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“Hey, that sophomore had you for a bit, Mick.”
My best friend laughed, leaning back on his hands, his legs stretched in front of him. “Yeah, trouble was she had about four other guys, too.”
I took a sip of the whiskey, recalling Mick’s short high school tryst. She’d been his date to the prom and wound up going home with another senior. When I’d gone over the next afternoon with a string of jokes prepared, he had clocked me in the jaw before I got through the first one.
“You’ve been different, you know,” Mick said, pulling me from my reverie. My childhood didn’t have a lot of good memories. In fact, the few that I had were with my brothers and Mick. Maybe one or two with Shannon. She had never let me take myself too seriously. “You’ve been a lot easier to work for since Emma came around. Until—”
“Until we found Connor hanging from that rope,” I finished, casting him a glare.
“Yeah.” Mick scuffed the toe of one boot with the other. “Until that.”
I took another drink and leaned against the cement wall, hitting my head against it. “You know what kills me?”
It was a poor choice of words, but I had to get this out to someone. Kieran wouldn’t understand. Hell, Mick might not either, but he wouldn’t judge. This had been haunting me for weeks, the image always at the back of my mind.
“What’s that?” Mick prodded, sliding the bottle from my loose grip.
“Every time I see Connor hanging from those rafters, my mind strays to Emma,” I admitted, allowing shame to cloud my chest.
“How so?”
“It’s this rage, right? I’ve been angry for as long as I can remember. Frank always said the O’Connell blood ran hot. But mine is constantly at the risk of boiling over. It’s like my foundations are cracked.”
“Your foundations are cracked. Time to patch them up.”
The words were accompanied by a blurry image of a dying fire and the smell of fermented rose perfume. What the hell? I rocked my head back and forth, shaking it clear as Mick waited for me to continue.
“I see my older brother dead and I feel red.” I powered through, my voice raw with emotion. “Then I see Emma hanging from those rafters and all I feel is darkness. A black hole where I cease to exist. If she ever went missing, fuck… I’d burn cities to the ground to get her back. She didn’t choose this life, Mick.”
“No,” he agreed, eyeing me with caution. He rested his elbows on bent knees, the half-empty bottle dangling from his fingertips. “But she chose you. And everything that comes with you.”
I rolled my eyes, my temples pounding with a migraine. “She doesn’t know everything that comes with me.”
“Don’t you think you should tell her? Lay your cards on the table? She deserves as much, Jackie.”
No, Emma deserved more than the remnants of my tattered soul, but I couldn’t let her go. I was more selfish now than when we had met. At the thought of her slipping through my fingers, my heart began to race, unease latching onto my bones. I needed to see her. Like, right fucking now.
“Did Emma say she was going home?” I asked, rising from the bench. I grabbed my empty pistol from the floor beside Mick, tucking it into the back of my jeans. Offering my first lieutenant a hand, I helped him to his feet as he answered.
“Nah, she was going to a pool party in Midtown.”
The fuck? Emma wasn’t a party girl.
“Where in Midtown?” I shoved through the door, pounding up the basement stairs.
Mick was hot on my tail. “Syndicate Tower. I figured you knew about it. She said it’s just a bunch of kids from Columbia.”
I stopped walking and turned toward Mick, putting everything together. Emma was pissed at me. I hadn’t been the nicest guy to be around. That was why she was going to a party with…what the hell was his name? Jamie, right.
His background check had unearthed nothing of value. No arrest record, nothing to cover up. He was a good, boring kid. And he was currently being used by my girlfriend as payback for neglect.
I clapped Mick on the shoulder, jogging out of his office. “Have Eoghan meet me there in fifteen.”
“Don’t fuck it up, boss!” Mick hollered.
Chapter Nineteen
Emma
