“I will. I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” I promised.
I’d be there with her until the end. She was family.
Janson
“Is this the club?” I asked as I looked out the tinted windows up at the bright neon sign. El Gato blinked in neon blue letters down at us. Men and women lingered just outside the doors, cigarettes in and alcohol in their hands as they chatted so loudly that we could hear them all the way from the car. The music spilled out onto the street, the backdrop for these loud, drunken conversations, and even I cringed. The bar was uncharacteristically seedy for Canton, which was a normally a family-friendly middle-class neighborhood.
Of course, David would find a place like this. It was the one place that stuck out in all the normal.
The nasty little seed that sprang forth.
“Is he in there?” Greyson asked from his phone. “Do you actually see him?”
He looked at me and nodded. That motherfucker was going to pay. He’d played the family for a fool, kidnapped the only thing that mattered to my boss, and tried to force her to be his. Even if I wasn’t involved in what was about to happen, I would have no sympathy for a man like him.
For the threat to the family, for what he did to Joanna. He was a fool and he needed to die.
At our hands. It wouldn’t be quick, it wouldn’t be painless, that was a given, but it was Greyson’s job to decide who got to live and who got to die and how. It was his right as the soon-to-be leader of this family.
It was gruesome but it was the truth. It was the only way our families would be safe. His wife, his child. My Kathryn.
She was mine.
I’d never get used to feeling this way. But I knew I needed to protect her at all costs. It was the one thing I knew better than I knew myself.
I opened the car door and stepped out. “Well, let’s fucking go get this bastard and end this shit once and for all.”
He got out of the other side and nodded. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
I saw his gun flash from under his blazer and reached for my own, checking its location. It made me feel safe. Powerful. I knew that if I had to, I could defend myself. I’d been handling firearms since I was a teenager, and I was smart enough to be an expert at it by now.
But the same could be said for David.
The reality of that man was that he worked twice as hard as us to get half of the legitimacy that we had, and he still failed. I wondered what kind of force we would be facing, his men against ours, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t come down to it.
One on one, that was what Greyson wanted. I was just meant to be there at his side.
“If shit gets dodgy, you make sure to get out of here, you understand?” Greyson said.
“You know that’s not going to happen,” I answered as I gripped the handle of the knife in my belt. Fuck that shit. I would go down with him and he knew it.
We stormed in through the club doors and looked around until we saw him. He was just fucking sitting at the bar drinking a cocktail while women danced up on the stage in little more than a pair of harem pants and bikini tops. It was a foul sight, but that didn’t matter.
I grinned as we made our way through the crowd to David. We couldn’t do it here, no, we would have to convince him to talk to us, walk outside with us. We’d have to use a little bit of creative magic on our part. But we were part of the Irish mob. That’s what we did.
Greyson clamped a hand on David’s shoulder and he turned around to face us. The man staring up at us had the right body, the right hair color, but the wrong fucking face.
“I’m sorry, man. I thought you were someone else,” Greyson said as he pulled his hand away.
“I know. I was paid three hundred dollars to just sit here and order beers. He has a message for you,” the man at the bar said. He had no idea who we were. What we were, I could tell from the blank expression on his face.
“What’s the message?” Greyson asked as he glared out at him.
“He said to tell you ‘better luck, next time.’ I guess you guys lost a bet or something? He couldn’t say.” The man in the suit just shrugged.
“Something like that,” I said. “Did he say anything else to you?”
“No, just offered me three hundred dollars and free drinks. After the week I was having, I couldn’t say no to that.” He shook his head and took a swig of his beer. “You mind if I stay a while?”
“Where was he when he said this?”
“Here. He left maybe twenty minutes ago.” The man just sat there.
“Yeah, stay, drink.” Greyson grabbed his phone and dialed. “You have the wrong man. David left. Anyone witness this?” he asked.
Then he nodded. “Search the area, see if you can put out a tail on him.”
The phone I’d been ignoring rang again. I grabbed it and looked down. One text from Kat.
Baby is coming. Need you both. Now.
I answered it. “Kat?”
“Yeah, you two need to get here, but I don’t think you’re going to make it. Doctors said she is a good little laborer. She’s in there screaming her head off. I have to get back, but I wanted to let you know that the baby is on its way.” She sounded rushed and short of breath.
“I’ll let him know,” I told her.
“It’s quicker than almost any first-time labor they’ve seen. You two might not make it before the baby comes,” she told me.
“We’ll rush.”
Fuck. David would have to wait. We needed to get to the hospital now.
Kathryn
“Where in the hell have you been?” I asked as I watched the two men burst through the doors. Joanna was resting and I wanted to give her space, so I was sitting in the waiting room staring at the doors.
“On a wild good chase,” Greyson said, his nose flared. He was pissed and scared. I knew the combination. Ever since I could remember, if he was scared, he was also pissed. “Where is she?”
“What?” I asked, but it didn’t matter. They went and did their business and we were here running the household, running our lives together. It was the way it was with Mom and Dad, and it was the way things would always be with men like this. None of that was important in the moment. All that mattered was Joanna. “Through the doors. She’s in labor room 3B,” I said as I pointed.
I wanted to go back, to see the little baby that I helped bring into the world, but I needed to let the couple have time together. I needed to give her a chance to rest. So, I sat down in the waiting room and looked up at Janson.
“How is she doing?”
“Fine, just pissed off that you two knuckleheads picked the one night she was going into labor to take off.” I was angry for myself, but I was angrier that she had to go through this with me at her side and not Greyson.
“We had no idea,” Janson said, but I punched him in the shoulder anyway. “What the fuck?”
“It’s to mimic the fucking finger shaped bruises on my shoulder from her clutching on to me. Joanna is strong as hell.”
He chuckled. “It was part of her charm.”
I rolled my eyes and nudged him. “Are you okay?” I asked. I was really worried.
“Yeah, it’s fine. What we were looking for never materialized. So, we just have to keep searching.” He was brooding. I could tell by the look in his eyes. He was so angry. This man really wanted to find whatever he was looking for.
I nodded.
It seemed really important to them. I wanted to ask so many questions, just like I wanted to wrap myself in his arms, but I knew that it wasn’t going to fly. Not here.
Watching him sit there in quiet anger was enough to make me want to do anything to stop it.
But then I saw the doors swing open and I knew who was coming through. They were here.
“Sir,” Janson said as he stood up. “How did you-”
“My daughter called me. I hear Greyson had you retrieve her?” James Fitzgerald stood tall as he looked over us. My mother stood behind him until she saw me, then she burst forward towards me.
My mother embraced me, pulling me close as she kissed the top of my head. "I've been so worried about you."
All I could do was clutch her back and breathe her in. I couldn't believe how much I missed her. How much I longed for her to hold me like this. It was enough to bring me to tears. Almost.
She meant it. My mother loved me. She'd been a good wife to this monster, but that didn't mean she denied the love for her kids. I missed her every day that I was gone. I'd missed my sisters, too. I regretted leaving for their sake, but living with him was going to be so hard. I didn't really want anything to do with him, even now. That man totally repulsed me. But I knew that was impossible.
"I called, Mom. I did." I said it again, my lip quivering. I just wanted her to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay, but instead, my father grabbed me by my arm and pulled me away from her, his grip so tight on my already bruised shoulder that I almost screamed.
I just grunted and looked at him, though. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"I'm glad you did, daughter." That fake smile told me everything I needed to know. "Our family didn't want to miss this moment."
I'd spent my entire life trying to read my father, trying to understand his moods. It was a delicate game, one that my mother was adept at. But me, I was never that great.