THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (19 page)

Killian

“She started her new job today?”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing up at the building that housed the advertising agency where Stacy now worked. “She was nervous. She didn’t bite my head off quite as successfully this morning.”

Ian laughed. “She is a firecracker, isn’t she?”

“You should come watch over her for a while, see how quickly she cuts you down to size.”

“She likes me.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Pops asked me to watch over Stacy after one of our siblings—one we didn’t even know about—went missing. Members of the organization we worked for, the Irish mafia based out of Boston that was run by Pops’ business partner, Jack McGuire, were disappearing and getting killed. We’d just found one guy hanging in a warehouse the mafia owned. And then we found this kid, Conor, in another warehouse…

“Another of my men is missing,” Jack had barked into Pops’ ear. “You’d better find this one before he’s hanging from a goddamned rope!”

Pops was standing outside the warehouse where we’d left the trucks filled with illegal guns weeks ago, watching as I worked the lock. Conor McCloud was last seen here, checking another shipment that’d been delivered last night. Jack called him twice to find out how it’d gone and was pissed when he didn’t answer. And then worried that someone was targeting his men.

Jack’s men weren’t the only ones running the streets of Boston at the moment. There was another group across town that was very particular about their territory. Jack’s men had had multiple run-ins with them over the last year. This thing, whatever it was that was going on, he didn’t like. He was concerned that the other group was beginning to hone in on his business.

Pops knew that wasn’t it. Jack probably did, too. But when you’re the head of the Irish mafia in Boston—a mafia you became the leader of because you led a rebellion against the last leader—you become a little paranoid.

“Fix it,” he’d demanded.

When the door opened, Pops slipped his gun from the holster in his armpit. It was a nine millimeter, a reliable pistol that’d saved his life on more than one occasion. I pulled a gun, too, a Beretta that wasn’t unlike Pops’ own. He led the way, moving cautiously, looking around corners before turning them. It was a big warehouse, but it was largely empty at the moment. There were very few places to hide.

“Nothing,” Pops said.

I moved up behind him, towering over him as I, too, looked around. Then Pops gestured at some footprints visible in some dirt on the floor.

Someone had been here recently.

We followed them to the stairs at the back of the massive room, climbing to the office that once overlooked a working warehouse. It was mostly empty now, just a low wooden desk left in one corner. Pops pushed open the door, and it appeared empty. But then there was a low scrapping sound that made me slip my finger onto the trigger of my gun.

“Who’s there? You’d better come out!”

The scraping sound came again and a low mumble, like someone trying to speak through a gag. Pops gestured to me. I carefully moved around the desk, my gun drawn. Then I dropped to his knees, coming up a second later with Conor McCloud, his hands tied behind his back with cable ties and his mouth covered with what looked like duct tape.

“What the hell?”

He shook his head in disapproval as he ripped the tape from the boy’s mouth.

“Shit!” Conor cried after he spit out a piece of cloth. “That fucking hurt!”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to hurt even worse if you don’t explain yourself quickly!”

Conor looked at Pops, respect suddenly washing over his expression as he recognized him. “Sorry, Mr. Callahan,” he said softly. “I didn’t realize.”

“Start talking.”

He stared down at the floor for a second, clearly embarrassed.

“I was checking the warehouse like Johnny told me to. I was about to leave and someone hit me from behind. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in here under that desk.”

“Did you see who hit you?”

“No, sir.”

I caught Pops’ eye and nodded. I’d seen dried blood on the back of the kid’s head.

Pops turned and looked down at the warehouse, trying to see something that would tell him who’d been in here.

“The place was locked when you arrived?”

“As always.”

“Did you lock it behind you when you came inside?”

The kid didn’t answer and that told Pops what he wanted to know. Someone was watching the place, saw him come inside, and followed. But who? And why?

“It was locked when we got here.”

“Whoever it was must have locked up behind himself.”

“Why?”

Again, silence. Pops turned and studied the boy. He was a typical kid, dressed in skin-tight jeans that made his legs look like sticks—really unattractive. And his t-shirt was an advertisement for a soda brand that was no longer sold. There was a tear on his shoulder and a touch of something that looked like dried blood. Pops went to him, touched the spot. Not blood. Bright red paint.

“Was this here when you came into the warehouse?”

The kid twisted his neck to look at what I was indicating.

“No, sir. This shirt is vintage. I take really good care of it. I can’t believe he tore it!”

“Get him out of here,” Pops told me.

“Thank you, sir. I’ve been here forever. I don’t think I’ve eaten in days.”

“How long?” Pops asked as I was about to shove him out the door.

The kid turned to regard me. “I can’t be sure how long, but I know it was Tuesday night when I came here.”

“Tuesday?”

Pops shook his head. He’d been here almost forty-eight hours.

He walked around the office after they left, looking for more of the red paint. There wasn’t any, so he headed down the stairs, walking slowly around the perimeter of the warehouse, looking at the floor with something different in mind this time. He wasn’t looking for danger, but for some indication of why Conor’s attacker would have paint on his hands. Was he just some kid painting graffiti on the side of the building? Or was there something more nefarious about the whole thing?

It took a moment, but then he saw it. Little drips of red paint on the floor. It led to a small room at the back of the warehouse that was once bathrooms for the employees. Inside the women’s bathroom the toilets and sinks had been removed, but the mirrors were still there. Reflected in them was a message that was written in blood red paint across the back wall.

Say goodbye to what’s precious to you, Brian Callahan.

It didn’t get any more personal than that.

