Colour Series Box Set (47 page)

Now after eighteen years I am home, no Dr Janet, no medication and a plan to end every single person that shares my filthy dirty criminal blood. I am here to take what is mine.

There is madness in me again and I need to set it free.

DEATH FOLLOWS ME LIKE A SHADOW creeping silently after me, tethered to my blackened soul. I am cursed to carry it with me everywhere I go. It is never far away from me, and I am perfectly happy with that. The dark shadow of death keeps me alive in this rotten fucking world.

I am Doctor Shannon O’Leary, and I inherited my father’s medical practice. I inherited all his problems, debts and patients.

I inherited the fucking mob.

I am the mob doctor; I spend my life sewing closed bullet wounds and bandaging stabbing victims. I fix the thugs who crash their cars while chasing other thugs, and I don’t have a choice I get to do it all because my father did it before me.  I work for them; I keep their secrets, and I fix their problems and in return they keep my secrets. My dreams were all dashed when my father died. It wasn’t fair, Cassie my sister was supposed to do this, this was her job she was the eldest but Rowan killed her. The one person she loved slaughtered her. I won’t love anyone so that they cannot ever kill me the same way. A broken heart is possibly the worst way to die; it’s slow and painful and utterly brutal in its silent suffocation. Torturous and cruel to the very end. Cassie was dead long before she fell to her death. She died because Rowan didn’t love her back. Love cannot be felt in only one heart, if it is the heart will shatter and break. Unrequited love is a death sentence.

I was eighteen the year Cassie ‘jumped’ out of the building where I lived with my parents. Dad’s dingy surgery of horrors was on the ground floor, and we lived in the two stories above that. I was home; I heard a thud and a crack as her body hit the ground, the screams of the people who saw it sliced through the evening air like knives filleting the flesh off my life. The image is painted in my mind forever as I looked down from my window to see her in a crimson pool of her blood glowing in the light from the street lamp like she was already an angel. A red halo of death surrounded her, her red hair mixed with the blood in a puddle of eternal sadness. Her glassy eyes open wide staring up at the heavens above her. The rain began fall from the sky washing it all away. The night she died so did any hope of me ever having my own life from that day onwards I was groomed to do this job, and I hate it. I know the truth of that night; it hides in me, a little voice that talks to me when my conscience rears its ugly head. A voice that says she didn’t jump all on her own. The voice that knows there was a monster in her room that pushed over that window ledge. A jealous dark shadow that healed her broken heart by killing her.

I have a funeral to attend, yet another one. My boss; Connor O’Reilly is dead, murdered, chopped up and posted to his family. Leaving his asshole son Neil in charge of their empire, and I mean empire; their business is a worldwide web of drugs ammunition and more recently human trafficking. I have been summoned by Satan’s spawn to meet with him today; no doubt he is just trying to show the world he is the boss now. I will get the “nothing is going to change” speech. I didn’t expect it to change; the O’Reilly’s own me that’s how it will always be. I just have a new boss pulling the strings now, one who doesn’t think I deserve to breathe because I am a woman in a man’s job. One who knows all my dirty secrets and keeps them safe. One who is responsible for what I have become. One who watched as my father allowed me to become a monster. As my soul was ripped out and replaced with the grey haze of madness. My body was broken, and my innocence stolen. Neil knows everything about who I am and how I became this way; he held me down and helped them make a monster. I was only fourteen. Later he found me in my safe place and broke me just a little more for fun.

I have heard rumours amongst the men that his brother, well half-brother Callum has returned. I remember Callum as a youngster he was always around with Cassie and Rowan. He left when Rowan ran away to Africa somewhere. I wonder why they brought him home now; the old man hated him. He was very vocal of his loathing for the Spillane blood that coursed through Callum’s veins that he was half devil. A vendetta that is as old as these families. I remember the jealous shadow of him leaving my sister's room after the screams of my mother drew me away from the window the night Cassie died. He was always just a shadow, now he is really here.

It was my father’s misguided dealings with a Spillane that made the O’Reilly’s use me as the currency to pay his debt. He watched them do it with a smile on his face like I was nothing to him. I hated my father and the air he breathed after that. I saw who lay beneath that smile, and he scared me. He was no longer my daddy -- he was a cruel demon.

The thought of a meeting with Neil has my skin crawling before I even leave home, he is as shady as you get in this world, and it’s a pretty dark world. I have become one of the many shadows that hide in the crevices of it. The world where dark things happen and darker people ignore them every day.

I dress in my unofficial uniform of a pencil skirt, button down shirt and heeled pumps. I snag my hair up into a ponytail, not wanting it to get in the way while I work today. I put on a little makeup and grab my umbrella and handbag on the way out of the door. It’s not raining for a change, so I decide to walk the three blocks to the jewellery shop where Neil’s headquarters hide in plain sight. I have no doubt he will move further downtown to his father’s old office soon. He is after all the new boss.

The streets are quiet, too late for the morning rush but before lunch hour, I am not fighting for space on the dirty sidewalk.

