Chapter 25
Arya
We spend the afternoon and night making love, stopping to nap, eat, and eventually shower. The raw wound of my family’s abandonment still aches in my chest, but Michael’s presence makes it manageable.
And when I think about it here, on the morning after, I almost feel relieved, like the pain is the soreness left after you rip a Band-Aid off. I can focus past it now.
I can focus on figuring out how in the hell we’re going to wrap up the situation with Michael’s family and get that money back.
By lunchtime, Michael is fielding another phone call with his brother Billy. The guy seems pretty easygoing, which is a blessing in the middle of all this. However, what Billy starts saying soon after the phone rings has both of us on edge.
“Maria’s come back. She’s here now,” Billy says as we listen to Michael’s phone. “She wants to see the guy you brought in. She says she can help us get the location of the money out of him.”
“Out of him?” Michael’s expression shows his alarm. “Billy, she’s lying. She can’t be allowed to make contact with Brian Cleary. She’s up to something.”
“Dad won’t let her go near him alone, but he wants all of us here to confront her and make Cleary tell his story with Mom there.”
I let out a wordless huff. This is going to be a ton of drama—at best. “Has she been checked for weapons?” I ask. Michael repeats the question urgently into the phone.
“The guards haven’t checked her for weapons, no. You know Mom would never allow that.” Billy sighs. “Look, you’re needed here. They want to talk to Arya, too. Just get everything sorted out tonight and be done with it.”
The alarm bells in my head ring louder, but when Michael looks over at me, I set my jaw and nod to him. He turns his attention back to the call.
“We’ll be there.”
“How are we going to handle this?” I ask Michael as we pull into his family’s driveway.
He glances at me. “That’s the problem. Maria’s impulsive. It’s hard to predict how we should handle it. Just... follow my lead and watch out for her.
“Cleary is just as crazy and more of a danger to you, but he has guards on him. My parents still aren’t taking it seriously that Maria is a hazard.”
I frown. I really want something more concrete than ‘follow my lead,’ but what can be done? He knows everything about his family, and I know almost nothing. I’ll just have to trust him.
This time, when we go inside, I get a surprise. Not a pleasant one. It’s Michael’s mother, eyeing me angrily as I come in with him.
I stop short. Michael tries to greet and hug his mother, but she just glares at me. Finally, she says, “Did you turn my boy against his sister?”
I squash a surge of panic. For a moment, I get a hint of where Maria got her irrational streak from.
Fortunately, I soon learn it’s not actually as strong as Maria’s.
“Mom,” Michael sighs. “I overheard Maria and Brian Cleary arguing about the crime in her room. Arya didn’t have anything to do with it. Please, don’t start this. Things are bad enough for all of us.”
She frowns up at me... and then relents, her face softening. Then, she goes off to direct the kitchen staff.
I let out a breath as she walks away. I see the set of Michael’s jaw and touch his shoulder.
“She wants to blame everything but Maria for why Maria is this way. She’s not going to realize the truth until she sees it for herself. Maybe not even then.”
“I almost feel sorry for her,” I say quietly. “But I know she’s caused you a lot of problems.”
“It’s not her, it’s Maria. My mom’s just so biased she can’t even think straight about it.”
There’s a small crowd in the dining room when Michael’s father brings us in. His wife joins us, Billy, and finally, Maria.
I feel those alarm bells go off in my head again when I see her. She looks haggard, her eyes sunken, like she’s just come off a bender. They fix on me like flat, dark beads with no real expression in them. Not on Michael, but on me.
Michael’s father sits at the head of the table, with Maria at the far end, his mother and Billy on one side of his father’s end, and us on the other. I sit nearest Maria, which could have excused her glaring if it started after I took my seat. But no. I’m not just in her line of fire as she glares up the table.
She’s looking at me like she wants to murder me, personally, in the nastiest way she can.
I stare back a moment before turning my attention back to Michael. I want to get his attention, but he’s stuck talking to his father.
“All right, people,” his dad speaks up. “I think you all know why we’re here. Michael says Maria took the money, there’s a guy downstairs who either helped her or conned her into doing it, and Maria keeps saying Michael is falsely accusing her and knows where the money is. So... I had my guys look into it.
“It turns out that everything we picked up corroborates this guy Brian Cleary’s story.” He stares down the table at Maria, who tenses, and then at his wife, who shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “So, I’m going to bring that guy up here and give him a chance to say what he has to say. And once that’s done, I’m going to decide what we do next.”
I feel Michael move restlessly next to me. Billy can’t look at anyone. Maria seems to have forgotten how to blink. That scares me more with each passing minute.
Michael’s father sends his men to bring Cleary up. Maria tries to slip out of the room, mumbling something about a bathroom break. Michael’s father gently stops her. His eyes are on her like a hawk’s on a squirrel. She flops back into her seat, sulking.
I’m not convinced. Everything in me is screaming that something is wrong.
When they bring Brian Cleary in, he looks haunted. His eyes are sunken and full of fear. He looks like he has lost 10 lbs, and he’s as pale as a dying man. His gaze flits to us as he walks in, and for a moment, he actually looks relieved.
Then, I hear Maria’s chair shift behind me.
The gun goes off before I can act: one, two, three times, louder than anything I have ever heard in my life. I scream, and Michael pushes me to cover under the 6-in. thick tabletop, and I hear Cleary gibbering in terror.
