Chapter 57 Rule Number One – Briar
RULE NUMBER ONE
brIAR
Then…
“Do you really have to tell him, though?” Lily is practically running to keep pace with me as I power walk off the subway and charge up the stairs, bypassing the escalator to street level.
“Yes, I have to tell him,” I insist, to her and to myself, remembering how I spent most of last night pacing my bedroom while wrestling with this very decision. “It’s the right thing to do.” But Rí will probably tell me to get lost, the fucking asshole.
He still deserves to know.
“We’re closed!” the guy behind the bar calls out as I push through the front door of Last Call; his Irish accent is thick. I pull up short at the sight of the wide empty space. Lily follows in after me, crashing into my back, not prepared for me to have stopped so quickly after stepping inside.
“Sorry,” she hisses, but her eyes dart around the club the same way mine did.
“Hey! Are ye deaf?” The guy behind the bar sets down the rag he’s using to clean it and straightens, giving us a hard look. “I said we’re closed.”
Lily and I both exchange a look, and she takes a pointed step back toward the entrance, only to sigh when I head for the bar.
The man’s frown deepens when he sees me coming.
“Hi. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m actually looking for someone who works here.”
His head tilts to the side, considering me. “Name?”
I exhale. “Uh… yeah, so you see, that’s the problem. I didn’t get his name…”
The level of annoyance on this guy’s face reaches new levels. I feel Lily’s anxious energy at my back, but press on.
“So, this guy…”
“Okay…” He repeats in my same tone of voice, and I narrow my eyes at his obvious imitation of me.
“I met him a couple of weeks ago... he said he works here… I don’t know—he’s tall.
Like, really tall, with short, dirty blonde hair…
” The bartender stares at me with a blank expression on his face.
“Uhm… he had a spider web tattoo across his hand, and he goes by Rí.” I trace my fingers over my knuckles and the bartender visibly stiffens, his eyes widening. “I—err—do you know his name?”
He looks at me like I have ten heads.
“Aye, I do,” he answers, but offers nothing else other than to give me a quick once-over.
I shift under the scrutiny. “You wanna share it?”
He looks at me for another moment, then to Lily, as if deciding something, before folding his arms across his chest and looking down his nose at me.
“Koen O’Rourke.”
Everything stops.
“O’Rourke, as in—”
“Aye, O’Rourke, as in…” He holds up two fingers in the shape of a gun before pretending to fire it.
I’ve only been in Boston a little over a year, but even I know that last name. And what it means.
Lily lets out a breath, and I feel her grip my shoulders. “Shit.” She takes a step back, attempting to pull me with her. “We should go.”
I shrug her off, keeping my attention on the bartender.
Fuck, Rí is Koen O’Rourke. O’Rourke as in the Irish mafia? I suppose that makes sense but like, how high up is he? Like what level of committed are we talking here?
“I—I need to talk to him.”
He shakes his head, going back to wiping down glasses. “No, I certainly don’t recommend that now, miss. Best you and your friend get on your way, in fact. If Koen didn’t give you his name, that’s because he didn’t want you to have it.”
The guy suddenly looks nervous, checking over each shoulder, but the bar is still quiet.
“Briar,” Lily hisses in my ear, still trying to tug me toward the door.
“It’s important.”
Despite my continued insistence, the bartender just shakes his head. “Still can’t help you, lass, even if I wanted to. Koen’s not here.”
“Like… just stepped out, or—?”
“Gone,” the bartender confirms. “Back to Ireland.”
“Back to Ireland?” I repeat.
He nods. “Yep, he’s gone to meet up with his fiancée.” He eyes me pointedly. “I don’t know if, or when, he’ll be back, so like I said lass, it’s best ye both be on your way.”
Fiancée? Koen has a fiancée? Koen’s gone back to Ireland, for his work with the Irish mafia?
Fuck me. My head is spinning and I feel nauseous, and I know for a fact this time it’s not morning sickness.
