He took my hands and held them above my head as he sped up. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but the look on his face when he came…it was for my eyes only.
He didn’t say anything, just relaxed on top of me as I wrapped my arms around him.
“You’re one hell of screw, Mr. Callahan.”
“It’s a gift.”
This smug bastard. “That is your cue to tell me how amazing I am, husband.”
He lifted his head, staring at me lazily then mumbling, “You were all right.”
“You…” Before my hand could smack him, he grabbed it and kissed it. Shifting, he pulled out of me before sitting up.
“Now that I’ve eaten and worked out”—he winked at me—“we can get rid of the annoyance plaguing this city. I’m tired of this, Melody, he needs to be—” He paused when my cell phone rang. Sitting up, I reached for it on the floor.
“What is it?” I answered, trying to see if there was any way to save my shirt.
“Ma’am, it’s Frankie…”
“Who the fuck—”
“Fedel brought me.”
Sighing, I shifted the phone to my other ear. “How do you have this number?”
“Fedel had it and he thought if anything happened to him I should have it too, but he told me never to use it unless it was important…well important to you, not to me…he said he didn’t even care if I was dying—”
“WHAT IS IT!” I yelled. Jesus Christ. He had the attention span of a mouse.
“Uh…some information Fedel was looking for just came through…we—he was looking into Emilio and his mother, she’s currently here in Chicago at some hospital care facility, she has Huntington's disease. The pictures look pretty bad, the lady is going to need a miracle.”
“As my father used to say, aiutati che Dio ti aiuta,” I said into the phone as Liam stared in confusion, carefully retying his tie. “God helps those who help themselves. Everyone else is just weak.”
LIAM
The fact that I had to personally drag myself to the hospital just to meet this son of a bitch’s mother, at 8 AM, when I had family of my own to deal with, was the bane of my existence at that moment. He had hid her right in plain sight, no more than five miles from the mayor’s office.
The clinic was in a small building. When the glass doors slid open and I walked in, the only thing I could smell was disinfectant and old people.
“Can I help you?” A short, pudgy, balding man asked, tucking a pen behind his ear.
“I’m looking for Gabrielle Becerra.” I gave the fake name Emilio had used.
“Who are you?”
He wasn’t serious.
“Liam Callahan. Gabrielle Becerra is Emilio, the mayor’s mother, and my wife, the governor, and I wanted to say hello.” I lifted the flowers in my hand for him to see.
The man frowned, shaking his head. “I’m sorry ,man, she passed this morning…I didn’t think Emilio told anyone about her. Just tragic, just when he’s moving up in the world he goes and loses her…wait, ain’t your wife his sister?”
Define sister. If you meant the woman currently polishing a pistol she picked out exclusively for her brother then sure, sister was the right word.
“Hello?”
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
He leaned closer over the counter. “Since you all are family, you should know this. Emilio…he’s a little bit off. He’s done everything for his mother; with her gone, he must be real broken up. Tell the governor to, I don’t know, reach out or somethin’. It might help him ease up knowing he’s not alone. The poor man is just one short step from a breakdown if you ask me.”