24. Lucie
TWENTY-FOUR
lucie
There’s blood on the cuff of Callahan’s shirt when he gets back.
He stares at me as Declan rolls his eyes and clicks his fingers at Arnold whose head’s in my lap, the kitten curled up beside him.
Arnold makes a low growling sound, but when Declan holds up his leash, his head pops up and he scrambles to get off my lap.
He races across the living room, pausing only to rub against Callahan, who scratches his ears.
The man’s so gentle sometimes, it tugs at all the soft parts of me.
Torin steps out of the study and hands an iPad to Callahan.
Clawzilla leaps onto the floor, almost floating, he’s so little.
He skids on the polished hardwood as his little legs get tangled in his race to get to Arnold.
“This damn thing. Are you sure it isn’t a rat…” Torin holds up the indignant feline, “in a diamond collar?”
Callahan stalks over and plants a hand on either side of where I’m seated on the sofa.
“You got the rat thing a diamond collar?”
“And one for Arnold, to be fair,” Declan calls out as he leads Arnold, clipped to his leash, down the stairs.
“See ya! ”
“Everyone in this fucking place has lost their minds and I blame you, love,” he says in a low voice.
“What do you think I should do about it?”
But there’s a warmth in his voice and my stomach flip-flops, right as he smooths a hand against my cheek, the bloody cuff right there.
In my face.
It’s not a speck.
It’s soaked.
“Something happen?” I ask with a lift of my brow, pointing at the stained fabric.
“Someone pissed me the fuck off. I dealt with it.” He drags me up off the sofa and kisses me.
He backs me out of the room as he strips off his jacket.
Then he drags me to the banister where he devours me, not caring which of his brothers see.
And I don’t, either, not with that pierced tongue in my mouth, licking at me, suckling my tongue and making my knees dissolve and my pussy ache and heat and throb.
“Wait here or we won’t be going anywhere.”
He suddenly leaves me sagging against the banister and takes the stairs two at a time.
I wipe a shaking hand over my mouth, trying to find the strength to stand properly when someone clears their throat.
Grabbing the railing, I flip around.
“Callahan’s gonna be asking you some questions,” Seamus says, leaning against the wall opposite me, a glass of what smells like whiskey in his hand.
He takes a sip. There’s blood on him, too, on the front of his shirt, like he was hit with a spray of it.
And I know, sickeningly, that Callahan did the killing.
Or the hurting, but something about Callahan tells me he’s more likely to kill than just punch someone out.
He isn’t a hair-trigger kind of guy.
He’s way worse. Cold, calculating, measured .
Deadly as they come.
My father’s a monster, too, I think, but a different sort.
One who might not have killed often with his own hands, but one who’s killed through orders and directives.
I don’t know which is worse.
If one is worse.
But with Callahan and the Murphys, violence is part of their lives.
An everyday part. Ingrained in them.
I think—no, I know—I married a bad man, a very bad one.
But he’s been good to me.
So far.
Is this what the look on Seamus’s face means?
Good so far. Nice so far.
“I think you should answer him as honestly as you can.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You know something,” he says, “about the man he killed for you. About your sister’s boyfriend.”
I frown.
“Is she in trouble? Is that it? I?—”
“Fuck, I’m just saying, we found out a few things. And the fact that you were there when we came for Mitchum, and then the cops turned up… and the guy…”
“John.”
“The cop.”
I gape at him.
“The what?”
“Cop.”
“John wasn’t a cop. I don’t know why he pulled a gun. He said Headley, his friend and my sister’s boyfriend, wanted to give her something. I was supposed to get it from him. That’s it. I don’t know why he hit me. And when he grabbed me, I panicked and?—”
“Ah, Lucie, my brother’s soft in the head around you, just a little, but it won’t stop him from getting to the truth. And I’m not as cruel as he can be. So just tell me?—”
“I am.” Tears prick my eyes.
My head’s spinning. I push past him to the living room and snatch up my phone.
Then I stalk back in the hall to him and shove the unlocked phone at him.
“Go through it. Look him up. John. Viv gave him my number. I think he’s texted me a handful of times. We’d chat when we all went out, so we were casual friends. But a cop? I don’t—” I stop.
“Wait, where’s my sister? Where’s Headley? I thought maybe she ran off to marry him, but now with your questions and that strange bunch of texts from her, I don’t know. No one picks up when I call her number, and?—”
“Jesus, Seamus. Didn’t Mam teach you manners?” Callahan says behind me, a warning coiled in his tone.
