Chapter 5
Seamus
Ipause outside the Whelan family home. Lights are on downstairs. My brothers are already here: Cormac with his pregnant wife, Bianca, the oldest, Declan, and the youngest, Finn. I’m the third in line.
They’ll all be expecting Seamus the lighthearted killer.
And that’s who I am most of the time. Life is easy if you know how to float.
I drift from job to job, not thinking too far ahead.
Plans only hold together when nothing’s happening.
Every other time, they fall apart. I’ve learned how to bend with the wind. How to drift like smoke.
They like it when I’m smirking and cracking jokes. Drinking more than is healthy and laughing twice as loud as anyone else.
Sometimes that’s all for show. Because life’s easier that way.
If you’re never pinned down, you can’t ever get caught.
I take a second to compose myself. I slip into the usual persona. My shoulders ease. A smile crosses my lips.
Until I think of Alina.
Pretty little Alina. Petite and lovely. Pear-shaped hips, palm-sized breasts, lightly tanned skin, lots of blonde hair. Indecisive, insecure, stubborn, and overly planned Alina.
And the look on her face as she threw me out of her apartment.
God, I can be such a fucking asshole. A real piece of shit.
Not as bad as her last boyfriend at least.
But that’s the thing. Some days I’m decent, but most days I’m not, and maybe it’s better she learned that early.
I tried to warn her. I’m not a good guy.
And it’s easy to slip away if you never get attached in the first place.
I have to compose myself again. My shoulders hunched and my jaw tightened the second Alina slipped back into my head. I can’t seem to get her out, no matter how hard I try.
It’s been three days since I was in her apartment, and she’s haunting me.
My future wife.
I head inside. Everyone’s sitting around the kitchen table. Cormac’s got his hand on his pretty Italian bride’s thigh. Bianca’s quite pregnant now and visibly showing. The girl’s lucky though. Pretty sure only her boobs got bigger along with her belly. Or maybe Cormac’s the lucky one.
Mom’s sitting at one end of the table. Siobhan Whelan’s laughing at something Finn said.
My youngest brother grins back eagerly. Dad’s at the other end, chatting with Declan, probably about work.
Those two don’t talk about much else. Padraig Whelan’s a good man and a good father, but everything’s the family with him.
“Glad you graced us with your presence,” Finn says as I grab myself a beer from the refrigerator.
“Late again,” Declan grunts at me.
“Am I?” I make a show of opening the beer and drinking it. “Guess I didn’t notice.”
“He never does,” Cormac says, grinning slightly. “Always did love your own schedule.”
“Come join us.” Mom beckons me over to the empty seat at her left side. I kiss her cheek before plopping down. I salute Bianca with my bottle.
“How’s the baby cooking?”
She pats her belly. “Coming along. How’s the streets?”
“Filthy, all thanks to me.” I take a big glug from the bottle. “Ah, look at this, you’re all so polite for waiting.” Their plates are already cleared, replaced with Mom’s lemon cake.
“I saved you some.” Mom gets me a plate from the counter. Roast lamb and colcannon, mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage. “Go ahead, eat what you want.”
“What are they talking about?” I ask Finn, nodding at Declan and Dad. They’re already leaning into each other and speaking quietly again.
“Probably Fergus. Poor bastard.” He crosses himself, scowling. “Ugly business.”
“Real ugly,” I agree. I’m the one that found the poor fuck. His throat cut ear to ear, nice and clean, actually. Fergus was only twenty-six, a quick-rising dealer on a popular corner.
“None of the families have copped to his killing,” Cormac says, tilting his head toward me. “Can’t say I’m shocked though.”
“Think it really was one of them?” Finn looks between us. “Seems stupid to go after our muscle right now. What if it was just some random junkie?”
I glance at Cormac. He frowns back at me.
“Killing was too clean to be an amateur.” I drink my beer, shaking my head, and dig into my meal. I wasn’t hungry, but life changes fast. Here one second, a new red grin carved into your throat the next. Poor fucking Fergus.
“Maybe they got lucky?” Finn shrugs slightly.
Cormac shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows as well as I do. Junkies don’t have steady hands. They don’t have sharp blades. Whoever killed Fergus knew what they were doing.
The real question is why would someone fucking bother?
Fergus was good at slinging dope, no doubt about it.
