All of the Lights (31 page)

He swipes across his screen to end the call and then his grey eyes slide to mine. Jack clears his throat and a little tremor hums in my stomach at the concern and apology in his eyes. It's not an expression I'm used to seeing there and when he rubs his mouth with one hand, giving me a clear view of the
caim
tattoo on his wrist, I look away almost instantaneously.

"So, while we've got some time," Jack starts a little unsteadily. "I wanted to talk to you about something. I know Benn's not here, but I figured he'll go along with whatever you think, right?"

My eyes roll up to the ceiling even though he's pretty much nailed it on the head. "I guess."

He shoots me a crooked grin and my heart stutters uneasily in my chest. "Anyway, I think I got a way to get closer to the Gianottis, if Brennan can get the meeting set up." He catches my frown and jumps to explain. "They've been sending people in to watch my fights at the bar, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone, yah know? They want a fight and we need to get some eyes on them to figure out how to connect them to what happened that night."

My mind is running on all cylinders now, trying to look at this from every angle. And from every angle, this just seems like a terrible idea.

"Isn't that dangerous? I mean, what if they find out it's a set up?"

Jack just shrugs. "It's not a set up if there's an actual fight. I don't care about who their guy is or how good they think he is. I'll beat him. And then we'll get one step closer to figuring all this out."

"And how do you plan on making that happen?" I can't hide the disbelief in my voice.

"I don't know. I guess we'll just have to figure it out as we go along. Besides, I can stretch it out for as long as I want. Make it seem like I need more convincing, maybe watch their guy fight a couple times before I agree to anything. Guys like the Gianotti brothers are all the same—when they want something, they're willing to play the game."

"I don't know," I chew on my bottom lip in thought. "I just don't..."

My voice trails off as my mind finishes the rest of that sentence:
I just don't want you to get hurt.

"You got a better idea?" He just lifts a shoulder. "'Cause I don't. Let's face it, this—" he gestures toward the street with one hand, "isn't getting us anywhere. We're probably gonna get caught before we see anything we can use and there are only so many times we can follow the guy around before he catches us in the act. I don't think any of us want to be around when that happens."

"I don't know how many more times I can show up at his office before he starts to get suspicious either, if he isn't already," I sigh in agreement.

Jack nods tightly and he pushes a hand through his dark hair. "Let's play it by ear tomorrow. See what happens."

"Right," I swallow hard. We've only been tailing the mayor for a week and already, we're hitting a brick wall that I'm terrified will never budge. "Maybe if Benn and I can get close enough...do you think I might be able to recognize one of them?"

His eyes narrow into tight slits, but he keeps his gaze level with the street. I know what he's thinking: Sean saw one of the Gianottis the night of my attack, but that's all we have to go on. Even if I were to recognize one of them as my actual attacker, we both know something like that might never hold up in court. After all, the Gianottis are all over the press on a weekly basis. There's always a headline about them somewhere, so a judge might not be keen on believing that night was the only time I'd ever seen them. Not to mention that it's been seven years and my memory of that night, even when it actually happened, is murky at best.

We'll need more than just that if Sean even has a prayer of getting out of prison.

Thankfully, though, Jack doesn't say any of that out loud.

And then my phone buzzes again with yet another text from Lucy:
Hello?? What about tonite??

I push out a deep breath, readying to tell her what she wants to hear, but Jack's voice stops me.

"Everything okay?"

"It's fine," I tell him breezily, but I still can't make myself type out a reply. "It's just my sister."

"Zero?" he cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Yeah," I laugh. "Zero. She wants me to close the store for her tonight."

Now his eyebrows dip into a frown. "I thought you said today's your day off."

"It is," I shrug.

"So why is she asking yah to work for her? That seems like a pretty shitty thing to do."

I guess I really have no one to blame for this but myself. It's not like I've never rolled over for her before and in doing that, I've only trained her into thinking it's okay to treat me that way, that I don't really care, that I'll bend to whatever she wants because that's the way it's always been.

"Is she sick or something?"

"Nope," I blow out a laugh and shake my head in spite of myself. If she was sick, that would be a plausible reason to ask me to come in. If she was offering to take one of my closing shifts in exchange for hers, that would be a fair trade. But she isn't. And she never will unless I start doing something about it.

So I text back:
Can you close for me tomorrow then?

Asking her to close on
her
night off is the true test and she takes her sweet time in replying.

Sorry. I can't. I have plans tomorrow night.

Sure she does. Just like every night. There's still another out for her too: she could've offered to take a different night for me, but she didn't. And just as I'm about to tell her no, old habits kick into gear and I hesitate.

"It's her friend's birthday," I reason out loud and I can see Jack shaking his head out of the corner of my eye.

"So what? She had to have known her friend would want to go out for her birthday sooner than right now. When does your store close anyway?"

"Nine," I mumble.

Jack's eyebrows lift high into his forehead. "What? She can't meet her friends out after that?"

"I don't know," I shrug. "They're probably going out for dinner or something like that too."

"So what?"

It's a fair question and even in the face of his rightful, fair judgment, I still can't bring myself to tell her no. If I had plans other than Netflix and hanging out with Freya tonight, maybe I'd feel better about it. But that sick knot twists in my stomach and I just can't do it.

Lucy texts back:
Thanks!! You're the best big sister ever!!

That knot just twists even tighter. We're sisters. I have to keep telling myself that. Blood doesn't matter when it comes to our relationship. Besides, the number of people I can consider true family has really dwindled down over the past week. The last thing I want to do is push her away.

