17. Connor
CONNOR
Ipour another bourbon and top off Marcus’s glass. He puts an arm over the back of his chair, my old friend swirling his drink and shaking his head.
“It’s bad out there, Connor. I’m getting calls all the time.”
“I’m aware.”
“No, I don’t think you are. This is the clean side of the business, and it’s not good. Partners pulling out. Deals falling through. Straight up salvage calls are down twenty percent already?—“
“I’m aware, Marcus,” I repeat, getting up and prowling across the room.
“Pacing isn’t going to help. Sit down and calm yourself.”
I slam a fist into the bookshelf. An old volume of poetry tumbles out and hits the floor. “Two of my men are dead and they’re only the first. All because I couldn’t do as I was told.”
Marcus lets out a breath and drinks. “How is she doing anyway?”
“Angie’s fine. Bored, but fine.”
“That’s good. I know you’re carrying a lot of weight right now. I don’t want to be up your ass either, but we have to talk.”
I take a moment. It has been a long, stressful day.
Getting Angie’s mother settled was only one tiny fraction of the shit I’ve been shoveling.
A brawl in one of my restaurant properties, a drive-by shooting that mercifully didn’t come to blood, dozens of calls and angry texts from various important people across the city.
“The Gallaghers are going scorched earth,” I say, getting myself together. I think about Angie’s body pressed against mine in the shower. The warmth of her, the gentle way her hands moved over my skin, cleaning me, going lower?—
“No kidding. They’re livid. Can you blame them?”
“Sinead never needed me. She could marry anyone else in the Whelan family and be just as happy.”
“Probably, but you left her at the altar. Maybe if it had happened a few days earlier, you could’ve saved face. But now?”
“Now it’s blood.” I breathe in through my nose and blow it back out. “Tell me who to call. I’ll handle them.”
Marcus taps out a message and sends it to me. “Check your phone later. You know most of those names. I don’t think it’ll take much more than some promises that things will go back to normal soon.” He hesitates, drinks, and looks at me. “It will go back to normal soon, right?”
I sink back into my chair behind my desk. “How do you think this ends?”
He considers, turning toward the window. I’ve known him for a very long time, and I’m positive he’s worried, even if he’s trying to bury it under bravado. He probably thinks I’ve lost my fucking mind.
Marcus is slick. He’s all about deals, investments, and properties. Thanks to his advice, I’ve grown the legitimate side of our family in equal measure to the illegal half.
But he knows what really drives the Maguires. It’s not his dealmaking.
It’s always been fire and death.
“The Gallaghers won’t let it go easily. They’ll want tribute. Probably more than you can afford.”
“If I pay them off, I lose face. I look weak.”
“Definitely can’t do that. But what’s the alternative?”
“I kill them.” I look at my glass, at the light cutting through the amber bourbon. “Burn them to the ground.”
“Maybe,” Marcus says but he doesn’t sound convinced. “They’re too important though.”
“The Gallaghers are old and entrenched, but they aren’t strong. They haven’t been for years. There’s a reason they agreed to marry Sinead off to me.”
He angles his glass toward me. “Fair point. Why sell her so cheap otherwise?”
“Don’t be a prick. The Gallaghers have some sway still, but they aren’t the powerhouses they once were. In a straight fight, I can win.”
“Where will that leave us? We have a good reputation right now. The other families think they can safely do business with us, but if you start murdering the Gallagher brothers in the street?—“
I grunt in frustration. He’s right. If Deck were here, he’d be saying we could cut all their throats and nobody would even care, but Marcus is more strategic.
“I am not giving up Angelina, and I am not letting the Gallaghers break me. There has to be a way.”
“We’ll find it.” He takes a long drink. “Probably, eventually.”
There are no answers anywhere as I ascend the stairs of my overly large mansion and pause at the top. I look right, toward where Rowan, Dad, and Danielle are staying. I should visit them, check in, make sure everyone’s alright.
But I know the questions Dad will ask, the complaints Danielle will casually toss my way, and how hard Rowan will try to act like she’s perfectly fine even if this is all a fucked-up mess, and I can’t face it.
Instead, I turn toward comfort.
To my wife’s wing.
Colm nods as I pass. It’s late, nearly midnight, and I dismiss him until tomorrow.
Another soldier will take his place overnight.
The smell of weed is strong as I go by Dawn’s room and her television is blaring, but all that fades once I’m in my own room, away from the world, heart beating steady and fast as I think about Angelina.
I’ve been looking forward to this all day, since we spoke earlier.
She’s sitting with her back against pillows.
Her hair’s up, a few loose strands around her pretty face.
She’s reading a book and she looks up, biting her lower lip, smiling like she’s not sure if she’s happy.