“She taught me the same lessons as you, like never take a pretty face at face value, pardon the pun.”
There’s a big, deep silence, and heat shoots up through me, making my face suddenly burn hot.
“He’s just?—”
“Don’t try and protect my brother, love.” Then he pauses and comes around to face me, too.
“But Seamus, ham-fisted as he is, has a point. Your story’s got a hell of a lot of holes.”
“I don’t…” I clutch the sides of my head, frustration lacing my words.
“Why would I lie? If John was a cop, why would I meet him knowing that? My father’s mafia. I’m a de Rosa.”
“Murphy now.”
I ignore him.
“I lived at home, I’m twenty-one, so any money isn’t coming my way until my twenty-fifth birthday. Same with Viv. And to betray Dad…” I shake my head, vision blurring as the tears press hard.
“I wouldn’t. Ever. It would destroy everyone. Not to mention how I’d even do it. I mean, yeah, I’d hear things, but nothing to take to the cops. And why would I meet a cop outside a strip club? Dad wasn’t there; he had nothing to do with that place. John said?—”
“Luce, meet me at the following address; it’s on your way to the dance party. Got something for Viviana from H. A surprise.” Seamus sounds disgusted as he reads from my phone.
“Unless that’s code, then she might be telling the truth.”
“I am.” I lunge for my phone, but he holds it out of my reach and then continues to scroll.
“Seamus.” The warning’s more pronounced.
“I’m looking, Callahan. One of us has to stop being beguiled by this girl, and it’s not gonna be you or Declan. And since Torin likes to play things neutral, it’s up to me.”
“To be a prick?” Callahan says.
“Because like I said, her story’s got holes, but that doesn’t mean she’s hiding something.”
“If I was going to betray Dad, I’d want a lot of key information, and more so, I’d take an escape route—” I stop, hand flying to my mouth.
“Wait. Don’t you dare hurt my sister. Promise me. Promise me right now, Callahan. She wouldn’t betray him, either. And if she did, it wasn’t a betrayal of you. Besides, no one’s come to arrest my father, have they?” I shake my head and step back.
“She ran because she didn’t want to marry a man she hadn’t met because she was in love.”
And she abandoned me to that fate.
To Callahan.
“Lucie Joy,” Callahan says, pulling me close to him.
“Seamus is concerned because it seems her man’s FBI and yeah, John was a cop. Bent, bad rep, but he’d been extorting some small-time criminals with mafia ties. If he’d sold info to Stymes, and the FBI are interested in your father, it does concern us. We’re connected.”
He looks at his brother and holds out his hand.
Seamus gives him my phone.
“None of our law enforcement contacts have pinged us. But there are a few of your father’s associates on their radar. And one was Mitchum.” Callahan sighs.
“We’d love a long chat with this boyfriend, if we can find him, but he’s dropped off the radar, too. Official word is he’s on leave, but that could mean anything.”
“I can keep trying Viviana.”
Callahan shoots his brother a look and Seamus disappears.
He cups the sides of my face.
“Lucie, we’re just crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s. It might be nothing. And sometimes leave is just leave. Now, let’s go. I promised you dinner.”
I nod and follow him out of the house.
Panic flutters inside me with every step toward the sidewalk.
But even as Clive opens the door of a sleek black Audi and we get in, I immediately know it’s too small in here.
There’s not enough air.
FBI?
Headley?
Admittedly, we weren’t close.
He spent his time with my sister and dragged her off whenever he could, but he didn’t seem like FBI.
But how would I know what is and isn’t FBI-like behavior?
I’m trying to remember what he did, his mannerisms, but he seemed to come from money and claimed to have toyed with various careers.
I don’t know, he didn’t seem that interesting to me and I didn’t pay much attention.
Maybe that was part of his whole ruse.
“Are you sure about this FBI thing? My sister wouldn’t?—”
“Lucie.” He picks up my hand and kisses it.
“Calm down.”
I can’t.
I blurt out all the things I know about Headley, how my sister’s flighty but wouldn’t climb into bed with law enforcement, with someone out to use her to get to Dad.
Besides, how could that work if they were long gone?
“Lucie,” he says again, like he can see the thoughts racing through my mind.
“What?” I stop talking.
