
The vet put a cone around his neck, but Arnold got it off in seconds once we were out the door.
Declan carries it while we head to the pet store to pick up the food.
“You wanna go in here, don’t you, boy? See, Cal’s a good choice for your savior. And you get us in the deal, too. Now, what kind of treats do you like, Mr. Arnold?”
I smile at his speech.
“Surely,” I say, “you don’t think he should really be called Arnold?”
Declan gives me the world’s most outrageous look, and my heart squeezes because right then he looks exactly like Callahan.
A younger, softer, more carefree Callahan.
We haven’t talked about his life, and while I don’t get the impression he led an easy life, I suspect my husband made it so his little brother could be this way.
And it makes my heart do all kinds of dances in my chest.
Callahan is…
complex. Layered.
“Of course I do. The dog’s real name is clearly Arnold Schwarzenegger. I used to be crazy about all those movies when I was a kid. I drove Cal insane with streaming them nonstop. The big strong man who was the killer cyborg. Terminator was my favorite, and I’m Cal’s favorite. And he wants to build this little runt’s confidence. It’s working, too.” He nods at the dog.
“Look at him strutting.”
At the pet store, while Declan calls his brothers and picks out the pet food, I head to the bedding and the toys.
But Arnold stops, staring at the kittens, cats, puppies, and dogs on display from a local shelter.
“Maybe we’ll work there one day,” I say to Arnold, dropping my voice.
“When I get my inheritance and I can disappear, I’ll work somewhere meaningful like at an animal shelter.”
All of a sudden, Arnold starts to growl, and I look down.
A black kitten that’s nothing more than a scrap of fur is clinging to his good leg.
I go to pick the kitten off because I don’t want him to eat it.
But Arnold barks at me and I jump back, heart hammering.
The kitten claws up his body until it’s on his back and then meows.
A girl from the shelter hurries over and Arnold barks again.
Pandemonium breaks out and I can’t move, fear rooting me to the spot.
“What is it?” Declan runs up, brandishing a can of food like a weapon.
He takes one look and then plucks the kitten off Arnold, cuddling it.
“Don’t you dare say a word to Cal about this.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl says, a little breathless as she looks at Arnold, “that kitten is trouble. He keeps escaping. I’ll take him back.”
Arnold growls again and I shush him.
I look at the dog, then the kitten, and finally the girl.
“Can we… How much?”
Dec kicks me lightly.
“Clawzilla’s for adoption, you don’t buy him.”
“Well, can I make a hefty donation?”
Wild-eyed, Dec shakes his head.
“Oh, no. Cal will kill me, then you, and then me again.”
And I smile.
“I’ll take those chances.”
We get home…
I mean, to the Murphy residence, loaded down with things for our new furry family members.
It takes Declan and two of their men to drag everything inside.
I have a cat tr ee, a doghouse, a dog bed, a cat bed, a litter box, and litter.
Toys, food, more food, and…
Something sharp attacks my leg and I look down.
The kitten Declan dubbed Clawzilla is clinging, trying to climb me, and Arnold, who seems to have forgotten he was a bedraggled, scared stray, struts up, closes his jaws around the kitten, and pulls it off me.
He backs off, looking around.
Arnold doesn’t know the whole house, but he’s been in the great room, the living room, and the kitchen.
He bypasses them and disappears into a study.
No lights are on, and I follow, looking.
There, under the desk against the back in the darkest corner, I see them.
My heart breaks. Arnold is scared.
He knows to trust us, but here, where he can’t get out, he wants to protect someone as vulnerable as he was.
The kitten.
There’s a burning in my eyes and my vision blurs.
“Lucie?” Declan calls.
Arnold whines. “It’s only Declan,” I whisper.
“You like him. And so does your little friend. But… we’ll let you be.”
I back out of the room.
“Where’s your menagerie?” Declan shoves his phone in his pocket, an expression on his face that makes my insides shift with unease.
