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THIRTEEN
“Mrder—all I need is u.”
—Jarod Kintz
LIAM
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I said to them as I stared at the stacks upon stacks of boxes rising to the ceiling of my library.
“Your grandfather never liked computers.” Sedric snickered as the men brought more of the shit in. At this rate, we were going to be buried alive.
“He did this to fuck with me. The bastard knew that I was going to come after his shit eventually.” I could hear the old fuck laughing beyond the grave. I would have thrown him in the river, but mother thought it would be best to at least show some sort of respect to our dearly departed grandfather. His body would be buried in the local cemetery, forever separated from his beloved Ireland.
Neal, the giant that he was, dropped the last five boxes around my desk. “That’s all of it.”
“Out,” I snapped. Everyone but my father left quickly. They hated any paper that wasn’t cash.
“So you’re going to read through all of this alone?” Sedric asked, looking around at what was once a very beautiful green and gold study.
Grabbing one of the brown boxes, I made my way over to a chair.
“Until our favorite snake Aviela slithers out from whatever rock she’s hiding under, this is all I can do. Hopefully, this will lead to a shortcut in beheading her.” Aviela’s head rolling off her neck would be worth the oncoming paper-cuts.
“How’s Melody?” he asked, grabbing a box.
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do.” He cut me off. I hated when people cut me off. “You need help and you’re getting help. Now, how is your wife?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. “You mean the crazy homicidal woman you arranged for me to marry?”
The bastard snickered. “Yes, that woman, whom you’re madly in love with and overly protective of.”
“There is no such thing as an overly protective husband in the mafia,” I replied. “And the woman is driving me insane! She doesn’t listen to me at all.”
“My poor, poor son. Have you not learned? Women don’t listen, they talk. Listening is our job. In return, we get sex, children and food.” He laughed, making light of how chaotic up everything was.
“I’m listening! She’s just talking crazy! I swear sometimes I want to ring her pretty little neck.” Other times I just wanted to kiss her down to her…
Concentrate.
“Yes, they do that as well…she may be Bloody Melody, but she’s still a female, a pregnant female,” he stated.
I froze, staring at him. It had been three weeks since the accident and Mel still wasn’t showing. She was great, seeing as how neither of us were ready to tell the family. But apparently we weren’t careful enough. Mel was going to be pissed.
Maybe there was hope?
“Does mother know?”
“Everyone knows.”
Fuck me.
“Urgh—”
“Honestly, Liam, it’s been three weeks since she’s drank anything but tea and water? She demanded Neal wear new cologne last night at dinner. We aren’t brain dead, we can all connect the dots,” he said simply, as he pulled out a brown file.
“Great, you can all connect the bullet holes when she finds out,” I muttered under my breath; I didn’t even know why we had bothered to try and keep it from them.
“Liam,” he said seriously, “you’re going to keep her safe—both of them safe—but if you don’t relax, at this rate you’re to get gray hair or worse, lose it.”
I snorted. “When was the last time you saw a bald Callahan?”
“Liam…”
“I heard you, dad. I just need to believe you. None of this makes sense. Aviela makes no sense. If she wanted Mel dead, she would have killed her, but she didn’t. I don’t buy for a second that the woman has any type of maternal anything.” I paused, releasing a sigh. “Natasha’s family is gone. They took her body and left. These papers and the Briar are all we have and I just want to set fire to them both. Meanwhile, the very woman I’m killing myself for is yelling at drug runners and selling dope.” Brandy. My mind begged for it.
Rising to my feet and maneuvering around boxes, I grabbed the bottle at the far end of the room.
“What were you expecting her to do?”
“What would you expect a pregnant woman to do?” I snapped, drinking from the bottle. “I swear, she gets pregnant at the worst possible times. Just to kill me slowly.”
“Yep. She planned to get pregnant all on her own…”
“Whose side are you on?” I hissed, causing him to laugh. These were our “father-son” moments. He always knew how to get under my skin.
“And this is why the men call you the Mad Hatter.”
What the bloody fuck?
“They call me what?” I do not get a nickname. It’s Liam to family, Boss, Sir, and Ceann Na Conairte to every other motherfucker.
“You know, the Disney—”
“I know who the fuck it is!”
He laughed, making me want to rip his tongue from his month and staple it to the paper covered table.
He simply pointed at my face before flipping through some papers. “That, right there, and whatever you are thinking is the reason. Calm yourself down, I think I found something.”
Breathing through my nose, I grabbed the sheet of paper he was staring at. But I didn’t see anything worth the effort.
“It’s just a contract stating you and Natasha’s mother were to get married.” Thankfully, God’s sense of humor wasn’t that cruel. If that woman were my mother, I would have lost it a long time ago.
Sedric grabbed the bottle from me and pointed to the witness signature right next to my grandfather’s.
Jesus why?
MELODY
“Liam is going to kill me,” Declan stated for hundredth time as he drove.
“Say that one more time and he won’t have to.” He was such a little bitch sometimes.
Luckily, he didn’t say anything else or I would have had to hurt him. Leaning into the seat, I ate my chocolate slowly as he drove us deeper into the cloud-covered city. I had to admit, there was something about downtown Chicago at night that made me grin. I enjoyed how beautiful it looked from afar, but close up, as you drove through the streets, you saw the thugs and suspicious alleys. At that, I couldn’t help but grin. Chicago was our city. Everyone walking the streets was our guest. They lived because of us and they died because of us.
I got a kick out of watching one runner check the street before dashing over to an awaiting car. Whether they knew it or not, they worked for us. They were working our streets. After all, this was our playground.
“This is it,” Declan said, as he pulled up in front of the club. There was no line or even a sign for that matter. Just one man dressed in black, smoking what was most likely my weed. He eyed our car carefully, and with envy; Morris’ Bentleys tended to have that effect on people.
Opening the glove compartment, I placed my chocolate inside before grabbing my gun with my right hand. My right hand was still a little stiff, but I sure as hell couldn’t work much with my left. Thankfully, I could still shoot a gun. Probably not as well as I could before, but well enough to get my point across.