Guess that explains why he threw me out of his room that morning…
Lily is just about to succeed in her efforts to drag me away, when another guy walks up from behind the bar. He looks familiar, his green eyes glitter down at me from his insane height of what has to be six four or six five.
Following our gaze, the bartender turns his head and smiles, even though he looks more nervous than he did before.
“Oi lass, it’s your lucky day. This here is Koen’s brother, he may be able to help you out better than me.
Best of luck to you.” He gives me a final, warning glance, before acknowledging the hulking mass of muscle behind him, and before slipping away. “Liam.”
Liam steps closer, looking between us with a wide grin on his face.
He looks a bit too young to be working in a bar.
“Hello, ladies, I’m a little disappointed to hear you’re here looking for my brother.
” He rolls his eyes and keeps that easy grin on his face, leaning down across the bar. “But how can I help ye?”
My jaw opens, but I snap it shut, staring into familiar green eyes, the same color green as his brother’s, but absent the dark shadows and sharp edges.
“No. Uhm—nope. There’s just been a little confusion. We don’t need anything, thank you so much,” Lily blurts out as she wrestles me away from the bar, steering my shocked ass toward the door.
Liam’s brows furrow in confusion, the amusement fading from his face as he watches Lily drag me toward the door. “You’re sure?” he asks me a little more seriously.
Lily’s managed to push me several feet away before I dig my heels in, halting our retreat.
“Briar!” she hisses under her breath, her panicked eyes darting to Liam and back to me.
I give her a little nod of my head before looking back at Koen’s brother, keeping my tone as cool and casual as possible.. “Yep. I’m sure. This was… a mistake. We’re just gonna go.”
I gesture toward the door behind me, and, much to Lily’s relief, resume our retreat.
Once we’re safely outside, and around the next block, she finally lets out the breath she’s clearly been holding in. “Of all the men in the city to knock you up, you pick Koen-Fucking-O’Rourke?”
“I didn’t know!” We pass a trash barrel, and I seriously consider grabbing onto it and heaving out my insides. I feel awful.
“Girl!” She pinches the bridge of her nose, keeping us en route to the subway. “Rule number one: Don’t hook up with the Irish Devils. And rule number two: Don’t have their baby.”
Once we’re safely on a subway car taking us back to the dorms, I deflate in my seat, rubbing my fingers on my temples.
“What am I going to do, Lily?” The disappointment I feel is crushing. There really was a part of me that hoped I wasn’t going to have to do this on my own.
“Well, I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do…
We’re not going to tell the Irish Devil King about this.
” She waves her hand over my belly. Nausea creeps up, and I’m not sure if it’s the conversation or the movement of the train.
“He’s dangerous, B. Like, sociopathic. Haven’t you heard the stories? ”
To be honest, I hadn’t really paid attention.
We didn’t have warring mafia families back in upstate New York.
But I have seen the Irish Devils shake down poor Mr. and Mrs. Ashford, who own Mae’s diner, for being late on a protection payment.
They broke a couple of windows, some dishes, and terrorized Mae and her husband with a dark promise to return if their payment was late again.
The low-lifes.
“He’s the heir, Briar.”
My gaze raises slowly to meet Lily’s eyes.
“The heir?”
She nods slowly. And maybe there is something wrong with me, because after everything I learned about Koen today, the only thing I keep thinking about is how he’s gone. Gone back to Ireland to be with his fiancée.
Tears fill my eyes as everything starts to feel real all at once.
“How am I going to do this Lily? Raise a baby? Alone? My parents are going to insist I get rid of it.”
Some delusional part of me pictured Rí and I raising this baby together.
Yeah, he was a jerk afterwards, but that night with him changed my life.
I don’t want to believe that it was all just a lie to get in my pants.
Whatever transpired between the two of us, it was on a deeper level.
I felt it. I know he felt it too. But I guess I was wrong.
Lily squeezes me tight, and for once I don’t mind the suffocating hug. “You’ve got me, okay? Whatever happens, we’re in this together.”