Sparrow Raynes was my sacrifice. I promised I’d marry her, and I had.
Truthfully, I would have happily waited a few more years, but my father’s lawyer made it pretty fucking clear that I wouldn’t see a dime or an acre he had left me until she had a ring on her finger.
And Cillian Brennan wasn’t taking the “all the days of my life” part of the wedding vows lightly. Clause 103b of his will stated that if Sparrow and I divorced, she would get the majority of my inheritance.
The majority. Un-fucking-believable.
At thirty-two, I was ready to collect what was mine. What had always been mine—my father’s hard-earned wealth.
The money was especially needed, now that my mother had decided to leave Boston in favor of a place in Nice, France. Most folks retired to Florida or Arizona. Andrea Brennan, though? Fucked off with her younger boyfriend to one of the most expensive places on earth. The French Riviera. And she didn’t even have a job to retire from.
Someone had to pay for her fancy shit, for the fact Maria was still needed at her house three fucking times a week because my mother let her lazy friends stay there every now and again. And despite her lavish lifestyle, my mom was a little strapped for cash. Most of the family money was invested in stocks and properties for tax reasons.
I couldn’t help but think that Andrea and Catalina had a lot of things in common.
Anyway, if Red learned the truth—why my father made me marry her in the first place and how I kept her virginal and untouched just for me all those years, scared all those potential suitors away—not only would she try and kill me, she could also go to the police, and have me locked up. For life.
So I was trying to be civil with my new wife.
Only now I had no fucking idea what to do with her. Court her? Ignore her? Fuck her against her will? The first and third options weren’t my style. Ignoring her had worked for a week, but left me annoyed. I was sick of hearing she was aimlessly wandering my apartment most of the day and pretending to be asleep whenever I returned home.
And then the shit in the living room happened downstairs, and she was so miserable and vulnerable, I’d spat some bullshit story about seeing her at church and even offered to take her to dinner.
A dinner date. First one since her. I tried to remind myself dates were like sex. You never forget how to do it.
BY THE TIME I finished my shower, Sparrow was already asleep, and not faking it this time. I slid into bed beside her and watched the rise and fall of her chest, but she was far from peaceful. I knew she was keeping a knife under the pillow. It amused and impressed me all at once. Not that she could do anything with that knife if she ever confronted me, but I liked her assertiveness.
She was nothing like her father. Nothing.
My initial expectation after the wedding—that she’d lock herself in a room listening to man-hating Taylor Swift songs on repeat as she cried her eyes out—was proving premature. She might be innocent, but she wasn’t stupid. Hardened by her circumstances and toughened by our neighborhood—Red was no pushover.
I turned my back to her and turned on my bedside lamp, taking my iPad from my nightstand drawer. I went through everything I had to do the next day—a meeting with an asshat who was running for governor and needed to find his bitter stepdaughter and convince her not to talk shit about him; an appointment with a local property tycoon who got into trouble with some Armenian gang members because he didn’t want to pay them protection money.
Fucking Armenians ran the underworld of Boston nowadays, and they were a grim reminder of what could have been mine had my father been more careful with the family business.
The Brennans were infamous in Boston not only as the royal crime family of the city, but also because we’d been smart enough to donate to schools, churches and local charities. We dropped enough cash to have hospital wings, bars and babies named after us. People liked us because once upon a time we’d been generous with our earnings, and we’d kept the city mostly clean of the bad stuff (prostitution and drugs).
Sure, we were criminals, but we kept the innocents’ innocence intact and never hurt a soul who didn’t deserve to feel the wrath of our fists. Loan sharking, extortion, illegal gambling and money laundering. We did it all, and we did it well.
Now, the Armenians and local unorganized gangs were ruling the Boston underworld, and it was a mess. No moral codes, respect or honor. Just a bunch of fucking bullies who got their hands on unregistered guns.
After going over an email from another client and cursing the Armenians again, I put my iPad back in the drawer. Taking one last glance at Red, I noticed her cell on her nightstand was glowing with a new text message. It was four a.m. Who the fuck would text her this late?
My eyes shifted to her face, and back to her cell.
Don’t do this.