I don’t move, my eyes fixed on my wife, wondering how in the hell this woman really is here, in my bed, still waiting for me, how I remotely deserve her, how I’ll ruin her in the end.
“Long day?” she asks.
“Too long,” I grunt back and start to undress.
“Oh, sorry, I’ll just—“ She looks around wildly before sinking under the blankets. “I’ll give you privacy.”
I laugh despite myself. God, how am I smiling right now? “It’s fine, Angie. I don’t mind.”
“That makes one of us.”
I do my evening routine in my boxer briefs. I’d usually put on a shirt but I can’t help myself. I want to see how my wife reacts.
Her cheeks turn pink as I climb in beside her. “Lights off?” she asks awkwardly. “Right, yeah, of course, I’m sure you need rest. Lots to do. War to fight and all.” She turns away and flips the switch beside her bed.
Plunging the room into black.
It’s a simple thing, lying in bed. Millions of couples do it all the time. But for me, it’s like a revelation, having Angie beside me. It’s heaven, but it’s also hell, wanting her the way I do, but afraid that I’ll break her the way I’ve broken everything I’ve ever loved.
That’s the curse of being the boss. Anything I get close to burns.
And so I hold myself apart, like always.
“How is your mother acclimating?” I ask the quiet, too intensely aware of her steady breathing.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with her.” Her eyes are on the ceiling, hair spilled around her, and I resist the urge to reach out and touch her cheek. It’s smooth and pretty, and I don’t want to dirty it with my fingers. “She’ll find something to complain about no matter what you do.”
“You two don’t get along?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.” She tilts her chin in my direction. “Sometimes I think growing up I was the adult and she was the kid. She had me running to the bodega when I was eight. I can’t remember the last time she bought groceries, went to the bank, cleaned a toilet, did anything.”
“It’s always been on you?”
“Always, and don’t get me wrong. I love my mother. But if there’s an excuse, she’ll find it.”
“Do you resent that?”
She doesn’t answer at first, but exhales and nods.
“She’s my mom, you know? I feel so guilty, resenting her the way I do, but it’s hard not to.
I didn’t go away to school, barely had a social life, mostly because I was too busy working to support her.
I swear, sometimes I think the only redeeming thing about her is that stupid apartment, and I don’t even need it anymore.
” She curses quietly and pulls at her hair, looking over with panic in her eyes. “I didn’t mean that. I love my mother.”
“You have every right to feel like she’s a drain on you.”
“But she’s my mom?—“
“And you’re her daughter.” I reach out, breaking the space between us, and gently press my fingers to her wrist. “I know what you feel. I’ve been the boss of our family for over a decade now, and every day I work to make all our lives better.
But there are still problems, complaints, people who feel they haven’t been given enough and people who want more.
Petty arguments, pettier grudges, and it all falls on my shoulders to handle and to mediate.
And I do it, because that’s what a boss does, but there are days when I despise them all and wish I could burn them down. ”
“Is that why you married me?” She laces her fingers into mine. “Trying to burn it all down?”
“You’re joking, but maybe that’s it.”
“Honestly, Connor, I still don’t fully understand what you do, but I can imagine how hard it must be shouldering all that responsibility.”
“If I don’t do it, someone else will have to. I carry the burden, I make the hard decisions, I take on the pain and the suffering, so that I can spare everyone else.”
“Wow, and you get nothing in return? Only this massive mansion.”
“And a pretty wife.” I close my hand around hers. “Who should learn to watch her tongue.”
“Going to punish me for talking out of line?”
“I might. Would you like that?”
She wrinkles her nose. “No, I don’t think so. I’m not one of your soldiers, Connor. You don’t get to flog me if I disobey.”
“Flogging you sounds like fun.”
“Easy, boy.”
“I’m only trying to make the point that I know how you feel. You sacrificed a lot for your mother. Sleepless nights working late hours at Rite Aid, a few years at a grocery store, and even though you were accepted into NYU, you still chose not to go.”
She shifts, her brows drawing together. Her fingers slip from mine. “Wait, how do you know all that?”
“The jobs were on your resume,” I say quickly.
But she leans on an elbow. “The jobs were, but nobody knows about NYU.”
I try to think fast. “I researched you before we got married.”
“How would that even come up? Seriously, Connor, how do you know about NYU? I didn’t even tell my mom.”
I roll onto my side, turning my back on her. “Time to sleep.”
“Connor—“
“Sleep, Angelina. You’re getting paranoid.”
Her eyes bore into my back. My heart’s racing and I try to keep myself calm. Fuck, that was stupid, showing too much there. Talking to her relaxes me and I forget myself.
Her side of the bed shakes as she drops onto her back with a huff. I stay still, listening to her, waiting for her to drift off. How much more am I going to reveal?
I can’t keep it hidden forever.
When is she going to realize that I’ve been watching her for years?