He sighs. “We had to know. This is what Torin found out. Little Mr. Money was entry level for a while but quit around the time he met your sister. I needed to know what you did. That’s all, Lucie Joy. When did you meet John?”
“Not long after Headley met Viv.”
“A cop using a young FBI agent to try and maybe hit the jackpot with extortion of the mafia.” He looks at me.
“And he targeted you, Lucie. Why did he pull the gun?”
“He hit me. I hit him back. He…” I frown.
“People think I’m the good girl and I am. But I’m not a pushover, and I don’t want to be the mafia wife, the mafia daughter, the princess. He told me to come with him to get the surprise, and I said no.”
“Listen to me, Lucie. John was working for someone. Someone not on the right side of the straight line. So even if your fucking sister calls, you don’t step outside without one of us with you. Understand?”
I nod.
And he pulls me to him and kisses me long and slow and dirty.
It’s almost as good as sex.
Dinner is good, and he makes me laugh with stories of his life back in Ireland, of near scrapes and the time his mother threatened to sic Sister Michael, the eighty-nine-year-old nun, on them when they disobeyed her.
His mother sounds like everything mine isn’t.
A fierce woman with an even fiercer love for her sons.
But the kind of love that won’t take any shit.
Cal looks devastating in his blue shirt, the non-bloodstained one he changed into, and it makes his eyes bluer, darker, and with his wavy dark hair and scruff, he draws the eye of every woman in the place.
I clamp my hand on his thigh.
He lifts a brow as he feeds me a bite of the dark chocolate mousse he ordered.
A mousse he hasn’t touched.
“And what’s that for, Lucie Joy?”
“Just staking my claim. ”
“Ah, it’s like that, is it?” He feeds me another bite and leans in to lick the corner of my mouth where I swear he deliberately smeared the creamy chocolate dessert.
“All the women are staring at you. Basically drooling.”
He grins.
“No men?”
“Not funny.”
“You know why?”
“Cal—”
“They’re staring at you .” He moves my hand under the table and places it on his hardening cock, the move sending a thrill tumbling through me.
“What do you think of this place?”
“The food’s good.”
“Not too pretentious.”
“Seasonal,” I say, pleased he’s asking my opinion.
“And I bet it’s farm to table.”
“Then I’ll buy it for you.” He shakes his head.
“Invest, be a partner. The chef’s talented and wants to have her own place, but the current big investor is too hands on.”
“And you?”
“I need some legit businesses, and this is a good one.” He removes my hand and pushes the mousse at me.
“Eat up, and we’ll go to the next place.”
So I do, and when I’m done, he pays the check, leaving an outrageous sum on the table for a tip and we head out.
Clubs aren’t really my thing, but this is one of the classier clubs I’ve been to.
It’s sophisticated and understated, a playground for the elite.
“I’m definitely buying this place,” he says as we go upstairs where it’s more of a VIP vibe.
He goes to the bar to get us drinks.
The pulsing electronica pounds through my chest, vibrating the floor beneath my feet.
When he comes back and hands me my drink, a man is with him.
“Dean, my wife, Lucie. Lucie, Dean. He’s the current owner.”
I smile and nod as Dean does the same.
“If you both follow me, I’ll take you to the most interesting part.” Dean gestures to where a big bouncer-type guy stands, and behind him is an unassuming staircase.
He leads us up to another level, and at the top, he pushes open a glass door.
It’s much quieter in here, and there’s a lot of smoke clouding the space.
Callahan lights up. “Give me a minute.” He motions for me to sit as he chats quietly with Dean.
I don’t listen to the conversation.
It’s boring and money oriented.
I sip the Dubious Joy he handed me downstairs and close my eyes, losing myself in the lounge style music.
But the longer I sit, the more acutely aware I become that I’m being watched.
My eyes float open, and there’s a man now sitting on my right side, maybe in his thirties with slicked-back dirty-blond hair and the kind of smile you could grease a pig with.
“Ms. de Rosa.”
“Mrs. Murphy.”
His smile gets broader and he leans close.
“I was at your wedding. You don’t know me. I’m George Fabiani. Your father has a dislike of my family and our Russian ties, but we do business. Maybe you and I can do business. Special business.”
He slips a hand along my leg, pushing up my skirt.
I’m about to slap him away when he’s suddenly yanked out of his seat.
Before I can even gasp, Callahan has him by the throat, his feet off the ground.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t fucking kill you right here and now for touching what’s mine.”