IVY
I exhaled, staring at my reflection in front of the bathroom mirror in the church. The whole mass felt like I was holding my breath, making sure I didn’t make any mistakes. I didn’t even really listen to the message…scratch that, I didn’t listen to it at all. How could I when I felt a dozen glares like daggers shooting into my back, Ethan’s thigh brushing up against mine, and his grandmother holding on to my hand.
“You looked overwhelmed.”
My head shot up to fucking Klarissa Moretti, dressed in a cream-colored skirt and black blouse. She walked over to the counter and placed her clutch down.
“I have to give it to Ethan. He sure knows how to pick his women.” She smiled, taking out her red lipstick. “Look at us, we’re beautiful.”
“I wasn’t aware Ethan was into polygamy.” I smiled, washing my hands. “But then again there is only one ring on the two pairs of hands here, so…you must be mistaken about whose woman you are.”
She glared, and I could have sworn her eyebrow twitched. Calming down, she forced a smile. “Keep the ring. I can buy my own rock. At the end of the day, you may be his…but the moment shit hits the fan, as tends to happen in the Callahan family, he’ll realize you aren’t strong enough to be his woman.”
“And you know how strong I am how?” I dried my hands and faced her.
She placed her lipstick back in her purse and turned to me. “You’re right. Excuse me. I don’t know you. I know me. I know what Ethan and I are. When his mother died, I was there. When his father died, I was there. And after making love to me in ways you can’t even imagine, until the sun came up, he told me he was glad he always had me. I also know, a girl with traitors for a family, isn’t hardly worth even the purse you’re holding. O’Davoren…nothing but a bunch of—”
I couldn’t help it. I punched her right in the nose and when her head jerked I grabbed onto her neck, throwing her up against the wall, squeezing tightly until she kneed me in the stomach so hard I let go, backing up. She moved to slap me, but I grabbed her wrist.
“We should stop before this ends badly.” I smiled at her, squeezing tightly. “I apologize for almost snapping your neck, but…Klarissa, if you step in front of me again and open your slutty mouth about either Ethan or my family, I won’t be so gracious.”
She glared, ripping her arm back. “Or we can have this out like any Callahan women should.”
“And you know what about being Callahan?” Donatella stepped into the bathroom, dressed in a dark navy pant suit, walking to the counter where she pulled out a tiny bottle of lotion. Her eyes looked at us through the glass. “Well, Klarissa? What would any Callahan do?”
“Dona.”
“Donatella. You aren’t family. If you wish to address me, it is either Donatella or Ms. Callahan.” She snapped at her. “And for the record, we Callahan women don’t fight over men. What a waste of time to fight over what we already have. I, however, don’t see anything wrong with hurting anyone who hurts my sister.” Like a wolf she moved to stand in front Klarissa, who would have taken a step back had Donatella not grabbed her chin. “You aren’t special. He knew you were waiting and even after sleeping with you, even though he’s close with your father, he still chose someone else. Why? Because you mean nothing to him. And if he knew you were in here trying to cause trouble in his name, to undermine him like this, what do you think he’d do?”
When Donatella let her chin go Klarissa closed her eyes and when she opened them tears were being held back by sheer willpower.
“I’m sorry. Please, let’s drop it.”
“I was just here to powder my nose.” Donatella shrugged, walking toward the doors again. “I didn’t see anything, so he couldn’t possibly hear anything from me.”
When she left it was just Klarissa and me.
And when she didn’t speak I did.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?” I said to her, walking back to grab my purse.
Silence.
“I guess not.” I watched as she headed out.
“It won’t happen again,” she said, hovering right outside the door. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t…but you will be—”
BOOM!
My body flew back into the wall, the heat from the blast along with the smoke pouring into the bathroom from the hall…the hall I could clearly see now that the door was gone…no, not gone…shattered on top of Klarissa’s body…a piece of wood in her thigh. Pushing my body off the ground, tissue, ash, and pieces of the wall fell off me as I got up. Reaching for my ears, I felt the blood but didn’t believe it until I saw the crimson liquid on my fingertips. The ring in them didn’t stop until I slowly moved to the door.
“…help…me…” I heard her voice.
