“I’m not going to do it,” I said, gripping my phone tight. “I don’t care what the Don says. I won’t get into trafficking. I’ll marry Tara, but I won’t do that.”
“I know you won’t,” Dean said. “I’m talking to him. I’m trying to work this out.”
“Get him to drop the business,” Ewan said. “I mean it, Dean. Otherwise, I’m done.”
“Ewan—”
I hung up the phone and threw it down onto the counter. It clattered away and smashed up against the drainboard. I stared at the ceiling and felt like it was falling in on me, like it would crumble and crush me into bones and dust.
I heard a noise and looked to my right. Tara stood in the hallway, watching me. “You okay?” she asked.
“How much did you hear?”
“Most,” she said. “I was right then.”
“You were right.” I looked at the floor. I couldn’t meet her gaze. “They know how I feel about it, and they’re still going ahead.”
“Does Dean agree?” she asked.
“He thinks he can talk his father out of it, but that’s never happened before, and I don’t know why it would happen now.” I pushed away from the counter and stalked into the living room. Tara’s eyes followed me, but she didn’t get closer.
I couldn’t blame her. I was an animal, a wild beast, willing to shoot men in the stomach for information, all for a family that didn’t give a shit about me. Colm Healy and the Don weren’t so different, not really. Maybe the Don was slow to get into sex trafficking, but he’d do it sooner or later if it meant more money, regardless of how his most loyal lieutenant felt.
“What are you going to do?” Tara asked, and drifted closer.
I looked at her and shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I can’t give them what they want,” she said softly. “You know that, right?”
“I know,” I said. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t let them come near you.”
She grimaced and shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. When I can’t help them, they’ll go looking for someone else. If your Don wants this trafficking thing bad enough, he’ll make it happen.”
“Whether I like it or not,” I said.
She walked to me and reached up. Her fingers touched my cheek. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“Is that what you’ve been doing in there?” I asked, smirking slightly, trying to lighten my horrible mood.
She smiled in return. “I think you got lost, Ewan. You fell into something, and now you don’t know how you get back.”
“I think I was always like this,” I said, and took her hand in mine. “Broken and bruised.”
“I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head. “I’m afraid of you. Is that bad?”
“You should be afraid,” I said softly. “You’d be crazy not to be.”
“But I’m still here. I mean, I can run whenever, right? And the Don might come after me, or he might not. The Healys could hunt me, or maybe I’m not worth the trouble. I could go find out, and instead, I’m staying in here, with you.”
“With the monster,” I said, and pulled her tight against me.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked. “Am I broken like you? Broken in the same way?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe not the same way, but maybe that makes this work.”
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
I kissed her, and didn’t give a damn about anything else.
The Don, the family, trafficking girls, selling drugs, blood and teeth and bullets, none of it mattered as I kissed her, held her close against me, and I felt a stirring of something I didn’t know I had, something deeper where maybe my soul lived. I broke off the kiss and looked into her eyes, and I knew I had to make her my wife.
This wasn’t about the Don anymore. I had what I needed, right here in front of me, and I’d known it from the start.
“I’m still going to kill Colm,” I whispered, and kissed her neck, my hands moving along her hips, up to her breasts. “I’m not going to stop.”
“I know,” she moaned. “I don’t think I care.”
“Good.” I tugged her down to the couch, peeled off her clothes, and spent the rest of the afternoon making her body sweat, making her back arch, making her scream.
18
Tara
Baby May’s was a diner at the edge of Drexel’s campus tucked down an alley and surrounded by dive bars. The front was glass plastered over with generic pictures of food and from the outside it seemed like a real dump. College kids came and went, some of them carrying plastic to-go containers, but there was no sign of any Healy guys.
We sat across the street in a small park on some benches set back from the sidewalk. Young guys with backpacks and headphones kept glaring at us like we were taking up their bench, but Ewan didn’t seem to mind. “Beats sitting in the car,” he said as he draped an arm across the back of the bench.