Saint (A Dark Mafia Romance)(11)

Or maybe it’s just the gloom of this night. It was raining on this night eight years ago. Funny how you remember stupid details like that years later. Funny the things that stick with us and fuck with our heads almost a decade after they’ve slipped into the past.

I take a deep breath and stare across the channel at the city. Shining, sparkling - removed from this place.

But I like it here. It’s quiet, and I like quiet. The second I think it, I can hear the muffled sounds of her screaming something back inside my loft, followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground that’s probably my bedside table.

I grind my teeth, my mouth tight.

Pulling the trigger was the move - the right move that I didn’t fucking take for some reason. Back in that room, with that shit band making such a perfect sound barrier and distraction out front, that was the best option.

Pulling the trigger, and cutting the loose end right off, right then. The move was putting her and the other two bodies in that room in my trunk, and then heading out to Revere or some place to bury them or sink them in the harbor.

That was the organized way.

That’s my way.

Instead, this just got messy.

Extremely.

Because now I’ve got a witness tied up. A fucking hostage. A drunk, innocent, feisty-as-shit, fight-me-until-she-can’t-move spitfire of a girl. The girl who thought kissing me in that shitty club was her idea of getting wild - the rich, clean little college girl who decided tonight was the night she was going to get dirty.

Bad fucking move.

Bad move making tonight the night she didn’t stay in her dorm room at Harvard or Northeastern, or whatever ritzy school daddy pays for. And double bad move kissing me. Bad fucking move thinking I was the guy to “get a little wild” with.

Spoiler: I’m not.

I’m not the guy you get wild with, and I’m not the bullshit “Boston tough guy” from a goddamn Ben Affleck movie.

I’m not the “bad boy” fantasy, I’m just a bad man.

And she has no fucking clue how bad I am.

I glance out over the city in the distance, again, pushing my fingers through my hair and growling out loud.

I thumb Liam’s name in my phone and bring it to my ear as it rings.

“We got problems.”

My younger brother and fellow captain clears his throat when I speak before he can.

“Hang on, I’m at dinner. Let me step outside.”

“You with Aela?”

I can practically hear the grin on his face.

“Yeah.”

“Bring her too. I need to talk to both of you. It’s business.”

“Hang on.”

The line is quiet for a minute.

I’ll be honest, I never thought anything but trouble would happen back when we were kids and I found out Liam was sneaking around with Aela Reilly - as in, daughter of Jack Reilly, the head of the Dark Saints. I mean, trust me when I say I knew nothing good could come of that. Back then, I thought it was a dumb fucking move, and I didn’t mind telling him that.

Like any story, theirs is a twisted one. But the short version is, a few years after her dad passed, Aela ended up coming back to Boston and taking over leadership of the Dark Saints. Which means my brother’s about to marry the reigning queen of the Boston Irish crime scene.

“Hey, Connor?”

Aela’s measured, calm voice drifts through the phone. She got that from her dad - the steely coolness and easy ability to assess a situation.

“Hey, Aela. Sorry to break up dinner.”

“No, it’s fine, we were done. You’ve got us both on speaker in the car. Everything okay? What happened with the meeting?”

“There was no meeting.”

“Shit, what-”

“Mikhail’s dead, and so is one of Anton’s guys.”

Liam swears over the phone. “Shit. Con, are you okay?”

I nod, pinching the bridge of my nose before glancing down at my shoulder. It’s bleeding, but I know the wound isn’t serious - a bullet graze, and I’ve had way worse.

I tell them both about the meet, and about tracksuit guy, and about Mikhail taking it in the gut. I mention that I had to make a quick exit, and that Mikhail and Anton’s guy are camped out in a dumpster on the Southie-Dorchester line.

I’m calm. I’m measured. I’m efficient, like I always am, as I tell them the whole story. The whole story, that is, except for the part where there was a witness to the whole thing, and now she’s tied to my fucking bed.

I leave that out, and I have no fucking idea why I do.

“You’re okay though, Connor?” Aela says softly.

“I’m fine, honestly.”

I have no idea why I’m not mentioning the girl to them - zero clue why I’m holding back on that part. Maybe it’s because I’m aware of how fucked a situation it is, especially a situation that I - the damn fixer - should excel at cleaning up.