“In there.” I nod in the direction of the room.
The too-bright smile doesn’t move.
“My office?”
“Is it?”
“I think so,” he says cheerily.
“I use it to play World of Warcraft .”
There’s something wrong, I feel it.
And my instinct is to…
I’m not sure anymore.
Reach out to Callahan?
At home, I’d hover by Dad’s study, the one place I could find ou t things he didn’t want us to know.
And if Viv was out, I’d text to make sure she was okay and let her in on whatever I found out.
But while they have guards, it’s clear not one of them would do so much as breathe out of turn.
And Declan or his brothers won’t tell me a thing.
I can’t call my family, either.
As for Viviana? I have zero idea where she is.
So I smile, too. Put on a facade of cheer.
“Declan,” I say, “let’s leave them water, set up the litter box and their beds, and then we’ll lure them out. I think Arnold wants the kitten?—”
“Clawzilla.”
“Clawzilla,” I say, “to feel safe.”
“Okay, and then let’s go shopping. Or visit someone. Do you want to invite your mom to a later afternoon lunch? What about friends? Do you have those?”
“Mom?” She’d either be drunk or blissed out on pills at this hour.
“No, I’m sure she’s busy. And I have friends, thank you.”
I don’t, not really.
The mafia girls weren’t my thing and sure, I had all the girls and guys that Viv knew, but…
But Cal shot and killed the only one who’d ever contacted me.
And I don’t think John had any good intentions toward me, considering the gun he pulled on me.
Callahan— The fake smile slips because it isn’t me.
I frown. “Where is Callahan?”
“We’ll go shopping,” Declan says quickly.
“I’ll bring extra help to carry things, too. There’s an emergency credit card for you upstairs in his dresser. Or we can use mine.”
But I don’t answer, anger and worry streaking through me.
Something’s going on.
I know that. I’ve spent a lifetime reading cues, and this is a distraction cue.
Declan’s worried, which makes me worried.
So I focus on the twinge of anger over getting an emergency card, like his control over me is absolute.
Anger is better than fear.
“Someone needs to make sure the animals are okay,” I say.
“And to walk Arnold out the back if he needs to take care of business. Maybe show the cat where the litter is.”
Declan nods, pulls out his phone, and calls, I think, Torin.
I hover, but he waves his hand at the stairs and stalks off.
I race up the steps and rip open Callahan’s drawer.
If I thought I’d find dark secrets or even banal ones, I’m disappointed.
There’s a packet of cigarettes, Carrolls Number Ones, an Irish brand according to the pack.
Five lighters. A framed photo that’s face down.
When I flip it over, I see that it’s all of them.
Declan’s a baby and Callahan’s younger than I’ve seen him, younger than Declan is now.
The adults are clearly his parents.
His mom is stunning and his father handsome, and I see the resemblance.
I put it back.
There’s a black leather wallet.
I pick it up.
Callahan Frances Murphy.
Thirty-two, blue-eyed, six foot three, according to his New York driver’s license.
Then there’s his passport…
no, both of them. Irish and United States.
There’s something surreal about this, learning things about the man I’m married to, like his height, where he was born, his birth date, and the fact he has dual citizenship.
Then again, if I think about it, everything about my situation is surreal.
I know arranged marriages exist. I guess I never thought I’d be stuck in one.
Blowing out a breath, I continue to look.
But there’s nothing else in there except an envelope from the bank.
I open it and peek inside to find a credit card with my name on it.
I take it, but then I open his wallet and take three more cards, including the black American Express.
Because fuck him for not being around.
I’ll shop all right.
I run back down to the ground floor, shove the cards into my bag, then check my phone.
Nothing from my sister, my parents, or Callahan.
“…let me fucking know!” Declan yells into his phone as he stalks out of the living room.
Then he sees me and the fake smile is back.
“Ready to shop?”
I match his smile.