But he was just some street rat nothing.
Now I’ve got to preside over his fucking funeral and pat the back of his sobbing family.
All for what?
A dozen boys will happily step into his shoes.
Makes no damn sense.
“Please, can we talk about something else?” Mom’s always good at sensing the wind too. Only she can bend it her way. I never did get much good at that. “Cormac, how’s preparing for the baby going?”
That makes me think of Alina, and I go quiet, my appetite all ruined, as my older brother and his wife talk about their happy little family.
After everyone’s finished, I offer to help Mom in the kitchen. The men disappear for whiskey and more business chat.
“You sit your pregnant ass down, alright?” I steer Bianca to the biggest, coziest chair in the den. “I’ll get you a soda water. You kick your feet up and relax.”
“I’d complain about you commenting on my ass, but—” She sighs, closing her eyes with a smile. “I am so fucking pregnant.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“Oh, yeah? It’ll happen to you?”
“If only I could be so lucky.”
“You get swollen ankles, and you tell me how lucky you feel,” she grumbles.
I pat her shoulder and leave her be. She could use some quiet. Cormac hovers around her obsessively, making sure she’s safe and comfortable. That works for them most of the time, but I can tell every once in a while she likes the silence.
“How are you holding up?” Mom asks when I’m back on dishes duty.
“Like a stump in a storm.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“You know. Sturdy. Unbreakable.”
“You made that up.”
“Yep, sure did.”
She sighs, drying a plate and putting it away. “You’ve barely talked about the wedding. Did you see the plans I sent you?”
“I took note of an email, but somehow it went to spam.”
“Convenient. For you, not for me.”
“What’s it matter?” I look at the water, avoiding her gaze as I clean, keeping my hands busy. “One wife’s like any other.”
“But this one’s pretty. Your dad showed me her Instagram profile.”
“Dad knows how to use Instagram?”
“He fumbled his way through.” She touches my arm lightly. “I heard about what you did to that boyfriend of hers.”
I grimace, staring down at the counter. “That was impulsive.”
“Story of your life.”
My jaw grinds. I can see that Alex prick all over again.
I wasn’t going to bother the bastard, at least until one of my soldiers mentioned he was in a Whelan family drug house, one of the places my people control.
I couldn’t help myself then. My future wife’s boyfriend getting high?
Dick in the mouth of some toothless meth whore? Too juicy to ignore.
Shouldn’t have fucking done it.
“I was a real bastard to her. We talked that night.” I glance up at her before drying my hands. “I doubt she’s checking your emails about the wedding either.”
Mom lets out the sigh of a woman long aggrieved by her dickhead son. “What’d you do?”
“The usual.” I get another beer and crack it. “And here we are.”
She studies me. I do my best to gaze back, keeping my expression neutral. Dad might sit at the top of my pyramid, but Mom’s the whole base. She keeps us all going, and she’s the sharpest too. There’s no hiding anything from Siobhan Whelan.
“The wedding is going to be small and rushed,” she says finally, which is a huge relief. I really don’t want to talk about that night. Least of all with my mother.
“That’s fine by me. My two favorite traits in a wedding.”
“But I’m not sure it’ll be fine by her.”
I gesture with my beer can. “Why would it matter?”
“She’s a bratva princess, Seamus. I’m guessing she has certain ideas and expectations about her special day.”
“It’s an arrangement. She’ll get over it.”
Mom’s expression darkens. “She’s your future wife. You want to keep her happy.”
I hear Alina’s moans in my head. I see her bliss-filled face as her eyes roll back. “I doubt I’m capable.”
“Step up. And go talk to her.”
“Why me?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask that question.” She whips me lightly with a kitchen towel. “Make sure your wife knows what to expect, okay? And bend over backwards to meet any demands she might make. Keep the girl happy.”
I look up at the ceiling. God, I’d fucking love to bend her over backward…
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s my boy.” She pats my face lightly. “Now finish cleaning up. And stop being late to dinner. I’m going to keep Bianca company.”
She fishes a soda water from the refrigerator and heads out to the den.
I linger over the sink. This is exactly what I didn’t want. A new responsibility. A person who will rely on me.
A man who is fundamentally unreliable.
I feel the breeze shift, ever so slightly, and I change along with it.