Turning back to her, I watched as she reached out to me. I stared at her for a long time. She looked like a beautifully broken American Girl doll.
“No.”
ETHAN
“Where is she?” I asked Donatella as she stepped down the church steps toward me.
“Who?” She pretended not to know. Pushing up off my car, I stood in front of her, which only made her roll her eyes. “She’s having a chat with Klarissa in the ladies’ room.”
God damn it, Klarissa. “She and her father are both the same,” I muttered to myself, moving to the stairs when she spoke again.
“Let her handle it, Ethan. She’s not a child. Besides, she’d already got a good punch in when I entered. I highly doubt she’s not dealt with worse—”
BOOM!
Instinctively, I grabbed Dona, pulling her toward me and down, covering her head with my arms.
“Oh my God!”
“HELP!”
“FIRE!”
People screamed all around us, and for a brief second I felt a very familiar feeling, a moment of déjà vu as the chaos unfolded around us. Rising to my feet, I stared up at the flames coming out of the church, the bodies stumbling out, tripping over each other as they tried to escape, not caring as they pushed and trampled each other to save themselves.
“TOBY, GET HER HOME!” I hollered to the men behind me, pointing at Dona before pulling out my gun. I saw Greyson and three other men in the corner of my eye, nodding for them to go first. He pushed them out of the way, clearing a path for me to get through the rubble all over the cracked floors, the bodies just lying there, unmoving.
“Who came out?” I asked him, using my handkerchief to cover my mouth from the smoke. They stalled. “WHO THE FUCK IS IN HERE?”
“Ethan? Uugh.”
Spinning around and stumbling through the rubble, with only one shoe on, her hair a mess and blood coming out of her left ear, coughing…was Ivy. Rushing to her, I lifted her up, her arms wrapping around my neck.
“I’m…fine…” She tried to say.
“Don’t speak.” I dropped the handkerchief over her mouth, holding on to her tightly as we made it toward the exit. Luckily it wasn’t far. She gripped on tightly, turning her head from the sun once we made it outside. Rushing to one of the Range Rovers, I put her inside.
“ETHAN!” Dona, who should have been gone, struggled in Toby’s arms, screaming until he picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder. “NANA! ETHAN! NANA!”
The sheer horror in her eyes was only matched with mine as I turned back to the church…everyone had come out…except her. She always stayed back to speak with the deacon. Fuck! All the men were inside. Toby was already speeding out. There was no one else left I could trust to take her. FUCK!
“Go.” Ivy coughed, sitting up in the backseat. “Go…I’m fine.”
Clenching my teeth in rage, I slammed the door on her and moved toward the driver’s seat when thankfully, Greyson came holding on to…my…a woman who wore my grandmother’s clothes, but the burns on her arms…left me stunned. The paramedics came just as they made it within distance of me.
They rushed her inside the ambulance.
“She’s breathing!” Was the last thing I heard before the red and white doors closed on her.
“Sir!” Greyson rushed to me.
“Everyone’s out?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes, sir.”
Greyson got into the front along with one of my men as I opened the door, sitting in the back with Ivy, whose eyes were glued to the burning church.
“I want fucking names!” I sneered. “Theirs, their families’. Everyone!”
“Already on it, sir.” Lex, who usually drove my grandmother, sat in the passenger seat.
Ivy turned to me, her face covered in dust and dried blood. She stared at me wide-eyed, in shock. “This was about you.”
“Us.” I snapped, reminding her once a-fucking-gain. “You asked me if I was a gangster. This is fucking why! So people won’t fucking try this shit! But apparently some people have forgotten the definition, so it’s now my job to rebrand it into their skulls!”
Yanking off my tie, I grabbed the brandy from the back, pouring it over my tie before turning to her. She watched me, confused. Gripping onto her chin gently, I turned her head so I could see her ear. Taking it, I dabbed her ear, causing her to flinch as I wiped her blood. I did my very best to bite back the rage I was feeling…for now, at least.
“Sammy Shannon and a few friends of his, they’re currently heading out of the city,” Lex replied.
Freezing, I closed my eyes, inhaling through my nose. “Who helped them?”
“Sir?”
Taking the wet tie, I threw it away. “You want me to fucking believe a few twenty-year-olds who don’t even know how to cut coke properly did this?”
