AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jillian bends down to pull up the closed metal door, and I stop her.
“New rule, sparkles. You don’t bend down for anything when I’m around except to get fucked or to suck my cock.”
“Maybe I want to get fucked.” She smiles, shaking her adorable plump arse at me.
“Do you think I won’t fuck you right here in your driveway?” I strut toward her, and she backs up, her face reddened with horror. “I thought so.”
I bend down to lift the garage door and the smell of gasoline, dirt, and wet cement attack me at once. But it’s her dad’s treasure that chokes the breath out of me.
The car that strikes me with my most visceral memory…
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Eoghan- Age 21
Shouting erupted from Da’s office in Divona. There were two entrances to that office. An ornate door from the narrow hallway off the kitchen and a single French door that led to the rear courtyard.
It was rumored that people who met with Da knew where they stood depending on which door they came through. If they entered from the courtyard, Da’s respect and trust wasn’t absolute. But if they entered from the hallway, that signified Da’s faith in them. Because being let into our house where my mother, my sister, and much younger brothers roamed was equivalent to an invitation from the fucking White House.
Only better, because my da was the Irish King of Astoria, and kings ruled in perpetuity.
I’d spent my spring break from Columbia University in Astoria that year while other guys my age went to Florida or Vegas. My father was rich as sin, and shelled out tons of cash for all our expensive educations, but didn’t want us mingling with outsiders.
Moments earlier, that last Sunday of my vacation, with Ma’s mountain of a pot roast steaming from the dinner table, one of Da’s guards had whispered to him. Seconds later, he, Kieran, and Lachlan followed Da into his office.
Riordan didn’t show up for Sunday dinner. As usual. Years back, he always hung out a few blocks away with Craig Nolan. I’d often wondered if he was secretly banging Craig’s daughter, Priscilla. But Riordan had a genius IQ and Craig Nolan was also one of Da’s best hitmen.
Do the math.
Then Priscilla disappeared and Craig died. Riordan kept to himself and hardly ever smiled, took his assignments from Da, but he’d been closed off and bitter. He was destined to be Kieran’s underboss when Da retired. Before that happened, Riordan was just the quintessential spare to Da’s precious heir, Kieran.
When I heard the shouting, I tossed my napkin and went after them, pissed from being left out of a clearly important meeting. I always knew after college, I’d work for my father, and preferred a high-level spot with Lachlan on his death squad.
Though not invited, I opened the office door and saw Da’s second-in-command down on the floor, beating a man under him senseless. I wasn’t jarred or sickened. I’d seen blood, broken bones, knife wounds, and guts spilling out from a bullet to the stomach. It stopped bothering me long ago.
Kieran’s green-eyed gaze from the shadowed corner hammered into mine. He took several strides toward me and pushed me out the office door. “This doesn’t concern you. Go back to school.”
“What’s going on?” I asked Kieran, but the door slammed in my face.
I saw a lot of crazy beatings and torture at our black site, but Da rarely spilled blood in the house. Something serious happened.
Ma took the twins, Darragh and Cormac, to her Sunday evening bible study group. With just one of the many housekeepers lingering to do dishes and clean up the dining room, I hiked through the kitchen and headed for the front door.
Da’s second stalked out to the courtyard and dumped the man he beat to a wheezing pulp into the back seat of his car and drove off.
A minute later, Lachlan strut out the same door and got into his car. With no sign of my da or Kieran leaving his office, I dove in front of Lachlan’s vintage Viper. He screeched to a halt, nearly hitting me.
“What the fuck?” he yelled out the driver’s side window, warm breath steaming off his lips against the cold.
The bitter chill crawled all over me, and I’d left the house without my jacket. I rushed to the passenger side and cursed at the locked door. “Open up, Lachlan.”
He rolled down the window. “I have to get to Boston.”
“Boston?” I asked, like that was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. Then a knot formed in my chest. “Balor?”
“Aye,” Lachlan said, cinching his eyebrows.
“What happened?” I asked about my brother, a freshman at MIT.