I enter the antiquated musty jewellery shop where even the shiny gold and blood diamonds seem dulled by the dirt of the family that own it. I am escorted by one of his guard dogs to the back office; I have been in here before – a few times. Once when I was called to sew Neil up after he got into a gun fight with an arms dealer from Russia. The two of them were both bleeding all over the floor and desk. I had to sew Neil up while one of his little puppies killed the big Russian right on the floor in front of us. In fact, he held his silenced gun to the man’s head in the exact spot I now stand waiting for Neil to acknowledge my presence. I side-step a little trying to avoid the memory of the dead man on the floor, his blood emptying into the carpet. I am not looking forward to working with Neil at all. Neil makes my skin crawl just looking at him; knowing I will be working with him has me feeling sick to my stomach. I don’t want to be close to him, I have avoided him whenever I can. Now I have no choice. My mind flashes back to fourteen-year-old me on the floor of my father’s surgery room my blood staining it.
Stop, I don’t want the memories in front of him, if he can act like it never happened, so can I.  

The office is stale with old smoke and sweaty men; I feel dirty just standing here as if the air alone will contaminate me with their filth. The thought, of having to come here more often, is even worse. I hope he moves to his father’s offices sooner rather than later; they are at least clean, and air conditioned. I am already contaminated by Neil’s disgusting presence in my life.

Neil is the exact opposite of his dishevelled office, clean-cut and well-dressed every day he always looks intimidating and powerful. His charming good looks and soft eyes give the illusion of a handsome gentleman not a dirty mobster with blood on his hands and ice in his veins.  Connor was the same; appearances were imperative to the old man; he may have been a career criminal, but he always looked the perfect gentleman. The illusion of safety and routine disguised his true nature. Neil’s personality is what needs the most help; he is a sullen, sulky man who is never quite satisfied with anything in life. He has a short temper and lashes out at the drop of a hat. I have had the pleasure of dealing with him on countless occasions, and he almost always acted like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum when something was not to his liking. How he is going to run this family, never mind the entire business is a mystery. Technically he is not the eldest son. Callum, who is the eldest, was from Connor’s first wife and was all but disowned because of it. He was half Spillane, a name that sends a chill down my spine. I have a sick feeling that things are not going to run as smoothly as they have in the past. I will be patching up, and sewing closed a lot more of these men in the near future, I can just tell. A sixth sense that death looms even closer to us than before runs through me. The whispers on the street are that there is someone out to get the O’Reilly’s. They already killed the old man and others will follow. A new vendetta is being born, and it will not end as quietly as the last. No one will walk away untouched; they took out the boss without even a whisper of a threat.

When Neil finally notices me standing in front of his desk he motions for me to sit in the dirty chair next to me. I cringe at the thought of what lurks on that stained grubby old chair, but I sit anyway, not wanting to piss him off intentionally.  I carefully cross my legs and set my bag down next to me on the revolting floor while I wait for Neil to speak to me. I am after all in his words “An annoying woman who could easily be replaced with a better man to do the job.” Asshole. He always acts like that night never happened as if he wasn’t there when they shattered me into pieces. He fucking held me down.

“Shannon, lovely to see you.” His condescending tone is not lost on me; I am just another plaything in his big-boy toy box. The idiotic smile on his face makes me want to vomit.

“Likewise, Neil, to what do I owe the honour of being summoned to your office so early in the day?” I just want to get to the point and get out of here; I cannot stand this man and being here is just bringing out the worst in me. Every second in his company has me wanting to slap him in the face, or worse. I would love to kill him – slowly.

He is going to want something from me, that shit eating grin on his face tells me so. What is it this time?

“Well, I need to discuss something with you Shannon, I mean Doctor Shannon, sorry.” He knows it irritates when he doesn’t acknowledge the fact that I am actually a doctor, not one of his well- trained little puppy dogs.  I am losing my patience now, and I have a hard time controlling myself. If he were not the boss, if his father were still here I would simply be rude. Now that he is in charge I know that’s no longer an option, I have to be nice, or he will make me disappear or worse tell the world my secrets.

“Start discussing Neil, I have other things to do today.” I start tapping my foot waiting for him to get on with it already. Inside fears gnaws at me, making me weaker by the second.

“Well, Doctor Shannon, I am sure you have heard of my father’s passing and that I am now in charge of the business and the family.” I nod I can see he is enjoying his newfound position of power a little too much. He sits straighter than he did before, his smug smile is bigger, and his ego is so inflated it’s filling the whole room. Neil was always a power hungry idiot but useless at wielding any power once he had it. He will fail.

“Well, I am going to need your help with a family matter, you see, my brother Callum has returned from Africa and I need for him to stay here. Lay some roots, so he cannot just run away. You see I need him to keep this business running.”

I don’t understand how this fits with my being their doctor, what am supposed to do? “I am not sure you know what a doctor does Neil?” I try to hide my sarcasm, but it leaks out with every word I speak to my nemesis. I can see his childish rage building in the way his body language changes and his relaxed suave movements become stiff and tense.

“I still need your medical services pretty little Doctor Shannon make no mistake you still work for me; I own you. However, this is a bit more personal. You see my brother Callum hates it here. I know we haven’t even buried Pops yet, and he is itching to return to his beloved Cape Town. You are going to make him stay; you are going to make him love you. Do you understand what I need from you?” His face is dead-pan no hint of emotion or feeling now, now he is issuing an order.