Even from a few miles you could still see the damn smoke.
“They had help. Call Helen to hack every damn camera in the country if she needs to and retrace their fucking steps from last night to this bloody morning.”
“Yes—”
“SHUT UP AND CALL!”
Sitting back in my seat, I stared out the window. You’d think losing his uncle would be enough for him to stay low. I should have known the damn twat was too stupid to be scared.
He’s going to—
I glanced down at my fist, to see a small scraped hand over mine. Glancing at her, she didn’t say anything, just rested her head on the window.
“How much farther?” I asked Greyson, calmer.
“Ten minutes. Traffic, sir.”
The image of my grandmother appearing in my mind, I swallowed the lump in my throat…
God, you can’t have my grandmother too.
“Boston, sir,” Lex said, and even though I already had a feeling hearing that it had gotten to this level…it got under my skin.
He handed me the tablet, allowing me to see the private messages between Sammy and the Finnegan brothers…just after I’d spared his fucking life.
“She’s really out? She’s with the Callahans?”
“Yea, everyone’s talking about the wedding.”
“We’ll see about that—”
“It was about me,” she whispered, and I hadn’t realized she was reading over my shoulder.
Turning off the tablet, I dropped it onto the seat.
“They did this…that.” She pointed at the smoke coming from the distance. “Because of me.”
She still wasn’t getting it.
“No.” It wasn’t about her. “Not you. Us.”
IVY
“Do you feel any pressure here?” the doctor asked as she pressed her fingers on my neck. But I just watched as Ethan stood, like a statue, at the front of my bed. Only partially listening and mostly waiting to hear if his grandmother was out of surgery. We’d been here for a little over two hours already.
Apparently I’d inhaled a lot of smoke and they checked up on me, every thirty minutes, even though it was supposed to be once an hour until I was given the okay.
“Mrs. Callahan?” she called and what startled me the most was how I responded to it. “Do you feel any pressure?”
“I’m fine.”
Ethan clicked his teeth and just took a deep breath, something I was starting to realize he did whenever he wanted to snap but calmed himself.
“Okay, you are in the clear. We’ll give something for the pain—”
“No meds,” I cut in, causing Ethan to finally look me in the face.
“Give her the meds—”
“I don’t like them. I don’t trust them. I don’t want them!” I snapped at him.
“TAKE THE DAMN MEDS!”
“NO!”
We both glared at each other.
“You aren’t too badly hurt. You’re very lucky. Over the counter will be fine,” she said, quickly interjecting, but neither Ethan nor I looked away until the door opened.
“Sir?”
He rushed out, and I got up as well, leaving the private room he’d unnecessarily gotten for me and following behind until we reached a private lobby where Donatella, Helen, Nari, along with Sedric and Darcy stood looking at the doctor.
“Mr. Callahan.” The older man nodded at Ethan.
“How is she?” he asked directly.
“She’s stable.” The moment he said it, everyone else relaxed. Even Ethan looked half a decimal point better. “However, the burns on her left arm and leg are severe for a woman of her age. She’ll need a lot of rest and care, while undergoing skin grafts. You all are free to see her, but her whole body is still in pain, there is only so much morphine we can give her.”
Donatella was the first to dart toward her room, followed by Darcy.
“Sir…” The big guy, Greyson, got his attention again, and before he could finish saying anything the elevator doors slid open. The tall man with familiar light brown eyes stepped out dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. Ripping his arm from one of the guards, he walked right up in front of Ethan, and they stood eye to eye.
“Where is she?”
“And you are?” Ethan shot back.
“CUT THE BULLSHIT, ETHAN!” he hollered into Ethan’s face, but Ethan didn’t budge. “Where is Nana?”
“You said you did not want to be a part of this family, Wyatt.” Wyatt! It was their brother. His brother. Now that he’d said it, the photo of him Nari had shown me came to mind. However, both of them looked far more handsome in person… For fuck’s sake, that isn’t important, Ivy!
“Ethan.” Wyatt dropped his head. “You’re going to make me fucking beg to see my own grandmother?”
“The doctors said family only. Again—”
“Please,” he cut in and it must have taken everything in him to say it. He clenched his fist and jaw and said it again. “Please let me see her. If not for me, for her.”
