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The Don wanted me to marry her, and I had a feeling I understood why.
He wanted to embarrass the Healy family. And he wanted to have one more piece of leverage over me.
The fucking bastards. All of them, bastards. I closed my eyes and thought of Tara on the balcony, moving gracefully through her yoga routine, her body sweating and lean and perfect.
8
Tara
None of this made any sense.
I was nobody. I was nothing. My father was a real piece of shit, and clearly connected at the highest level to some very bad people, but that didn’t mean I mattered at all. He was dead and I had nothing to do with the Healy family or with the Valentino family.
And yet I was thrown into the middle of their war.
I was pawn, a little plaything, and I knew it. The only person who seemed at all conflicted about using me was Ewan, and he was my captor.
It was fucked up beyond measure. But I kept thinking about the way he looked at me while I did yoga. I noticed him staring, and at first it made me self-conscious, but I quickly got over it and started to enjoy the attention. It was sick, I realized that, and yet that sickness made it even more exciting.
I wanted to tempt my captor. I wanted him to look at my body.
At night, I wrapped myself in strange sheets, and dreamed about running away. And in the morning, I knew I didn’t have the courage to go through with it. I loathed myself for that.
Ewan came out from his bedroom in a dark suit one morning after I finished showering. His hair was combed back and although he didn’t wear a tie, he looked incredible with that top button undone, and that jacket clinging to his muscular shoulders.
“Where are you going, looking like that?” I asked, sipping strong black coffee. I didn’t normally drink it black, but he never had any milk, and I got tired of asking for it.
“I’ve got some errands to run,” he said, and I caught sight of a gun tucked into his waistband. “Stay here for a while. I’ll be back later.”
I leaned back against the counter and thought about the day ahead of me, stuck inside the apartment with nothing to do, and a whole family of Irish thugs on the hunt. They could show up at any moment and pull me away, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. I shook my head and put my mug down.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
His jaw clenched and he shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
“Ewan,” I said. “You want to leave me here alone, when the Healy family could show up at any second?”
He let out a soft grunt and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. Even when he tried to put himself together, he managed to somehow make himself look slightly disheveled. But that worked for him—the muscles, the tattoos, the straight jaw and small nose and bright eyes. He was handsome enough to pull off the messy look, and I liked it better when he had a little grit about him.
“They wouldn’t dare,” he said. “Colm wants you, but not enough to piss me off.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, gesturing toward where the letter was still left lying on the counter. “He’s willing to pay for me. Maybe he’s willing to break in here when you’re distracted and steal me away.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” he asked. “Then you wouldn’t have to get married.”
I grimaced slightly and looked down at my feet. He was right about that, but I didn’t know what the Healy family would be like, or what they’d make me do. I knew my father sold them girls, and maybe that’s what Colm wanted me for. I could imagine him putting me in one of those sad little massage parlors and putting me to work, selling me to men, letting them use my body up until there was nothing left.
Ewan wasn’t going to do that. He was the devil I knew, and so far, he hadn’t hurt me at all.
“Bring me with you,” I said softly. “Don’t leave me here.”
He let out a frustrated sigh and turned to the door. “Come on then,” he said. “But keep your mouth shut, all right?”
“Of course,” I said, following him out into the hall. I wore yoga pants and running shoes and a zip-up sweatshirt, but that didn’t seem to matter. “What are we doing? Picking up the Don’s dry cleaning?”
He smiled slightly then took my wrist, pulling me along behind him. “Something like that,” he said.
We drove across town in silence. I didn’t ask where we were going, and he didn’t say. I couldn’t understand what route he was taking, or where our final destination would be. He made random turns, cut across Old City to the river, then down south to the stadiums, then all the way up Broad, through Rittenhouse, up to the Parkway, down Kelly Drive, then back across West Philly and into North Philly. I was insanely lost by the time he pulled up outside of a dilapidated row home bordered by two overgrown, trash-filled empty lots.