Everyone is yelling at once. Michael and Billy are yelling at their sister to put the gun down. His father is bellowing at his men to get Cleary out of the room. His mother is wailing in disbelief, begging her daughter to stop: “Please, just stop.”
There’s silence for a moment as I crouch under the edge of the heavy oak table, and I dare to hope that it’s over and they’ve talked that maniac into setting down her gun. I wait for it to hit the tabletop.
It doesn’t.
Suddenly, before anyone can react, the gun goes off twice more, forcing Michael away from me as two bullets bite into the floorboards. My ears ring, and my nostrils are full of gun smoke. Then, someone grabs me by the hair and drags me out into the hallway.
It hurts worse than I would have expected; tears squirt out of my eyes as pain lances through my scalp. She’s dragging me, crazy strong with adrenaline, with the pistol held in her other hand.
“Let me go!” I yell and try to squirm away, but she whacks me with the barrel of the gun and curses at me.
“I’m getting the fuck out of here, and you’re going with me. I’m not letting them punish me. I deserve that money. It’s mine!”
I can’t argue with someone with a gun to my head. I hiss with pain, praying that security, Michael’s family, or someone can get this nut off of me before she hurts me or anyone else. I don’t even know if Michael is hurt from those shots or even if he’s still alive.
Somewhere in the background, Michael’s mother is screaming like a siren. That is not a good sign. Not at all.
Then, suddenly, Michael is standing in the hallway with us, cutting off her escape. I see him upside down as she grips my hair, stern as iron, and his own gun pointed at her head.
“Let her go,” he demands.
“No. I’m taking her hostage, and we’re getting out of here. You can’t stop me.”
“I can fucking shoot you.” Michael’s voice goes even more terrifyingly flat, and my heart jumps into my throat.
Her voice lowers to a hiss. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’ve got my woman at gunpoint. You betrayed me. You robbed me. You betrayed this fucking family. And now, you’re opening fire in our home, trying to kill a witness, and then trying to kill me. You really think we’re going to let you get away with that? How can you possibly believe that?”
“You’re my brother!” Her voice cracks with a mix of what sounds like outrage and emotional pain.
“You’re not my sister. You’re some bitch who betrays her own family and blames everything on other people! Now, let her go!” I hear him thumb back the hammer of his revolver.
Their family spills out into the hallway. Billy’s trying to calm things down. His dad is barking orders for both of them to drop the guns. His mom is begging him not to shoot her precious baby.
Maria finally lets my hair go, and I scramble backward across the slippery parquet floor away from her. “Oh, God,” I mumble, and then, Michael steps between us and his father and brother with him.
Suddenly, my heart’s not pounding even half as hard.
“Now, you’re going to tell us where the money is,” Michael growls.
Maria starts sobbing. Their mother is still begging Michael to stand down. He ignores their distress, and despite it all, I can’t blame him.
“It’s in the Caymans!” she wails. “You piece of shit, making me give it back on top of everything else!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” her father demands. “You robbed us, here, you are shooting up my house, taking hostages... trying to kill the one witness against you right in front of me, like that’s going to make me not suspect you somehow?”
“Drop the damn gun, Maria, honey,” Billy sighs like he’s telling a small child to drop a permanent marker.
“Him first,” she snaps, but Michael holds steady with the gun on her.
Her father steps forward and gently takes the gun from her. She stares at him, then at me, and then bursts out into tears and falls to her knees.
Her mom sees her like that and almost goes to her, her arms out and her eyes full of grief. But she doesn’t come over. Instead, she simply asks her daughter, “Why? Why did you do this?”
“I don’t know.” Maria gulps and looks down. I can’t tell if she’s lying or not. Maybe she really doesn’t know. Maybe she’s too far gone.
I get up slowly and go to Michael, who is still pointing the gun at her, his face white with rage. I put my hand on his arm gently. “Michael,” I murmur. “Come on. It’s over. She’s caught, they’re convinced. You don’t need this anymore.”
“She tried to fucking kidnap you,” he growls.
“I know. But she’s still family, and I don’t think she’s in her right mind.”
He looks at me, and then sighs and slowly lowers the revolver. He puts it away but keeps a hand free just in case as he hugs me tight.
“Sir,” one of the guards tells Michael’s father. “Cleary has collapsed from all the excitement. What do we do with him?”
“Drop him at a hospital and have him watched. We’ve gotten what we need from him.” Michael’s father looks spent. His wife comes to him, and he holds her, but distractedly, as he stares down at his daughter.
“What about Maria?” Michael asks sternly. His mom flinches.
His father sighs, looking years older suddenly. “We’ll get her the help she needs.”
Hours later, in each other’s arms, as we lie in bed in the houseboat in silence, I know Michael’s thinking about what happened today. “Penny for your thoughts?”
“Just... wondering if this is all really over,” he sighs, turning his head to kiss my bare shoulder. “I keep expecting something else crazy to pop up and throw us back into chaos.”
“I’m sure there will be plenty of crazy going on in the future,” I murmur as I roll over to nestle my face against his chest. “This is a mob family, after all. But for now... let’s just enjoy the quiet until the next crazy adventure comes along.”
“Mmm, you have a point,” he admits, dropping a kiss into my hair. “I might feel ready for anything with you around... but that doesn’t mean I want to face it just now.”
Fortunately, we probably won’t have to. I hope. I have a future to build... a future with him.