I know I won’t get answers from anyone but Cal, and even that is questionable.
“Until you drop.”
“Are you sure you need all this stuff?”
“Of course I do.” I just laser Declan with a hard look as the four of us—Dec, me, the driver, and the guard, who for some reason came with us—haul the mountain of purchases into the house.
My nerves grew tauter over the course of the trip.
The more Declan didn’t inform me that Cal would kill him, and then me, for something hideously expensive I bought, or he checked his phone with a deepening frown, the more I bought.
Callahan wants to keep things hidden from me?
Well, I retaliated the only way I could think of…
by spending as much of his money as I could.
Was it stupid, petty, and childish?
Yes, but it was the only control I felt I had.
Unfortunately, two times nothing is still nothing.
Declan sat outside of any store even remotely intimate like the lingerie boutique or the designer shop that sold pretty panties along with sexy dresses.
And I bought them.
All.
Of. Them .
Dresses that show more skin than bikinis, leaving barely anything to the imagination.
Shoes, coats, a closetful of lingerie.
And I bought a diamond-encrusted collar for both the dog and cat, as well as some pretty leashes and carryalls for doggy business and a cat backpack for Clawzilla.
But through what should have been a gleeful and spite-filled spree, my throat closed tighter and tighter.
Because something is wrong.
And I know it has to do with Callahan.
I know it.
As we step into the house, Declan suddenly perks up like he’s the damn dog, and then I hear it.
Noise. A voice.
The coffee machine whirring from the kitchen.
My heart bounces, pulse pounding, hope and dread pulling me in all directions.
I drop the package in my hand and take off at a run, ignoring Declan yelling behind me.
I falter to a stop at the door of the kitchen.
Callahan’s back is to me, his clothes a mess, ripped and singed.
He pours whiskey into a big glass, then dumps the fresh coffee on top.
“Oh my God.”
He stills.
“There’s a pickup basketball game we’re going to in a bit. Had to push it back.” He downs the drink.
“You should come. Actually, I insist. Business as usual, and you’re not to be alone.”
“Callahan.” My voice is tight.
Fear is choking me because…
because… even from behind he looks like he shouldn’t have survived whatever happened.
“Where were you?”
He pauses, then finally speaks.
“Doing a favor.”
“Look at me,” I say.
He turns slowly.
My knees buckle but I grab the edge of the island.
He stares past me, narrowing his eyes, and then he looks at me.
“Leave us,” he says to Declan.
Then his eyes tangle with mine again for a long minute.
“I’m alive, Lucie Joy.”
“What…” I slap a hand on my mouth.
“You look like someone tried to blow you up.”
There’s blood, soot, a cut on his cheek.
The back of his clothes has the worst of the burns, but the front’s a mess, too, like he went through glass, like he landed on pavement, like he shouldn’t be standing here, breathing, at all.
And the bastard lights a cigarette.
With a shaking hand, I smack it away from his lips, and his eyes burn with indigo fire.
He rests the cigarette on an ashtray, grabs me, and lifts me onto the counter.
“That’s because they did.”
“Callahan—”
“It was a shit bomb.”
There’s something darker in those words.
“I don’t?—”
“I’m here, alive, and I’m fucking ravenous.”
He takes my mouth in a deep, carnal kiss.
He tastes of savage need, darkness, and flame.
Of soot and smoke and whiskey.
It’s almost irresistible, and I give over to it because…
he could have died.
But he breaks the kiss and turns me, pushing me face-first on the counter, and he rips down my jeans and underwear, trapping my legs.
He runs a finger through the wetness between my thighs and he fists my hair as he unzips his own pants, leaning over me.
“I need you. I need it hot, hard, and violent. I need your pretty little ass.”
A shudder races through me as he starts to slowly finger me, pushing into my pussy.
And then he moves his fingers up to my asshole.
I try to struggle. The kitchen isn’t a closed-off room and?—
Oh, fuck.
