“Wrong.” She snorted. “Finished business is the only kind we have—ancient history. For the last time, get your big paws off me.”
He released her for the second time. “I’m not bluffing.”
“Neither am I.” She turned around and walked away.
This time he let her go. He had no goddamn right to threaten her, but the thought of never seeing the album again—it sure as fuck wasn’t the thought of never seeing her again—made him twitchy. It wasn’t a threat he’d have made six months ago, but he wasn’t the same man he’d been then. He’d given up trying to be better than the rest of the Hallorans. That same violence and aggression that ran through their blood ran through his, too.
No matter how much he hated it.
Things had gotten out of control after his older brother’s death four months ago. Even now, knowing what he did about the monster Brendan was, his absence was still a weight in James’s stomach. He didn’t choose his family, and half the time he didn’t like them, but they were all he had. The Halloran empire in Southie. All the death and unforgivable shit, and for what? A few square miles of land in the part of Boston no one else wanted?
He waited until he saw Carrigan climb into the back of a cab before he turned and headed for his car. He wasn’t quite thirty yet, and he was so goddamn tired. It never ended. The power games, and the unforgivable acts, and the compromises on what he used to think of as his honor. There was nothing left of it anymore, and hell if that didn’t send a pang of loss through him.
Not for the first time, he wondered what his mother would think of the men her beloved sons had turned into. He couldn’t shake the belief that he was failing her. But she was dead and gone some fifteen years, and his old man was very much among the living. The only link James had to her was the album Carrigan had taken—a shrine to the man he might have been in different circumstances.
That man was dead and gone as surely as his mother was. In reality, he’d never stood a chance. His course in life was set the second he came into this world as a Halloran, and any chance he had to choose a different path had gone up in smoke with Brendan’s death.
Now it all fell to James. The responsibility of keeping the Halloran name from disappearing the same way other enemies of the Sheridans had. People still talked about what Colm Sheridan did to the MacNamaras, though the details were sketchy now, thirty years later. All anyone knew was that it was horrific enough that no one had challenged him since.
James couldn’t let that happen to his people. And they were his, whether he wanted the responsibility or not. The only other option was walking away and letting his idiot of a younger brother take over, which was as good as signing the death warrant of everyone who depended on the Hallorans to keep shit in check in their territory.
Besides, where would he go? This was his life.
His options were sink or swim—and if he sunk, he’d take a hell of a lot of people with him. So he got up every day, and he swam, even though some of the shit he was required to do turned his stomach and made him lose sleep. He did it because there was no other option.
He slid into the driver’s seat of his cherry red ’70 Chevelle and sighed. His life would be a whole lot less complicated if he could let the specter of his night with Carrigan O’Malley go. She hated his ass, and for good reason. Spending more time chasing her was courting more problems than he had resources to deal with. Life was too tenuous right now to throw something like this into the middle of it—the whole thing could erupt like a bonfire at the first spark of trouble.
Carrigan huddled in the back of the cab, trying not to shake. James motherfucking Halloran. She should have known better than to risk going back to the same club he’d taken her from, but it had been a test. Avoiding that location meant she was afraid. Carrigan had learned a long time ago that every time she refused to face her fear, it got more powerful. A fear left unchecked took away her control.
And control was one thing she didn’t have nearly enough of as it was.
Why the hell was he there? In the months and months of her frequenting that club, she’d never once seen him there. And she would have seen him there. James was the kind of man who stood out, even in a crowd. He exuded danger that even the most oblivious idiot could pick up on—every time she’d seen him, even in the most crowded room, he had a good six inches of empty space around him. People might not realize why they gave him wide berth, but she did. Because he was the kind of man who did very bad things without hesitation. A predator.
The fact that he was big and blond and gorgeous in a rough kind of way was only the icing on the cake if a woman was into that kind of thing. She’d been exactly that kind of woman the last time they’d met, and she’d like to say she’d learned from her past mistakes. James Halloran was a man she needed to avoid like the goddamn plague.