Slowly, the kiss ended, and he parted from me. He kissed my forehead softly, and I stared up into his serious face, his eyes full of passion and darkness and sadness. I didn't know what to say, though I didn't think he needed me to say anything. I knew what he meant, and he seemed to understand what I meant. I fucking need you, is what I wanted to whisper, but it was already written all over my body, scarred across my eyes.
We parted, our hands lingering together for a second. He squeezed my palm and let it drop. He turned and left the room and walked upstairs. I heard the shower turn on as I sat in the silent kitchen, finishing my coffee and watching the sunrise through the tiny window.
When I was finished, and it was officially morning, I got to work on the dishes. I scrubbed and cleaned until the place looked decent again. The shower ended, and I heard the bedroom door shut. I smiled: Liam hadn't slept in a bed since everything started. Well, he deserved it.
I walked out and looked over the papers. I was ready. I was ready to dive in, to give myself over to the flow of sorting, of a menial but important task.
I was ready to try to save my own life.
Chapter Twenty-One: Liam
I watched her work for a few days. She was unstoppable, breaking only to use the bathroom, to eat, or to sleep. I helped as best as I could, but she had a system; besides, she said, I'd only mess things up. I grinned to myself, remembering the look on her face, the determination. I couldn't have argued with her even if I'd wanted to.
She was a machine. I was bored out of my mind, restless and anxious to get back out into the world and to do something, but she was insistent that I be patient. I prowled around the house like an animal, and probably annoyed the hell out of her, but she ignored me. Slowly, she started to notice things, little discrepancies here and there. The papers I had didn't match some of the papers that I stole from Colm. And then, after almost a week of staring and reading and annotating and rereading, it suddenly all clicked for her: he had two sets of books. The papers I had were faked, doctored, though not faked very well apparently.
The set we stole was the real set, with the real list of his transactions. Once she figured that out, it was pretty easy to start piecing together his financial history. And holy shit, did Ellie figure it all out. One thing after another started tumbling into place for her, and the very next day she stood up and practically screamed. Scared the shit out of me at the time, but she was so excited she couldn't help herself. She had to explain it all to me twice before I understood what I was looking at, but once I did, I wanted to fucking scream, too.
Colm had been shaving small sums of money off the top for years, ever since he started in the Mob. But he couldn't do that himself, not without getting caught. That was always my issue: how is he stealing without anyone noticing? Ellie figured out that he wasn't, he was bribing people to stay quiet. She pointed out the accounts, twelve of them in all, of the people who he was slowly paying off over the years. More small sums, but it all added up over time to millions of dollars moving around between a few hands. It was all some complicated pyramid scheme to rip off the main boss's take.
The thing that had made her scream, though, was a photocopy of a check, buried in a binder full of papers. We were having trouble connecting Colm with a lot of the bank accounts we saw scattered all over the place. He wasn't stupid enough to have all of these things in his own name, unfortunately, although we both knew he was behind it all. But that check blew the whole thing open. It was for some paltry sum, twenty-six dollars, and it had been deposited into an account that moved its money into another off-shore account that accepted other deposits from other local accounts.
And the check was made out to Colm Brennan.
I was beyond impressed. That check was a needle in a haystack, almost literally considering the mountainous pile of paper she was sifting through. She had insisted that it was only a matter of time before she had a clear picture of it all, and she was right.
I wouldn't have been able to do it. As much as I hated to admit it, I wouldn't have been able to find what she did.
I kissed her then, after the scream, after I understood what was happening. I kissed her hard and for a long time, because I fucking needed her, wanted her badly. It wasn't just her body, though that helped; it was everything, the way she smiled, the way she joked, the serious expression she got when reading a bank statement, her courage.
Above all, her courage.
The subway train clacked around a bend. I was riding north, a dark hood pulled up to cover my face. I knew it was a little bit of a risk to take the subway, but I was in a hurry. Besides, Colm's people rarely went north. It was de Barra's territory, out and out. And de Barra wouldn't expect me to come on foot, which was part of my escape plan. We were meeting in an empty lot at the edge of his territory; I didn't trust him enough to go directly to his home turf, and so I had Leary reach out and set up the meet. That was two days ago, right after we found the stuff about Colm we needed.
