But I had no idea what they thought I knew. It was true that I saw the weird packages, but I had no clue what they were, let alone any interest in getting someone in trouble.
Another yawn rolled through me and I let it out. I had no clue what was wrong with me, but I felt sluggish and exhausted. Worse, I felt like I was forgetting something important. I looked down at myself and noticed for the first time that I was wearing oversized grey sweatpants and a thin, nearly see-through white cotton T-shirt. I must have looked like a hot mess, and I briefly wondered if Liam had noticed.
But that was insane. Who cared what I looked like? There was a man out there that wanted to kill me, and I was in hiding.
What was I forgetting?
I stretched out, and my limbs felt heavy. I closed my eyes for a second, just to rest them. Was that guy really going to kill me? The image of Liam holding his gun, smoke curling softly from its dark barrel, came back to me. The sound of the man's pain as he hit the ground. The blood.
Everything felt so heavy.
"Hey, wake up."
I jolted upright with a gasp, my heart hammering in my chest. I was covered in sweat as I remembered him again, the gun pressed in my face, the way his entire body tensed. The certain knowledge that I was about to die, that a man was going to murder me in my own apartment, that my whole life was going to end and I would be dead and gone.
"Get the fuck away from me," I said, panicking, kicking my legs out. I struggled to get away from him, my survival instincts taking over.
"Hey, it's okay, it's me."
I blinked, the dream slowly fading and reality taking its place. Liam sat on the coffee table in front of me, looking incredibly beautiful, but haggard and concerned. I stopped thrashing, taking deep breaths to calm myself.
"It was just a dream," he said softly, hands out to steady me.
"Sorry," I mumbled, slowly sitting up.
My whole body throbbed, and the panic and fear from my dream lingered in my mind.
He nodded, his face a mask of worry. "You hungry?"
I nodded.
"You eat eggs?"
I nodded again, still trying to equalize myself.
"Okay. I'll make you some." He got up and walked into the kitchen.
I looked around the room, the confusion and disorientation slowly slipping away. It was the same sparse living room I had fallen asleep in: completely alien, and more than a little disquieting. But, apparently, it was safe.
I heard the sound of pots and pans banging and the refrigerator door opening and closing. I guessed Liam had gone to the store while he was gone. I stood and followed him into the kitchen. He cracked some eggs into a pot, cut off a knob of butter, and dropped it in with the eggs. I sat down on a chair and crossed my legs underneath me.
"I hope you don't mind scrambled," he said.
"That's fine."
He turned on the stove and placed the pot on a burner and began to gently whisk the eggs with a spatula.
"Where did you go?" I asked.
"Had some things to take care of."
He took the pot off the heat and kept stirring it, working the eggs together with the butter. After a second of stirring, he put the eggs back on the heat, still stirring.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Making you eggs."
He continued to cook, moving the eggs on and off the heat, stirring continuously. I watched him and felt awed at how sure of himself he seemed. I was impressed and surprised. I never expected a man like him to know what he was doing in the kitchen, but he clearly did. I stared at his body and his movements as he continued, and I decided to wait to ask him questions. There was something special about the way he handled himself, something I didn't want to interrupt. In some weird way, it was calming me down.
Finally, he finished with the eggs. He pulled a thick piece of toast from the toaster, put it on a plate, poured the eggs onto the toast, and placed the plate in front of me with a fork and a knife.
He sat down at the table across from me and nodded at the food.
I picked up the fork and gingerly took a small bite of the eggs. The consistency was strange, velvety and creamy, but they were incredibly delicious, rich and thick and perfect. I immediately tucked into them, cutting into the lightly toasted sourdough bread with my knife and scooping up the eggs on top of it. Liam grinned at me, but I didn't care. I was starving, and having some food in my stomach made my dizzy head begin to stabilize. I realized I needed something in me if I was going to be able to think straight.
Liam stood and walked across the room. He poured himself a mug of coffee from an old drip brewer. He leaned back against the counter and sipped it black as I finished my food.
"I guess we should talk," he said.