Do this.
Don’t do this.
Fuck it.
I’d only seen this woman on a few occasions, when she was just a girl, playing kick the can with the other dirty kids when I was busy scoring chicks, smoking cigarettes and leaning against muscle cars that weren’t even mine. For all I knew, Red could be a snitch. Work with the police. Could be a serial killer.
Ha.
I reached over, my arm stretching above her nose, and picked up her phone.
Then I started digging. Deep.
Sparrow Raynes didn’t have many friends. She’d always been an odd bird, no pun intended, and I guess her social life reflected it.
Based on her incoming messages, a girl named Lucy appeared to be her closest friend. (But not close enough for Sparrow to invite her to the wedding, God forbid.) There was a guy named Boris, her culinary teacher, who’d already been warned off. There was also a girl named Daisy who I remembered from our neighborhood.
What struck me as peculiar was the timing of the most recent conversation with Lucy. The timestamp was after our little encounter earlier, downstairs in the living room. While I was in the shower, Sparrow had been on her phone. In fact, the flashing of her cell phone was Lucy answering Sparrow’s last text.
Lucy: Drinks tomorrow? Usual spot. Just got paid. My treat.
Sparrow: Wish I could. Got a job interview.
Lucy: What? When? Where? Why am I out of the loop all of a sudden? Spill!
Sparrow: It’s for Rouge Bis. That super-expensive French restaurant we always promise we’ll go to and dine and dash.
Lucy: No way. Isn’t the owner Troy Brennan? The only Brennan who isn’t dead or locked up. Haha.
Sparrow: Yeah, they didn’t get to him yet. Hopefully they’ll wait until after my interview. I’ll keep you posted. Wish me luck.
Lucy: Don’t make friends with him. They call him The Fixer for a reason.
Sparrow: I know he’s a fishy guy. He’s my dad’s boss, remember?
Lucy: I remember, I’m just making sure that you do too.
Sparrow: Love you.
Lucy: Love you more. Xx
Then there was the final unanswered message.
Lucy: P.S. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it. Rumor has it he’s a world-class asshole.
Guess this was the reminder I needed. She hated me, wanted to use me, and thought I was scum, just like my dad.
And just like that, any resolve to make her life a little less hellish disappeared.
SPARROW
I SCURRIED MY way to the kitchen at dawn. Confused about my last encounter with Troy, I wanted nothing more than to be on his good side.
Fine, I would just admit it—I wanted that job.
And let’s face it, it moved something inside me to know that he’d noticed me at church. That he’d noticed me at all. So I decided that I was going to give Troy Brennan an honest chance not to be a world-class jerk.
I fixed him breakfast, fluffy blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a cup of hot chocolate—my personal favorite—and greeted him with a big smile when he walked down the stairs, squinting away the morning sun. He was still wearing his briefs and sporting some serious morning wood. And when I said “wood,” I meant more like a forest.
My curiosity got the better of me and I peeked down, trying to calculate the size of him as I pretended to straighten the silverware and napkins I’d set out on the island.
I was no expert, but his junk looked like something that could comfortably fit into the exhaust pipe of a truck and not, so help me God, into my vagina. I might have taken a moment or three to stare, interest and fear flickering in my eyes.
“Don’t worry, Red. It doesn’t bite.” He yawned into his forearm, nudging me out of the way to reach for the coffee pot on the counter behind me.
“But it can spit,” I offered over my shoulder, smiling coyly.
He sent me a crooked, condescending smirk. “Not at you, with the way you’ve been treating it so far.”
He was being an ass again, but I kept trying, not letting my ego get the better of me. I pointed at the large dish on the island. “Pancakes. Right here, hot and fluffy. And hot chocolate, too. Do you want some whipped cream?”
I wanted him to remember the girl he wanted to marry. I wanted myself to forget that he was the man my father worked for. I wanted us to try and be something, even if it was stupid and naive.
“I don’t eat sugary crap,” he answered unapologetically, his voice bone-dry. “And I definitely don’t drink hot fucking chocolate. But next time I’m hosting a tea party, I’ll borrow a tutu and you can help me fix some cupcakes.”