CROW (Boston Underworld Book 1)

CROW

Boston Underworld #1

A. Zavarelli

Crow
© 2016 A. Zavarelli

Cover Design by MNSArtStudio

Cover Photograph © 2016 TheArtOfPhoto

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Playlist:

LL Cool J Mama Said Knock You Out

Living Dead Girl Rob Zombie

Sweet Dreams Marilyn Manson

Voodoo Godsmack

Crazy Bitch Buckcherry

Bad Girlfriend Theory of a Deadman

Burning Desire Lana Del Ray

Shinedown The Crow and the Butterfly

Galway Girl Steve Earle

Butterfly Crazy Town

Time is Running Out Muse

Kiss My Irish Ass Flogging Molly

I’m Shipping Up to Boston Dropkick Murphys

Prologue

Mackenzie

I
hate cops.

I really, really do. Especially around here. You never know whose payroll they’re actually on. Dealing with them over the last six months has done nothing to improve my image of them.

Fucking cops.

They won’t give me the time of day. When I filed the missing person’s report, they barely even glanced at the details. Follow ups? Nonexistent. Now every time they see me at the station they’re rolling their frigging eyes. They don’t give two shits about some missing woman with a questionable reputation. Just like thousands of others in this country, she’s been sucked into a black hole never to be seen or heard from again. Their families and friends are left at the mercy of a system that divvies up investigative hours based on who looks the prettiest on print or who shouts the loudest to the media. Talia has nobody shouting for her. Only me. And that means it’s up to me
to find out what happened to her.

It was the same story with my dad. Forget that he was brutally murdered. He deserved it because he was a nobody boxer fighting in the underground. He associated with bad people, and therefore he got his just penance. That’s how the cops deal with things in this city. That’s how they dealt with my father’s death and the thirteen-year-old kid he left behind. Sweep it under the rug and file it away under cases that actually matter.

I was a kid then, so I had no say. But I’m all grown up now- at the ripe old age of twenty-two- and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this happen again. The last nine years have forged a woman with a heart of steel. I’m not backing down this time. Whatever it takes to find her, I will do it. This is more personal to me than it’ll ever be to any of these office monkeys.

Which is why I’m now sitting in said office of some poor schlep who works for the FBI. Really, all these robots are just overpaid cops too. Still, I feel bad for this lady sitting across from me. Agent Cameron is her name- as evidenced by the name plate and various other propaganda strewn across her desk. There are always clues about people’s inner workings if you look close enough. And what Ms. Cameron’s office tells me about her is that she wants to feel important. She’s probably dedicated her best years to the job. But she’s stuck in an office shuffling papers and that frigging nameplate is all she has to show for her career.

The lines of bitterness are etched into her overtired face. She doesn’t look like she’s had a day of fun in her whole life. But then again, have I? Maybe that’s what bothers me about her. I see a bit of myself reflected in her eyes. A desolate future of nothingness and only my cats to go home to at the end of the day.

I imagine this woman has plenty of them. Her lackluster red hair is still stuck in the style of the eighties, and her gray suit does absolutely nothing for her pale complexion. She pushes her glasses up the ridge of her nose and takes a sip from a mug that proclaims she’s been to Disneyland. At least she has that going for her, I guess.

“Look, uhm…” She glances down at the paperwork before her to find my name. The same name I’ve already told her twice.

“Mackenzie,” I repeat.

“Yes, Mackenzie.” She straightens her posture and sighs. “I understand your frustrations. Really, I do. I know it might not seem like it, but the investigation is still ongoing. I can promise you, it’s being handled.”

Anger boils inside of me like lava, threatening to spill over and destroy everything around me at any moment. I swear these assholes are pre-programmed to say the same thing on repeat. And I’m so sick of this same old song and dance. All my life they’ve been spoon-feeding me this bullshit. Foster carers, social workers, police, and everyone else telling me they know what’s best. I’ve been ping ponged around the system so much I barely have the energy to fight it anymore.

That’s what they want. They want me to go back home and give up. They assume that eventually, as the months roll by and turn into years, the pain will fade and I’ll just forget she ever existed. But that isn’t going to happen. I won’t give up on her, ever.

I take a deep breath and shove the worn photograph across the desk. A four-by-five snapshot of a rare candid moment. Talia is smiling and glancing over her shoulder with the purest eyes you’ve ever seen. She’s never been much of a smiler, honestly. Too many demons. But I caught this one on film, and it’s something I’ve always treasured. I want them to know she was a real person, with real feelings. Plus, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my research, it’s that the news outlets love to talk about the girls with a pretty smile.