“You can wait here until she asks for you,” Ethan said, turning to go in the room.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Wyatt snapped, trying to move anyway, but the guard pulled him back. Ethan, ignoring him, paused, waiting for me to follow.
“I’m not family yet either,” I reminded him. His jaw cracked in the side in annoyance. “I’ll go when she calls for me too.”
He seemed ready to bite my head off but held it back, nodding. “Fine.”
Watching him disappear into the room, I sat down on one of the couches.
“I’ll wait! So get your hands off me.” Wyatt ripped his arms away. He looked ready to fight…anyone at that point before finally sitting down in the chairs across from me, running his hands through his brown hair. It was lighter, but not by much, than Ethan’s. Glancing up at me, he frowned.
“You’re the insane woman joining this family?” he asked.
“You’re the insane man who left?”
“I’m not insane.” He shook his head and pointed around the hospital. “Do you know how many times we’ve come to this hospital? This whole suite was designed not for high profile people, but us. Why? Because over and over again this family gets itself into shit so deep there is no avoiding this place…or the morgue. Normal people don’t live this way.”
“Yea.” I nodded, thinking about how I too wanted to be normal so many years ago.
“You don’t seem like the usual devoted worshiper,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing in on me.
“What?”
“Those fools.” He pointed to both Greyson and…Toby, I think. Both of whom didn’t even bother looking at him. “The idiots who would die for people in this family just because—”
“That idiot.” I pointed to Greyson. “He’s the one who found your grandmother and brought her out before…before it could have been much worse. I’m not a devoted worshiper like you said, but at the very least don’t call him an idiot. He’s a hero.”
He glanced back at Greyson, who still didn’t look at him, remaining kind of like those guards with funny hats in London…just without the funny hats.
“Greyson, apparently I owe you one.”
“Our supreme leader has told us not to acknowledge you, so you may keep your favor,” Greyson said like a robot, and I laughed.
I take it back! Nope, definitely not like the London Guards.
“Still as petty as always.” He snickered, shaking his head. Then he focused on me. “If you aren’t one of the followers, where are you from?”
“You don’t know?” I frowned at that.
“Don’t take it personally.” He leaned back into his seat. “I do my best to avoid any talk about the Irish, or the Italians, or any that involves this family.”
“I’m from Boston,” I said and his eyebrows came together in confusion.
“Boston, Massachusetts?”
“Born and raised,” I said with pride.
I could tell he was torn between asking more and not wanting to get involved, as he said, with this family.
“I have a question for you, as your future sister-in-law.”
“I make no promises I’ll answer, but you can ask.”
“I want normal too,” I said, so he knew I wasn’t trying to attack him. “I’ve always wanted normal. I wanted my mom to do my hair for prom. My dad to walk me down to aisle. To graduate from Boston U with a degree in Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Science and become famous for creating lifesaving medicine. Have a house with a porch so I could watch it rain or snow, with a pet, most likely a dog because my dad was allergic to cats. Maybe a Russell terrier?”
“Is there a question in all of this?” He smiled. I was sure he liked the thought of it.
“Yea.” I nodded. “What do you do when you become a victim?”
“What?”
“What do you do when you become a victim?” I asked him again. “You called me insane for joining this family. But I never dreamed my life would be like this. But my mother was murdered. Then my father was murdered. Then I was lied to, conned, and then I lost seven years of my life because not one person had my back. Not my family. Not the police nor the courts. No one. Your family didn’t do that to me. Life did. What am I supposed to do? Wait for karma? Wait for justice? Two hundred women were in my cell block, who all wanted normal and something went wrong. Many of them by their own hands…far too many by the hands of others. If it were someone else, some other family that controlled instead of the Callahans, you’d be in that church too. No one would have carried your grandmother out. So tell me? What do you do? Because from what I’ve seen if you aren’t the victimizer…you’re the victim.”
He shook his head, rising to his feet. “You’ll fit in well, Ivy.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m going to check in with the hospital and see if any of the other victims need help. She’ll most likely be out for another few hours. Let the supreme one know.” He patted both Greyson’s and Toby’s shoulders before heading to the elevator.
