Though I hadn’t dressed up for dropping Shay off at school, I’d worn a nice skirt and shirt with no rips and no skin showing. I’d felt like Mrs. Goddamn Brady, but I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me, and I knew the blue in my hair would be gone soon because Midland moms wore pearls, and didn’t have jewel-colored hair and tattoos.
The tat I couldn’t do shit about. The hair was manageable.
Grunting at the thought, I unbuttoned my shirt, dumped it on the table, then reached for the vest.
It was deceptive. Looking at it, I knew Dec had just dropped a fortune on us, which made me feel oddly warm inside. The Kevlar represented so much; his affection, his caring. As much as I hated it after I slipped it on and tied myself in, it made me feel good for that reason alone.
It was custom, I realized, as lightweight as these things could be, and had thin straps, and knowing that I mattered to him enough to go to the time and effort of buying something like that made it more than worth having to wear it.
Redressing in my shirt, I winced as it pulled a little tighter now, and because the bulletproof ‘cami’ ran so high up the chest, it looked like a bulky undershirt.
Still, there wasn’t much I could do.
Dressed appropriately for my current situation, wondering how Dec had managed to get a custom Kevlar vest for me in such a short space of time, I headed on out.
I was about to go shoppingPretty Womanstyle, except I’d be buying things that fed my soul and not the capitalist machine.
And I couldn’t fucking wait.
* * *
DECLAN
“What didhe want to talk to you about?”
I gave Brennan the side-eye. “Caroline Dunbar.”
Bren grunted. “Fucking bitch.”
She was that. One hundred percent.
Always in our business, always sniffing around. Didn’t stop me from feeling guilty when I thought about why she was on this goddamn crusade of hers.
Bren, like always, was a mind reader. “Not your fault her father was a fucking snitch.”
I winced, hating to think back to that night.
I might have been inducted into the life at twelve, but Da had let me wait until I was eighteen to make my first kill. That he’d waited so long and had made me do that when I could be tried as an adult had always been proof of what Jimmy D had snitched over.
I’d never known how bad the dumbfuck’s betrayal had been, but that Da got me involved was clue enough.
“Never liked killing,” was all I said.
“Think I do?” Brennan arched a brow as he pulled up at a red light.
We were driving back from Da’s compound after another impromptu meeting. Last time it had been about Shay, about what role he could play in the Five Points, about Ma wanting to meet him, and Da wanting me to make that happen. As a result of that conversation, we hadn’t spoken since, because he wanted me to essentially Shanghai Aela, not take her wishes into consideration at all. What he didn’t seem to understand was that they weren’t just her wishes.
I loved my parents but they had a way of doing things that was decidedly not of this Millennium, but the last.
Still, when the old man summoned, we drifted to his door, and like he’d thought I might not comply, Brennan had shown up at my penthouse to give me a ride.
Like I couldn’t drive my fucking self.
“Why do we put up with this crap?” I muttered. “Dealing with Da, letting him treat us like we’re soldiers first, sons second?”
“It’s all we know.” He twisted his wrist, the one that was weak, that popped with the move. The one he kept on breaking because Da had used that as his ‘punishment wrist’.
I’d seen the way Da did that and had learned my lesson. Eoghan had as well.