The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2)(49)

“As if you have to ask.” She ran her hand lovingly over the dashboard. “I could spend days in this car.”

He pulled out of the parking lot, picturing what a road trip with Carrigan would look like. Would she wear jeans? Maybe kick off her shoes and prop her bare feet on the dash? Would she laugh as the wind whipped her long hair around, her green eyes hidden by a pair of oversized sunglasses?

He liked the image. He liked the image too damn much.

He drove out of Boston, heading north. The falling night was clear and cold, and the roads were almost deserted. From time to time, he glanced at Carrigan, but she’d pulled her knees to her chest and was staring out the passenger window, obviously lost in thought. James wanted to know what she was thinking. Fuck, he wanted to know everything. But he didn’t have a right to.

Beyond that, he had a feeling that she got even less time to herself than he did. So he drove in silence and let his mind wander. He’d been so focused on Ricky, he’d almost forgotten about the shipment of girls coming in soon. Just thinking about it made him feel dirty. Yeah, he wasn’t going to set them up as slaves for his own purposes, but that was a cold comfort. Because it was just one shipment. There would be others that he couldn’t help. Once the flesh peddlers realized he wasn’t in the business anymore, they’d take their merchandise elsewhere. James seriously doubted whoever bought those girls would feel as sick about it as he did.

What if I kept buying them?

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. It wasn’t possible…was it? He couldn’t just buy the girls and then set them loose. That’d be almost as fucked up as keeping them. They’d each need to be offered a choice, and if they chose to go out on their own, they’d need their own start-up fund. That’d drain resources that were already strained.

But if all his legit businesses started to see the increase that Tit for Tat did…

It was something to think about. The Hallorans put so much evil out into the world. Maybe it was time for him to start balancing the ledgers.

He glanced at Carrigan again. What would she think of the so-called plan? Before he could think better of it, he said, “If you were going to buy up women from the flesh trade and set them free, how would you go about it?” He braced for her to look at him like he was crazy, but she just twined a strand of hair around her finger and frowned.

“That’d require a lot of resources if you wanted to make any kind of impact.”

“I know.” Resources he didn’t have access to without stooping to lows he promised himself he’d never touch.

She frowned harder. “And there’s the added complication that you’re just creating a demand for a very specific kind of product. You’d have to have something long term in place to take out the main players, otherwise it might actually contribute to the overall problem, rather than helping it.”

“I know.” He hadn’t thought that far ahead, but it was a valid point. He could ship in all the girls he wanted, but he’d just be ripping more women from their lives if he didn’t cut the head off the snake, so to speak. For someone who doesn’t want responsibility to begin with, you sure as fuck attract it. “I have something in mind.”

The night that his old man had been arrested had given him the idea. Someone on the other side had been in bed with the feds. While James wasn’t willing to go that far, he thought he could work something out where he threw them the information on the sellers he had and let them do their damn jobs.

If it had the added bonus of helping keep them off his back and out of Halloran business, well, he was okay with that, too.

“In that case…” Carrigan snapped her fingers. “Nonprofit.” When he motioned for her to continue, she shrugged. “They aren’t the simplest things to set up, and there’d be some serious challenges along the way—especially for a family like yours or mine—but as long as you kept the funds collected going exactly where they’re supposed to and aboveboard, it would be a valid option.”

Maybe for her. She moved in the circles of society who liked to whip out their checkbooks for that kind of thing. In his neighborhood, most everyone was struggling just to get by. “Hmm.”

She turned to face him fully. “Are you seriously considering something like that? I thought you guys dealt in the sex trade.”

“Sex trade is different than slave trade.” He knew he sounded furious, but it was hard to rein it in when he’d worked so fucking hard to get them out of it, only to have his brother trying to drag them back to hell. “I got us out of the involuntary flesh trade.”