I didn’t deserve her.
I could have her if I wanted.
I staggered to the couch and fell onto it. Nix balanced herself on the edge, right beside me, looking at me expectedly, like Rooney anticipating story time.
I ran my fingers through my damp hair.
“Where to start?”
“The beginning would be a good place.”
Rascal.
“I was born on a blistering August day—”
“Well, maybe not the very beginning. How about the middle? No. Third chapter. After the exposition, but before things get real juicy and turbulent.”
Eyeing her with new fondness I wasn’t even entirely sure I was capable of feeling, I chuckled.
“Things had been a shitty blur until I turned nine, after which it was all about the Brennans. I had a role to assume, and I did. I now make more than Troy did back in the day. I own more businesses, more properties, and I control more areas in Boston than he ever did.”
“But you are also messier than Troy was.” She ran her fingers through my hair, fixing whatever the hell I did to it, smiling. “You kill more people. You get injured. Crime rate is up. And it’s a well-known fact the Bratva is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I read it in the news.”
“Reading something in the news doesn’t make it true,” I pointed out.
“What about the FBI? Cillian says they are after you, too.”
“They’ll never catch me.”
“Famous last words.” She sighed.
“Quote me on them, Nix.”
She smiled, dipping her hand into the bullet jar wistfully, slipping in the missing bullet she’d stolen from there.
“Thank you,” I croaked, closing my eyes.
“You are most welcome, my darling monster.”
I drifted off to sleep, even though I tried hard to stay awake. It reminded me of the first few Christmases I spent with the Brennans. The fight against exhaustion was like swimming against the stream, but something good was happening, and who the fuck knew when would be the next time I’d feel this elusive, intoxicating joy?
Aisling must’ve slept right beside me because I could still feel her heat when I woke up. Her scent of ginger and honey and my fucking undoing.
I yawned, stretching on the couch.
“Make coffee,” I growled, but there was no response.
I opened my eyes, looking around.
There was a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup by my side, a bottle of water—uncapped—and some pills.
Aisling was gone.
The next day, I met with Barbara McAllister on the outskirts of Boston.
She was a hobo-looking woman, not in the hipster, bought-that-holed-shirt-for-three-hundred-bucks way, but in the seriously-need-a-sandwich way. You could tell that underneath the bleached hair, wrinkled face, and badly applied self-tan, she’d once been an attractive woman.
Barbara was the final blow I needed to bring Gerald down to his knees. The missing piece in Operation Destroy Gerald. She held some deep secrets he never wanted anyone to know, and for a healthy sum of money, she was willing to air them out to the world.
“But I need to make sure it’ll be worth my while. I’ll only do it for the right price. Can I borrow a cigarette?” Barbara asked when we’d met in a small coffee shop.
She wore a black mini-dress and a cheap trench coat, and it looked like the ‘right price’ for her would be twenty bucks and a McMeal. I silently offered her my open pack of cigarettes, keeping my expression blank.
I still soldiered through my plan for Gerald Fitzpatrick, but I was no longer gleeful about it. Somewhere along the road, hurting Aisling, which I knew I was bound to do, felt unnecessary. It wasn’t that I was going soft. It was that there was no need to be harsh to a woman as pliable as her.
So fucking pliable that she runs an underground death clinic and seeks you out.
Barbara lit up a cigarette, exhaling with a satisfied smile.
“How do you know I’ll even get a book deal? There isn’t exactly a shortage of women Gerald Fitzpatrick has dipped his dick into.” She eyed me skeptically.
“True, but you are the only one who’d lived in one of his apartments. You weren’t just a fuck, you were a mistress. He flew you places. Bought you expensive jewelry. I bet it’s just the tip of the iceberg.” I smirked at her, setting the bait to make her say more.
She grinned, her teeth unusually white for a smoker, and nodded enthusiastically.
“Oh, did he ever. Samuel, my boy, he adored me. Of course, I did my part, too. There were orgies. Massive orgies. He sometimes took us three at a time. I always thought it was peculiar Ger was so upset when his son, Hunter, did it. After all, he was the king of orgies back in the day.”
My jaw tensed. I didn’t need to hear about my brother-in-law’s sexcapades before he married my baby sister.
“What else?” I asked.
“There were drugs. A whole lot of them at those parties.” Barbara rubbed her chin. It struck me as interesting that although Gerald had put her on the list, too, when I asked about her, he’d lied to me. Some of the details he had given me were different from what I’d found when I conducted my own research. Addresses, where they’d met, her age. Nothing lined up, so I decided to dig deeper. I was glad I did.