I nodded at him. "What's going on?"
His expression was pained as he stared at me for half a second.
"That man in your apartment, his name was Max. He works for my boss, or at least my old boss, Colm Brennan. We're all Right members of the Irish Mob."
I gaped at him. The rumors about Liam turned out to be true. I had always assumed they were crap, since he was such a good guy to his younger brother, and figured it was just the way he looked that made everyone think he was a mobster. But there he was, confirming everything.
"What did he want with me?" I felt shaky and on the verge of panicking again, but I willed myself to remain in control.
"A few nights ago, did you see some guys dumping something into the river?"
I nodded. "One of them even chased me, trying to get me to stop and talk to him."
"It's a good thing you didn't. Those packages were bodies."
I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense. They were square."
He stared at me for a second and sighed. "They weren't whole bodies."
That confirmed my suspicions. I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. I swallowed hard and gripped the edge of my seat, willing myself not to get sick.
"In the last few weeks," he continued, "the Mob has been going through some chaotic shit. There was a coup, and our long-time leader and boss disappeared. After he was gone, someone had to take control of the Right People, and there was a lot of violence and fighting. Colm Brennan eventually took over, because Colm is one of the most violent pieces of shit I've ever come across.
"Chaos plus a violent boss always equals a lot of bodies, and you stumbled on some guys dumping those bodies. It's not nice, but it's the truth. It's usually guys in the game who step out of line, guys who are a little too ambitious or don't want to play by the rules anymore. But it's also other people who are unlucky enough to become targets, like junkies or some shit. Usually, we don't kill people like you, civilians. If you had seen what you saw a year ago, they would have bribed you to keep your mouth shut, and if you talked, they would have bribed the cops to forget about it. Things worked that way for a long time.
"But Colm Brennan thinks the world is changing. Colm thinks in order to survive, we need to start killing innocent people. He doesn't want to honor the peace we've made, the peace our fathers made."
Liam looked disgusted and angry, and his fist gripped the coffee mug so hard that white pressed up along his knuckles. I stared at him, trying to process the story he was telling me, but it felt too fantastic. It was too much like some crazy action movie, and not at all anything like my real life.
"What does this have to do with you?"
Shame spread across his face and he looked away from me.
"Don't hate me," he said softly.
"What are you talking about?"
He looked back at me, the shame replaced by a determined hardness that took me by surprise.
"My father was an important boss in the gang back before Colm took over. Because of him, I got involved in the business and rose through the ranks. When my dad passed, I started taking over parts of his territory. But because of him, Colm didn't trust me, and he thought I would be too loyal to the old guard. In order to prove myself, he told me that I had to kill you."
The silence felt deep as I let that sink in. He looked grim, a frown spreading across his perfect lips, and I felt his words reverberate through my skin and my bones.
"But you didn't," I said, meeting his eyes.
He nodded. "I couldn't."
"Why?"
"There's something . . ." he started to say, but stopped. He looked down at the linoleum tiles and sipped his coffee, and then looked back. "It wouldn't have been right. I couldn't do it."
I nodded. "So they had that guy Max do it?"
"When you called the cops, it freaked Colm out. When he told me what they were doing, I got over as fast as I could. And you remember the rest. By the way, why did you call the cops?"
I explained the van to him and how terrified it had made me. I told him about the paranoia and how seeing the van that night pushed me over the edge. He laughed softly.
"Those dumb fucks," he said. "You weren't ratting on them. You were just scared."
"What's going to happen now?"
"Now, we stay hidden."
I made a face. "What about my job? What about-" Then it hit me, the thing I was forgetting. "Shit, I forgot about Petey!"
He looked confused for a second and nodded. "Your dog."
"Please, we have to go back and get him. He must be so upset."
"We can't go back there, Ellie."
"You can't stop me, asshole."
I stood up quickly and strode out into the living room, grim determination etched onto my face. I didn't care if those people were going to try to kill me. They had already ruined my life. Everything was over for me; I might as well try to save Petey from starving to death in my bedroom.