She didn't ask me not to go. I half expected her to, but she didn't. I could tell she hated everything about the meeting, hated my plan, but she knew I was going to do it whether she wanted me to or not. And I hated saying no to her. We slept together in the shitty old bed those nights, though I guess I shouldn't say we slept. Truthfully, we fucked like teenagers, and I couldn't get enough of her smooth skin, the way her lips parted slightly as I slid my cock into her for the first time. It was almost too much, how badly she wanted my mouth and my fingers to explore her soft spots, but I loved it.
And as I was getting changed to go, I loved that she pinned me up against a wall, her eyes burning. I had grinned at her, made some joke, but she dropped to her knees and tugged off my pants.
"Something to think about on your ride there," she said as she slipped my already rock-hard dick into her mouth.
I don't think I'd ever come so hard in my entire life. My hands wrapped in her hair, muscles tense, as thick spurts of cum shot out into her greedy mouth. Fuck, and she didn't miss a beat, cleaning me off with a fucking smile. She was right: it was a great image to have in my head as I went off to what was probably going to be my death.
The train shuddered and stopped, and the doors opened. I looked up and caught the sign: Olney Station. I jumped up and hopped off, blending into the throng of people walking up the stairs. At the top, out on Olney Avenue, I turned right and began the walk out toward whatever was going to happen.
De Barra's territory was a shit neighborhood. Most of north Philly was a shit neighborhood; for a bunch of reasons, it basically became the ghetto. It was the place the city had forgotten. Abandoned buildings with their windows boarded up dotted the streets, broken glass and trash littered the ground, and cars up on blocks were at almost every corner. Any empty lot was covered in garbage and other crap, like needles and empty dime bags. There were good people all over north Philly trying to make a life for themselves and their families, but years of shitty policies, housing segregation, and the loss of manufacturing jobs basically wiped out any good prospects for most people trapped up here.
And de Barra took advantage of that. There were a lot of desperate people, and desperate people were willing to work for a psychopath selling drugs and stealing whatever wasn't nailed down. De Barra ran his territory well with a tight fist, although he was constantly fighting off other local gangs. It was a war zone, more or less, like something out of the news, and I was sure that I wouldn't see a single cop car my entire time in the hood.
I shook my head, forcing myself to focus. I wasn't trying to save the fucking world. I was trying to save the people I gave a shit about.
I made a right at the block ahead and glanced at my watch. I was running a few minutes late, which wasn't a big deal, but I picked up my pace anyway. Sweat was running down my back, and the familiar weight of my gun pressed up against my spine, tucked into my pants. I pulled the hood off my head, not caring who saw me.
I could see the spot up ahead. Parked in front of it were two large black SUVs, which I guessed were de Barra's people. We had said no guns, but I didn't think for a second that his people would come unarmed. Frankly, I was surprised he had agreed to see me at all; I had expected him to insist we meet at his home restaurant.
My pulse skyrocketed as I crossed the street, heading directly for the empty lot. Back in the right corner of the lot, there was a small alley, about wide enough to fit a single car plus the dumpsters that I knew were back there. Otherwise, it was penned in on all sides by residential buildings. They weren't de Barra's people, but they were still people used to seeing shit go down on a regular basis and who probably wouldn't talk to the police. But I was banking on the fact that de Barra didn't control the streets, hoping that would make him think twice about putting a bullet in my head right in the middle of the field.
As I walked into the lot, the second of the two black SUVs opened up, and three men climbed out: two goons I didn't recognize and Boss de Barra himself.
I stared at de Barra. It had been years since I last saw him, but he was a hard man to forget. His jet-black hair was about shoulder length and pulled back into a tight ponytail. He wore a long black coat, which hid who knew how many guns, plus dress slacks and dress shoes. His face was tight and drawn, wrinkled from years of smoking, but his eyes were a fierce, deep blue. He looked like some sort of animal, maybe a giant rat or a wild cat. He smiled at me and spread his arms.