“Just look at her face,” I plead. “Look at this girl. Not her file number, but her face. She’s not a street walker, or a call girl, or whatever the hell it is you think that makes her less important. She doesn’t do drugs, and she isn’t a criminal. Her name is Talia Parker.”

My lip trembles, but I go on. I’m not a crier. If my dad were here, he’d be telling me to get my shit together. Emotions are a luxury that Wilder’s can’t afford. That philosophy bled into our relationship too, staining or strengthening it, depending on how you look at it. He told me not to cry, so I didn’t. He told me not to care about anyone, so I didn’t. I squashed it all down and locked it up deep inside of me. Truthfully, I feel too much. But you wouldn’t know that about me. Nobody does.

Because I’m always in control.

The way Agent Cameron’s looking at me right now though, you’d think I was hysterical. I don’t care what she thinks. I just need to get through to her.

“We grew up together in foster care.” A strangled laugh bursts from my chest. “I know it’s such a cliché, right?”

My voice is maniacal now, as are Agent Cameron’s eyes as she watches me come unhinged. I forge on anyhow.

“If you read her file, then you know. You know she’s already slipped through the cracks once. Please…”

To her credit, Agent Cameron does actually look at Talia’s face. She takes it all in, for at least a good minute. It makes me feel better, this one small act of kindness. Most of the others couldn’t even do that much.

“She’s a very pretty girl.” Agent Cameron clears her throat and pushes the photo back towards me. “And if we find anything else, I promise you we’ll be in touch, Miss Wilder.”

The walls are closing in on me. Everything is fading, shrinking, condensing. I want to scream. To punch something. To act like a complete lunatic. I want to tear this lame office apart and stomp her nameplate into the floor.

Instead, I take another breath. That isn’t going to help my case.

“What about the evidence I brought you?” I demand.

Agent Cameron frowns and shuffles through Talia’s bank statements and all of the information I could gather so far, which isn’t a whole helluva lot. I’m grasping at straws. I know that.

“This isn’t exactly evidence,” she says. “All this proves was that she made cash deposits into her bank account every two weeks. Without a check, we have no way to trace who that money was from.”

“It’s from them.” I ball my hands into fists. “I can promise you.”

Her lips flatten, and I know she’s about to kick me out any minute.

“What about the other girls?” I press. “Don’t you think it’s strange that the missing person cases in this area have spiked over the last year? They’re all young, pretty girls. They have to be going somewhere.”

“I can assure you we have all of our best agents looking into it,” she says. “But at present there’s no connection for any of these girls to Slainte. Your friend is the only one who even had ties to the club, if what you say is true, and even so, there’s no evidence to that fact.”

“Send an agent in undercover,” I urge. “Then you’ll see. You’ll find out what’s really going on there.”

“We don’t have the resources for something like that,” she says. “And without any inkling of proof, our hands are tied.”

Proof.

That’s what it always comes down to. Of course they aren’t going to leave proof. They’re the fucking mob. What do these people expect, a giant neon sign that says we do underhand business dealings here? I’m sure the feds are already aware of it. Everybody in this city is. But that’s the problem. You never know which one of these assholes is on their team.

I tap my foot and dart my eyes around the office like a junkie. I hate these confines. These gray walls and the smell of recycled air. Proof. Where else can I get proof?

My eyes snap up to Agent Cameron’s, and I make my boldest suggestion yet.

“Send me in,” I say. “I’ll go undercover. No need to pay me. You can just liaise with me or whatever the hell you call it.”

She presses her lips together and the shutters come down over her eyes.

“We would never authorize anything like that Miss Wilder,” she says firmly. “So please don’t go getting any bright ideas.”

She grabs the requisite white business card she’s going to send me packing with and stands up. I follow, because it’s clear there’s no help to be found here.

“If you think of anything else that might help the case, you can call this number,” she offers.

I take the card and crumple it in my fist as I give her an icy smile.

“Thanks for your time,” I tell her.

When I walk out the door and fling myself into a cab, I come to my own conclusions. Agent Cameron is wrong. And there on the creaky vinyl with a cabbie who smells like salami, I find a smile in the bleakness. Because whether she condones it or not, I think my idea might just work. In fact, I think it’s the brightest frigging idea I’ve had in six months.

Chapter One

Lachlan

T
he city of Boston is washed out, the sky a blanket of gray. An Irish goodbye for the grand-da I never had the chance to truly know.

One by one, the lads come forward to speak their final piece. Niall and Ronan remain by my side, quiet. Condolences are carried away on the Autumn breeze, faintly spoken, and seldom heard. My bones are heavy, clothing soaked, and all that remains is the crispness of an air that only comes after a storm.