"Aw, come on," Jack murmurs next to me and his hands tighten around the steering wheel again. "Tell her you're coming in later tomorrow then."

"What? I can't do that."

"Yes, you can," he nods to my phone. "It's only fair, Rae."

There's something about the way he says my name that throws me completely off-balance. It's softer somehow. Quieter. He's called me by my first name before, but this time I feel it all the way to the tips of my toes.

And then there's the other piece of this: he's right. He's completely and totally right. I can't let Lucy walk over me anymore than I can let the mayor continue to wreak havoc over my life and my emotions. She may still be my sister, but we need to redraw the lines of our relationship.

So my fingers fly over my keyboard and then I lift up the text for Jack to see before I hit send:
I'm going to come in a few hours later tomorrow then. If I close tonight, you'll have to pay me overtime tomorrow and I know you can't afford that right now.

Jack's eyebrows lift and his lips pull apart in an impressed nod.

Lucy texts back a few moments later:
Okay. I guess that makes sense.

"Of course it does," Jack shakes his head when I show him her response. "It's called good business sense."

"Yeah," I laugh. "I wish she had some of that."

"Why does she own a business then?"

I just shake my head. "Your guess is as good as mine."

A heavy sigh works its way from my lungs as I stare out the passenger side window. My mind just can't help itself, ever the masochistic bitch that it is, and I wonder about the plans Jack has with Brennan tonight. I bet they're going to spend the whole night eating greasy food, drinking beer, and watching a Sox game, probably laughing the whole time and having fun together. I can't remember the last time I had fun with my sister, let alone the last time we did something together just because we wanted to spend time with each other.

It doesn't have to be that way. I could take the first step and I don't know, go out for coffee, shopping, or something that would be just the two of us, but I just don't know how to have a normal relationship with her that doesn't include guilt or some kind of manipulation from the mayor.

My thoughts drift to Brennan and Sean. What would it be like to really know them? To really be part of their lives? I'd like to believe things could be different with them, even if that's just wishful thinking. It's already different with Sean—when he found out who I was, he didn't blame me. Instead, he wanted to know me, he wanted to make sure I was alright, even if I didn't know he was there. I don't know much about relationships between brothers and sisters, but I feel like Sean has already been the best big brother a girl could ask for.

And then the words just tumble out of me before I can stop them: "Hey, Jack?"

He turns to me and his eyes soften. "Yeah?"

"Can you tell me something about Sean?"

"Like what?" he frowns.

"I don't know," I lift a shoulder as my gaze drifts back to the street. "Something most people don't know about him. Something funny?"

He nods carefully and scratches underneath the dark scruff on his chin in thought. "Something funny, huh?"

My lips curve up in a smile as I watch him mull it over. His head tilts up to the ceiling and he squints a little before he snaps his fingers.

"Ah! I know," he turns to me with a wide grin. "Most people know Sean is a die-hard Pats fan. I think he'd drop on his knees and bow if he ever saw Brady in person if yah know what I mean. Anyway, that's not the point," he waves a hand in the air and I can feel my smile deepening the longer he talks. "He gets wicked nervous during the games. I'm talkin' pacing around the house, up and down the stairs, in and out of every room...that sort of thing, yah know?"

He waits for me to nod before continuing. "Well, eventually, the pacing stopped working, so he had to find other ways to, uh, expend his nervous energy, as Ma called it." If he sees me bristle at the mention of his mom, he doesn't show it. "So it was exercise. Push-ups, sit-ups, you name it. He'd run in place. Run up and down the stairs between commercial breaks. Sometimes he'd even take a few laps around the block during halftime."

"Wow," I lift an eyebrow and bite down on my bottom lip to hide a laugh. "That's some serious dedication."

"Yeah," Jack's grey eyes flash with mischief and I know we're about to get to the good part now. "So about ten years ago, Sean's all amped-up during the championship game and he's on the stairs, running up and down like nobody's business. You know, now that I think about it, it's even worse because the Pats were up the whole game. The Steelers didn't have a chance in hell of winning, but there's Sean, freaking out over every little play." He skates his hand up in the air to demonstrate. "Up the stairs, down the stairs. It was mad crazy. So we're all in the living room, watching the game on the couch like normal people, and Brady gets intercepted. We're freaking out—yelling and screaming and swearing up a storm—and then all of a sudden, we hear a thud. And then another. And another. And then this wicked loud crash. We all go running and there's Sean, all crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs, moaning and crying on the floor."

My shoulders are shaking with laughter now and Jack isn't far behind.

"Ma's freaking out because her baby's hurt," he laughs. "And Sean is still hollering and crying and then we have to decide: do we take him to the emergency room or do we finish watchin' the game?"

"Oh no," I cover my mouth with my hand. "You finished watching the game?"

"We left it up to Sean," he shrugs with a grin. "What? It was the division championship! There was still 20 minutes left and no one wanted to watch it on a tiny TV in the ER. So we gave him some ice, held him down on the couch so he couldn't get up, and then we took him to the ER after the game was over. The idiot tripped right at the top of the stairs when he heard us yelling and hit every step on the way down. Broke his arm in three places."

"Oh God," my shoulders are trembling with laughter now and I can't stop it.

"He had to get one of those metal rods put in," Jack chuckles and shakes his head at the memory. "At least we covered for him and told everybody he fell off the roof taking down Ma's Christmas lights."

I lift an eyebrow. "And that's better than admitting he fell down the stairs watching a Pats game?"

"It is in my neighborhood. He never would've lived that one down if anyone knew what really happened."