There was no need to let him know because the moment the doors closed Ethan walked out into the lobby. I was sure he’d heard the conversation. And though he didn’t seem fazed, there was something in his eyes as he stared at the closed elevator doors.
“Call the car,” he directed at one of them.
“Are you going somewhere?” I asked, rising from the seat and standing in front of him. His gaze lowered down to me. Without my heels I felt very small under his stare.
“Yes. To be the victimizer,” he replied, walking around me and toward the elevator. Obviously he listened in on our conversation. “Go rest.”
“The moment shit hits the fan, as tends to happen in the Callahan family, he’ll realize you aren’t strong enough to be his woman.”
Her words bothered me. I felt like if I went to bed as he went out I’d be proving her right. And so when the light came on indicating that the elevator came, I stood beside him.
“What are you doing?”
“Following you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to hear about you from other people,” I said, stepping onto the elevator. He and his guards just stared at me, not moving. “Are you coming?”
“Ivy, it isn’t a gam—”
“Oops!” I closed the doors, yelling, “Sorry, you’re going to have to catch the next one!”
I laughed, wishing so badly I could see the look on his face. He’d probably never had anyone do that to him before. When I reached the bottom floor, I realized I might have really been insane because that was when I saw it, the sheer chaos. People were still being rushed in, and doctors and nurses were everywhere. Wyatt, who’d only come down a few minutes ago, was somehow already on a stretcher working over a small girl, trying to put a tube down her throat. When he got it in he jumped down, yelling a few directions before rushing toward the next patient. Blood dripped all over the floors, which were quickly being cleaned by the janitors. In the waiting area people still dressed in their church clothes sat hugging onto each other tightly.
“Don’t go anywhere without letting me know and at least one guard.” Ethan appeared at my side, and I jumped, not even realizing how long I’d been standing there. He looked over at the lobby with not a single emotion. How, I wasn’t sure. “Let’s go.”
I followed behind him as he walked toward the glass doors and again I was so distracted by everything that I walked into his back, not realizing he’d stopped. He stood straighter, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Sorry,” I muttered, brushing my hair behind my ears.
Facing in front, I saw a small boy, maybe seven or eight, holding on to the arm of some stuffed animal…I couldn’t tell what because he only had what was left of it…the arm.
“Yes?” Ethan asked him.
“You Mr. Callahan?” The boy frowned.
Ethan nodded, and the boy lifted the stuffed animal arm and held it up to him. “It was my brother’s. He’s gone now. Mom said you’d remember him. You’d make them pay for my brother.”
“Tony!” A woman, who I could only guess was his mother rushed to him, grabbing onto him tightly. She looked up at us both, her eyes bloodshot. “Sorry—”
“Don’t apologize, Mrs. Bellucci,” he said, reaching down to pick up the stuffed arm and handing it back to the boy, telling him, “I don’t need this to remember your brother.” He took out a small pocket knife and cut his own palm, drawing his own blood before showing it to him. “This is how I remember.”
Turning toward the doors, we stepped out into the cold air. It was only late afternoon, so part of me was expecting it to be dark outside. There were press and ambulances everywhere. The Range Rover pulled to a stop right to the side of the hospital to avoid blocking anyone. Toby held the door open, allowing me inside first. He sat beside me.
“You can’t have them,” he spoke into the phone, leaning back into his seat. “Chief Moen, this is personal. I’ll give you one of them…you can make up whatever story you want…radicalism, satanism, pure insanity, I don’t care. But you’ll only get one of them alive.”
He rested his finger on his lip, staring out the window. Rage…bloodlust came off him in waves.
“In Boston,” I spoke up softly and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as I did. “They said the Callahans are greedy and selfish, power hungry thugs who don’t care about their own people anymore.”
“They’re right,” he said, to my surprise. “We are greedy, we are selfish, and hunger for power is second nature to us. It doesn’t matter if I care or not. They are our people. It’s my duty to make sure the whole survives at any cost. And so I do. Wyatt wants to help the victims. But it is Callahan money that expanded that hospital and Callahan money that will take care of those people when the government stops. What good is saving their lives if they can’t afford to live it afterward?”
I was starting to understand why everyone was so devoted to them. “A gangster with sophistication and morals.”
The corners of his mouth turned up.
“Exactly.”