He shoves a finger into my ass, and then after a few strokes he pulls it out, only to push the big, blunt head of his pierced cock there.
“No! It’s not going to fit.”
“No as in stop, or no as in more?”
“I…” I swallow, my head’s too full of electrified signals from a million nerve endings.
I’m curious. And I know whatever he says, he’d never, ever hurt me.
He’s shown me that every time he touches me.
He’s a violent man, a cunt as he calls himself, but only to others.
Not to me. Never to me.
And I want him with a desperation I can taste.
“M-more,” I finally whisper.
He shudders out a groan and starts to work himself into me.
I hold my breath, clenching my muscles.
“Lucie Joy, relax. Let me in.” He leans over me, biting my shoulder, kissing and sucking on my throat.
Then he pulls my head up and grips my neck, squeezing, making it impossible to breathe.
My attention goes to that, and suddenly, as darkness starts to burst in my vision, I feel him.
Right up against me.
His hand works my pussy, a delicious distraction from the burn of him pushing into my ass.
He finally loosens his grip, and with the air comes the sensation of him, buried balls deep in me.
Callahan pulls out slowly.
Every rung of the ladder piercings drags gently against me, stimulating me, and I arch back, pushing out, offering myself.
“Good fucking girl,” he says, pressing back in.
He goes slow, steady, a little rougher and harder each time, and it’s different but good.
I give myself over to it all.
The pull and push and scrape of his piercings that heighten pleasure, the way he hits deep just so with each thrust. How he grinds my clit against the edge of the counter.
He doesn’t stop. I push back into him, and my God, it’s so good.
Tingling ripples of pleasure make my body hum.
They’re deep, all-consuming.
He starts to pound into me, smacking his hips against my ass.
I moan as those ripples morph into a slow, undulating orgasm while he strokes my clit, and I completely unravel against him.
It doesn’t stop.
The pound of his cock only compounds the pleasure, and he squeezes my throat with his free hand, riding me until he suddenly yells, shuddering up against me, slamming in deep and holding one last time.
He comes deep, the twitch and spurt of his cock spreads a different pleasure through me.
I’m spent, twitching on the island, and Callahan groans, smoothing his palm against my throat as he kisses my cheek, my throat, my shoulder.
“Are you okay, love?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
He laughs.
“I think you are.”
With a groan, Callahan continues.
“That wasn’t how I wanted your first anal experience to go.”
Yeah, but I liked it.
Really liked it. As well as the possibility that one of his brothers could have walked in and saw us.
Does that make me somehow…
twisted?
I don’t say any of that, though.
And he kisses my cheek once more.
He pulls out and cleans us up, then pulls my jeans up and lifts me into his arms. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t think I can walk. ”
“You can, Lucie Joy. I think you can do anything you wish.”
Callahan’s words play through my head five minutes later when there’s a knock on the wall outside the kitchen.
Declan asks if it’s safe to interrupt because we’re going to be late to the basketball game.
“It’s safe.” The snap of Callahan sends me running upstairs to shower and change.
I’m not sure I can do anything I wish.
Not yet. Not in the way I want.
But he can have me, my body, in the meantime.
I’ll learn everything about sex and pleasure and when I’m gone, I’ll…
what? Find someone as good, have nice memories for cold nights?
“Stop it,” I whisper as I finish getting ready and rush back downstairs.
Seamus is bruised and ready to go, and even Torin’s dressed for their pickup game.
Callahan looks at me, a slow smile appearing, and he hands me a duffel, kisses my head, and swings an arm around my shoulders.
“Don’t open it,” he says.
I immediately make it my mission to do just that when we get to the West Fourth Street courts.
The guys shake hands with the big bruisers already there, a mix of ethnic backgrounds.
I settle to watch them on a bench.
It’s about fifteen minutes in when I realize I’m thirsty.
I open the bag and recoil like it contains a snake.
What the actual fuck? A gun?