“Yeah, well, I keep on surprising myself.” I stared down at my feet. I wasn’t sure if this was a better situation or not. At least Cam wasn’t going to murder me.
But the conversation with Ronan kept playing in my mind. Those USB sticks had something important on them, and I still knew where they were. I’d be safe with Cam, for a little while at least.
I couldn’t stay with him. Not after what had happened between us, and I definitely couldn’t trust him.
Cam was a killer for the Valentino family, and they were in a war with the Healys. I came within inches of getting caught in the crossfire.
“Let’s get you back home,” he said. “And do me a favor. Don’t try to run. I don’t feel like chasing you tonight.”
I said nothing as he led me down onto the street and helped me into the passenger side of a black truck. I could’ve made a break for it right then and there, but I had a feeling the streets would be worse for me than wherever Cam lived. If whatever was on those USB sticks really was as important as Ronan made it seem, then he’d keep hunting me down.
Sooner or later, if I didn’t have some help, he’d find me.
For a while at least, I was stuck with Cam.
The nightmare from my past, come back to terrify me.
He put the truck in drive and we rolled through the city.
I really shouldn’t have tried to steal from the Healy family.
2
Cam
Irene looked incredible.
She also looked like shit, considering the broken nose and the bloody, puffed-up lips.
But she was the same girl I remembered, only grown leaner, more dangerous. The change was in her eyes: she cased my apartment as soon as I let her up the steps with the casual glance of a professional. I’d seen that look so many times in the mafia that it was hard to miss.
Little Irene wasn’t so pure anymore.
Not that I could blame her. I had no clue how she’d ended up in the back room of a Healy safe house with Ronan Healy himself, but I had a feeling it would be an interesting story. The last I saw her was two years ago, three nights before she ran away from home.
It was raining. The gutters were overflowing. In the distance, a car alarm blared. I stood under the front awning of her parents’ porch and leaned against a pole. She told me she didn’t want to see me ever again. She told me I’d changed too much.
I’d never forget her then. The hurt in her face, the anger on her lips. I loved her and wished she could understand that I joined the Valentino crime family to make something of myself. We were both from shit parents in a crappy neighborhood and had no chance. She barely graduated high school and I dropped out in tenth grade to start working odd jobs all over the city. For a guy like me, it was either minimum wage or blood.
I chose blood. I’d always choose blood.
She couldn’t handle it back then. “I don’t want some mafia asshole hanging around me, do you understand?” she said. “Just go away and don’t come back.”
So I left her that night, thinking she’d cool off and I’d see her again.
Except she disappeared, and it took me two years to find her again.
“You want something to drink?” I asked as she drifted over to my kitchen table. I had a place at the top of a row home in South Philly, deep in the heart of Valentino territory. It was about as safe as it could be.
“Anything,” she said.
I poured two glasses of whiskey and passed her one. She sipped it, winced a little bit, and put the glass down.
She wore dark jeans and a black tank top. I let my eyes drift down her body. She was thinner than I remembered, leaner and more muscular, but with the same soft curves in all the perfect places. God, I used to daydream about her, about tasting her lips and skin.
“So,” I said, sitting down across from her. “I think you’ve got a story to tell me.”
She shrugged a little and twirled her glass. She glanced around my place again, this time a little slower, making a show of it. “Kind of empty in here,” she said. “You sure this is your place?”
I laughed and gestured. “I’ve got everything I need,” I said, which was more or less true. I had a couch, a TV, and a coffee table in the living room. I had a little second-hand kitchen table near the barebones kitchen. And in the bedroom, I had a bed.
“Life of a bachelor, I guess,” she said, smiling to herself.
“Where’ve you been staying since I last saw you?” I asked, unable to help myself. “You disappeared.”