“Cassidy.”

He turned just in time to walk straight into my chest.

“Who is this, Pops?” I asked, anger dripping from my tone. “Who’s doing this?”

“I don’t know. But I’m guessing they’re going after the women in my life. Why else put this in the women’s bathroom?”

“Stacy?”

He nodded. “I’m going to ask you a huge favor. I need you to go to New York and watch over her. Don’t let her know you’re there or she’ll find ways to avoid you.”

“I know.”

“Make sure no one touches her, Killian.” He grabbed my arm as he turned to go. “Don’t let anything happen to her.”

“I won’t, Pops.”

Ian laughed again. I dragged my fingers through my hair, glancing up at the building again. She’d gotten on an elevator hours ago and I hadn’t seen her since, but I knew she was still inside. Despite Sean’s objections—Sean was our legal-minded brother, the one who threw a wrench in every plan we ever came up with—Ian had come up with this tracking software I installed on Stacy’s phone that told me exactly where she was. Last check showed her on the eighth floor of the building.

I wished she liked me more than she did. She used to look up to me when she was small. But ever since Mom died, she’d cut herself off from everyone but Ian. I don’t know why Dad didn’t send Ian to watch over her. Probably because Ian is sort of his right-hand man, the one he always turns to when he needs someone to do something he knows is dangerous. I’m the oldest, but Ian is the technology guy, the one who can make things happen in this world of computer-based human interaction.

Maybe it was my fault. I went off to college the year after Stacy came to live with the family. I came home regularly at first, but when I started graduate school, I found myself going home less and less. It wasn’t until Mom got sick that I finally came home and took the position at MCorp so that I could be close to the family. But then Stacy left a year later to go to NYU, so we’ve actually only spent, what, a total of three years together in the ten years she’d been part of the family? I think I’ve gotten to know her better in these last six months than I had in all the time before that. And that was kind of sad.

The thing was, I thought she liked me. I know I like her. Maybe too much.

Stacy didn’t think she was beautiful, but she was. She had brown eyes that haunted me deep in the night. Especially the memory of how red and swollen they were the night her fiancé was killed. I should have been there. I wished I was.

“Pops thinks he might be able to bring you home in a couple of weeks. He’s just a little nervous about the things that have been happening here.”

“The Italians still causing Jack trouble?”

“They hit one of his shipments last night. We were able to push them back, but two of Jack’s men were killed, three put in the hospital. That’s bringing too much attention from the local cops.”

“I’m sure Scarsorsi’s having a hay day with the whole thing.”

“He’s been breathing down Pops’ neck a lot lately. Pops wasn’t able to go with us last night because of it, which was probably a blessing in disguise. But it’s putting a lot of pressure on the rest of us, too. Sean wasn’t too pleased about having to go along on the run.”

“You got Sean to go on a run? Things really are changing.”

“We miss you, brother,” Ian said. “I think that Stacy’s safer there and that you should come home, but Pops runs things his way.”

“After Cassidy and Brianna were kidnapped, I don’t blame him for being cautious. And then to have Stacy’s fiancé killed…”

“Have you got any leads on that?”

“No. There’s no word on the street about it. Might have been a random mugging like the police think.”

But the truth was, I didn’t think so. There was truly no word on the street. If it’d been a mugging, people would be talking about it. The silence around this thing was odd, suggesting whoever was behind it had some clout. That made me nervous. If the Italians had done it to stir things up with Jack and Pops… It was the only thing that really made sense.

We still didn’t know who kidnapped Cassidy and Brianna. Someone knew things about the family that even Ian and I didn’t know and the two of us were the closest of all the kids to Pops. We knew things that would probably completely change the way our siblings looked at Pops. Whoever was behind the kidnapping had learned that Pops had an affair with Cassidy when I was just two, when Mom was pregnant with Sean and she’d kicked Pops out for his relationship with Jack. She didn’t want to be married to a criminal, but eventually she realized that she wanted her family whole more than she wanted Pops to give up the Irish mafia. Pops gave up Cassidy and never told anyone about her—as far as I know. But someone found out and used it to force Cassidy to send them information on Pops’ friends, family, and lifestyle until she finally told him they were holding the daughter she never told him they’d had. Then she was kidnapped, and it was a whole disaster that ended up okay when Pops was able to save Brianna and Cassidy managed to get away from her kidnappers.

Pops was married to Cassidy now. Brianna got a job with a law firm in Boston and was living with them. She was trying to get to know her father and the rest of us couldn’t hold that against her. We were used to new siblings just suddenly showing up. One day I had four brothers, the next day I had a sister, too. That was Mom. She was a social worker, and whenever she came across a child who captured her heart, she brought that child home. Sometimes it worked out. Sometimes it didn’t.

The man who kidnapped both Brianna and Cassidy threated Pops, telling him that he was going to lose those who were most precious to him one at a time. All Pops had now was us kids, so he immediately sent me to watch over Stacy. That was six months ago.

It wasn’t that I minded watching over my sister. I just…

“Pops didn’t want to tell you, but he was still getting threats from the kidnappers until a month ago. We’re not sure why the threats stopped, but it could be that whoever was doing all this got bored and decided to go do something else. Or he got caught doing something else.”

“Or he’s playing with Pops’ head.”

“There is that.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you should stay close to Stacy. I don’t like that she won’t come home to Boston. Her anger at Pops is going to get her hurt.”

I knew that. I probably knew it better than anyone else did.

I’d had a conversation with Pops about it just a few weeks before I came to New York…